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Amazon has a genuine problem with their reputation brewing at this point. Here's an example: Try to buy replacement printer ink for a HP 8600 printer. This is

• Shivetya 11y ago
  as my parents found out, its easier and better to buy from ebay. sadly it can be safer too
  • nxzero 11y ago
    Curious, why is it easier and safer on eBay?
    • jacquesm 11y ago
      Better fraud and anti-scam measures.
      • nxzero 11y ago
        Agree, though while fraud a related issue, standards complaince might just be neglected or due in my opinion to standards that don't enforce complaince with parts or devices. For example, I've bought OEM parts that were non-standard, and in some cases, had quality issues; bought OEM headset once that out of the box would delivery and electric shock to my ears; they replaced the product, but point is being OEM does not equal high quality.
        • jacquesm 11y ago
          If a headset delivers an electrical shock to your ears I think you have other problems, unless you meant an electrostatic discharge. An actual shock means that the device you are connecting to is faulty, not the headset.
          • nxzero 11y ago
            Right, the cord itself was collect a charge an wiring defect didn't ground it back into the device.
• nxzero 11y ago
  What percentage of there customer base would make a purchase like the ones you're describing; that is, consumers that would by OEM products I the value and option of doing so was obvious and easy. Honestly don't see this as a threat to Amazon, though would agree it's potential a threat to your view of the world. For example, take another large consumer electronics retailer like Walmart. Does Walmart's in store or online offering solve your issues?
  • CPLX 11y ago
    If Amazon has an online shopping entry for an new box of printer ink, and what shows up is a refilled cartridge in a white bag that your printer won't recognize and is useless, that's a class of problem relevant to 100% of their customer base, methinks.
    • nxzero 11y ago
      You seriously believe most people (that is 100% of people) still own a printer? Most people I know stopped owning a printer a long time ago. Most people I know, when the need to replace a OEM cord need to do so same day offline; that is they need their device working, and without a cord, it'll run out of power. Most people buy the cheapest option that meets their needs; in fact, most OEM cords normally don't, due to them normally being too short. Again, is Walmart a solution to your issue?
      • michaelt 11y ago
        You seriously believe most people (that is 100% of people) still own a printer? I would say at least 95% of people purchasing printer ink on Amazon still own a printer. That seems like a pretty uncontroversial statement to me.
        • nxzero 11y ago
          Amazon's customer base is not limited to people that still own a print and want to buy ink, and owned a printer that has issues with the cartridge purchased. My question how mean customers have this issue; no one I know does.
• cdubzzz 11y ago
  I have had a similar experience trying to buy laptop power adapters on Amazon. Always lots of well rated options and the appearance of being original parts but never quite that. I've given up recently and only buy them direct from the manufacturers.
• emilburzo 11y ago
  > And don't get me started on the switch to USPS shipping. What did they use before and why is the change bad? (European curiosity)
  • jwmerrill 11y ago
    FedEx and UPS. Maybe also DHL sometimes? I've had much better experiences with these than USPS. Package tracking with USPS is a fiction, and they have claimed to have attempted to deliver a package that they never attempted to deliver on multiple occasions.
    • CPLX 11y ago
      I have sat in my office or home and watched a package go from "out for delivery" to "delivery attempted" while I'm there, have been there the whole time, and nobody ever attempted anything. Then once that happens they don't try again, you have to go to the post office to get it. And given that I live in NYC, going to the post office is invariably more time consuming than going to an actual store nearby that sells the thing I ordered, thus completely destroying the rationale for using Amazon in the first place. Amazon shopping used to be amazing, like magic awesome customer service. Things are very different in 2016.
    • emilburzo 11y ago
      Ah, I see. On amazon.co.uk (ordering from outside the UK) the 'standard' shipping is always through each country's post office (similar to USPS, I think). Only expedited shipping brings the luxuries of UPS/DHL.
    • aroch 11y ago
      Weekend delivery by USPS is the worst. Every damn time, it seems like they'll mark a package as "delivery attempted, business closed" even though I live in an apartment building with a separate mailroom USPS totally has access to.
      • pquerna 11y ago
        Just happened to us this weekend, exact same situation. I wonder if it is because USPS Weekend delivery isn't the normal "route" person, and they just don't try to get into multi-unit mailrooms?
• robk 11y ago
  I think the issue is the UI with how it handles stock out. When amazon as seller runs out of stock it rotates the next best option which sometimes is a marketplace seller. The ui does not make this clear so people think they're buying an oem part from Amazon but getting reseller garbage.
