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Welcome to fidoriel's Blog

Amazon in 2024

The golden times of Amazon are over. They are not the cheapest, their special offers are not special, the customer service does not offer the goodwill of the past and prime is more expensive than ever. In 2017 Amazon was a great place to order stuff online: - best customer service - same day delivery - cheap shipping flat - best prices

With covid this changed. Other online retailers also offer very good shipping conditions like the German retailer "Thalia". They do also have a very good loyalty program and their shipping flat is free. Once a month they have a weekend with 17% on nearly everything. So they regularly have the best prices. Shipping takes around 2-3 days. Because Amazon Prime shipping has become worse, I feel they are right up now. The best thing: Thalia does not have this massive Chinese trash on their site. Lots of Chinese drop shippers are selling the same Chinese waste on Amazon. Same product images, same, copied description, some are cheap, some are more expensive. They invent a fake brand name and sell their junk in Europe. For Amazon Warehouse services they have to pay 30% in shipping and handling to Amazon. In the past Amazon had this "Plus Product" thing where they only shipped small and cheap items, <=€5 in value, with regular products for >=€20. I did not like this at the time, because there was no option to get the small items without a big order. Even ordering them with an added value bigger than €20 did not work. They dropped this rule some years ago. But then Amazon was flooded with Chinese trash. I have to pay attention to not order bike parts or other stuff that may not be safe. I also do not want to pay 10x the AliExpress price on Amazon with AliExpress shipping most items withing 10 days to Germany. If I am on AliExpress I know where to pay attention on to not get junk. But on Amazon I miss the selection of high quality items. If I order at Thalia, voelkner or alternate they preselected the items to avoid trash. Amazon does not, they do not even try. If I search for something I am flooded with trash. I have to pick items, check the sellers imprint, check the images, check AliExpress to make sure this is a value product. The times when I could just order something, and it is good are over. With Amazon becoming worse, their CMS full of junk items, I even cannot use Amazon to seek for specific items anymore. I only order small stuff from good brands there. For example the bike component brand "M-wave". They have simple solid, gets the job done items with good quality and reasonable prices. That can be ordered at Amazon with fast shipping. Sometimes I also order tools from Wera, Wiha, Knipex and so on there. But more expensive stuff can be easily and cheaper found on deal communities like mydealz with huge discounts. I have learned that other local online sellers are also grate and now even better than Amazon. Audible still has exclusive stuff, but I am not interested in their stuff anymore. The more niche stuff can be acquired somewhere else. If they have the special €9 for three months I become new customer again. Wait for 6 months and the account counts as new to audible again and qualifies for the special offer again. But audiobooks are a thing for a future post.

Usually I do not return stuff. If I press buy, I am sure I need and want this. I only returns if the item is not as described or broken. I check the data sheet and so on to make sure the item is compatible to avoid climate harming returns. I know it is not great to order stuff online, but most of the stuff I cannot get around Berlin, takes a lot of time to get there and is very expensive at a local retailer. Often a combination of all three. I hope I can do a little damage limitation with being sure what I need.

I only order on Amazon if they offer the best price including shipping. Other stuff is obtained via mydealz at other retailers. The convenient days are over and Amazon tries to milk their loyal customer base and disgust away with thousands listings of the same Chinese junk. Chinese electronics and so on will be ordered at AliExpress to not overpay everything else I will order at great European retailers valuing their customers.

Personal Item Storage System

Requirements

I have a lot of Legos, Tools, cables, electronic components, computer components, screws, tabletop/pen and paper stuff, board games, 3D printing replacement parts, audio equipment and so on. Therefor a structured system for storing them in an organized way.

To build a sustainable solution I have some requirements:

  • good, future and broad availability
  • fairly priced (yes this one is subjective)
  • stackable
  • lid
  • easy to move
  • good quality

I was able to find two box/storage systems which fits my needs: IKEA Samla and Euronormbox. I bought Euroboxes from the german hardwarestore "Bauhaus" and from "Obi". Obi sells boxes from "Surplus Systems" and "Bauhaus" from their brand. Currently, I am invested in Euroboxes and Samlas with multiple hundreds of euros.

Samlas have been very cheap before covid when I started using them. Now they are pretty expensive. I have a lot of them and do not need new boxes frequently. They are also great because they are clear/transparent, Euroboxes are not available in clear, only in milky. To keep the color consistent with different manufacturers, I decided to buy gray. Speaking of different manufacturers. Pay attention on the Eurobox Compatibility. Only the outer dimensions of Euroboxes are standardized. The Surplus boxes do not fit onto the Bauhaus lids. Especialy big Euroboxes have therefore become more attractive. Nevertheless, choose your storage system wisely to not become dependent on one manufacturer you do not trust to stay in business or to sustain prices.

How do I store stuff in it? Each box only contains stuff specific to a topic, Legos, cables, you get the idea.

Special Solutions

But what to do with special items for example miniatures or small parts? Lego is sorted by brick type according to bricklink and stored in zip bags in my Euroboxes. But miniatures can become more difficult: There are these awesome but expensive "Feldherr" foam boxes. But they are big and do not fit within my storage system.

Therefor I created a storage system for them based on a 5L IKEA Samla: Samla Mini Storage You can find information on how to build your own at the Printables Listing. Spoiler it is customizable for different base sizes and will fit on a standard 22cm cubed printer. This is based on a great OpenSCAD IKEA Samla Insert design, also customizable. To store my resistors I remixed a simple Box storage system, I modified the base plate to fit the 5L Samla bottom perfectly. Resistor Storage

Type Trays

For IKEA Samla it is best to just use the inserts mentioned before, because they have such a strange shape. Also IKEA offers for 22L boxes a tray for bigger items which is also more stable than the inserts. But in my experience I need to enforce them with for example this insert stabilizer. But what to do with the Euroboxes? I measured them and decided to cut boxes.py part trays with a lasercutter. It was difficult to get the internal dimensions, because they become wider/more flexible to the top. For the "Surplus Systems 60x50x22" I decided to use 50.57*7 x 50.8*5 within the generator. I like to use the trays not only for sorting but also for temporary storage of Lego Bricks while working on a project. I can easily find relevant bricks for building a set and store them away.

Final words

I am very happy with my custom off the shelf extensions. Object management will be included in my homeserver post in the future.