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Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

theguardian.com

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Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#311

Post by spwa4 »

mlrtime wrote: post #310
spwa4 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's "loss leader", selling under the price to make your competitors go bankrupt, then use monopoly power. It's illegal under German law, EU law, and I'm sure it's also explicitly called out as illegal in at least 5 trade treaties Germany signed. Needless to say, like everything in the EU, it's only enforced against local companies, in this case German ones.

Or, it's easier for Amazon to have a consistent customer experience everywhere in the world. But that would make too much sense?

Yep, I'm sure it's the brilliance of Amazon and not the same old trick of creating a monopoly then exploiting it that people have been using since the early middle ages and regularly outlawed because it destroys economies.

Say ... what was Amazon's initial reason for success? Being cheaper by exploiting the interstate commerce clause to avoid paying sales tax when it's competitors weren't allowed to do so? You don't say. Amazon is famous for losing money on their delivery business (up until recently)? It's constantly repeated in 10+ years of their financial statements ...

So either Amazon has completely changed tactics and become truly brilliant and we still don't understand the plan ... or they're up to their old tricks, being slightly cheaper, now with less legality!

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#312

Post by dwedge »

mlrtime wrote: post #308
dwedge wrote: post #64

I bought a $120 book from Amazon a couple of months ago, internationally, and they sent the wrong book. I told them, and they said they'd refund it, don't need to send it back, and they'd even add $15 credit. The refund never arrived so a few weeks later I got in touch again and they said I need to send it back if I want a refund. They told me the previous CSR had lied to improve ratings. I asked who I can complain t…

>They told me the previous CSR had lied to improve ratings This was over chat? You have the transcript? I find it hard to believe they would say this. Amazon CSR have a very strict script they have to go by. But they do lie, get everything in writing.

Transcript doesn't get emailed out. I have screenshot but realistically who is going to care?

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#313

Post by rentaprogrammer »

What I've found on Amazon product listings is that honest reviews are buried underneath thousands of vague, five star reviews. Nowadays you can churn out tons of positive reviews with AI. Product reviews on Amazon are completely meaningless today. My experiences with multiple products differ vastly from those reported on the product page.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#314

Post by gniv »

dwedge wrote: post #64

I bought a $120 book from Amazon a couple of months ago, internationally, and they sent the wrong book. I told them, and they said they'd refund it, don't need to send it back, and they'd even add $15 credit. The refund never arrived so a few weeks later I got in touch again and they said I need to send it back if I want a refund. They told me the previous CSR had lied to improve ratings. I asked who I can complain t…

My refund experience on Amazon (France) has been the best I've ever had. Just a wizard that led me through about 6 questions, at the end of which it said your refund is approved. Took about 5 minutes, all automated.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#316

Post by madaxe_again »

b112 wrote: post #306
madaxe_again wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go look at the website - you have to use authenticao.gov, which requires a digital mobile key, which requires a citizen card, which I cannot have unless I am a citizen. The offline process requires me to travel 200km each way to spend a day queuing. Amazon Spain are Spanish, and are not subject to the Portuguese livro de reclamações. As to making a chargeback - I like having a bank account, and being able to pay for…

Saying "It's not available to not citizens" is wildly and massively different than "It's more work for non-citizens". It's literally a lie and dishonest. And given you've already said things that are not true, I'm highly skeptical that there are not other means to handle this. I bet there are ways to access authenticao.gov without being a citizen. I bet there are ways that you don't have to go 200km. You can probably…

Perhaps you shouldn’t shoot your mouth off on shit you don’t know about and resort to calling people liars.

You can only use authenticao.gov if you have a citizen card. This is a fact. The offline process involves physically going to the office in Porto, which is 200km from me. There are no forms you can just mail. I have been through this. Shit, go try the process yourself if you’re so sure.

You also evidently know nothing about EU law. The EU issues directives. Member states implement them. They are national pieces of legislation, not transnational.

As for chargebacks, the last time I did one, over a hire car that didn’t materialise, my bank put me through the wringer, and I no longer bank with them.

Anyway, thank you for your enlightened fucking comment.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#317

Post by dabockster »

The largest moat I’ve seen with Amazon and e-commerce in general has been the logistics aspect of it. Because even when 90%+ of the goods sold are junk, the remaining 10% are lower volume niche items or hard to find in retail stores for various reasons. E-commerce can absolutely unleash underserved and redlined areas, for example.

So honestly, I think we haven’t even gotten close to the rock bottom point where people will actually start cancelling things like Prime. Especially while the competition still won’t sell their goods to “dirty” areas. And then people wonder why Amazon and Walmart are so big.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#318

Post by coryfklein »

Friedduck wrote: post #242
qcnguy wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is in a hard spot with this stuff. They have massive problems with refund fraud, where people buy things and returning fake or used items in the box. Asking for ID is one way they try to spot people who are engaged in this activity repeatedly. When you refused to show your ID and did a chargeback, you did the exact same thing actual fraudsters end up doing, and of course they need to fraudulent accounts as oth…

While understanding their motivation to combat fraud they have a 20-year purchase history and have already established identity through payment methods. This is just lazy and perhaps additional data harvesting. Amazon got so large they stopped paying attention to the details.

Fraudsters almost certainly gain access to old accounts specifically to "buy" that trust and then farm it for their own uses.

I wonder how much a 20-yr old Amazon account is worth on the grey market. Mine is about that old, and I have – legimately – returned thousands of dollars worth of goods (that were faulty or just didn't work the way I liked) and it is probably very difficult for Amazon to distinguish between my legitimate returns and a hypothetical alternative where I'm a fraudster that just purchased this old account and am laundering broken electronics through the returns system.

Re: Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

#320

Post by giroro »

Here's a specific example. IMDB (an Amazon company) forces you to watch a movie trailer for a movie you don't want to see in order to watch a movie trailer for a movie you actually want to see.

You have to watch an 2-minute ad in order to unlock the privilege to view the same kind of 2-minute ad. I'm not sure weather to call that absurdism or dystopian, but it's nuts. More importantly, it is friction. It actively stops the customer from doing what amazon (or its advertisers) actually want them to do.

This same thoughtlessness to the impacts of decision making has been inexplicably implemented into Amazon's companies at every level. This is a big problem for Amazon customers, especially. Amazon's insistence on advertising blocks customers from spending money. Every unrelated "sponsored" product in the search results gives that much more opportunity for a buyer to look on a different site. Serving an ad has inexplicably become a higher priority than closing a sale. Look at Amazon's "are you really sure you actually want to buy that" page they are now using to try and upsell customers before letting them check out. To say the least, it is a fundamental change in philosophy from the company who invented single-click checkout and "Buy it Now".

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