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I think reviews have lost most value, but mainly due to Amazon’s co-mingling of inventory, merging similar product listings, and overall massive counterfeit pro

I think reviews have lost most value, but mainly due to Amazon’s co-mingling of inventory, merging similar product listings, and overall massive counterfeit problems. Even if you have a high quality review from a trusted source (Wirecutter? Friends and family?) you have no way to know if what you receive will be equivalent to the thing they endorsed. This happened to me recently with an exercise bike which was an absolute piece of trash compared to what my sister bought and recommended. It makes me want to completely avoid Amazon.

CaptainZapp 7y ago
It makes me want to completely avoid Amazon. Then why don't you? I seriously don't want to be glib, but I read so many complaints about Amazon, their intermingling of stock from various, partially shady sources, fakes, dodgy reviews, which they do shit-all about, etc, etc. Personally I don't buy at Amazon since when they pulled a bait and switch on their privacy pledge, which was pretty much in the beginning. Their predatory behavior, their treatment of employees, their not giving a fuck if you get sent fakes, their systemic viloation of privacy, their dodgy support of law enforcement and their overall creepy behaviour all just reinforce me in this and frankly: I can live quite well without buying anything at Amazon. So I'm genuinly curious: Why do so many people still buy despite an avalanche of complaints?
- jurassic 7y ago
  I have significantly reduced but not eliminated my purchases. When I buy, it’s usually due to convenience and habit built up over nearly 20 years of being an Amazon customer. Also, in my latest job they sometimes give out spot bonuses in the form of $500 amazon gift cards, which brings me back to the site. It’s taking me longer and longer to spend those. It’s getting to where I only want to buy books on the site because even a counterfeit book (yes, I’ve received one of those too which was a scanned pdf of the original manufactured with print-on-demand tech) more or less gets the job done.
- jdjb 7y ago
  I have a few reason why I almost exclusively shop online at Amazon. I try to trust as few companies as possible with my credit card details. Amazon having nearly anything I need makes this easier and convenient. I prefer the convenience of a brick and mortar store (the convenience being able to browse the products in real life and take it home with me immediately) but it's not always possible to find what I'm looking for locally. Lastly, for every person complaining here on Hacker News about their one anecdotal issue with Amazon there's thousands of products being shipped every minute that have no issue. Amazon mostly works, though I wouldn't trust it for very large fragile things.
- gwd 7y ago
  > So I'm genuinly curious: Why do so many people still buy despite an avalanche of complaints? Personally, I do try to avoid them. Originally it was because I didn't want them to grow in market power; now its' because the results are a lot worse. But it's not always possible. Probably 80-90% of the time I'm able to find what I'm looking for somewhere else. But sometimes what I'm looking for I can only really find on Amazon. That, and people still buy me Amazon gift cards.
  - richardhod 7y ago
    politely return the cards, with reasons, and thanks, suggesting an alternative outlet for gift cards they can buy you?
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > That, and people still buy me Amazon gift cards. When people give me gift cards of any sort, I just sell them to someone else outright.
- richardhod 7y ago
  I agree. Do you have a good set of alternative sources that you know aren't as dodgy? I used to use (and still do sometimes) ones like newegg, but I have no idea whether they're much better
  - CaptainZapp 7y ago
    Not really. I still try to mostly buy at brick and mortar stores. Especially when it comes to books. While Amazon may be cheaper I moan for independent book sellers going bust, because they just can't match the prices, let alone the cost structure of the behemoth. And I think they provide a valuable cultural service, which Amazon couldn't care less about.
- cy_hauser 7y ago
  >> Then why don't you? Free shipping! For me this is what keeps me coming back. Just two days ago I needed to get hair color for my wife. Went to the Target site. A nickel a box cheaper. I couldn't get the order up to their minimum for free shipping so I ended up back at Amazon and clicked the buy button. Again. I watch my pennies pretty carefully because my household isn't very wealthy. I purchase where the price is best. When I factor in shipping "best" is still mostly Amazon.
  - ryandrake 7y ago
    eBay sellers offer free shipping for most items I buy, and I don't have to spend some minimum amount or buy some ridiculous "prime" subscription.
    - tachion 7y ago
      Good luck enforcing your consumer rights onto a seller on eBay, when you buy something there, you either rely on manufacturer's warranty either you're dead in the water if anything goes wrong with it, if the item comes from less than stellar maker. And that's the main reason a lot of people avoid eBay and the likes.
- jsight 7y ago
  > So I'm genuinly curious: Why do so many people still buy despite an avalanche of complaints? Because, despite their many problems, their customer service is still better than most (maybe all) of their direct competitors.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > their customer service is still better than most (maybe all) of their direct competitors. I've only needed customer support from Amazon twice, but both times my experience was really bad.
    - jsight 7y ago
      I've only needed them a handful of times in the past 20 years and they've been nothing but phenomenal. Refunds or replacements have been really easy and they've made the process as seamless as it could be.
- mikestew 7y ago
