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The Amazon tax

seths.blog

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Re: The Amazon tax

#431

Post by [deleted] »

happyopossum wrote: post #350
pessimizer wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I searched for "cayenne" and accidentally bought the hot pepper product that came up which was not cayenne. After going mildly buckwild on amazon after 3 years of not ordering a single thing (after a move to the country) I let the free month of prime I was using expire. This, and the counterfeit product I got (and had to spend 45 minutes on the internet and phone to get refunded) was decisive. I'll try again in 5 yea…

> and had to spend 45 minutes on the internet and phone to get refunded anecdata and all, but i've had the exact opposite experience - I've never spent more than a couple of minutes getting a refund, and it's always been less time and effort than returning something to a B&M store.

[deleted]

Re: The Amazon tax

#432

Post by MSFT_Edging »

citizenpaul wrote: post #413
delegate wrote: post #224

This has been true for years on Amazon and is true for most big services now. Over time the concept of search has mutated from 'locate the exact item I'm looking for' to 'show me a list of semantic search results'. Somehow nobody noticed. Oh and of course those are not random results - you can literally feel how the platform is trying to nudge you into buying what IT wants, not what you wanted. The search is just pur…

To me its a bigger problem. The concept of Brand was highly diminished during the manufacturing outsource phase to cheap countries. You could pay $10 for the brand name of a simple product or get the 100% equivalent for $1 from a Chinese Knock off. So people felt ripped off and abandoned brands. (reasonable since the brands were keeping prices high artificially) However that has lead to a massive drop off in quality…

> The concept of Brand was highly diminished during the manufacturing outsource phase

Ironically I'd say that this was what firmly cemented the concept. Brands truly gained their power when they separated themselves from what they produce and the name providing it. Previously, brands were tied to the quality of their items. When they separated the idea, it enabled brands to become lifestyles and cultural signifiers, which skyrocketed the profitability of being a brand rather than a producer of a good.

Re: The Amazon tax

#433

Post by levocardia »

amluto wrote: post #208

> The highest-yielding ad my publisher has tested so far is the search “Seth Godin The Knot“ I think it would be interesting to see legal action here. I’m not a lawyer, but I feel like there should be at least three ways to go after this: 1. Trademark infringement. If Amazon is using someone’s search that is clearly searching for a specific product, possibly trademarked, it seems inappropriate for them to serve up an…

The reason this is a thing is that other people can bid on your product (Amazon has an entire sponsored product category for this reason). So the reason for Seth Godin to bid on ads for "Seth Godin The Knot" is to try to crowd out other people bidding on the same term (eg another book on the same topic). Can be smart but you don't have to play this game if you don't want to, and the ACOS will tell you if it's worth playing. Even if you don't bid on those ads your own product will be the first result. It's just whether you want to bid up the price for competitors -- if you don't bid on your own product someone else can come in and buy the ad spots cheaply.

Hopefully Seth's publisher knows this?

Re: The Amazon tax

#434

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

phil21 wrote: post #427
SoftTalker wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well,,, OK? If I buy a lot of Scott toilet tissue, I'm happy to get a discount on Scott toilet tissue. Though mostly, the discounts I use are already posted on the shelf, I just need to "clip" an e-coupon in the app to get it. They do send me emails and even postal mails with coupons too, but those all go in the trash.

It's not really a "Well, OK?" situation. The local supermarket chain near me has more or less done away with normal low prices on the shelves. If you want anything resembling a deal, you get to deal with their shit-tier quality app plus other friction inducting time wasting crap like "clipping" digital coupons. Plus opting in to all the associated tracking the app does in order to use it. They effective raised prices…

Requiring the app also disadvantages the elderly, particularly with dementia, who can't operate a smartphone. In theory, the cashier is supposed to allow anyone to access the discount on request but, in practice, I've seen them get rather unfriendly, even to the elderly, when they have to go through the process of manually punching in the discount.

