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Amazon’s $23M book about flies (2011)

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Re: Amazon’s $23M book about flies (2011)

#61

Post by runevault »

jevgeni wrote: post #42
anc84 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish Amazon reviews were useful and not a mixture of a) angry rants, b) bought reviews and c) jokes.

I have a system, where I read the most negative reviews of the book. If the reviews are eloquent and make a solid point, I don't buy the book. If the negative reviews are mostly whiny,emotional rants without any valid solid arguments, then the book is most definitely worth it. A case in point: http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Prog...

Huh didn't realize others do the same thing. I thought up this same method 7-8 years ago and I don't think it has ever steered me wrong. I may not always appreciate the book, but I can tell it is simply something that doesn't work FOR ME, which is always hard to gauge before you actually read something.

Re: Amazon’s $23M book about flies (2011)

#62

Post by paulcole »

At my last job, I wrote a bit about this:

https://sellerengine.com/top-5-myths-about-amazon-repricing-...

It's a funny situation to be sure, but remember that somebody was trying to sell that book, and their software screwed up in a way that just shouldn't happen, preventing them from making that sale.

Re: Amazon’s $23M book about flies (2011)

#63

Post by paulcole »

codeulike wrote: post #60

The other day we wanted a copy of the children's book 'Vincent the Vain', a short picture book about a gorilla. 'Daily Deal' are selling a copy for £999.11. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0747584990 But they're the only people selling a new copy, so its not a feedback loop as in OP. So whats going on there?

It might be a case of the seller using that price as a placeholder until they get the book back in stock. Amazon prefers that vendors keep items in stock, so this is one way to do that, even if you're currently sold out.

I used to work for a company making software for Amazon vendors and don't think Amazon cares that much, but lots of vendors believe it is true.

Re: Amazon’s $23M book about flies (2011)

#64

Post by kidnoodle »

radmuzom wrote: post #51
jevgeni wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a system, where I read the most negative reviews of the book. If the reviews are eloquent and make a solid point, I don't buy the book. If the negative reviews are mostly whiny,emotional rants without any valid solid arguments, then the book is most definitely worth it. A case in point: http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Prog...

(Off-topic) The top rated review of this book is from Peter Norvig. He states "For most books, the review is a bell-shaped curve of star ratings". However, as a habitual window-shopper of books in Amazon, I have rarely come across rating distributions which look like normal. In my experience, 2 and 3 ratings are much less common than 5, 4 or 1.

I have a blog post I've never quite finished writing, walking through some analysis of the 34,686,770 Amazon reviews in the Stanford SNAP dataset (https://snap.stanford.edu/data/web-Amazon.html, but there's a newer and better one at http://jmcauley.ucsd.edu/data/amazon/).

Somewhat surprisingly, the median review score is 5, and if you look at median scores for products, the skew is very much left. So, the data pretty much backs up your observation!

Re: Amazon’s $23M book about flies (2011)

#65

Post by paulcole »

yc1010 wrote: post #29
martin-adams wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this. You would have to use gift cards in store to dispose of the cash, and even at $100 gift cards, you'd be looking at 236,987 cards to purchase before you can buy the book. I used to have Play.com vouchers through my credit card and wanted to buy a new camera, only the listings were from dodgy sellers and £100 more than Amazon. I did think about listing an item, then buying it myself to convert it to cash.

Well 23 million is a bit of an overkill and I am sure Amazon would raise flags at some stage! but if you look on amazon for products in the 500-1000 range such as electronics (where amazon only takes 6-8% commission) there are plenty of examples of 3rd parties SOMEHOW selling new electronics below amazon itself! These guys are willing to lose 6-8% on lets say a hard drive and another few % to undercut Amazon from who…

If someone is paying less than Amazon, they can easily undercut. Additionally, what if they'd been selling the product and then Amazon comes along and wins the buy box. A 3p seller might be willing to take a loss to just sell out remaining product to reinvest in a new item that Amazon isn't selling yet. There are a few other situations I can think of too where someone would undercut Amazon, even if it meant losing money.

