This may be less of a problem in the USA, but I live in Germany, where ther e is no Harbor Freight, McMaster, or MSC, so I am especially reliant on Eba y (which is actually pretty good at picking up the slack) and Amazon. Amazo n is so poor at describing their wares, however, that I find it ludicrous. I need a wide aluminum dustpan for the shop, for example. The choices on A mazon give me neither the size, nor a way to contact the seller to ask. Th ey offer to forward my question to other customers. WTF? I've even been que ried on products I've ordered but didn't yet arrive. "What is the volume of that spray bottle?" Are you freakin' kidding me? Shouldn't something like that be in the description? And, how much faith should you have in another customers' answer? I think I will answer: 25 liters. Moving out of shop st uff, I wanted to buy a shoulder travel bag. There are never photos of acces sories like this on a person or even a dummy, so even with some basic dimen sions, you can't get a good idea of what you are buying.
Ebay, on the other hand, has been my salvation, I like Klingspor sandpaper, for example. Even though it is made here, if you call them, they will refe r you to a seller in your area. If the seller doesn't stock what you want, then tough luck. Now there are Ebay sellers out there who will provide me w ith the products I want, and at a good price! And this goes for anything fr om rubber gloves to carbide endmills.
I don't understand Amazon's reasoning for this practice, but it is certainl y a strategy. It's nice that they deliver so fast and take back what you do n't want, but why ship you stuff that you wouldn't have ordered in the firs t place had they described it properly? And, why forgo the sales on product s I didn't order because I didn't have enough information?