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Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

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Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#291
In general, to me it seems like Amazon focuses more on other things than on refining the way their actual store and its site works.

They've focused a lot on operations and efficiency. They already had 2-day shipping but they've worked to get that down to 1-day shipping where possible. Which is impressive, though 2-day shipping was already pretty good. They've optimized the hell out of their inventory, distribution, etc. They made that Haven joint-venture healthcare thing (together with two other huge companies) to drive down health insurance costs.

Another area they've focused on is new types of business, like cloud computing, buying Whole Foods, getting into video streaming, and hardware devices (Kindle, Fire, Echo).

But the store itself, the web site design and how the store functions, hasn't changed that much. They had a lot of issues with fake reviews, and they eventually did something, but it took a long time. They have some longstanding usability pain points that they haven't done anything about. Reviews are supposed to be about products, not sellers, but people leave comments and ratings about sellers in product reviews because there's no other place to put them (or if there is, it's not easy enough to find). Something (bad UI?) seems to encourage unhelpful "I don't know" type answers in products' "Customer questions & answers" section. If you click "There is a newer model of this item", it often leads to something that isn't. Product categories and the features within them are insufficient or out of date: I can browse the cell phone case category, but under "phone compatibility", Galaxy S10 isn't listed, only Galaxy S9, even though the S10 came out 6 months ago. Similar story with iPhone. And nothing with size variations of phone models (iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR would require different cases).

All of these things would probably benefit everybody if they fixed them. And it's not just a matter of adding polish. There are more innovative things they could do, too. But the attitude seems to be that the store is basically as done as it's going to get.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have these issues due to corruption, greed and negligence. With recycling as with other stuff, China cheats and poisons people to make a quick dollar, decades go by and nothing changes and nobody goes to prison. Think of how many people use Chinese made pots and pans, or knives, and have no clue they’re poisoning themselves and their families just to save a few bucks by buying the cheap Chinese version.

> just to save a few bucks by buying the cheap Chinese version. Or not knowing they're buying a cheap chinese version.

Yeah, with the problem Amazon US (maybe elsewhere too?) has with fakes which get mixed in with the real stock at the distribution centre, and the problem I have on Amazon UK where no matter what household product I search for all the results are from brands I've never heard of, many of which are obviously Chinese from the name, or I'd guess are Chinese from the weird English or the mystery chunky quotation marks all over the description, it's not so easy to know any more.

I have a new rescue cat and I was going to buy some cat toys but after half an hour on Amazon I felt increasingly unsure that any of the products were safe for my cat to sink her teeth into, so I guess all the toys she's getting will be coming from the local pet megastore, the only pet shop left on this side of town.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#293
post #201

More anecdotal data, but our family (which used to spend $5k+ a year on Amazon) decided to actively buy locally and do what we can to reduce packaging waste (mainly for food). (note: I applaud Amazon's influence in the past decade fighting the clamshell package). Just looked and we now spent less than $500 so far this year. Reduced consumption, sometimes going without that new shiny thing and instead borrowing or buy…

Just shopping locally and picking up your own food saves you so much and helps subconciously cuts down on your personal consumerism. I do anything I can now to make sure my dollar doesnt leave the county if it can be helped.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#294

I’ve got the same experience as many other posters here and have been buying less from Amazon lately. One thing I haven’t seen people talking about much is how profound and impact Apple Pay is for direct online retail. I used to find products on a company website and then go to Amazon to buy, mainly so I didn’t need to create yet another account, and because of prime shipping and Amazon’s return policy. The amazing t…

In my experience apple pay is few and far between, and firefox fills out my billing anyway.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#295

I wonder if Amazon won't somehow kill itself with poor quality. I needed a bunch of LED bulbs recently and I knew exactly what I was looking for - about a dozen 40W eq, two 60w eq and two 100w eq, all in 2700K and two 100w in 3000K. Amazon was a mess - prices were all over the place, exact products were hard to find, etc. Dollarama had them all for $2.50, $3.50 and $4.00 a piece, usually in all three flavours (2700,…

I go to superbrightleds.com for things like this. They have a well curated selection with accurate specs on color temp and luminosity.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#296
post #35
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a trivial way for native English speakers to learn this rule: replace ‘it’ with ‘his’, appropriately, adjust comma to suit. > Amazon has ceded control of hi’s site to a 3rd party... Obviously incorrect.

When does "hi's" ever look correct though?

His arrival elicited a number of hi's.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#297
post #58

Yikes: > A Wall Street Journal investigation found 4,152 items for sale on Amazon.com Inc. ’s site that have been declared unsafe by federal agencies, are deceptively labeled or are banned by federal regulators—items that big-box retailers’ policies would bar from their shelves. Among those items, at least 2,000 listings for toys and medications lacked warnings about health risks to children. > Of the 4,152 products…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#298
post #24

They were sued for the recklessly mislabeled helmet and still didn't take the posting down? Even if they could've argued that they themselves were fooled by the seller initially, not following up after the guy was killed points to a much bigger issue. Basically they just don't give a shit. Side note: I'm filled with dread just thinking about buying a motorcycle helmet from amazon.

> Side note: I'm filled with dread just thinking about buying a motorcycle helmet from amazon. Don't, I wouldn't. Revzilla, sells all sorts of motorcycle gear and has a great reputation. https://www.revzilla.com/

For now. Anthony sold out to the owners of CycleStop and I expect the quality to degrade in the coming years. Similar to how Performance Bike and Nashbar have imploded.

He probably saw the writing on the wall for the North American moto business with the boomers aging out and not enough consumers left to support the operation long term.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be a use case for lead paint that isn't satisfied by other options and isn't used somewhere people will be exposed to it? It's not just kids & through eating it that it can be absorbed. Being around it throughout normal environmental wear & tear is enough for exposure, enough that pregnant women are advised against any exposure at all. As for the general topic of harmful chemicals, it isn't a choice betwee…

Satisfied at what price point? Everything has a cost. Every dollar society spends on one thing is a dollar society can't use on another thing. Nobody is going to be "exposed" to a highway overpass or the hull of a ship or some chemical storage tank outside a factory enough for it to measurably affect anyone. Why can't we paint it in lead if that lasts longer for a given price point? There's all sorts of things that a…

> highway overpass or the hull of a ship or some chemical storage tank outside a factory

the workers who build and tear it down. maintenance workers. the chips and bits the wear off and get into the environment. and for a ships hull? the bits that get into the ocean and then sea life.

Sure you could argue that its small and harmless, but is it? can you prove it?

And, all that aside, there is an increased cost of all the precautions that need to now be taken when working with it offsetting the cost savings, as well as its now hazardous waste when torn down.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#300
post #46

That and they've gone the wall-mart route of actually PUSHING anything / the lowest price possible. I get stuff that's like 5% cheaper but quality looks to be about 50% the quality pushed on me all the time on Amazon now. I went to Amazon originally to find QUALITY products that my local stores didn't carry because of price pressures. Now Amazon seems to be switching to just being ... wall-mart and that's already nea…

Kind of off topic, but do you have a recommendation on a good HDMI switch? I have struggled with the crappy ones from amazon many times. The most frustrating part is that their "remotes" all seem to overlap with regular tv remote frequencies or something, such that changing the volume on the tv ends up triggering an input switch.

Octava for a premium, bulletproof product. Kinivo or StarTech for low cost.
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