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I'll add that this past year, multiple times the site told me my Prime shipping delivery date would be X. No further communication to indicate a delay. Indeed

I'll add that this past year, multiple times the site told me my Prime shipping delivery date would be X. No further communication to indicate a delay. Indeed, the system shows the product shipped from whatever source. X would come and pass with no package. It would arrive on Y or even Z. I no longer trust Amazon's committed and communicated delivery dates. I suppose I could be all pro-active and self-advocating and repeatedly complain until I get some credits or whatever -- or at least an acknowledgment of the individual situation. But, that's not really the point of Prime, is it? It's supposed to reduce my hassle. Not this year, Amazon. Maybe before you continue your relentless expansion, you should shore up your extant services that built you your current position. As for me, I'm debating whether I allow or kill my 12/1 Prime auto-renewal. It's also more than a bit insulting to see new members getting Prime sign up deals for $80, year after year, while you're charging me $100. Who's been the loyal customer? Are you focused solely on growth? Are you such a "monster", "too big to fail", that you don't need to and don't worry about retention? I'm starting to more actively consider and use alternate purchasing vectors, despite Amazon's erstwhile convenience and payment data security. P.S. The Bluetooth speaker I order came with a small dent. A lot of items now ship "rattling" around inside a poorly packed shipping box. And the Amazon Basics USB C cable whose page says it supports fast charging, doesn't. My Amazon experience has been increasingly crappy. The one thing that's improved is that Prime video doesn't pixelate and stutter especially after first starting, like it used to.

mikestew 10y ago
I'll add that this past year, multiple times the site told me my Prime shipping delivery date would be X. No further communication to indicate a delay. Well, that's disappointing. Myself, I find myself being notified of the delay almost immediately. Let me walk you through it: 1. Page for the item says, "Order in the next 4 hours and get it by Tuesday". 2. Sounds sweet, I really need it by Tuesday. Order now with 1-Click, please 3. Email shows up seconds later: "Your item will arrive on Wednesday!" Fuckers. That's not a one-off, either, I'm finding it to happen pretty regularly these days.
- hga 10y ago
  Yeah, I don't do 1-Click (e.g. didn't start Prime until 2 years ago), and I've seen that sort of thing on my consolidated orders when I check out. Sometimes I can get it isolated to one of the items in my cart, although it can't remember if they then came from different warehouses. Don't know about this being a Dark Pattern, though, vs. Amazon regressing to the mean, as others have noted in this context in other HN discussions, there are bound to be consequences to treating your technical staff horribly, with search's eternal awfulness being front and center.
  - mikestew 10y ago
    Don't know about this being a Dark Pattern, though I don't know, either. Frankly, of late I'm content to write it off as either apathy, incompetence, or left-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-right-is-doing. In the end, I don't care other than intellectual curiosity so that I don't slide into the same cesspool in my work. What matters, in a world of nearly infinite online vendors, is Amazon's reputation. Without that, they're nothing in my book. And in my book, Amazon's reputation isn't anything near what it was ten years ago. Nothing major, I guess, but that reputation is being chipped away one hammer stroke at a time. Knock-off items, okay, I can mitigate that. Blatantly lied about when my item will be delivered? Bah, I grew up in an age of "allow 4-6 weeks for delivery", one more day won't kill me. But those things start to add up. Which is why I continue to seek out other vendors, and don't see myself doing much business with them in the next couple of years.
    - hga 10y ago
      Good point, and for that matter, a Dark Pattern they could decide is a bad idea (especially if it's not authorized at a high enough level) would be a lot better than a regression to the mean, which is much harder if not impossible to fix. I still have a higher trust in them than pretty much any other general on-line merchant (a finely honed BS detector and general suspicious nature about anything "too good to be true" makes a difference, plus watching my father get burned on an iPhone purchase on eBay where the merchant played eBay like a fiddle) ... but they're getting me to start to look at others, which is not what I think they want....
shostack 10y ago
Honest question... If discounting the first year for new customers gives them growth with negligible churn from existing users, why would they offer a discount to loyal users and unnecessarily hurt their margins/LTV? I feel like this comes up a lot with subscription pricing. Is it not enough that they try to continually add value to the service despite the issues they encounter?
- pasbesoin 10y ago
  They're getting worse at many things while asking for more money. Since we are otherwise treated the same, I and other existing members are essentially subsidizing that intro rate. For a system that, per my complaints above, is becoming worse rather than better while taking on those new customers. Also per my original comment, keep the stuff you're already doing working and working well, before adding on the new stuff. Maybe the new stuff attracts new customers. But the worse stuff is pissing me -- Mr. Retention -- off.