  • twoodfin 11y ago
    I suspect that this problem is exacerbated because the retailer's margins on the real products are so slim—or even negative. Amazon (really, its stocking algorithm) has no incentive to supply them directly. In contrast, the high margin fakes must look really appealing to feature.
  • hga 11y ago
    For me, for lots of categories but maybe not ones filled with fakes, Amazon routinely puts a marketplace seller before themselves if the price including shipping is cheaper. More than a few times I hunt down the Amazon offering for a dollar or so more so I'm assured of good service.
• goda90 11y ago
  The same is true of replacement cell phone batteries. I imagine the OEM is somewhat at fault for not producing enough, but you either have to risk a fake or settle with a third party option where you at least know the brand.
  • jacquesm 11y ago
    The OEM could produce all they want, they can't police Amazon, it's not their website after all. The problem is with older stuff where the OEM simply doesn't sell the product any more and the difference between 'hard to get new old stock' and 'outright fake sold as genuine product' is almost impossible to tell before you have the product in your hands.
• smalolia 11y ago
  You're dead on about fake products. It's the sort of problem that seems small but erodes trust. I'm a heavy Amazon shopper (over $10k per year) who has started moving my spend away from Amazon to retailers with better curation, and higher reliability. They've opened the door for a competitor to slip in; only question is whether or not they realize what they've done.
  • jacquesm 11y ago
    Fake products is one thing, sellers listing stuff they don't even have or have no intention of shipping is another. This sort of thing totally turned me off from Amazon. Yes you get your money back (eventually), but it bugs me no end that the people that engage in scams like this either simply continue to operate as Amazon sellers or will re-appear within a few hours or days of getting booted out with the exact same inventory. Amazon could learn a thing or two from Ebay in this respect (and that's saying something with the number of scams and fake products on Ebay).
• Spooky23 11y ago
  When Amazon started with third party sellers, it was like the best of EBay without the bullshit. Now, Amazon is in this weird coop-itition thing with the sellers, and quality sellers have a disincentive to operate. So you're left with the old EBay crowd -- people hustling cheap crap.
• coldpie 11y ago
  Their introducing non-Amazon sellers on Amazon.com has really put me off. When I'm ordering from Amazon, I know I'm going to get what I paid for, shipped quickly, with an easy returns process. If I wanted to compare seller ratings, decide on trustworthiness vs price, etc etc I'd go to eBay. I really wish there was some option to just turn the marketplace completely off when I know I just want to buy from Amazon.
  • CPLX 11y ago
    > I really wish there was some option to just turn the marketplace completely off when I know I just want to buy from Amazon. This actually would solve much of the problem. I've tried to figure out how to do this. My theory was that limiting the search to sold by Amazon.com would accomplish this, but it doesn't seem to actually work that way in practice. It's possible also that the customer reviews are for all sellers of item X, so that the strange mix of 5-star "yes this is real in real box" reviews with 1-star "this is fake in a white envelope" reviews when looking at item X is due to some kind of aggregation of all sellers of item X, and not individualized. Either way it's a UX disaster.
    • ntpeters 11y ago
      Not sure, but I think checking "Prime Only" essentially accomplishes this because you can only get Prime shipping on items sold or fulfilled by Amazon. Obviously is only relevant to Prime users, but at least it's something.
      • cdubzzz 11y ago
        To be fair, it's not only relevant to Prime users if you just want to make sure you are getting product fulfilled by Amazon (which definitely cuts down on the risk). I am not a Prime user and I occasionally do this to filter results.
      • CPLX 11y ago
        That's not it. There's a lot of marketplace sellers that use fulfilled by Amazon and offer prime shipping.
• emodendroket 11y ago
  The other bizarre thing, to me, is that often searching Amazon won't turn up what I want but searching Amazon through Google will. I guess because you can pay to bump your stuff up inferior and more highly-priced items get listed higher up.
  • hga 11y ago
    I think it's more because Amazon's search engine is really bad, it's the worst I routinely use, I think the worst I've routinely used in my life, which for the purposes of this goes back to AltaVista in the early days of the web.
    • emodendroket 11y ago
      Yes, I'm not sure what extent is distortion by paid promotion and what extent is a poor search algorithm, but either way.
    • tzs 11y ago
      Their search can be annoying, but I've found their recommendations are usually pretty good. I've found that it often works well to simply go to amazon.com, do one search for the kind of thing I'm interested in, click a handful of results to intrigue Amazon's algorithms, and then go do other things until Amazon starts mailing me suggestions.