Amazon warehouse workers pee into bottles because they are scared of being punished for taking a comfort break

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

5 minutes ago, bcking said:

I think I pay state taxes on Amazon...do I not? I pay some sort of tax I'm pretty sure.

It varies.  But typically, many items are tax free.  Depends on your state.

 

Go back and look at your order history, should be there.  

Edited April 16, 2018 by IDWAF

[yuna628 9,676]

14 minutes ago, bcking said:

I think I pay state taxes on Amazon...do I not? I pay some sort of tax I'm pretty sure.

You'll pay taxes on the stuff only if amazon is required to charge you at request of the state you live in. But there are ways to get around this, especially if you live or work in a border town to a state that is blessedly tax-free.

[bcking 3,157]

16 minutes ago, IDWAF said:

It varies.  But typically, many items are tax free.  Depends on your state.

 

Go back and look at your order history, should be there.  

I pay taxes

 

You're welcome Texas...

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

5 minutes ago, bcking said:

I pay taxes

 

You're welcome Texas...

I doubt it is on everything.   And what is the Amazon tax rate vs. your local tax rate?

 

I paid more often in MI than AL.  But less than local tax rate.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

1 hour ago, IDWAF said:

I can't believe all you people taking away jobs from locals. Not very liberal.  And on top of that,  you are doing your local economy a disservice by not paying state and local taxes.  

 

  Colorado collects sales tax on every online purchase. Whether or not it's collected at the time of purchase, online retailers are required by law to report the dollar amount of purchases to the state. I imagine more and more states will start following this model. States do lose a lot of revenue over this, but Amazon isn't the biggest culprit in that regard. 

 

  I gladly buy locally when possible, but not from the many retailers want you to buy the specific rubbish they sell rather than the products you want to buy. Then they blame online companies for putting a hurt on their business. Sorry, they should blame themselves. 

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

1 minute ago, Steeleballz said:

 

  Colorado collects sales tax on every online purchase. Whether or not it's collected at the time of purchase, online retailers are required by law to report the dollar amount of purchases to the state. I imagine more and more states will start following this model. States do lose a lot of revenue over this, but Amazon isn't the biggest culprit in that regard. 

 

  I gladly buy locally when possible, but not from the many retailers want you to buy the specific rubbish they sell rather than the products you want to buy. Then they blame online companies for putting a hurt on their business. Sorry, they should blame themselves. 

I try to do similar now.  In my younger days, I bought where I could find it cheapest.  Now I try to support locals.  A good example is my local lumber yard vs. Lowe's. If I can pay within 10-15% higher than Lowe's,  I buy local.  And if it's higher, I talk to the owner, give him a chance to make the sale.

 

The personal interaction alone is worth paying more.

[OriZ 3,157]

5 hours ago, jg121783 said:

Amazon is all about the greed of Bezos. I run a side business selling stuff on Amazon and the way third party sellers are treated and the fees we have to pay are insane (and constantly going up). After fees most of the time I am lucky to get a third of the selling price (before taxes). Amazon needs third party sellers but they act like they don't. Most people don't realize a large amount of things they buy on Amazon are sold by third party sellers (and fufilled by Amazon). Without third party sellers they wouldn't be half the size they are. I think if Bezos remains so greedy something better than Amazon will eventually come along. Everyone thought AOL was invincible and look at what happened with them. It could happen to Amazon too.

 

Ill let you guys in on a secret (not really that much of a secret). Usually you can find things (alot) cheaper at local retail stores than on Amazon. I know of many third party sellers that their whole business model involves taking Ryder trucks with teams of people to retail stores and buying anything they can find that will sell for a higher price on Amazon. That being said there are things on Amazon that can't be found in retail stores but chances are if you can buy it in a local store it will be cheaper there.

With Amazon, if there is a return, do you just have to accept it per the terms and take the hit? That reminds me of working with wire services in the floral industry, same thing, they dictate to the shops what to do.

 

Regarding prices, I've actually found prices to be cheaper on Amazon than what I can find here, for most things anyway. Those that aren't I don't usually order on Amazon although depending on how big the difference is sometimes I still prefer it for the convenience of having it shipped to me.

[OriZ 3,157]

5 hours ago, bcking said:

 

I think Amazon is successful because of a combination of reasonable prices and ease of delivery. They don't have to be cheaper for everything (or even most things) but if they are equivalent, and they get them to you in 2 days...that is compelling. We get our TP/Paper towels/Dish Soap/Cleaning supplies from Amazon. I essentially just reorder the same ones when we run low. We also get our dog food there. Getting a 50 pound bag delivered to your door is much easier than buying it at a store and carrying it to your car, and then driving home and carrying it in.

 

Yes I realize most of this makes me sound incredibly lazy

We do the same thing lol. 

