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Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy

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Re: Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy

#151

Post by post-it »

pc86 wrote: post #146
srmarm wrote: post #9

I don't get they don't crack down on the product switcheroo scam [0] - it seems like a trivial problem to solve. I've reported items to them before and they don't care. [0] this product for example, loads of the reviews are for something totally different - https://www.amazon.co.uk/WERPOWER-Windscreen-Invisible-Winds...

My understanding is that the biggest issue is that they're commingling inventory. So Sony is selling A1000s on Amazon and ships in 10k units. Your FBA store buys 1k wholesale A1000s and sends them to Amazon. My FBA store buys 1k and sends them in. Amazon just has a pile of 12k A1000s and sends them out whenever orders come in. Once it's processed there's no differentiation between your stock, mine, or Sony's, it's ju…

Just tag each item by supplier. They already tag by item. Sure it's a logistical hurdle in the sense that someone needs to do it, but it's not a challenge, it's not anything new.

Re: Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy

#152

Post by barbazoo »

tylerrobinson wrote: post #138
mabbo wrote: post #106

There is a famous story about Customer Obsession and returns that I used to tell during training sessions for new Amazon employees- Customer Obsession 101, which I was a teacher for. Jeff is in a call center for a day shadowing a customer support agent. A customer calls about a specific item and the CS agent is like "They're going to say it's broken in this particular manner" before the call even starts. Jeff later i…

> So Amazon introduced an 'Andon button' Maybe my brain is just having trouble parsing it, but what does “Andon” mean?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andon_(manufacturing)

Re: Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy

#153

Post by stackedinserter »

29athrowaway wrote: post #75

There are other products on Amazon you should probably not buy either. Namely, products from randomly named companies, or companies that claim to be American but it their address is a warehouse and their Internet presence is hosted on Alibaba Cloud. Most of what they sell is toxic, like PVC figures for children cakes, toxic kitchenware, counterfeit refrigerator filters and other magnets for penny pinchers. It is almo…

> It is almost as if they were intentionally trying to poison people.

This, this, this.

Just look at what are dollar stores selling us. To me it looks like China packs their garbage in form of children toys and useless things like so called "squishees" that smell like they fished right out a toxic river.

Story time: my wife tried to import toys from EU, high quality wooden building blocks. I remember that regulatory hell, she needed to have a safety certificate for each SKU, they have to pass lab tests for phthalates, lead and other shit, there was a never ending list of requirements, like "you can't have this rope because it's strangulation hazard". And after you comply to all that regulations, you need to buy a business insurance to even have a chance to get into chains.

So we have piles of paperwork for good products and seemingly completely unregulated Dollarama that sells whatever they want without following any rules. "This SKU doesn't explode before leaving a store – it's good to go".

We need a law that would obligate sellers to accept their garbage back, including packaging (looking at you, Costco).

Re: Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy

#154

Post by chin7an »

tylerrobinson wrote: post #138
mabbo wrote: post #106

There is a famous story about Customer Obsession and returns that I used to tell during training sessions for new Amazon employees- Customer Obsession 101, which I was a teacher for. Jeff is in a call center for a day shadowing a customer support agent. A customer calls about a specific item and the CS agent is like "They're going to say it's broken in this particular manner" before the call even starts. Jeff later i…

> So Amazon introduced an 'Andon button' Maybe my brain is just having trouble parsing it, but what does “Andon” mean?

It's a term borrowed from assembly lines(0), where if the andon cord is pulled, the entire line stops until some manager or the likes inspects and restarts it. For amazon, the equivalent would be pulling the listing immediately from the website, blocking orders and flagging the item for immediate review.

(0): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andon_(manufacturing)

Re: Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy

#155

Post by ei8ths »

criddell wrote: post #47

I bought a $50 item and a couple of weeks later I received a letter in the mail offering me a $35 Amazon gift card if I leave a 5-star review with a video or picture attached. I'm surprised Amazon allows these kinds of bribes.

I got one of these, i bought a kids alarm clock for my daughter, it works really well, good quality. I did cash in the gift card. Why not? now if it was some crap product, i would report the bribe.

Re: Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy

#156

Post by squarefoot »

Apparently, some people order stuff just to show them on social media, or even use them in monetized videos just before returning them. The service has been already abused to death; I would push for a badge to flag users who return too many items.

Re: Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy

#157

Post by Cthulhu_ »

sofixa wrote: post #22
srmarm wrote: post #9

I don't get they don't crack down on the product switcheroo scam [0] - it seems like a trivial problem to solve. I've reported items to them before and they don't care. [0] this product for example, loads of the reviews are for something totally different - https://www.amazon.co.uk/WERPOWER-Windscreen-Invisible-Winds...

How is it trivial to solve? They either need to prevent sellers from modifying product pages (which would be a disaster because any mistakes could no longer be fixed without losing all reviews) or gate it behind human intervention(slow) /algorithm (complex). There's nothing trivial about the issue.

Sure there is: Review all products and their updates, just like e.g. an app on the app store.

But that will cost Amazon more money than what they currently lose on returns or scams. I presume anyway.

Amazon does not care about the quality of the products on their website, they only care about volume and selling / maintaining subscriptions. As long as numbers go up they're golden.

And there's not enough competition. There's probably plenty of webshops with quality products (anyone can run a webshop from their home), but discoverability is low, I don't know what the consumer protection laws in the US are like, and Amazon is easy to use. Amazon can afford to handle returns and the like as well.

Re: Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy

#158

Post by Cthulhu_ »

SifJar wrote: post #35
sofixa wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it trivial to solve? They either need to prevent sellers from modifying product pages (which would be a disaster because any mistakes could no longer be fixed without losing all reviews) or gate it behind human intervention(slow) /algorithm (complex). There's nothing trivial about the issue.

Couple of fairly simple things they could do to at least help somewhat: * Put reviews for current listing at the top of the reviews (currently default sort seems to be a vague "Top reviews", but can be changed to "most recent" which presumably accomplishes this. Vast majority never change defaults though) * Clearly mark any review that is for a previous version of the listing, and provide a link to view the listing a…

I think any fix that requires input or extra effort from a user won't work in the grander scheme of things. Hide reviews for previous versions behind a button will go a long way, if you keep that in mind.

Re: Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy

#159

Post by ei8ths »

My go to for shopping is amazon -> walmart (in store only lookup) -> then local stores. And it depends on what i want, if i need a guarantee its a legit item, then i'll go to the vendor site and look up where they sell the product and get a direct link, or if its tech related and i need a guarantee then bestbuy or whatever the vendor says is their link to buy. I do walmart for price comparison and convenience, i live really close to a walmart. Amazon is like other have said more like aliexpress these days, my returns this past few year have gone way up because the items either break quickly or were garbage out of the box.

Re: Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy

#160

Post by lotsofpulp »

bogwog wrote: post #117
coffeebeqn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder do they ban people’s accounts for doing such things? That’s basically theft

I think the term is "mail fraud", and it's very illegal

Is it mail fraud if it does not go via USPS?
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