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Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

theguardian.com

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Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#111

Post by pfexec »

OutOfHere wrote: post #96
dwedge wrote: post #64

I bought a $120 book from Amazon a couple of months ago, internationally, and they sent the wrong book. I told them, and they said they'd refund it, don't need to send it back, and they'd even add $15 credit. The refund never arrived so a few weeks later I got in touch again and they said I need to send it back if I want a refund. They told me the previous CSR had lied to improve ratings. I asked who I can complain t…

CSRs lying has been a serious problem at Amazon and it's astonishing that Amazon hasn't duly addressed it.

[flagged]

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#112

Post by thaumasiotes »

Foorack wrote: post #77

I haven't read the article, but as a Swede I am stunned by the title. I shop from Amazon a couple of times per month, with Prime subscription. Delivery is always insanely fast (within 1-2 days), I always get exactly what I ordered, prices are always lowest compared to all competition, returns are convenient and human-free, and the additional Prime Videos is a nice bonus. I am honeslty worried of local Swedish busines…

Here in California, Amazon stopped honoring their shipping time "guarantees" years ago. They still say Prime is a two-day guarantee. When you order, they say delivery will take place within two days. Your order will have a scheduled delivery date reflecting that statement.

But later they'll quietly update the scheduled delivery date on your order. If you complain that a package hasn't arrived on time, they'll tell you to wait until it does arrive. If you ask for redress for the late delivery, they'll say no.

Sometimes you actually need to receive a birthday gift before attending the party, you know.

They've also stopped packing their goods in a way that prevents them from being damaged in transit. A book you order from Amazon today will arrive stuffed into a manila envelope that it can barely fit inside. The corners will be damaged.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#113

Post by MrDresden »

For a few years now I have made an effort to first try to find a local (in the neighborhood, city or country) seller who has a good reputation before even considering Amazon. In all cases, where I have found alternatives, I've had great experiences, and no issues.

The only thing I've noticed is the very big price difference between academic/technical books when bought on Amazon vs a local book store (40+%) in favour of Amazon. Bulk discounts play a part in that I assume.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#114

Post by madaxe_again »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #107
madaxe_again wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the law, yeah - and if the goods are faulty it’s actually up to two years. But this is Amazon - they don’t need to follow consumer protection laws - I think their specific get out is that they’re Amazon Spain, and I’m having stuff shipped to Portugal, and Spanish consumer protection regs (which implement the EU regs) only protect consumers in Spain . That was meta’s get-out, too.

> But this is Amazon - they don’t need to follow consumer protection laws No one needs to follow consumer protection laws if you don't sue to make them.

Yeah, I’m not spending hundreds of thousands of euro on legal fees to fight a trillion dollar company over a €300 piece of crud.

That’s part of their calculus, too.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#115

Post by DocTomoe »

It may be more rubbish than it was 10 years ago ... but it still beats out 9 out of 10 other online stores, at least in the country I live in.

When the bear is hunting after your your group of friends, you don't have to be the fastest runner, it is sufficient to not be the slowest one.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#116

Post by bornfreddy »

OutOfHere wrote: post #96
dwedge wrote: post #64

I bought a $120 book from Amazon a couple of months ago, internationally, and they sent the wrong book. I told them, and they said they'd refund it, don't need to send it back, and they'd even add $15 credit. The refund never arrived so a few weeks later I got in touch again and they said I need to send it back if I want a refund. They told me the previous CSR had lied to improve ratings. I asked who I can complain t…

CSRs lying has been a serious problem at Amazon and it's astonishing that Amazon hasn't duly addressed it.

I don't think there even is a problem, from Amazon's point of view. CSRs can't tell you the truth ("we will try to avoid refunding you or will delay it as much as possible"), they can't stay quiet (because then delaying won't be as efficient) and they can't blame the company (because... well, they can't). So lying is basically all they can do.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#117

Post by [deleted] »

cemoktra wrote: post #95

A huge part for me is how they handle employees and how that makes employees steal things. My wife ordered an iPhone and we received a salt mill and a flashlight. Called them, they said sorry send it back. But then they would not return the money cause we did not return the phone. At that point Amazon accused us for betrayal and forced us to take a lawyer to get parts of the money back. That was our last day of using…

[deleted]

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#119

Post by 0xfffafaCrash »

Foorack wrote: post #77

I haven't read the article, but as a Swede I am stunned by the title. I shop from Amazon a couple of times per month, with Prime subscription. Delivery is always insanely fast (within 1-2 days), I always get exactly what I ordered, prices are always lowest compared to all competition, returns are convenient and human-free, and the additional Prime Videos is a nice bonus. I am honeslty worried of local Swedish busines…

Strange. I’ve only had really poor experiences with Amazon and Amazon deliveries in Sweden and really good ones in the US. In Sweden the delivery network seems full of other parties that frequently fail to show up at the last minute multiple times in a row. The translations are humorously bad and the selection is small.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#120

Post by Underphil »

tchalla wrote: post #106
iamwil wrote: post #46

Despite trying to instill a customer-centric culture, as soon as Bezos let his foot off the gas, his company just isn't as customer obsessed. Or, they changed their definition of customer from the buyer to the seller. I dramatically lowered my buying from Amazon about 8 years ago, when I noticed that listings had reviews on items that were completely different than what was being listed. Apparently, sellers sell a kn…

Another mind boggling aspect of Amazon’s review system is that it categorises multiple products / variations under one. So if you want to buy products X with variations X1, X2 and X3- the review page for product X1 will also show X2, X3 ratings bundled together. You don’t quite know the rating of X1 individually. You can filter reviews out by the overall rating is the aggregated view. I can’t believe how this is help…

Also the variations are often not just cosmetic things like colour. Sometimes they are entirely different products.
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