  Not the OP, but I avoid Amazon when I can, but not completely. I'll give you an example, both of the convenience of Amazon combined with my consumerist, instant-gratification attitude. After a ton of remodeling, our garage now not only can store a car, it can be used as a yoga or meditation space. But fall is here, and it needs a little heat. Fifty years ago I remember my Dad used this cheap-looking infrared heater; rolled sheet metal, some carbon or metal strips, run some alternating current through it, you have heat. Inexpensive, quiet (don't want a fan blowing during meditation time), I'll get couple of those, crawl in the ceiling to mount electrical boxes, it'll be awesome. Except no one has them locally. Even Amazon can't get them to me in a reasonable amount of time (within the next week). Oh, well, too bad; what can I find that puts out heat without a blower? Home Depot has nothing, regional hardware store doesn't have anything. Amazon has eighteen different models to choose from, a half dozen of which they'll drop on my doorstep the same day. I could have fished around the internet, found the heaters I originally wanted, wait a week or so. And then crawl in the attic to do a bunch of work that I'm in the mood to do today, not next week. Or I could just click the "buy" button for heater that will not be exactly what I wanted, but let's be real, it'll more than do the job. And I can be done with it and go on with my day. So that's what I did. And that pretty much describes the thought process with any of my Amazon purchases these days. "I could spend more time on this and find an alternative. But today I have decided that my time is better spent doing something else, so imma click the Amazon 'buy' button." Yes, I have much room for personal growth there. But Amazon also makes it pretty damned convenient. (As an addendum, I'll also note that not too long ago when I went with the alternative, the next day my credit card was compromised. So there's that to consider.)
- JohnFen 7y ago
  I ignore Amazon reviews, but I do use Amazon. They aren't my first stop, though. I have a hierarchy. If I can't find what I need at a local store, then I search the web. If I can't find a website that has what I need and is at least in my country, I hit up Amazon. If I can't find what I need on Amazon, then I stop by eBay.
  - jplayer01 7y ago
    I have the same system, except I prefer EBay over Amazon, and thus end up never having to resort to Amazon. IMO, even though EBay itself isn’t a German company, their business model isn’t nearly as monopolistic/anticompetitive as Amazon's, which makes them the lesser evil.
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      I have to admit that I've been drifting this direction as well, but for different reasons. Amazon has been getting to be more of a pain in the butt over the past couple of years, as so many sketchy third-party sellers have been cropping up. If I don't pay very close attention, I can end up placing an order from a seller that isn't what I thought, and turns out to be someone that I would have wanted to avoid. Essentially, it's the same amount of caution that has always been necessary with eBay, and thus removes most of the advantages Amazon had over eBay. Given that, I may as well just go directly to eBay.
- rurp 7y ago
  Do you happen to have a general purpose e-commerce site to recommend? I've been trying to use Amazon less and less but there are still quite a few miscellaneous items that I can't find on Jet or Walmart. I'd rather not have account and credit card info saved at dozens of merchants if I can help it; that's the one thing still keeping me at Amazon.
- rcurry 7y ago
  I’ve used Amazon for years, probably spend between $5k to $8k a year and have never encountered any of the problems you describe. The primary value of Amazon is that they have a superb return process - if you’re a legit customer who does a lot of business on their platform you never have to sweat the return process, they just make it right for you. I think their customer service is why I keep going back to them - it’s way above most other vendors. If I have a problem with something, I just want it fixed - and Amazon has no problem with that, so I keep using them.
  - vonseel 7y ago
    "I’ve used Amazon for years, probably spend between $5k to $8k a year and have never encountered any of the problems you describe. " That sounds hard to believe. I encounter co-mingling of reviews all the time. And to be clear, I'm a huge fan of Amazon and buy almost everything except groceries through them, but the review quality is pretty inconsistent on many items. Co-mingling is the biggest and most obvious issue I have faced, but I'm sure fake or fraudulent reviews are another big issue that's not immediately obvious to reviewers.
ashelmire 7y ago
This is far from an Amazon-specific problem. Glassdoor allows you to pay to remove bad reviews. So does Yelp. I bet G and others do too. Of course, even easier than paying to remove bad ones is paying to add fake good reviews. Another issue is apps and such annoying you until you submit a review. Leave a bad one? Then they annoy you with more follow up, so you're pressured to leave a good review so they stop bothering you.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  The vast majority of hidden yelp reviews I've seen are filtered out due to account age/connectedness (8 out of every 10 hidden reviewers I've seen on some restaurants had only one review or 0 friends on their account) or very low effort content. I wouldn't be surprised if there's also a date-based filter involved in the algorithm to detect brigades or coordinated efforts to attack a place. I'd like to see hard evidence of claims that Yelp actually provides review inflation. It would also be very hard for organizations as big as Yelp or Google to provide this service while covering up evidence of its existence.
xtracto 7y ago
I think about it in a more general sense. If you look at metacritic, you'll either see the knee-jerk reaction reviews from fan/foe players with 0 information or the "professional" reviews that mostly read as disguised ads. Long gone are the times of good, researched reviews. Which in my opinion is another face of the deprecation of content value (ie people not paying for high quality researched content). Same as why news channels now have people panels instead of investigative journalism. Also the fact that most companies forbid benchmarks... they are incredibly useful tools for comparing products.

