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

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

#211

Post by tssva » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:01 PM UTC

gwd wrote: post #163

fredophile wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't tell they're fake by inspection how did the complaining customers identify them as fake?

The article quotes the two reviews which claim the items are fake; it's pretty clear the people are just throwing out the claim of "fake" to get leverage. Amazon asked the seller for the receipts from the manufacturers to prove that they were real; he gave them, but Amazon said they didn't count because they were more than a year old. But that's when he actually bought the merchandise, so I'm not sure what Amazon exp…

"Amazon said they didn't count because they were more than a year old."

According to the seller that was Amazon's issue with the receipts. According to Amazon the issue was the receipts provided were either illegible or didn't match records from the manufacturers. In other words they appeared to be faked receipts.

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

#212

Post by fennecfoxen » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:02 PM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #170

Areading314 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 aren't. Markets tend towards monopoly, or at least an oligopoly. Market 'equilibrium' where prices are 'right' is an ideological fantasy. That said - this is an example of how the legitimacy for private commercial corporations being run dictatorially based on formal property ownership kind of blows up in people's faces when such corporations grow to the l…

This post has minimal relation to the scientific consensus on how economics works. It’s a lot like climate change denial posts saying that actually burning coal is good because of cloud albedos. Technically true, just very selectively so, in a manner that does not accurately reflect the bigger picture.

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

#213

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:05 PM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #76

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…

Amazon could fix this. This isn't an all or nothing "digital bad" "bureaucrats bad" situation. It's Amazon and one complaint. This guy should find a good lawyer and take them to court. He had proof that his stuff was not counterfit. Adding some arbitrary "you have to have a receipt no more than 365 days old" is ridiculous. Amazon just doesn't care. Even for a 1.5 million dollars worth of stock. What are the chances t…

According to the article he _is_ suing them. It's just that takes years to resolve cases.

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

#214

Post by fennecfoxen » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:07 PM UTC

nickpp wrote: post #93

Areading314 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not a monopoly over all ecommerce. However there are certain markets where the sellers, for example book publishers, are totally at the mercy of amazon because they have become the only de facto distribution channel for certain products like e-books (there are others as well). So its great for customers but it still has severe negative consequences for authors and publishers. Technically this is known as a "monop…

So I guess any company becomes a "monopoly" if you reduce enough the definition of its field?!

The key thing economists look to, to define a monopoly, is that the company has the power to set prices. This is in the economic sense: that there isn’t some give-and-take supply-and-demand setting prices for them, and they just happen to record that.

When Office Depot was considering a Staples merger a while back, the Feds looked at the price of corporate office supply services in markets where there was only one of each firm, and found them higher than in markets where both competed. This despite the fact they didn’t have a monopoly on, say, copy paper.

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

#215

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:08 PM UTC

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #171

DoreenMichele wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a pandemic on. Up to a third of Americans can't pay their rent/mortgage this year. Some people are taking risks because of the general climate around them. Living steeped in craziness can impair your judgment by making it genuinely difficult to figure out what strategy is actually sensible while the world is a case of "Please, stop this merry go round. I would like to get off now."

Let me rephrase: I got an impression from your post that you atribute no fault to the merchant: he did everything right and got the short end of the stick. What I want to point out is that if he was careful about his business partners, he'd be much better off now. It's not relevant why he wasn't. He had the agency to mitigate the problem, and didn't. What happened was not an unpreventable natural disaster. The lesson…

I'm not going to speak for Doreen, but "he did everything right and got the short end of the stick" is exactly what happened here.

Small businesses don't have the scale to diversify. Having multiple sales channels doubles certain fixed costs. People just do not expect major global brands to commit multi-million-dollar destruction of property.

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

#216

Post by varispeed » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:09 PM 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…

I think the main problem is the stigma of using the mental health services, lack of access to therapists and generally useful things like mindfulness, some basic CBT principles are not being taught in schools. Many people view companies customer support as their "safe space" where they can vent their frustrations and problems and these days a valuable customer service operator needs to have training in psychotherapy, to know how to defuse people and steer them to having a mindset where they could feel comfortable to seek help.

