Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#121

Post by DoreenMichele » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 7:35 AM UTC

bleepblorp wrote: post #115

DoreenMichele wrote: post #78

Yeah, you know, when people keep saying "You aren't as far from being homeless as you imagine you are" this is what they mean. Just because your life has not come unraveled overnight doesn't mean it can't for reasons beyond your control having nothing to do with personal virtues or lack thereof. We really need to get universal health care in the US, among other things, to limit how far people can fall when something…

We're on the wrong side of the curve of history for something like that to happen in the US--or anywhere else where it isn't already in place. Social Darwinism has been the fashion for 40 years now, and it's not going anywhere.

Nothing takes the past away like the future. Nothing makes the darkness go like the light.

We can choose. We aren't actually compelled to just keep collectively being assholes because that's what we have currently.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#122

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 7:44 AM UTC

AussieWog93 wrote: post #119

ethanwillis wrote: post #9

The merchants must navigate a largely automated, guilty-until-proven-innocent process in which Amazon serves as judge and jury. Their emails and calls can go unanswered, or Amazon's replies are incomprehensible, making sellers suspect they're at the mercy of algorithms with little human oversight. This is something our modern society was and is not ready for. Bureaucracy and the bureaucrats that administered it is a…

Just to give another perspective, I run a couple of small businesses with my wife and we handle support ourselves. This is an absolute pleasure for our USB oscilloscope business - intelligent, reasonable customers ask for help with a problem they have, we help them solve it and both parties move on with our lives. Our other business - dealing in retro video games, is an absolute nightmare. Almost all support question…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#123

Post by andi999 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 7:46 AM UTC

teraflop wrote: post #89

njharman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The movie “Brazil” comes to mind.

For an even earlier cautionary tale about computerized bureaucracies, check out "Computers Don't Argue" (1965) by Gordon Dickson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_Don%27t_Argue

Computer says 'no'.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#124

Post by kortilla » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 7:50 AM UTC

aspaceman wrote: post #105

birdsbirdsbirds wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Jeff Bezos know, or is he shielded from bad customer experience like Mao, who saw a country full of rice fields along the rail tracks when he travelled the country? [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/02/world/the-tyrant-mao-as-t...

That book is quite widely criticized. Not trying to defend Mao or the Great Famine, but with anecdotes like that I find this quote apt: "With a person as divisive as Mao, both because of his complex history and because of what he represents to different groups, if becomes an almost impossible task to sift through the contradictions of supposed first hand accounts." https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/d3s0…

Don’t focus on the accuracy of the historical accuracy of the analogy, focus on the comparison being made. The post is about Jeff Bezos, not Mao.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#125

Post by rhn_mk1 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 7:52 AM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #78

Yeah, you know, when people keep saying "You aren't as far from being homeless as you imagine you are" this is what they mean. Just because your life has not come unraveled overnight doesn't mean it can't for reasons beyond your control having nothing to do with personal virtues or lack thereof. We really need to get universal health care in the US, among other things, to limit how far people can fall when something…

While fatal disasters can happen to anyone, this story isn't a case of getting in trouble regardless of personal virtues.

The man put all his eggs in one basket, creating a single point of failure. When that failure actually happened, he was hosed.

How would the story play out if he kept part of his inventory outside of the "Fulfilled by Amazon" system, or even outside of Amazon altogether? He wouldn't lose all of it, for one.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#126

Post by kbenson » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 7:52 AM UTC

asdff wrote: post #87

p1necone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a similar experience with Uber customer support. Their navigation thinks there's access to my house from a road that isn't actually connected, so delivery drivers consistently go the wrong way. But emailing customer support just got me seemingly automated responses saying "we're sorry the location pin was not in the right place" which isn't even the problem that I'm having.

That's just how customer support is these days it seems. Getting a hold of an actual human capable of doing the most mundane request other than linking to 'help' articles you've already read 10 times is impossible. What happened to emailing support and getting a reply prepared to move heaven and earth to satisfy you as a customer?