CaptainZapp 7y ago

It makes me want to completely avoid Amazon. Then why don't you? I seriously don't want to be glib, but I read so many complaints about Amazon, their intermingling of stock from various, partially shady sources, fakes, dodgy reviews, which they do shit-all about, etc, etc. Personally I don't buy at Amazon since when they pulled a bait and switch on their privacy pledge, which was pretty much in the beginning. Their predatory behavior, their treatment of employees, their not giving a fuck if you get sent fakes, their systemic viloation of privacy, their dodgy support of law enforcement and their overall creepy behaviour all just reinforce me in this and frankly: I can live quite well without buying anything at Amazon. So I'm genuinly curious: Why do so many people still buy despite an avalanche of complaints?

jurassic 7y ago
I have significantly reduced but not eliminated my purchases. When I buy, it’s usually due to convenience and habit built up over nearly 20 years of being an Amazon customer. Also, in my latest job they sometimes give out spot bonuses in the form of $500 amazon gift cards, which brings me back to the site. It’s taking me longer and longer to spend those. It’s getting to where I only want to buy books on the site because even a counterfeit book (yes, I’ve received one of those too which was a scanned pdf of the original manufactured with print-on-demand tech) more or less gets the job done.
jdjb 7y ago
I have a few reason why I almost exclusively shop online at Amazon. I try to trust as few companies as possible with my credit card details. Amazon having nearly anything I need makes this easier and convenient. I prefer the convenience of a brick and mortar store (the convenience being able to browse the products in real life and take it home with me immediately) but it's not always possible to find what I'm looking for locally. Lastly, for every person complaining here on Hacker News about their one anecdotal issue with Amazon there's thousands of products being shipped every minute that have no issue. Amazon mostly works, though I wouldn't trust it for very large fragile things.
gwd 7y ago
> So I'm genuinly curious: Why do so many people still buy despite an avalanche of complaints? Personally, I do try to avoid them. Originally it was because I didn't want them to grow in market power; now its' because the results are a lot worse. But it's not always possible. Probably 80-90% of the time I'm able to find what I'm looking for somewhere else. But sometimes what I'm looking for I can only really find on Amazon. That, and people still buy me Amazon gift cards.
- richardhod 7y ago
  politely return the cards, with reasons, and thanks, suggesting an alternative outlet for gift cards they can buy you?
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > That, and people still buy me Amazon gift cards. When people give me gift cards of any sort, I just sell them to someone else outright.
richardhod 7y ago
I agree. Do you have a good set of alternative sources that you know aren't as dodgy? I used to use (and still do sometimes) ones like newegg, but I have no idea whether they're much better
- CaptainZapp 7y ago
  Not really. I still try to mostly buy at brick and mortar stores. Especially when it comes to books. While Amazon may be cheaper I moan for independent book sellers going bust, because they just can't match the prices, let alone the cost structure of the behemoth. And I think they provide a valuable cultural service, which Amazon couldn't care less about.
cy_hauser 7y ago
>> Then why don't you? Free shipping! For me this is what keeps me coming back. Just two days ago I needed to get hair color for my wife. Went to the Target site. A nickel a box cheaper. I couldn't get the order up to their minimum for free shipping so I ended up back at Amazon and clicked the buy button. Again. I watch my pennies pretty carefully because my household isn't very wealthy. I purchase where the price is best. When I factor in shipping "best" is still mostly Amazon.
- ryandrake 7y ago
  eBay sellers offer free shipping for most items I buy, and I don't have to spend some minimum amount or buy some ridiculous "prime" subscription.
  - tachion 7y ago
    Good luck enforcing your consumer rights onto a seller on eBay, when you buy something there, you either rely on manufacturer's warranty either you're dead in the water if anything goes wrong with it, if the item comes from less than stellar maker. And that's the main reason a lot of people avoid eBay and the likes.
jsight 7y ago
> So I'm genuinly curious: Why do so many people still buy despite an avalanche of complaints? Because, despite their many problems, their customer service is still better than most (maybe all) of their direct competitors.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > their customer service is still better than most (maybe all) of their direct competitors. I've only needed customer support from Amazon twice, but both times my experience was really bad.
