Amazon Crushes Big Box Retailers: My Personal Story of the Day


It is rather ironic that I have been currently reading a library book about Amazon.com called "The Everything Store" when I came home today on a hot, muggy day and smelled my dehumidier release an electronic death smell in our basement. I looked up when we bought our old Whirlpool dehumidifier, and it was in 2007 when we lived in our previous house and it was purchased at the now defunct "American" appliance stores for only $110. So I realized it was time to replace the unit with a new dehumidifier to last another 5 to 7 years. I let my lovely Acer Chromebook surf the Lowes and Home Depot sites to see what units are available for sale. Lowes.com only had Hisense, Soleus and Idylis units, but HomeDepot.com had Frigidaire and GE units which are companies I had actually heard about in my life. Home Depot had a well rated 50 pint Frigidaire unit for $229.00 plus over $20 in hefty Brentwood city and Missouri sales tax so the total would be over $250 if I drove over to the nearby Hanley store, purchased it there and hauled and drove it back to our house.

Then I had to see what it would cost to have the same unit shipped to my front door by Amazon.com if I was willing to wait a few extra days. The Amazon total was $196.44 with free shipping, saving us over $50 from the Home Depot price without having to drive over there and pick it up ourselves. Plus we even still had some Amazon gift certificate money from my persistent Swagbucks participation, so it cost us even less out of pocket. It is easy to see why the bricks and mortar retailers are having such a hard time competing against online retailers like Amazon when they make it both less expensive and easier as well.


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