I only speak for myself, obviously, but from my perspective if Amazon wants to stay successful they need to focus on reliability over price. I don't buy stuff on Amazon because I want to save a buck, I do it because I can just open up the app, pick what I want, and know that it will be here in a day or two. It's 100% about the convenience. I can tolerate spending a bit more, but I have an extremely low tolerance for counterfeit, low-quality, damaged goods, etc.
If Amazon doesn't address this fairly soon, I'm probably going to look for other options, and once I switch, the odds of coming back are pretty low. It could be as simple as allowing me to opt out of seeing anything that is not "ships from and sold by Amazon" (and guaranteed no commingling).
I worked on eliminating Amazon from my life ( my account is from 2007 and I begrudgingly subscribe to Prime) and it was HARD.
The thing that constantly kept hooking me back in was the the 2 Day shipping. I've ordered from Target, eBay, and the OEM's directly.
MOST of the time, the non-amazon option has a decent fulfillment lead time. But once in a while, they'll take 3 days to ship the package, then they'll ship it with UPS Ground, which is slow a shit. Realistically, that often means it takes upwards of 8 business days, or nearly two weeks, to get your stuff.
I think they understand this very well as they continue to invest in the logistics network and do jack squat to address the real issues facing Amazon.
If Amazon doesn't address this fairly soon, I'm probably going to look for other options, and once I switch, the odds of coming back are pretty low. It could be as simple as allowing me to opt out of seeing anything that is not "ships from and sold by Amazon" (and guaranteed no commingling).