  - jsight 7y ago
    I've only needed them a handful of times in the past 20 years and they've been nothing but phenomenal. Refunds or replacements have been really easy and they've made the process as seamless as it could be.
mikestew 7y ago
Not the OP, but I avoid Amazon when I can, but not completely. I'll give you an example, both of the convenience of Amazon combined with my consumerist, instant-gratification attitude. After a ton of remodeling, our garage now not only can store a car, it can be used as a yoga or meditation space. But fall is here, and it needs a little heat. Fifty years ago I remember my Dad used this cheap-looking infrared heater; rolled sheet metal, some carbon or metal strips, run some alternating current through it, you have heat. Inexpensive, quiet (don't want a fan blowing during meditation time), I'll get couple of those, crawl in the ceiling to mount electrical boxes, it'll be awesome. Except no one has them locally. Even Amazon can't get them to me in a reasonable amount of time (within the next week). Oh, well, too bad; what can I find that puts out heat without a blower? Home Depot has nothing, regional hardware store doesn't have anything. Amazon has eighteen different models to choose from, a half dozen of which they'll drop on my doorstep the same day. I could have fished around the internet, found the heaters I originally wanted, wait a week or so. And then crawl in the attic to do a bunch of work that I'm in the mood to do today, not next week. Or I could just click the "buy" button for heater that will not be exactly what I wanted, but let's be real, it'll more than do the job. And I can be done with it and go on with my day. So that's what I did. And that pretty much describes the thought process with any of my Amazon purchases these days. "I could spend more time on this and find an alternative. But today I have decided that my time is better spent doing something else, so imma click the Amazon 'buy' button." Yes, I have much room for personal growth there. But Amazon also makes it pretty damned convenient. (As an addendum, I'll also note that not too long ago when I went with the alternative, the next day my credit card was compromised. So there's that to consider.)
JohnFen 7y ago
I ignore Amazon reviews, but I do use Amazon. They aren't my first stop, though. I have a hierarchy. If I can't find what I need at a local store, then I search the web. If I can't find a website that has what I need and is at least in my country, I hit up Amazon. If I can't find what I need on Amazon, then I stop by eBay.
- jplayer01 7y ago
  I have the same system, except I prefer EBay over Amazon, and thus end up never having to resort to Amazon. IMO, even though EBay itself isn’t a German company, their business model isn’t nearly as monopolistic/anticompetitive as Amazon's, which makes them the lesser evil.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    I have to admit that I've been drifting this direction as well, but for different reasons. Amazon has been getting to be more of a pain in the butt over the past couple of years, as so many sketchy third-party sellers have been cropping up. If I don't pay very close attention, I can end up placing an order from a seller that isn't what I thought, and turns out to be someone that I would have wanted to avoid. Essentially, it's the same amount of caution that has always been necessary with eBay, and thus removes most of the advantages Amazon had over eBay. Given that, I may as well just go directly to eBay.
rurp 7y ago
Do you happen to have a general purpose e-commerce site to recommend? I've been trying to use Amazon less and less but there are still quite a few miscellaneous items that I can't find on Jet or Walmart. I'd rather not have account and credit card info saved at dozens of merchants if I can help it; that's the one thing still keeping me at Amazon.
rcurry 7y ago
I’ve used Amazon for years, probably spend between $5k to $8k a year and have never encountered any of the problems you describe. The primary value of Amazon is that they have a superb return process - if you’re a legit customer who does a lot of business on their platform you never have to sweat the return process, they just make it right for you. I think their customer service is why I keep going back to them - it’s way above most other vendors. If I have a problem with something, I just want it fixed - and Amazon has no problem with that, so I keep using them.
- vonseel 7y ago
  "I’ve used Amazon for years, probably spend between $5k to $8k a year and have never encountered any of the problems you describe. " That sounds hard to believe. I encounter co-mingling of reviews all the time. And to be clear, I'm a huge fan of Amazon and buy almost everything except groceries through them, but the review quality is pretty inconsistent on many items. Co-mingling is the biggest and most obvious issue I have faced, but I'm sure fake or fraudulent reviews are another big issue that's not immediately obvious to reviewers.

