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Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

arstechnica.com

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Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#331

Post by dingaling »

sampo wrote: post #290
cratermoon wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toys R Us and Guitar Center are among the retailers bought by private equity firms explicitly so the investors could wring the value out of the company and throw the remains in the dumpster. G.I. Joes was another. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/toys-r-... By the way the remnants of Toys R Us are now owned by Tru Toys and they are looking to make a comeback.

> so the investors could wring the value out of the company and throw the remains in the dumpster What does that mean in practice?

> What does that mean in practice?

Buy the company with loans, strip the tangible assets for cash, burden the company with the loan repayments and bail out.

Basically use the company as leverage to buy it, and then make it pay for having been bought out. It will seldom be able to do so, and eventually will stagger into bankruptcy. Both the company and the creditors lose, but not the 'investors'.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#332

Post by dasudasu »

throwaway201103 wrote: post #231
jimmaswell wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This experience is alien to me. I order from Amazon all the time and everything I get is generally fine. Occasionally something breaks after a while or is missing a part but that can happen anywhere and Amazon has extremely generous return policies. If anything I've come to trust AmazonBasics as a reliable brand if I'm deciding between products.

Maybe this is a longer game by Amazon. Let bogus reviews and bad experiences pile up for third party sellers, slowly driving people to only trust "Amazon Basics." They have nearly perfect knowledge of the profitability of any item, so they know what items they should have under the "Amazon Basics" umbrella. Over time they could expand this into other Amazon "Brands" at varying quality/price points.

They do already have other Amazon brands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_brands

For instance, Goodthreads is one step above Amazon Essentials for clothing.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#333

Post by FireBeyond »

dzdt wrote: post #325

My Christmas Amazon experience was helping my young daughter search for a doll to buy with a gift card and finding mixed into the results a large number of graphically illustrated sex toys. (She typoed "dolll" as the search term.) The convenience of an everything e-commerce site is not worth the nonsense.

And unicode. There are many bütt plugs for sale on Amazon too.

Oh, you can also buy suppressors and silencers for guns there too. Except they're usually branded as "lawn mower mufflers". Reviews are ... amusing ... "Makes my 9mm mower sound just like a pop gun".

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#334

Post by hbt »

IAmWorried wrote: post #66

I don't know about you folks, but I've received so many "new" items from Amazon that were clearly used that I have largely stopped shopping there for expensive items. I think it's still fine for small gifts, plastic utensils, etc. But anything over 100 bucks I try to buy directly off the manufacturer's website. I think Amazon needs to get a handle on their sellers and reviews ASAP because I am rapidly losing faith in…

same I bought a cpu from Amazon 700$ and sold by AMD

they shipped me a used one where the paste was already partially applied on the socket.

it works but still payed full price for a "new" item when it was a returned item.

it's just scummy all around

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#335

Post by new23d »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #292
Fej wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The million dollar question is, how do we know which brands are the good ones? Is there a community which tackles this sort of problem alone? The best I have found so far is to find the community surrounding a type of product, especially on Reddit - there is a community around almost every interest imaginable - and figure out which brands they recommend, via search or just asking. Often they even have advice in a sti…

There was a website here the other day that planned to build a community of people that review products as they age. A review after the first 2 weeks, 2 years then 10 years etc. "Buy for Life" or something like that.

Perhaps buyforlifeproducts.com? See submissions about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=buyforlifeproducts.co...

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#336

Post by judge2020 »

Animats wrote: post #282

Skip the Amazon resellers and order direct from China on Alibaba. Their reputation system is less spammy than Amazon's. One of my areas to watch: solid state relays. Here we have yet another fake Fotek solid state relay on Amazon.[1] Note the "Made in China". Here's the real thing.[2] Note the "Taiwan made" from the real Fotek. Costs a lot more. That's because it will actually handle the rated current. The fakes are…

Surely you mean Aliexpress, unless your product is super cheap or you’d already be ordering 100x or more of that product (since most alibaba shipments are for bulk ordering and have a minimum quantity).

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#337

Post by jb775 »

CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #111
TravisLS wrote: post #18

There's a somewhat pervasive idea that advertising and brand recognition are coercive tools that will ultimately die out, replaced by better objective information about products. I'm kind of partial to this idea myself. But increasingly we seem a long way from achieving this. Amazon reviews have become such garbage, I've fallen back to pretty much relying on name brands as my placeholder for product quality. There's…

I know my comment will be lost in a sea of voices, but I need to share my experience _somewhere_ else other than amazon reviews. I got my fiancé two Christmas presents this year - both bought off Amazon. One was an electronic keyboard that was dead on arrival, the other was a snuggie type blanket that started falling apart yesterday. Both items had thousands of 5 star reviews. I usually go somewhere (anywhere) else b…

I cancelled my Prime last year because the "2 day" shipping was consistently taking 4+ days. The final straw was my Halloween mask not arriving by Halloween lol.

Between late deliveries, bait & switch 5-star reviews, and being able to find cheaper prices elsewhere, I now only use Amazon if I can't find a product anywhere else.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#338

Post by Can_Not »

wombat-man wrote: post #305
afavour wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One extra problem with Amazon is that a lot of products are sold by third party merchants and their site UX seems to deliberately obscure the fact. Same goes for Walmart, though I have less experience using them. If I order from Amazon, from Amazon, I tend to have good experiences. If I order third party from Amazon it’s a crap shoot.

walmart used to be better about this but now I notice they, and other major retailers are trying to adopt the amazon platform concept. Sometimes it's easier to just make a list and physically go to a store so I don't need to question whether or not what I'm buying is legit and deal with that stuff.

Anytime I've ordered from Walmart for pick-up, I always seem to receive the item with the worst experation date and most banged-up box.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#339

Post by taurath »

I bought a plant growing light a few days ago on amazon. It was the #1 seller in the category, and had nearly 15,000 reviews and sat at 4.5 stars. It was cheap. Mine didn't work. The box said it was 80 watts, but the included adaptor could only do 40 watts.

In the box was an offer for a $15 amazon gift card to give them a 5 star rating. I wrote a review on amazon, stating this. I got an email from amazon that my review had not been accepted this morning. I called amazon the previous night and the first person told me to "contact the seller". It took a second person to tell me that blatantly bribing customers for reviews was against their policy. Clearly nothing will happen.

All I can think of is that the end user is no longer the customer for Amazon. They're a platform for sellers, so the sellers are the new customers. Shame they never told the end users.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#340

Post by mrxd »

TravisLS wrote: post #18

There's a somewhat pervasive idea that advertising and brand recognition are coercive tools that will ultimately die out, replaced by better objective information about products. I'm kind of partial to this idea myself. But increasingly we seem a long way from achieving this. Amazon reviews have become such garbage, I've fallen back to pretty much relying on name brands as my placeholder for product quality. There's…

100% agree. I’d also add that people love to trash brands that produce substandard producers. Negative word of mouth spreads easier for more recognizable brands, and the company’s need to protect their reputation provides a level of assurance that doesn’t exist for anonymous producers.
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