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

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

#221

Post by nomorealoha » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:21 PM UTC

What I don't understand is how someone can keep such poor proof of authenticity when hocking questionable products on Amazon? To pretend that illegible evidence of authenticity is okay is disingenuous. Everyone knows that Amazon is full of fakes. You would think scammers would try to have reasonable proof of authenticity so that when the banhammer comes swinging down, they'd have a saving grace.

Plus, the article is clickbait. I don't see how the man is homeless. He's not a rough sleeper. He's staying with family. To call him homeless is absurd, it cheapens the word and erodes our communal empathy.

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

#222

Post by influx » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:27 PM UTC

Narkov wrote: post #176

AussieWog93 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Bought! Too cheap though...double, or even triple the price.

Seriously, 49.99 would still be a cheap price on that.

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

#223

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

AussieWog93 wrote: post #201

wombatmobile wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>That doesn't make sense. You are in favour of systemic obfuscation and low quality support to discourage people who don't have problems from taking up the time of support staff? Even though the barriers make life hell for people with legitimate problems like the guy whose $1.5m inventory was destroyed? I'm never said I'm personally in favour of that approach, I just saw a lot of comments talking about how terrible i…

I worked AppleCare tech support and there were people who would call in to talk to people or troll, perhaps they were ill, but they would call repeatedly and there problems were largely made up.

Eventually they become known and are handled separately because they would fake problems and drive people insane.

Some people should be banned from support.

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

#224

Post by Hokusai » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:33 PM UTC

AussieWog93 wrote: post #183

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…

The issue is not so much about offering _customer_ service. Genuine customers will only ask for help when they actually need it and do it in a way that respects everyone's time. Instead, it's more about taking time away from your business to deal with people who have no intention of buying from you but are just bored, lonely or mentally ill. While the latter group might only represent 25% of the people who contact yo…

All your argument is based in the idea of making live more difficult for consumers and easier to business. That seems the wrong way to tip the balance.

Are not going to be business better equipped to deal with unruly customers than mothers/grandfathers/teenagers having to spend time of their private lives navigating hostile interfaces designed to make them give up? Does not this incentivize bad businesses selling counterfeits/damaged goods with the hope that will not be returned?

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

#225

Post by AussieWog93 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:40 PM UTC

zrobotics wrote: post #220

AussieWog93 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Honestly, I designed it when I was a student because there was nothing usable at the low-end of the market.

While I could possibly charge a little bit more for it, I don't think the specs justify a $50+ price point (as-is), and for a lot of people that extra $20 makes a big difference.

There were some thoughts a while back of making a higher-end product to fill the $50-$80 gap, and possibly even a stripped down Labrador to sell around the $20 mark. Looking at the Amazon charts, a lot of people are buying knockoff DSO138s to save literally $5-$10 and are left with a really poor quality product.

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

#226

Post by egberts1 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:43 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/

Bought two(2) because a friend wanted one too!

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

#227

Post by moksly » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:46 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…

This might surprise you, but companies don’t really care that their employees have to deal with shitty customers. It’s not necessarily that they don’t care about their employees, they might even have strategies and support staff to help with the stress, but they don’t care in a way that outsourcing it because of shitty customers ever plays in to the equation.

At enterprise size you automate your support to save money. Even outsourced a call Center is expensive, and Amazon’s shitty algorithmic support isn’t.

I know, because we do this in every enterprise sector, including the public sector. The “advantage” amazon have is that it doesn’t really cost them anything because they have a monopoly. In areas where they see actual competition, like in selling cloud to enterprise customers, they have excellent support. They didn’t always have this mind you, they used the same automated systems for years, until they realised just how many billions they were losing to Microsoft because Microsoft sells enterprise customers of a certain size a direct 24/7 phone line to Seattle if an issue is of high enough priority. Now, Amazon offers something similar.

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

#228

Post by mwexler » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:50 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…

Back in 2003, Seldon and Colvin wrote a pretty good book about Angel Customers and Demon Customers (http://geoffcolvin.com/books/angel-customers-demon-customers...) which examines many of these issues.

A bit of friction, if applied correctly, is not a terrible thing if an interaction's cost outweighs it's value. Getting the balance right is tricky but worth considering some alternatives to just "putting up with it".

After all, "sure, I'm selling at a loss but I'll make it up on volume!" is not sustainable for too long (unless you are a tech company... just kidding).

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

#229

Post by thrownaway954 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 12:55 PM UTC

you know that whole, "never put all your eggs in one basket" saying... that's exactly what this dude did and he got burned.

while the situation sucks and amazon is a jerk for allowing this to happen... i don't feel bad for him. any business man knows not to do this, it's rule one in everything you do. it places you in the position where you aren't in charge meaning you don't have the upper hand. hard lesson for this dude to learn, but hopefully it prevents others from making the same mistake.

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

#230

Post by damian2000 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:04 PM UTC

grishka wrote: post #17

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…

Being an Android developer is a similar experience. If your app gets removed from Google Play, even if it's clearly by mistake, good luck having it reinstated. Unless you know a googler or two. Then it's a breeze. Going through official channels you'll be hitting a wall.

Which is a shame because the platform as a developer is awesome. I've developed for both iOS and Android and will always favour Android. But Apple seem to have more consistent and possibly better customer service compared to Google, especially when it comes to the ability to get a knowledgeable answer after failing an app review.