There exist companies that distinguish themselves on providing good support, and use it as a differentiator. They generally aren't number one in a market though, so don't look the the leader to usually be them (occasionally they are, when they have an equivalent or better product and also better support and servicing).

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#127

Post by xiphias2 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 7:53 AM UTC

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #117

hevelvarik wrote: post #7

This is a case for the courts. The article is completely one sided, and there’s no way to know whether or not some or much or most of the merchandise was counterfeit. He does admit to ignoring up to 11 notices that his inventory would be destroyed if left unclaimed. He mentions conflicting dates for the notices but we’ve no way of knowing to make of that. I don’t know what to say other that I read the piece with some…

For such a one-sided article, I came down rather on the other side. A dozen warnings that he needed to claim his stuff before it was destroyed. The evidence of authenticity was illegible. At least four customers complained that the merchandise was not authentic. If he had paid to have his stuff returned, he'd only be out the cost of shipping whatever hadn't been sold. And this is just what I learned from an article f…

Also having inventory of brand new original fashion items that's older than 365 days sounds strange, as fashion changes every year, and the value of goods go down over time.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#128

Post by ThePhysicist » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 7:58 AM UTC

After reading the article I'm still a bit doubtful about the claims of the seller. I'm not saying that Amazon is in the right here or that he's lying about the merchandise being genuine, but some aspects of the story seem rather sketchy. He seems to have been in contact with Amazon for several months, and still he says he was unable to ask them to send his merchandise back to him? If he really ordered his merchandise from the brands directly, how was he not able to simply ask them for a confirmation or proper invoice copy and provide that to Amazon?

Fake merchandise seems to be rampant on Amazon, and clothes/apparel is a great target because the products are "low-tech" and it's hard for a regular customer to tell a genuine article apart from a fake one, so I can see why Amazon is very picky about these things here. Personally I try to never buy such brand items from third-party sellers on Amazon, as my trust in the items being original is quite low.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#129

Post by snthd » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 8:00 AM UTC

p1necone wrote: post #20

ethanwillis wrote: post #9

The merchants must navigate a largely automated, guilty-until-proven-innocent process in which Amazon serves as judge and jury. Their emails and calls can go unanswered, or Amazon's replies are incomprehensible, making sellers suspect they're at the mercy of algorithms with little human oversight. This is something our modern society was and is not ready for. Bureaucracy and the bureaucrats that administered it is a…

I've had a similar experience with Uber customer support. Their navigation thinks there's access to my house from a road that isn't actually connected, so delivery drivers consistently go the wrong way. But emailing customer support just got me seemingly automated responses saying "we're sorry the location pin was not in the right place" which isn't even the problem that I'm having.

Uber might be using OSM Data, so you could try fixing it there.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#130

Post by kortilla » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 8:00 AM UTC

Areading314 wrote: post #44

ethanwillis wrote: post #9

The merchants must navigate a largely automated, guilty-until-proven-innocent process in which Amazon serves as judge and jury. Their emails and calls can go unanswered, or Amazon's replies are incomprehensible, making sellers suspect they're at the mercy of algorithms with little human oversight. This is something our modern society was and is not ready for. Bureaucracy and the bureaucrats that administered it is a…

The problem is not the automation, the problem is that a single authority has a complete monopoly on certain aspects of the e-commerce market. Full credit to Bezos and Amazon for their incredible execution in achieving this. However, monopolies are an example of market failure, and in this case, also an example of an authority able to act as judge + jury where the affected parties have no realistic recourse, while be…

> However, monopolies are an example of market failure

No they are not. It’s only considered a failure when the position is abused to prevent competition.

You can have a monopoly situation where competition just doesn’t bother to enter because the monopoly holder hasn’t abused the situation to make entering the market attractive.

Additionally, the government frequently grants monopolies because they don’t really want to see market competition due to the disruptive nature of the industry (e.g. utilities).

Monopolies are just a specific market condition that implies certain pricing dynamics and potential competitor strategies. They are not a failure in themselves and can frequently be a huge driver of competition. Nothing attracts a competitor like a stodgy monopoly with a thick margin and no penchant for innovation.