4 ms·

Amazon Says It Puts Customers First. But Its Pricing Algorithm Doesn’t

11 points by Gys 10y ago

thirdsun 10y ago
Frankly, I don't see that much of a problem here. First of all, Amazon views Prime as the default experience and naturally shows that pricing more prominently. Furthermore I think it's naive to assume that pricing should be the key factor for their ranking. As mentioned, there are probably lots of details that influence the ranking, however as an anecdote I can say that shipping by Amazon and Prime-enabled is one my personal key requirements. I'll only use third party sellers if there are significant pricing differences or no other options. I wouldn't be surprised if other customers behave the same way, regardless of preferred ranking.
Vendan 10y ago
I massively prefer FBA products, cause I do have Prime and FBA means I have it in 2 days. I hate dealing with non-FBA because experience has taught me that non-FBA stuff has no real shipping promises, and I've had times where it took 4 weeks or more to get stuff. So yeah, this seems like it's putting my wants first.
- hga 10y ago
  A couple of caveats on FBA: I've noticed in the last few years that they didn't pack FBA books hardly as well as they did their own, and I got quite a few that had suffered from sliding around in the box. I don't know if they're still as willfully careless, since I pretty much stopped buying books delivered that way. And I've had great overall experiences with Amazon Merchant booksellers shipping themselves, by following a couple of rules: really, really avoid anyone with a score lower than 96% and/or too few shipments to be statistically significant, and use that to bias choice. And try to get books scored better than Good, among other things, that means minor damage in shipping like bent corners is, to me, inconsequential. Also in theory avoids underlining/highlighting, which I really don't like (it can't be 100%, e.g. I remember both myself and the seller missing some underlining in the middle of the book until I actually read it). And I've been generally lucky when I choose to buy a "Good" quality book, ah, one other tip is to of course look for specific to the copy of the book condition description instead of boiler plate. Pretty much the same for CDs, although for my purposes a CD's case is sturdy enough to survive Amazon or anyone else's packing (can almost always replace the case if I want to anyway), and if you're really only interested in the music, you can sometimes get great deals when collateral is missing (inserts, covers, etc.). And in terms of shipping time, for general goods, a 96% rating and a realistic promise for delivery time is good enough. A company can't screw up too many times and maintain a good rating like that.
  - Vendan 10y ago
    It's not a matter of them "not meeting the promise", it's them promising "4~6 weeks delivery". Sure, they made the promise, but I'd rather pay $2 more for FBA and get it in 2 days.
    - hga 10y ago
      Ah, yeah, companies like that I never buy from, something that far out means either they don't have it in stock and e.g. may have trouble getting it, and you're likely to get a better deal elsewhere from a vendor that deals with the item in quantity, or they're so messed up they can't get it out any time sooner, which I take as a very bad sign. Of course, if something is being shipped slowly and therefore cheaply from e.g. Japan, that's fine. And the U.K. book and CD vendors take a while, but they don't quote periods hardly that long, and in my experience under-promise and over-deliever. But I'll frequently pay a bit more to get something sooner than from them.
zubairq 10y ago
Actually I think amazon does put customer service high on their list.... I wrote about it here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/day-31-write-every-carphone-warehouse-sucks-why-win-zubair-quraishi https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/day-31-write-every-carphone-w...
- hga 10y ago
  Good essay on the "semi-random acts of kindness can be paid back a hundredfold", but one thing I've noticed is that there are few sales channels that are worse than the ones for cellphones. Only bad experience my family has had on eBay was an iPhone who's cell radio didn't work (the rest did, including WiFi), and somehow the seller gamed eBay into screwing my father out of $300+ dollars. And you can just tell from the reviews and seller feedback that Amazon is not immune to this, I pretty much wouldn't buy a cellphone through them, unless it was directly from them, I'd, in the US, for example, go to B&H Photo Video first (see Joel On Software's essay on them for how serious they are about customer service, although that was written years after I started patronizing them). That said, I and my father have each bought a cell phone through Amazon without problem, back in 2012-3.
TheAdamist 10y ago
I wish i could configure amazon to never see 3rd party products/suppliers. Yeah you can do it on each search once you get into a category, But i'm on amazon.com to buy from amazon, not shady bobs fake electronics.

