Amazon - what do you think of it?

Specifically, Amazon as a retailer (but general comments welcome too).

I’m asking because I think they’re miles ahead of everyone else right now (from the perspective of a customer). Almost everyone I speak to absolutely loves shopping at Amazon and I think this is in no small part because of their extremely high customer service (although other things play a factor too, such as next day delivery, usually fairly competitive prices, etc).

I guess part of this is because they’re very numbers focused, and so they ‘rate’ customers based on shopping activity and not social status (which, other retailers probably aren’t - the better written or spoken your complaint or query is, the more likely you are to receive a positive outcome with those other retailers).

Just to give you an example, I had two items to return in December, one was a silicone strainer which when received actually contained plastic on the base (so not what I wanted) and the other was an anti splash top for a cast iron pan which when received contain teflon (again not what I wanted) - so I had my usual 30 days to return these back in December but couldn’t do so because of the lockdown, so I just happened to mention this to them when I had to contact them about something else - they said they’d refund me and that I wouldn’t need to send the items back. I know this is not an isolated example as several people have said the same (and sometimes for much more expensive items). I doubt there are many other retailers who would go that far.

What about you? Have you experienced similar? Do you like shopping at Amazon?