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Exactly this, the customer service for the average consumer from Amazon is very difficult to beat and is Google's biggest weakness. Bought some cables from Ama

Exactly this, the customer service for the average consumer from Amazon is very difficult to beat and is Google's biggest weakness. Bought some cables from Amazon Basic, one ended up not working, another had some cosmetic damage but works fine. They refunded both, sent out replacements, and just told me to discard them, it wasn't worth it for Amazon to pay to have it shipped back. Of course if you abuse this too much Amazon will ban you. If you are an honest consumer though, their customer service generally provides a great experience. I still remember a time when everyone was afraid of purchasing stuff over the internet, Amazon has so greatly reduced the friction and concern that sometimes I find myself going from "hmm, I need something" to "it will be here tomorrow" in the matter of a minute or two. Although more competition in this space would ultimately benefit the consumer, it seems unlikely that Google is going to be the source of that competition. They've got shopping results integrated into their search engine, and it's a feature I've maybe browsed from time to time, but I often just end up searching and purchasing on amazon directly. I don't know if I would be super comfortable purchasing from Google in the same way that I am with Amazon, too many horror stories of App Developers / YouTube Creators / etc getting caught in some sort of Machine Learning Customer Support system. Curious if others use the Google Shopping thing in the search engine and what their experiences are with it.

amelius 6y ago
> Exactly this, the customer service for the average consumer from Amazon is very difficult to beat and is Google's biggest weakness. Amazon's customer service is a robot, which switches to someone in a callcenter in India, and then finally switches to a local person. I know because I recently had to contact them. Not sure how this is "difficult to beat".
- marcinzm 6y ago
  It's difficult to beat because those people can issue refunds. Now you need to deal with buyers scamming the system, sellers scamming the system, customer service employees scamming the system, and idiots. That's a lot of complexity to balance that can cost you a lot of money if not done well. In an industry with very low margins.
- murgindrag 6y ago
  It's difficult to beat because prices are a race to the bottom, and small players have no effective way to build up and manage reputations. If I need a widget, and Vendor A charges a buck, while Vendor B charges two bucks, all else being equal, I'll buy from Vendor A. Bad customer service helps both vendors compete with each other, but prevents small companies, collectively, from competing with Amazon. On eBay, small players do manage reputations, but only for a few weeks. If a product fails (or is discovered to be a fake) after 60 days, the seller is all good. Next sucker! There are things I'll buy there, but far more I won't. Google itself has the problem that culturally, it relies on algorithms which know better than you do, and is not a service company. It does great tech, but holds human being outside of Google in open contempt. That's find for running a search engine, adwords, or gmail, but it crashes-and-burns for ecommerce.

amelius 6y ago

> Exactly this, the customer service for the average consumer from Amazon is very difficult to beat and is Google's biggest weakness. Amazon's customer service is a robot, which switches to someone in a callcenter in India, and then finally switches to a local person. I know because I recently had to contact them. Not sure how this is "difficult to beat".

marcinzm 6y ago
It's difficult to beat because those people can issue refunds. Now you need to deal with buyers scamming the system, sellers scamming the system, customer service employees scamming the system, and idiots. That's a lot of complexity to balance that can cost you a lot of money if not done well. In an industry with very low margins.
murgindrag 6y ago
It's difficult to beat because prices are a race to the bottom, and small players have no effective way to build up and manage reputations. If I need a widget, and Vendor A charges a buck, while Vendor B charges two bucks, all else being equal, I'll buy from Vendor A. Bad customer service helps both vendors compete with each other, but prevents small companies, collectively, from competing with Amazon. On eBay, small players do manage reputations, but only for a few weeks. If a product fails (or is discovered to be a fake) after 60 days, the seller is all good. Next sucker! There are things I'll buy there, but far more I won't. Google itself has the problem that culturally, it relies on algorithms which know better than you do, and is not a service company. It does great tech, but holds human being outside of Google in open contempt. That's find for running a search engine, adwords, or gmail, but it crashes-and-burns for ecommerce.