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

#217

Post by marcan_42 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:09 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #204

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst dealing with unsavoury people obviously isn't ideal, and I certainly don't envy your position. Is this not just the cost of doing business in that specific industry? Typically you'd just raise your prices to factor in support costs. You'd have different margins for each industry. Realistically, the reason you're unable to raise your prices is because you're stuck competing with companies that simply don't offe…

For many transactions, the only customer support I need is an automated shipping confirmation, automated tracking, and maybe (or maybe not) a way to return/refund. I buy a fair number of items on AliExpress and banggood. I don’t want “good customer service” bloating the costs. (Ironically, I still get good service on the 1% of transactions that go wrong, even when I can’t really prove anything. I bought two nice lipo…

I've never had a good customer support experience on AliExpress. Mostly because the only times I've needed "customer support" was when I've been sent fake items (specs grossly and explicitly misstated, usually, often with clear intent to deceive), and that is something AliExpress sellers will absolutely never admit to doing in my experience. Best case they politely say there's no problem, worst case they throw racial slurs based on your presumed nationality based on the destination country (which isn't even correct for me, ha).

In those cases, AliExpress will seemingly randomly decide for or against you randomly, even when you file a dispute with clear photographic and video evidence. I've had it go both ways.

90% of the time it's fine, though, and the cost savings outweigh the loss from fake goods. But I'd certainly not call the AliExpress CS experience "good".

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

#218

Post by varispeed » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:12 PM UTC

wombatmobile wrote: post #196

AussieWog93 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I can understand why organisations like Amazon would set up these bureaucratic support "walls" and/or outsource all support to a Filipino call centre staffed by people that don't even know what Amazon is. The systems are designed to make getting support hard, because most people contacting consumer support literally don't even have a problem that good support staff could solve. That doesn't make sense. You are in f…

I suspect that you are assuming that people in general think rationally and behave according to set scenarios. Unfortunately that is not a reality. If you were able to invent such effective system of triaging and funneling, I think you would become a billionaire in no time.

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

#219

Post by graeme » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:14 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #187

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…

I don't understand why people like you keep ranting about "universal healthcare" when obviously about 50% of your country so strongly opposes it that I think it's sooner that hell freezes than US getting social healthcare. Instead, why don't you propose alternative solutions? E.g. in Switzerland, it's illegal for your healthcare to be paid by the company, and also it's obligatory to have healthcare insurance (probabl…

North america is rather insular. I live in canada. We basically only compare our health system to the us. And americans, if they compare to anyone at all, really only look at us or the uk. and we both have a version of medicare for all effectively.

I reckon the bulk of americans would be surprised to learn that europe does not have medicare for all as their solution or that the private sector has a substantial role.

A substantial amount of america’s dysfunction is due to entrenched tax code provisions (health insurance not being a taxable benefit, mortgage interest deduction, govt mortgage market insurance backstops, etc), and this is mostly invisible as the discourse focusses on government spending only.

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

#220

Post by zrobotics » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:18 PM UTC

AussieWog93 wrote: post #169

Narkov wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a link for the USB oscilloscope?

Not going to pass up an opportunity to shill the business. :P https://espotek.com/labrador/

Nice looking board, but I agree, you should charge more. One market to consider is automotive scopes- since it already can interface with a phone, putting different connectors on there and with a case would suffice for most uses. Compare to a Pico scope for the market leader in this segment. It definitely doesn't need to be a 100% finished consumer product (that's already covered), you wouldn't be selling to hackers but the mechanics who use a scope are by and large the technically sophisticated ones. Just a thought, it looks like a great product, I'm buying one just to hack into a portable scope so I don't have to deal with getting out my rigol for basic auto work.

Edit: it certainly doesn't need to be battery powered either, conveniently cars have 12v battery power avaliable (although it is quite dirty, so input protection is required). I'm on my phone RN, otherwise I'd pull up the schematics, it might already have adequate input protection.