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Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

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Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#51

Post by nodamage »

jacobolus wrote: post #21
thesimon wrote: post #13

Their return policy is really great during the holidays, which might contribute to it. As a (late) holiday shopper and Prime member, their shipping guarantees are top notch though. No praying that it arrives in time. (Whereas Amazon says, order within x hours for delivery tomorrow, a lot of other shops here just feel like "Usually shipped within 1-2 days, if your hair is green, Tom is working in the office and your o…

Unfortunately I had several things in my Amazon cart which said “order within 8 hours and it arrives December 24” (or whatever), that when I looked back at 3 hours later had lost the guarantee, and now could only promise to arrive by the 26th/27th. Didn’t turn out to be a big deal, but folks shouldn’t take those guarantees for granted.

In this situation it's likely that the item was being sold by multiple suppliers, and the original supplier you were looking at sold out so it switched to another, presumably at a warehouse further away from your house.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#52

Post by colmvp »

guelo wrote: post #35

Amazon's product search is amazingly bad and the user reviews are getting faker over time. To me it's amazingly hard to shop on there. Feels like the engineering team is focused on their many other businesses and ignoring their retail stores.

After watching Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, I decided to check out Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard on Amazon. 67% of raters gave it 5 stars.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#53

Post by lkbm »

jedberg wrote: post #27
scoot wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I shopped for Christmas on Amazon, it was kind of a pain. I had to ship it all to myself, wrap it, put on gift notes and then pack it all up and ship it all to my family across the country." I'm struggling to understand how that is any more of a pain than trawling around town to find appropriate gifts, then completing those very same steps. And with Amazon, you at least have the option of their (admittedly overprice…

> (overpriced and ugly) My parents bought my daughter a present and got the gift wrapping option and it was this amazing blue velvet gift sack. We saved it so we can use it again it was so nice. In fact, for the $6 my parents paid, we couldn't get a bag that nice ourselves. I guess my point is, YMMV.

Nice. I always assumed they used wrapping paper, but that makes a ton of sense given that time is the cost, a nice looking sack is clearly a much better idea.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#54

Post by shasta »

sokoloff wrote: post #36
jacobolus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately I had several things in my Amazon cart which said “order within 8 hours and it arrives December 24” (or whatever), that when I looked back at 3 hours later had lost the guarantee, and now could only promise to arrive by the 26th/27th. Didn’t turn out to be a big deal, but folks shouldn’t take those guarantees for granted.

I have seen that as well, and believe it to be genuine/OK. I take it to mean that the warehouse nearest you has it in stock and if you add to your cart and order it, you'll get it by that promised deadline. If a few hours pass and in the meantime that warehouse sells out, you might be past the cutoff for the next warehouse that has it in stock. (Not an Amazon employee, just an extremely frequent customer...) Except f…

They should still add "(while supplies last)" as a clue.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#55

Post by manyxcxi »

moultano wrote: post #44
wildmusings wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fake reviews are really frustrating. I try to work around it by focusing on longer reviews that discuss both pros and cons, but fake review writers are probably getting more sophisticated too. It'd be nice to have separate averages for verified purchasers and real name reviews, since those would at least cost more to rig. One could write a script for that, so long as Amazon doesn't throttle/block you. Sounds like…

Right now the practice is for the manufacturer to give people a refund on the product in exchange for their 5 star review. It is infuriating. Amazon should ban these companies from the store or they may lose me as a customer (and I buy nearly everything there.)

It's not so much manufacturers as the sellers of the merchandise. I've had multiple sellers offer full refunds in exchange for better reviews after I left 1,2 or 3 star reviews of some pretty shitty products.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#56

Post by voltagex_ »

x5n1 wrote: post #9
cookiecaper wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only seen the blue felt bag once, when buying my wife some (cheap) jewelry. For items big enough, they use plain blue wrapping paper. That's what I usually see. It seems like a perfectly adequate wrapping job to me -- certainly better than my notoriously uncoordinated self would do. For the record, Amazon charged me 3.95 per item for gift wrapping. I don't know if it changes based on the size of the item, whethe…

For $6/item they should offer more choices on how it is to be wrapped. I would say at least 6-12 different kinds of paper.

How would you handle that at the warehouse though? Amazon is all about efficiency.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#57

Post by x5n1 »

voltagex_ wrote: post #56
x5n1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For $6/item they should offer more choices on how it is to be wrapped. I would say at least 6-12 different kinds of paper.

How would you handle that at the warehouse though? Amazon is all about efficiency.

robot.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#58

Post by pnwhyc »

This doesn't come as a surprise. Amazon has created fantastic consumer and merchant experiences and brought buyer friction down to almost nothing.

I'll be interested to see how they plan to tackle the in-store experience. There are obviously the perishable aspects of grocery store products which, with intense and continual establishment of their current strategies, will eventually present opportunity to become a viable part of the company. But on another end of things, shopping as a hobby is something to overcome. No amount of UX or UI (in current stages, at least) can compare to the coveted experience that shoppers seek when going to a mall. This is an area where Amazon might find value in AR. Ex. being able to try on an outfit without leaving your house.

An obvious method would be to open their own physical stores but that would probably just be a "tiller on the car" fix.

Whatever direction the company goes, I look forwards to seeing what Amazon has in store. (Seriously though, no pun intended.)

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#59

Post by pbreit »

willis77 wrote: post #40
guelo wrote: post #35

Amazon's product search is amazingly bad and the user reviews are getting faker over time. To me it's amazingly hard to shop on there. Feels like the engineering team is focused on their many other businesses and ignoring their retail stores.

The fact that they haven't implemented a useful ratings sort drives me nuts. http://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating....

I've often thought "Net Promoter Score" counting might work better. Usually a 10 point scale but on 5 point: 5 = +1, 4 = 0, 0-3 = -1, average.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#60

Post by magic_man »

guelo wrote: post #35

Amazon's product search is amazingly bad and the user reviews are getting faker over time. To me it's amazingly hard to shop on there. Feels like the engineering team is focused on their many other businesses and ignoring their retail stores.

You can use google to search amazon. It works pretty well imo.
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