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Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

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Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#91
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cancelled it because Amazon's abusing their position. Refusing to sell Chromecast and Apple TV, then lying, repeatedly, about the reason when asked? I've been an Amazon customer for 13 years. I was rather annoyed to see them go with the anti-Wikileaks and try to be "sensitive" by banning certain cultural items. But this shows they've zero commitment to selling products customers want. Edit: And it really hurts. Som…

Maybe you don't like it, and you are fully within your rights to cancel, but it is not abuse. They can or should be able to carry whatever products they damn well please.

I think that was his point, he's critical of Amazon because they lied about their reasoning for not carrying the products, not questioning the legality of not carrying specific products.

I thought that was obvious, and a charitable interpretation of his post would've made this clear, I think.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#92
post #43

He knows the importance of image and says all the right things to tug at your heart strings... they're fighting global warming, they're helping single moms, and they're running a startup-like environment unlike the other big evil corporations.

Yeah, obvious window-dressing is obvious.

Bezos does not give a flying fuck about the wellbeing of his workers, both in the warehouse and in engineering.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#93
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I've heard. A quick search found me this: > The company loses an estimated $1 billion to $2 billion on Prime shipping annually http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-free-shipping-killing-am... Amazon wants market share enough to absorb a loss on shipping costs. It's part of why Amazon is still not profitable.

Saying Amazon is absorbing a loss on shipping costs to get market share implies that that they're engaged in predatory pricing (i.e. they're selling below cost to get market share with the intent to raise prices once competition has been destroyed). There might be some truth to that, but the better explanation for why Amazon isn't profitable is that it's simply plowing all of its profits back into the business. This…

It's not uncommon for an ecommerce site to charge less for shipping than it actually costs them (for perception/psychology reasons), and make up the difference on margin or services.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#95
post #83
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at it that way, it's kind of impressive that Yahoo! is still around.

I honestly don't have the slightest clue how yahoo stays in business. And I don't mean that as rhetoric, either. Other than Bloomberg I don't get where the money comes from. I hope it's not organized crime... I'd probably read a biography of the company out of curiosity.

Search, advertisement and stock.

For example they have worth ~40B in Asian stock.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like being that irresponsible one. Though it is impressive that Amazon has turned a delivery fee - that most people don't like paying - into an exclusive subscription service. A service that customers fall over themselves to sign up for when it's offered at a discount.

I cancelled it because Amazon's abusing their position. Refusing to sell Chromecast and Apple TV, then lying, repeatedly, about the reason when asked? I've been an Amazon customer for 13 years. I was rather annoyed to see them go with the anti-Wikileaks and try to be "sensitive" by banning certain cultural items. But this shows they've zero commitment to selling products customers want. Edit: And it really hurts. Som…

I cancelled it because I was buying crap I didn't need. I cancelled it because I noticed the prices of items rising. I cancelled it because I felt guilty about a huge truck delivering an AM radio. I cancelled it because I was having problems with third party sellers.

The real reason I cancelled it; the prices went up. It was slight at first, but after reading feedback, I noticed a trend. They all bought their item at a lower cost than Me.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#97
AWS and Prime are winners. So is marketplace, he says. Maybe financially for Amazon, but from a customer standpoint I think marketplace is a real failure. It's the reason I tell relatives not to buy on Amazon, because several got burned so many times by accidentally buying from dodgy sellers, thinking it was from Amazon.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#98
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you don't like it, and you are fully within your rights to cancel, but it is not abuse. They can or should be able to carry whatever products they damn well please.

I think that was his point, he's critical of Amazon because they lied about their reasoning for not carrying the products, not questioning the legality of not carrying specific products. I thought that was obvious, and a charitable interpretation of his post would've made this clear, I think.

Yep. Several CSRs told me "Oh it's out of stock" (not explaining the 404, or no "marketplace" vendors). I escalated. Then I was told the Chromecast was not sold due to "too many complaints". A supervisor then flat out denied that, as well as denied there being any ban on any such product.

I asked about the Apple TV. After other lame "stocking" issues, a supervisor said "oh, we don't have licenses to sell Apple TV" and went on about how there's all sorts of legal issues.

It's vile for a company that's supposedly pro-consumer.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#99
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cancelled it because Amazon's abusing their position. Refusing to sell Chromecast and Apple TV, then lying, repeatedly, about the reason when asked? I've been an Amazon customer for 13 years. I was rather annoyed to see them go with the anti-Wikileaks and try to be "sensitive" by banning certain cultural items. But this shows they've zero commitment to selling products customers want. Edit: And it really hurts. Som…

Maybe you don't like it, and you are fully within your rights to cancel, but it is not abuse. They can or should be able to carry whatever products they damn well please.

Sure, but it flatly contradicts everything Bezos says in this letter, and elsewhere, about Amazon being customer-focused rather than competitor-focused.

A truly customer-focused company would sell the products its customers wanted, even if they competed with the company's own-brand products. And demand for these competing products would be seen as a spur to improve their own.

I personally don't think the Amazon's talk of customer-focus is entirely marketing fluff, but I do think it's unevenly applied. Petty, anti-customer, monopolistic business practices have been a mainstay of the tech industry for years, and it's inevitable that they would infect Amazon to some extent.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#100
post #3

You have to love this sentence "We want Prime to be such a good value, you’d be irresponsible not to be a member."

Then Amazon is going to have to become much much better.

I live in London, UK and do not use Prime. I've almost stopped using Amazon altogether now.

Why?

1. Delivery - For our flat, their network either fails to deliver, mis-delivers or screws up in some other way far more than they succeed. There is no option to choose the one postal service that shines for my property: Royal Mail. Anything I order from Amazon may turn up eventually, but certainly isn't going to arrive whenever they claim. This is my #1 reason for abandoning Amazon.

2. Range and choice - Either you can't find what you want (the range within cycling for example is extremely limited) and have to look elsewhere, or you're swamped with marketplace sellers and what feels like a million grey goods. The Google engineer's "Which USB type-C cables are good" illustrates the sheer number of items that are of shoddy quality but are represented on the site as being of quality. There is simply, too much crap and not enough quality.

3. Price - I simply don't find Amazon the cheapest at almost anything. On their site it looks cheaper, always discounted, but if you take the manufacturers' SKU and Google it one quickly finds a whole load of places selling it for the same price or cheaper, also with free postage, or cheaper to the point that postage is irrelevant.

4. Bundling - Amazon Prime Video really isn't as good as Netflix, Amazon Prime Now isn't beating Shutl for me in London https://shutl.com/uk/, free postage hasn't been compelling (point #3)... but somehow bundling all of these things together into an ~£80 per year subscription is supposed to make a range of sub-par offerings value for money?

5. Warranty - I've purchased things on Amazon Prime, thinking they were covered by Amazon's customer service, only to discover that the obscure market place seller is really the seller and so my warranty complaints go back to them. They've been overseas and uninterested, and I've had to simply write-off the value of those items. If I buy elsewhere I can factor this in a lot more and choose a reputable seller. Depending on the item, i.e. I recently purchased a 40" 4K Sony TV, then I really want to be sure these high value items are going to be covered by a company that delivers great customer service... John Lewis in my case. There needs to be a Public Service Announcement in the photography section for the sheer number of lens that wouldn't be covered by warranty.

I actually view Prime as nothing more than a hook, to keep shoppers too lazy to look around under a spell of "this is a bargain, you're receiving great value".

In reality what Amazon once was is a long way from what they now are and Prime is a mask for that.

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