mikestew 10y ago

I'll add that this past year, multiple times the site told me my Prime shipping delivery date would be X. No further communication to indicate a delay. Well, that's disappointing. Myself, I find myself being notified of the delay almost immediately. Let me walk you through it: 1. Page for the item says, "Order in the next 4 hours and get it by Tuesday". 2. Sounds sweet, I really need it by Tuesday. Order now with 1-Click, please 3. Email shows up seconds later: "Your item will arrive on Wednesday!" Fuckers. That's not a one-off, either, I'm finding it to happen pretty regularly these days.

hga 10y ago
Yeah, I don't do 1-Click (e.g. didn't start Prime until 2 years ago), and I've seen that sort of thing on my consolidated orders when I check out. Sometimes I can get it isolated to one of the items in my cart, although it can't remember if they then came from different warehouses. Don't know about this being a Dark Pattern, though, vs. Amazon regressing to the mean, as others have noted in this context in other HN discussions, there are bound to be consequences to treating your technical staff horribly, with search's eternal awfulness being front and center.
- mikestew 10y ago
  Don't know about this being a Dark Pattern, though I don't know, either. Frankly, of late I'm content to write it off as either apathy, incompetence, or left-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-right-is-doing. In the end, I don't care other than intellectual curiosity so that I don't slide into the same cesspool in my work. What matters, in a world of nearly infinite online vendors, is Amazon's reputation. Without that, they're nothing in my book. And in my book, Amazon's reputation isn't anything near what it was ten years ago. Nothing major, I guess, but that reputation is being chipped away one hammer stroke at a time. Knock-off items, okay, I can mitigate that. Blatantly lied about when my item will be delivered? Bah, I grew up in an age of "allow 4-6 weeks for delivery", one more day won't kill me. But those things start to add up. Which is why I continue to seek out other vendors, and don't see myself doing much business with them in the next couple of years.
  - hga 10y ago
    Good point, and for that matter, a Dark Pattern they could decide is a bad idea (especially if it's not authorized at a high enough level) would be a lot better than a regression to the mean, which is much harder if not impossible to fix. I still have a higher trust in them than pretty much any other general on-line merchant (a finely honed BS detector and general suspicious nature about anything "too good to be true" makes a difference, plus watching my father get burned on an iPhone purchase on eBay where the merchant played eBay like a fiddle) ... but they're getting me to start to look at others, which is not what I think they want....

shostack 10y ago

Honest question... If discounting the first year for new customers gives them growth with negligible churn from existing users, why would they offer a discount to loyal users and unnecessarily hurt their margins/LTV? I feel like this comes up a lot with subscription pricing. Is it not enough that they try to continually add value to the service despite the issues they encounter?

pasbesoin 10y ago
They're getting worse at many things while asking for more money. Since we are otherwise treated the same, I and other existing members are essentially subsidizing that intro rate. For a system that, per my complaints above, is becoming worse rather than better while taking on those new customers. Also per my original comment, keep the stuff you're already doing working and working well, before adding on the new stuff. Maybe the new stuff attracts new customers. But the worse stuff is pissing me -- Mr. Retention -- off.