Re: The Amazon tax

#435

Post by baxtr »

muvlon wrote: post #238
delegate wrote: post #224

This has been true for years on Amazon and is true for most big services now. Over time the concept of search has mutated from 'locate the exact item I'm looking for' to 'show me a list of semantic search results'. Somehow nobody noticed. Oh and of course those are not random results - you can literally feel how the platform is trying to nudge you into buying what IT wants, not what you wanted. The search is just pur…

This "dark forest" feeling is what has recently driven me back to brick-and-mortar stores. Of course they can and do manipulate me via ads, store layout etc. but at least the store looks the same for me as for the person before or after me. They can't algorithmically optimize the store around my behavior in particular.

Recently I was looking for a fun summer book and spent around 30 minutes (?) browsing amazon and asking google AI with no luck.

Came by a bookstore yesterday, went in, asked the nice lady, she recommend 3, one was a pretty good match, bought it on the spot.

It’s so easy to get lost online when you’re looking for something these days…

Re: The Amazon tax

#436

Post by dasil003 »

its_ethan wrote: post #423
dasil003 wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that I jumped to a conclusion, and it's possible I'm wrong. One thing that is structurally certain though: Amazon and other major corporations have almost unlimited time and direct incentives to find reasons to justify this point of view, while the people whose interests are being potentially being harmed (all Amazon customers) don't have much concentrated resources or focused, actionable incentives at t…

I appreciate your response and perspective, and I apologize that my reply had been more snarky than it needed to be. I'm not here just to defend Amazon, it has it's issues, but it has also provided a lot of value to it's customers, all things considered (building out the largest most efficient supply/distribution chain ever, increasing convenience, reducing cost, and giving access to wide range of product choices). I…

Civil discourse is not dead on the internet! Thank you as well.

Re: The Amazon tax

#437

Post by alex43578 »

jonhohle wrote: post #324
jambalaya8 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Searched for jeans a few days ago. I got about 3.3% each, scattered through several dozen pages, of two American brands; 1.65% each another couple of brands; a smattering of one or two results for another couple of brands; the remaining approximately 90% were the almost exact same jeans (maybe the same), under several names... pages and pages of them. It is almost impossible to shop for clothes on Amazon now. It used…

It’s not just clothes. Unless the item is a very specific name brand thing, I find Amazon nearly useless for discovery. It’s effectively Ali Express with much higher markup and much faster shipping. I suppose there’s a market for that. Unfortunately for them, I’d rather buy cheep Chinese crap from a local retailer where there is still a human buyer in the loop choosing something that’s not the lowest bottom of the ba…

I guess for things like clothes or generic homegoods, I've seen this deluge of random China goods. But shopping for other things, like electronics, it does a really good job of surfacing what I'm actually looking for, whether that be name brand or generic.

If I'm buying a curtain rod, the MUDLRHK brand is effectively indistinguishable from a "name brand" or house brand. They're basically all coming from the same factories in China anyways - a outside of maybe Costco, there's not a human buyer exercising that much oversight at Walmart, Macys, or Kohls.

Re: The Amazon tax

#438

Post by autoexec »

> Amazon makes enough in search ad revenue to give every single one of their employees a $35,000 cash bonus and still have change left over.

There was study not too long ago that showed that 48% of Amazon's employees were paid so little that they were forced to depend on some form of public assistance to meet their basic needs. Not only would an extra 35k a year prevent amazon employees from needing foodstamps and housing assistance, but I'd be willing to bet that amazon would make back some of it in increased amazon purchases too. It'd be great if the government cracked down on corporations who use taxpayer money to subsidize their labor expenses

Re: The Amazon tax

#439

Post by apercu »

autoexec wrote: post #438

> Amazon makes enough in search ad revenue to give every single one of their employees a $35,000 cash bonus and still have change left over. There was study not too long ago that showed that 48% of Amazon's employees were paid so little that they were forced to depend on some form of public assistance to meet their basic needs. Not only would an extra 35k a year prevent amazon employees from needing foodstamps and ho…

Socialize the costs and privatize the profits is where all this regulatory capture has gotten us.

Re: The Amazon tax

#440

Post by mint5 »

alejohausner wrote: post #401
Freedom2 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not very customer obsessed when their email that they send me doesn't even have which items I've ordered.

That's because you probably are using gmail, and Google is reading your emails and harvesting your shopping history. That's why Amazon is being secretive: to deny Google that information.

I.e you’re saying AWS values hiding data from google more than customer satisfaction.

That doesn’t sound like being customer focused or obsessed at all.

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