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Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

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

#301

Post by a123b456c »

londons_explore wrote: post #284
sjansen wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A bit of friction, if applied correctly, is not a terrible thing I observed the same thing in a different context in my previous gig doing Linux training. We strived to make our books as clear and simple as possible. When we discovered streps in our labs that confused students, we would rewrite them to avoid repeating the problem in future classes. Eventually I started noticing a tipping point where if the lab did…

I once ran an ecommerce site, and due to a bug every customer saw a fairly cryptic error message. It was something along the lines of "You must login to perform that action". Our site didn't have a login system. By fixing that bug, conversions went down . We literally did an A/B test to prove that giving the user a stupid error increased revenue. We even played with the text of the error to maximize revenue. We never…

Or something else changed at the same time. Hard to know without a control group.

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

#302

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#303

Post by londons_explore »

a123b456c wrote: post #301
londons_explore wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once ran an ecommerce site, and due to a bug every customer saw a fairly cryptic error message. It was something along the lines of "You must login to perform that action". Our site didn't have a login system. By fixing that bug, conversions went down . We literally did an A/B test to prove that giving the user a stupid error increased revenue. We even played with the text of the error to maximize revenue. We never…

Or something else changed at the same time. Hard to know without a control group.

We did a randomised A/B test.

To ensure it wasn't some other wierd effect, we also fixed the bug and then deliberately re-added the same error message.

This bug was worth 15% of our revenue, so we did a lot of tests and trials...

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

#304

Post by gruez »

detaro wrote: post #285
unishark wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is arbitration so bad exactly? The implication seems to be that Amazon has a better chance of winning, but I never see how that is backed up.

Arbitration is done by a company picked by Amazon, paid by Amazon, hoping to remain in business with Amazon, deciding about a conflict between Amazon and a random customer. In whose direction are they likely to err?

I can't comment on the arbitration clauses that Amazon uses, but the arbitration clauses I've seen usually says the arbitrator is randomly assigned by the american arbitration association.

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

#305

Post by LorenPechtel »

Two things here:

1) Binding arbitration. The arbiters know which side of the bread is buttered, you have to have a pretty extreme case to win in binding arbitration. It should be nuked from orbit.

2) Comingled inventory--there's no mention of whether he used it or not. If it's used and someone else sends Amazon counterfeits that get sent to your customer you get blamed for the counterfeit. The only reason they can be sloppy like this is because of #1.

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

#306

Post by iosonofuturista »

a123b456c wrote: post #301
londons_explore wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once ran an ecommerce site, and due to a bug every customer saw a fairly cryptic error message. It was something along the lines of "You must login to perform that action". Our site didn't have a login system. By fixing that bug, conversions went down . We literally did an A/B test to prove that giving the user a stupid error increased revenue. We even played with the text of the error to maximize revenue. We never…

Or something else changed at the same time. Hard to know without a control group.

Do you know what an A/B test is? It has a control group by design.

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

#307

Post by unishark »

detaro wrote: post #285
unishark wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is arbitration so bad exactly? The implication seems to be that Amazon has a better chance of winning, but I never see how that is backed up.

Arbitration is done by a company picked by Amazon, paid by Amazon, hoping to remain in business with Amazon, deciding about a conflict between Amazon and a random customer. In whose direction are they likely to err?

Who exactly is that company? One of the first steps in arbitration is for both parties to agree on a choice of arbiter. Looking at Amazon's webpage it names the American Arbitration Association which appears to be a pretty big non-profit. Step two in their road map here includes the arbiter choice step: https://www.adr.org/sites/default/files/document_repository/...

If amazon is just insisting on "their guy" then I would think that should be pointed out in much bigger letters. From Amazon's perspective I can see lots of incentives: faster, cheaper, no appeals, no class-actions, probably no giant punitive judgements. But they may not have any better chance of actually winning them.

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

#308

Post by DenisM »

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…

Kind of like Brazil “dot com” then.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film)

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

#309

Post by [deleted] »

sjansen wrote: post #255
mwexler wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"…

> A bit of friction, if applied correctly, is not a terrible thing I observed the same thing in a different context in my previous gig doing Linux training. We strived to make our books as clear and simple as possible. When we discovered streps in our labs that confused students, we would rewrite them to avoid repeating the problem in future classes. Eventually I started noticing a tipping point where if the lab did…

[deleted]

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

#310

Post by whack »

londons_explore wrote: post #284
sjansen wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A bit of friction, if applied correctly, is not a terrible thing I observed the same thing in a different context in my previous gig doing Linux training. We strived to make our books as clear and simple as possible. When we discovered streps in our labs that confused students, we would rewrite them to avoid repeating the problem in future classes. Eventually I started noticing a tipping point where if the lab did…

I once ran an ecommerce site, and due to a bug every customer saw a fairly cryptic error message. It was something along the lines of "You must login to perform that action". Our site didn't have a login system. By fixing that bug, conversions went down . We literally did an A/B test to prove that giving the user a stupid error increased revenue. We even played with the text of the error to maximize revenue. We never…

Sounds like a variant of the Ikea effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect

Though I'd also be wary of the impact these bugs are having on your brand name, and reputation. You might have stumbled into a local maxima.

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