ashelmire 7y ago

This is far from an Amazon-specific problem. Glassdoor allows you to pay to remove bad reviews. So does Yelp. I bet G and others do too. Of course, even easier than paying to remove bad ones is paying to add fake good reviews. Another issue is apps and such annoying you until you submit a review. Leave a bad one? Then they annoy you with more follow up, so you're pressured to leave a good review so they stop bothering you.

ilikehurdles 7y ago
The vast majority of hidden yelp reviews I've seen are filtered out due to account age/connectedness (8 out of every 10 hidden reviewers I've seen on some restaurants had only one review or 0 friends on their account) or very low effort content. I wouldn't be surprised if there's also a date-based filter involved in the algorithm to detect brigades or coordinated efforts to attack a place. I'd like to see hard evidence of claims that Yelp actually provides review inflation. It would also be very hard for organizations as big as Yelp or Google to provide this service while covering up evidence of its existence.

xtracto 7y ago

I think about it in a more general sense. If you look at metacritic, you'll either see the knee-jerk reaction reviews from fan/foe players with 0 information or the "professional" reviews that mostly read as disguised ads. Long gone are the times of good, researched reviews. Which in my opinion is another face of the deprecation of content value (ie people not paying for high quality researched content). Same as why news channels now have people panels instead of investigative journalism. Also the fact that most companies forbid benchmarks... they are incredibly useful tools for comparing products.