 

5 hours ago, jg121783 said:

There is something to be said for the convenience of using Amazon. In many cases that makes it worth paying a little more. The other thing Amazon (or I should say their third party selllers) is good for is providing items only available in one region to everyone. I am not trying to be completely negative about Amazon (in fact I make a decent amount of money because of them) but I want everyone to realize behind the veil of great customer service (it is pretty good) are employees and third party sellers who are treated like dog excrement on the bottom of Bezos shoes.

 

I'll give some examples from the perspective of a third party seller (I have never been an employee for them but I have read the same articles as the rest of you). The first one as I stated before is extremely high fees. Another thing is as a customer if you have an issue you can call a US based rep 24/7 and get a quick resolution to your issue. As a seller you get a web form and if you know the back channels you can maybe get someone from India on the phone during business hours who doesn't understand English and doesn't have the first clue about your issue or how to fix it. Another big issue that most Amazon customers are unaware of is how returns are issued. Amazon will accept basically any return no questions asked. The problem is as soon as the customer goes online and initiates a return the full purchase price is immediately deducted from the account of the third party seller and the customer has 45 days to return the item before the third party seller can be reimbursed. At that point the third party seller has to waste a bunch of time and jump through hoops to get the money back. Many third party sellers do this as their only source of income and bring in $50k-$100k a year. This is taking money from their families. So if you have a legitimate reason to return something by all means do it but make sure you do it promptly and make sure you have a good reason for returning it. Okay I'm done preaching now.

Ahh nm just saw this comment, wrote mine first. I recently ordered a dive computer and the way it arrived it literally looked like someone took a knife to the box, while the computer itself seemed OK, I decided not to trust it and return it. If that's what happened to the box who knows what happened to the product that I just don't know about yet.

 

4 hours ago, bcking said:

Ya I think we talked about this the last time this story (or a similar one) came up.

 

At the time I was having an issue with memory cards not arriving. Amazon reported it as delivered, but I never got it. They were very quick to resolve the issue by essentially sending me a new shipment.

 

In the end though the original shipment showed up (a day after the new shipment arrived...not sure how to explain the weird delay). So I ended up with twice the amount of goods (Ordered 3 memory cards, so I ended up with 6). The conversation on here about Amazon was contemporaneous to the issue so I was thinking that most likely they just passed on the loss shipment to the seller and they were out that money. It was strangely much harder to coordinate with Amazon to send the second package back then it was to get the second package sent out. They didn't seem to act like it was worthwhile bothering. Initially the guy just said "Why don't you keep them both?".

Yeah once we got our cat food and the box was full of ants. So we started a return and they didn't even want it back lol. There were a couple of other things they never wanted back that I don't remember atm.

[bcking 3,157]

1 minute ago, OriZ said:

Yeah once we got our cat food and the box was full of ants. So we started a return and they didn't even want it back lol. There were a couple of other things they never wanted back that I don't remember atm.

These were perfectly good 128 gb SD memory cards. 150 dollars worth of memory cards. The guy was confused why I wasn't just keeping them when I get a second shipment.

[OriZ 3,157]

3 minutes ago, bcking said:

These were perfectly good 128 gb SD memory cards. 150 dollars worth of memory cards. The guy was confused why I wasn't just keeping them when I get a second shipment.

Most people would probably just be like "awesome thanks!" and he's just used to that I guess. BTW we deal alot with UPS drivers in our business and one of them whom we have become friends with I actually asked one day "do you guys ever even actually try to knock on doors" and he said usually not lol. So I'm not sure how marking the delivery works with Amazon, but if it's delivered UPS don't expect it to get handed to you no matter what it says. We have to confirm our deliveries sometimes too and I'll admit we get sloppy about it as well, it just takes longer at least in our system, to provide the details of where it was left and who with etc, easier to just mark "delivered"(which might be their default, saying it was handed to someone).

[bcking 3,157]

8 minutes ago, OriZ said:

Most people would probably just be like "awesome thanks!" and he's just used to that I guess. BTW we deal alot with UPS drivers in our business and one of them whom we have become friends with I actually asked one day "do you guys ever even actually try to knock on doors" and he said usually not lol. So I'm not sure how marking the delivery works with Amazon, but if it's delivered UPS don't expect it to get handed to you no matter what it says. We have to confirm our deliveries sometimes too and I'll admit we get sloppy about it as well, it just takes longer at least in our system, to provide the details of where it was left and who with etc, easier to just mark "delivered"(which might be their default, saying it was handed to someone).

I don't care if they hand deliver it to us or not honestly, but there are multiple options on the Amazon system to report it. They don't have to say it was hand delivered. They can say it was left at the door. So they are choosing to be dishonest about how they are delivering the packages.

 

I wonder if they get some "bonus" for a higher number of hand to hand deliveries? Or if they think that someone would cover them in the case of a "missing package"?

