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Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

bentasker.co.uk

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Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#61

Post by r00fus »

stoorafa wrote: post #32

Amazon took something like 30 days to deliver me an iPad (Pro, so $900) that was supposed to be “Prime” delivered. I asked them to cancel the order after seven days, and repeatedly asked them to cancel, but they wouldn’t. They seem to follow the old Ferengi adage of “Once you have their money, you never give it back” Edit: I returned it for a refund, but was out a decent amount do money for a while.

I simply refuse to buy high value items from Amazon these days. Especially Apple products.

In fact I tend to buy most goods via local same-day delivery or pickup.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#62

Post by blagie »

xkekjrktllss wrote: post #47

Amazon is a private enterprise and its profit is soaring, which means this is simply a non-issue. I thought HN knew how free markets worked but I guess not.

Amazon's market cap soared when profits were negative. Amazon was building up reputation, logistics, and customer relations. As far as I can tell, they've been torching all of that long-term value for about the past three years.

That's a huge loss of value.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#63

Post by handedness »

User23 wrote: post #21
raincom wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USPS is considered safer, because of federal charges. Some wise people suggested to use priority/express mail, along with insurance, if one wants it more secure in the USPS system.

Postal inspectors take this sort of thing very seriously.

Lately I've been seeing comments like this surprisingly often, but my firsthand experience tells me otherwise.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#64

Post by upon_drumhead »

barake wrote: post #50
SkyPuncher wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We cancelled prime this year. I was surprised that shipping cost and timeframes haven’t changed. In fact, on many items it seems like it’s faster to not use prime.

We've had the same experience. Prime shipments were 5-7 days regardless of order size, now most items show up in 1-2 days. Not sure the logic in that.

If you're getting FBA, it's just an optimization of throughput. If there's enough folks in your area with Prime, trucks are going around your neighborhood daily anyway, so it's better to send a full truck, even if it means things get there early, then to send a partially empty truck twice.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#65

Post by himinlomax »

iamcalledrob wrote: post #17

Amazon (US) has really gone downhill in the past ~5 years. I signed up for Prime a over decade ago because of the reliable 2 day shipping. It worked pretty much as described. It was great. Shipping is no longer 2 days on most items - "Prime" shipping can now take 7 days. Amazon advertise same or next day shipping, but it's really only for big ticket, occasional purchase items. Most everyday purchases now take 3-7 day…

In Paris I get next day delivery on most items.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#66

Post by xkekjrktllss »

blagie wrote: post #62
xkekjrktllss wrote: post #47

Amazon is a private enterprise and its profit is soaring, which means this is simply a non-issue. I thought HN knew how free markets worked but I guess not.

Amazon's market cap soared when profits were negative. Amazon was building up reputation, logistics, and customer relations. As far as I can tell, they've been torching all of that long-term value for about the past three years. That's a huge loss of value.

When were profits negative? AFAIK Amazon.com may lose money but AWS more than makes up for it. Amazon.com is a long game to monopolize retail logistics, which they are just now starting to offer as a service to other retailers, meaning Amazon.com is of less importance.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#67

Post by alibarber »

Huh - I've had Amazon prime 'guaranteed' n-day delivery fail twice in succession for a 90GBP textbook. I'll put this down to incompetence rather than malice, but imagining the disappointment of any potential thief of it served as some compensation.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#68

Post by Gorbzel »

ohdannyboy wrote: post #33
iamcalledrob wrote: post #17

Amazon (US) has really gone downhill in the past ~5 years. I signed up for Prime a over decade ago because of the reliable 2 day shipping. It worked pretty much as described. It was great. Shipping is no longer 2 days on most items - "Prime" shipping can now take 7 days. Amazon advertise same or next day shipping, but it's really only for big ticket, occasional purchase items. Most everyday purchases now take 3-7 day…

Maybe it varies by location because in Chicago it's extremely rare for things to take more than 2 days. In fact they've been stepping up next and same day delivery for a lot of items. That being said, I'm actually moving in the opposite direction since that creates a lot of waste. Unless I really need the item quickly I use Prime Day delivery so it all comes in one box. If my whole family didn't share the account I w…

The theft problem doesn’t vary at all in Chicago. I’m in a North (west) Side neighborhood and receive about 83% of Amazon packages, with the rest being stolen or just not delivered. Compare this with a 100% success rate for items delivered by UPS, USPS, or FedEx.

I figure at some point I’ll fall below whatever metrics Amazon has internally, they’ll stop resending/refunding packages, and I’ll have to fight the same battle as in the article. If anything, OP unfortunately/correctly teaches that empathy, common sense, and treating level 1 workers as human have no place with Bezos…you have to assume the worst and treat everything as a cost/blame situation.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#69

Post by blagie »

iamcalledrob wrote: post #17

Amazon (US) has really gone downhill in the past ~5 years. I signed up for Prime a over decade ago because of the reliable 2 day shipping. It worked pretty much as described. It was great. Shipping is no longer 2 days on most items - "Prime" shipping can now take 7 days. Amazon advertise same or next day shipping, but it's really only for big ticket, occasional purchase items. Most everyday purchases now take 3-7 day…

Not ≈5 years. Three years and 9 months. Amazon's retail division was broken by Covid and will probably never fix itself.

I have no inside knowledge, but I suspect what happened is a bunch of crooks were hired during the massive hiring spree to keep up with Covid demand, and there wasn't capacity to investigate every fraud, theft, and scam. Internal fraud went from zero to prolific almost overnight. Prime also stopped being able to deliver in two days, and never recovered.

It's been three years, and it seems a permanent culture change at this point. The only CEOs I've seen recover a business from this sort of shitshow were Steve Jobs and Satya Nadella. Most businesses can't recover from this. I hope Amazon can, but realistically, I'm very sceptical.

On the upside, there's a huge opening for a competitor, if anyone wants to do a startup :)

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#70

Post by xkekjrktllss »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #48
xkekjrktllss wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What do you think the answer is? I'm not familiar with this, but it certainly does seem like the startup world is completely backwards, and anything VC funded should be considered toxic.

[flagged]
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