There's really no way to understand someone's business model by only looking at their price.

Re: Amazon’s $23M book about flies (2011)

#66

Post by walterbell »

ctdonath wrote: post #52
jevgeni wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a system, where I read the most negative reviews of the book. If the reviews are eloquent and make a solid point, I don't buy the book. If the negative reviews are mostly whiny,emotional rants without any valid solid arguments, then the book is most definitely worth it. A case in point: http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Prog...

I'll second that method. Positive reviews are uninteresting; 1-star reviews reveal whether there really is a problem/deficiency, as usually the complaint is unrelated ("product arrived damaged"), misguided (expectations were bafflingly far from what product is, "this washcloth is a lousy database manager"), or a fluke (50,000 5-star reviews and one "one page was folded, replacement was fast & free").

Works for Yelp reviews too, after disabling "Yelp Sort".

Re: Amazon’s $23M book about flies (2011)

#67

Post by mseebach »

martin-adams wrote: post #18
rtpg wrote: post #14

Is it even possible to purchase $23 million on a credit card?

Yes. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8152278.stm

That was obviously a fluke, and very unlikely that the transaction was actually cleared through the credit card network, it was probably an error at the bank's end of things.

A payment that (if the rumour is true) actually cleared through:

> Rumor has it that tech millionaire Victor Shvetsky purchased a business jet for $52 million on this card [American Express Centurion]

http://www.bjtonline.com/business-jet-news/supercharged-cred...

Re: Amazon’s $23M book about flies (2011)

#68

Post by radmuzom »

kidnoodle wrote: post #64
radmuzom wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Off-topic) The top rated review of this book is from Peter Norvig. He states "For most books, the review is a bell-shaped curve of star ratings". However, as a habitual window-shopper of books in Amazon, I have rarely come across rating distributions which look like normal. In my experience, 2 and 3 ratings are much less common than 5, 4 or 1.

I have a blog post I've never quite finished writing, walking through some analysis of the 34,686,770 Amazon reviews in the Stanford SNAP dataset ( https://snap.stanford.edu/data/web-Amazon.html , but there's a newer and better one at http://jmcauley.ucsd.edu/data/amazon/ ). Somewhat surprisingly, the median review score is 5, and if you look at median scores for products, the skew is very much left. So, the data pre…

Thank you for the links. And very timely - was looking for datasets to run some analytical and visualization experiments.

Re: Amazon’s $23M book about flies (2011)

#69

Post by zhte415 »

rtpg wrote: post #14

Is it even possible to purchase $23 million on a credit card?

Technically, yes. Source: Working with IT engineers working on credit card systems, it is fine but like all cards has to be worked through compliance modules.

Technically, not really: Source: Working in Banking Ops where red flags that should but don't exist in a system get raised by it. A single @23 million transaction is unlikely to bankrupt any bank but if approved by the CC system will probably be approved (a huge credit limit, or more commonly, internally approved balance/one-off credit) has to be there) then denied internally causing all sorts of trouble.

Transactions of $Xbns are commonplace in banking (non credit card, bank transfer) and credit card systems are certainly built for transactions of $100mns, though, as stated above, it would be immediately alerted probably to the bank's head of operations.

But, I've seen technology/operations mistakes that have had $100mns impact before. Usually a bit more obscure than buying something on Amazon.

Re: Amazon’s $23M book about flies (2011)

#70

Post by scott_s »

jevgeni wrote: post #42
anc84 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish Amazon reviews were useful and not a mixture of a) angry rants, b) bought reviews and c) jokes.

I have a system, where I read the most negative reviews of the book. If the reviews are eloquent and make a solid point, I don't buy the book. If the negative reviews are mostly whiny,emotional rants without any valid solid arguments, then the book is most definitely worth it. A case in point: http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Prog...

I do that, but as a source of entertainment. The one star reviews for works (books, comics, movies) that I think are masterpieces generally come from a perspective that I have difficulty wrapping my head around.
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