Edited April 16, 2018 by bcking

[OriZ 3,157]

2 minutes ago, bcking said:

I don't care if they hand deliver it to us our not honestly, but there are multiple options on the Amazon system to report it. They don't have to say it was hand delivered. They can say it was left at the door. So they are choosing to be dishonest about how they are delivering the packages.

 

I wonder if they get some "bonus" for a higher number of hand to hand deliveries? Or if they think that someone would cover them in the case of a "missing package"?

Honestly I'm not sure, I haven't really had that issue. Sometimes they leave ours in the mailbox and when they have it was marked correctly, one time they truly hand delivered something and it was a box that had separate orders in it, and our mistake somehow a couple of the items got missed or misplaced I don't even remember, and so we asked them to send new ones and they did without an issue. So even if something says "hand delivered" you can easily claim it wasn't delivered if it really wasn't or if it was left by the door and got stolen or something. Turns out though, a couple of months later we did find our items, they were just hiding there amidst much larger items in a box where we didn't think they belonged so didn't even check, so we had them charge us for the extra ones.

[jg121783 3,915]

6 hours ago, Bill & Katya said:

I looked at this relative to a cleaner my brother and sister-in-law rave about that they get in Florida and is not available in Michigan (I cannot remember the name).  Regardless, I looked up the item on Amazon and sure it was there, but it was so expensive that I did not partake.  I wonder now with what you said if it was a 3rd party seller buying the cleaner from a store and re-selling it on Amazon.  Seems to not be worth the convenience.

 

 

Most likely that is what they did. What I would do (and have done in the past) is contact a distributor or the brand owner and try to get a wholesale rate and sell it at market price or a little higher. It's a good business model to sell these type of products if they are in demand but you have to do it at the right price point.

3 hours ago, IDWAF said:

I can't believe all you people taking away jobs from locals. Not very liberal.  And on top of that,  you are doing your local economy a disservice by not paying state and local taxes.  

 

2 hours ago, bcking said:

I think I pay state taxes on Amazon...do I not? I pay some sort of tax I'm pretty sure.

 

2 hours ago, IDWAF said:

It varies.  But typically, many items are tax free.  Depends on your state.

 

Go back and look at your order history, should be there.  

 

2 hours ago, yuna628 said:

You'll pay taxes on the stuff only if amazon is required to charge you at request of the state you live in. But there are ways to get around this, especially if you live or work in a border town to a state that is blessedly tax-free.

Oh the sales tax issue. You guys have just opened a can of worms here. There is kind of a legal gray area with state sales taxes that pending legislation should fix. As of right now Amazon collects sales taxes for their items they sell and tries to argue third party sellers are responsible for filing for sales tax lisences in every state and keeping track of it all themselves. My tax attorney says I'm only responsible for my state and Amazon is responsible for all other states. That seems to be the general consensus among tax professionals that specialize in ecommerce. Some sellers to be extra cautious do collect and file for every state. A couple states (can't remember which ones off hand) recently passed legislation putting the responsibility on Amazon. Many believe it is a matter of time before we have federal legislation that says the same thing.

1 hour ago, OriZ said:

With Amazon, if there is a return, do you just have to accept it per the terms and take the hit? That reminds me of working with wire services in the floral industry, same thing, they dictate to the shops what to do.

That is exactly what we as third party sellers have to do. To make it worse if we want to resell the item we have to pay shipping fees to Amazon to get it back so we can inspect it then pay shipping fees to send it back to Amazon. Amazon claims they inspect the item for you but I have been burned on that a few times so I prefer to inspect it myself.

[OriZ 3,157]

4 hours ago, jg121783 said:

 

That is exactly what we as third party sellers have to do. To make it worse if we want to resell the item we have to pay shipping fees to Amazon to get it back so we can inspect it then pay shipping fees to send it back to Amazon. Amazon claims they inspect the item for you but I have been burned on that a few times so I prefer to inspect it myself.

That's BS, they shouldn't charge shipping fees for that. Sometimes you need to share the burden a little especially when you're the multi billion dollar corporation. When a wire service wants us to send a new delivery out, we always make sure to get 50% of the gross on one for cost of goods and delivery, and full retail on the other. We fight them to the death on stuff, it's a constant battle but we usually get our way. A major difference though is, it is alot easier for Amazon to find plenty working with them, whereas in this area we're almost alone, so we're sitting pretty.

[TBoneTX 45,319]

13 hours ago, bcking said:

We get our TP/Paper towels/Dish Soap/Cleaning supplies from Amazon. I essentially just reorder the same ones when we run low.

Same here.  I use www.Nextag.com for price-searching; often, the same supplier as before will still be the cheapest, but Nextag.com enables me to shop around.  "Free shipping" and (to a lesser extent) "no tax" pique my interest.

 

I'm frankly surprised that more people don't utilize the janitorial-supply companies for their household needs.  Some of these outfits aren't too much bigger than mom-&-pop emporia.  I enjoy supporting medium-sized companies, too.