I haven't bought anything from Amazon in years, precisely because of their delivery policies. I once lived in a place where UPS could never deliver correctly, but Amazon told me I could not pick the delivery company. If I'm paying for delivery, I should be able to choose who delivers. It made me wonder if UPS delivered Amazon packages to FedEx.

The tax situation here in the US is different than Germany/Europe. If you mail order something, the company typically doesn't charge sales tax unless they have a physical presence in that state. But the states and even the feds are increasing talk of forcing sales tax to always be charged. California and a few other states have passed laws about that, and some companies, Overstock.com for example, has stopped doing business in some of those states because tracking the sales tax was "too big of a problem". If Amazon opens warehouses in every state, some of the problem is solved. Everyone gets charged tax.


>Here in Germany such tax break/benefit did not exist at all -
>and I buy most electroninc convinience stuff via Amazon now,
>while same day delivery is not that high on my priority list.
>
>Even TV, monitors, computers, Pad, cell phone -
>their 30 days return policy with no questions asked
>gives me better chance to test the device than stores.
>
>If Amazon was able to offer 10% cheaper because of sales tax
>unenforcability I wonder who still went to hardware stores
>unless he really needed expert opinion on what to buy.
>
>Not claiming that sales people are experts ;-)