My fault but the worst is pantry foods. DH asked for some crackers since i'm out of my homemade. My homemade grain crackers and health bread is complicated. I make up 'kits'. A dozen at a time. Missing two key ingredients i put ingredients and cracker choices he likes in our shared amazon cart. My fault. OOps. (i should have moved it into the 'saved-for-later'.

I use Amazon sometimes as a shopping cart then purchase locally, WholeFoods/heathFoodStore. NOT from Amazon. DH saw the crackers he likes and hit 'Send/purchase'.

(i failed to put them in 'save for later'.)

Crackers we have liked over the years for road trips, etc. Not salty or sweet. Something in the car boot to have with cheese rather than truck-stop junk. Fast foods.

I agree that products are not always consistent, even when re-ordering from the same Amz vendor. It's frustrating.

I paid 12$ for a single pack of smashed crisp crackers. In a box with oyster crakers. Lots of brown thick paper. Someone put those crackers in my Amazon box already smashed. No way did it happen in shipping with the thick brown paper in the box. And the package was open in one corner. Dust and use-by date this month.

(never would have purchased but DH hit 'send')

I like these mini crisps for small bite crab crab cakes and salmon cakes. Wantd them for a small gatherning in a few weeks. (bummer). No returns, no assistant at any level on Amazon...they do not care.

The oyster crackers are also near best-buy-date but we will use them this summer and the rest are in the freeze for Fall chowders.

My point is, read reviews. Especially the bad ones. Avoid 'second-party' sellers. A bit pissed i got dupped a dozen times this pass week.

I needed nutritional yeast for my vegan cheese and was sent 2 pounds of bran.🫤

(we do not need any more digestive fiber!)

It does pay to contact the vendor first, IMPE. I've had my money refunded for a number of purchases and didn't have to ship the items back either. Sellers want to keep their ratings high, and being polite and persistent usually gets results.

I do recall during the lockdowns, being desperate for my fave hair conditioner and ordering off Amazon from some individual seller, and what I got seemed off - I suspected they had refilled a container with some other product - it didn't smell the same either - consequently, I am very wary of buying stuff from 'marketplaces' now.

I try very hard to be vigilant now - reviews on Amazon can be misleading, so I don't totally rely on them. A high number of reviews lends weight to a rating, I think. I do pay attention to the sellers' ratings and sales numbers on sites like Amazon and eBay.

Recently, they sent me some kind of garment instead of...I think it was a black canvas laundry bag for a guy going off to college. No problem getting it fixed. Since their deal with the UPS Store, returns are dead easy. You just bring the thing (no packing it back up) and a QR code they give you on your phone (or printed out if you prefer) and they do the work. The refund is usually processed that day, and you have about a month to actually get around to dropping the item off. Foodstuffs are more difficult to get, especially with outside vendors, but overall I've mostly had good luck, and it's much easier finding unusual ingredients there if one doesn't know where to find it locally, even though it might be available somewhere within your driving area. Leaves travel much better than glass bottles, of course,. :)

Manufacturers change stuff all the time. I recently ordered new floor duster mop heads and ordered the exact same ones I did years ago (they lasted a long time), but quality isn't the same -- no hanging loops, chintizier fabric, and they just don't hold the dog hair on the dust head anywhere near as good as the older version. I blame that on the manufacturer cutting corners, not A**n. That said, you do have to be careful on that site, there are innumerable shady 3rd-party vendors and FAKES. Fakes everywhere on that site.

Eileen, thank you for the phone number. I'm going to call them this weekend. I looked for a place online to complain and just found a form to review, reorder or return and I don't want to bother rewrapping and returning a $6 purchase....

But I'm annoyed. I can never find fish stock anywhere in this small community. I wanted two shelf stable boxes for my pantry, I do make chowder occasionally and crab chowder had been sounding good as we come to the end of the Dungeness season here. I didn't want to make my own stock/broth right now.

My two boxes stock were delivered 18th. They have a best by date of 7-27-24. A week. Hardly a pantry purchase. I have boxed chicken stock for back up in my pantry right now that is stamped 18 months out from losing quality. I'm already annoyed I have to go out of town to fill my grocery lists, does Amazon have to disappoint me too? It was not a third party seller, it was sold by and shipped by Amazon.

Morz8: I use bottled Clam Juice when I need that kind of broth - found usually where the canned tuna and other fish products are in my grocery.

Thanks for the info and feedback heads up, sleeve.

Recently, when looking for a couple of different types of sauces (chili garlic sauce and another), I saw a lots of reviews and photos complaining of broken containers and with no return or refunds. I often look at customer images and read the low star reviews and pay attention to the wording and detail that might give me an idea about the veracity of a review.

We have not had to return many items, but I don’t think it has ever been a problem.

Consumer feedback is a good thing.

Just another recent issue...

I have a killer whole house vaccum. Wall outlets all over the home. Motor unit is in a closet downstairs. Very quiet. That said, for some reason, we purchased a Dyson stick rechargable. $$$ 5-6 years ago.

I wanted a quick-n-go easy maintenance. Pet fur, yada. A five minute fix. Cordless.

So what-do-ya-know. Cordless batteries die at great expense.

Amazon off market second party batteries cause fires and blow up while charging.

I went to Dyson on-line. 99$ free shipping. My original did last 5+ years.

Never again but nice to have my 'quick-fix' back.

Amazon off market are half price but often fail.

“It's much easier to call Customer Service.”

Agree, they’ve always been very helpful and accommodating.

On the whole, I have good luck, but just now I reordered a particular item from a marketplace vendor, which was a box of a dozen packets. Instead, this time they sent 5 packets of nearly three times the quantity as the original packets, squished into a padded mailer. That's 1/6th as much total product, which covers whatever might be squished, but I wanted the small packets! And the box, for that matter. If they'd asked, I would have declined the substitution.

Update: The vendor promptly made it right.