Yeah that’s the thing, it would be much easier if smaller companies would at least try to be competitive when it just comes to customer service, I know it’s really hard or impossible for them to compete with pricing, so they really have to up their game with service.

About three months ago I ordered some golf balls from a small company because I wanted to avoid Amazon. It was a few bucks more, but whatever. Two weeks went by and I hadn’t received any email confirming that they had shipped, so I tried contacting them via email and asking if it had shipped. They didn’t respond, so I tried calling them and they didn’t answer so I left a message. Four weeks went by and I still hadn’t heard anything so I sent another email and like three days later I got a very blunt “shipped it” reply with no tracking information or anything. Finally another week and a half or so later I got it, but they were the wrong balls, they sent me some cheap shitty balls that I didn’t order. It was another pain in the ass returning them (they wouldn’t ship the correct order until they received the returned balls - which is understandable I guess but a little bit of a pain), etc. The whole ordeal spanned a couple months - for fucking golf balls.

Amazon is completely different. With Amazon I can get ahold of someone in a few minutes and 90% of the time they don’t even want the shit back, they’re just like “ah okay, go ahead and keep those and we’ll send the right thing out right away” and two days later I’ll have the right product. Sometimes I’ve even gotten a coupon voucher or something too. Super painless.

If the little guy wants to compete on any level then they have to step up their game where they are able to. I’m not saying all of the little guys are annoying to deal with, but in my experience they sure can be and Amazon is at least super consistent, as much as I dislike them as a company.