11 points by Gys 10y ago

Frankly, I don't see that much of a problem here. First of all, Amazon views Prime as the default experience and naturally shows that pricing more prominently. Furthermore I think it's naive to assume that pricing should be the key factor for their ranking. As mentioned, there are probably lots of details that influence the ranking, however as an anecdote I can say that shipping by Amazon and Prime-enabled is one my personal key requirements. I'll only use third party sellers if there are significant pricing differences or no other options. I wouldn't be surprised if other customers behave the same way, regardless of preferred ranking.

Vendan 10y ago

I massively prefer FBA products, cause I do have Prime and FBA means I have it in 2 days. I hate dealing with non-FBA because experience has taught me that non-FBA stuff has no real shipping promises, and I've had times where it took 4 weeks or more to get stuff. So yeah, this seems like it's putting my wants first.

hga 10y ago
A couple of caveats on FBA: I've noticed in the last few years that they didn't pack FBA books hardly as well as they did their own, and I got quite a few that had suffered from sliding around in the box. I don't know if they're still as willfully careless, since I pretty much stopped buying books delivered that way. And I've had great overall experiences with Amazon Merchant booksellers shipping themselves, by following a couple of rules: really, really avoid anyone with a score lower than 96% and/or too few shipments to be statistically significant, and use that to bias choice. And try to get books scored better than Good, among other things, that means minor damage in shipping like bent corners is, to me, inconsequential. Also in theory avoids underlining/highlighting, which I really don't like (it can't be 100%, e.g. I remember both myself and the seller missing some underlining in the middle of the book until I actually read it). And I've been generally lucky when I choose to buy a "Good" quality book, ah, one other tip is to of course look for specific to the copy of the book condition description instead of boiler plate. Pretty much the same for CDs, although for my purposes a CD's case is sturdy enough to survive Amazon or anyone else's packing (can almost always replace the case if I want to anyway), and if you're really only interested in the music, you can sometimes get great deals when collateral is missing (inserts, covers, etc.). And in terms of shipping time, for general goods, a 96% rating and a realistic promise for delivery time is good enough. A company can't screw up too many times and maintain a good rating like that.
- Vendan 10y ago
  It's not a matter of them "not meeting the promise", it's them promising "4~6 weeks delivery". Sure, they made the promise, but I'd rather pay $2 more for FBA and get it in 2 days.
  - hga 10y ago
    Ah, yeah, companies like that I never buy from, something that far out means either they don't have it in stock and e.g. may have trouble getting it, and you're likely to get a better deal elsewhere from a vendor that deals with the item in quantity, or they're so messed up they can't get it out any time sooner, which I take as a very bad sign. Of course, if something is being shipped slowly and therefore cheaply from e.g. Japan, that's fine. And the U.K. book and CD vendors take a while, but they don't quote periods hardly that long, and in my experience under-promise and over-deliever. But I'll frequently pay a bit more to get something sooner than from them.

zubairq 10y ago

Actually I think amazon does put customer service high on their list.... I wrote about it here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/day-31-write-every-carphone-warehouse-sucks-why-win-zubair-quraishi https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/day-31-write-every-carphone-w...

hga 10y ago
Good essay on the "semi-random acts of kindness can be paid back a hundredfold", but one thing I've noticed is that there are few sales channels that are worse than the ones for cellphones. Only bad experience my family has had on eBay was an iPhone who's cell radio didn't work (the rest did, including WiFi), and somehow the seller gamed eBay into screwing my father out of $300+ dollars. And you can just tell from the reviews and seller feedback that Amazon is not immune to this, I pretty much wouldn't buy a cellphone through them, unless it was directly from them, I'd, in the US, for example, go to B&H Photo Video first (see Joel On Software's essay on them for how serious they are about customer service, although that was written years after I started patronizing them). That said, I and my father have each bought a cell phone through Amazon without problem, back in 2012-3.

TheAdamist 10y ago

I wish i could configure amazon to never see 3rd party products/suppliers. Yeah you can do it on each search once you get into a category, But i'm on amazon.com to buy from amazon, not shady bobs fake electronics.