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Last month I bought a season of Shark Tank on Amazon Prime Video for something like $17.99. I queued up the first episode and I noticed something really wonky a

Last month I bought a season of Shark Tank on Amazon Prime Video for something like $17.99. I queued up the first episode and I noticed something really wonky about the audio - it was only coming out of one speaker. I thought it was my laptop, so I queued up a different episode from the same season - same result. I tried a different video on Prime Video and it worked fine. Fast forward three days later and I get email from Amazon out of the blue saying they realized the audio of the episodes in the season were messed up. Not only did they fix the audio problems (the next time I queued up an episode, it was fine), but gave me a full refund. This was totally unsolicited and it blew my mind.

mhh__ 6y ago
Although they do seem to be reverting to the mean as time goes by, regardless of how much people love to hate them there's a cultural reason why Amazon have done so well - even from people who dislike him I always read that Jeff Bezos sets the standard throughout Amazon of a ruthless focus on the customer.
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  I want to believe that but "the customers" hate the fake reviews, hate the counterfeit goods... Returning an item now is all over the map — it seems it depends on which 3rd party sold you the item. Yeah, they're backsliding. They need to get their house in order.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    Although I don't contend that the problem is real, is "hate the fake reviews, hate the counterfeit goods" an American thing because I have only ever seen this complaint on hackernews.
    - lukeramsden 6y ago
      It's a big problem here in the UK too, at least for me and the people I know.
      - MrPatan 6y ago
        Maybe I just can't tell what's a knockoff and what's not, but I've never noticed anything wrong coming from amazon. Maybe I just don't buy brand stuff? I've bought stuff that turned out to be shit, but I never thought there was a "real" version of it anywhere, just a shitty product.
    - dwater 6y ago
      The 3rd party sellers in your region may not have fully realized all the arbitrage opportunities that the sellers in the US market have. Give them time, they won't leave that money on the table forever. It might just not be enough for them to get to first.
      - tshaddox 6y ago
        That sounds remarkably close to magical thinking. It’s easier for me to believe that the complaints about counterfeit goods are coming from a vanishingly tiny but vocal minority than that I’m the tiny minority somehow surrounded by a cloak that prevents me from seeing the counterfeit goods.
        jawzz 6y ago
        These days, it's more and more common where you see a product with 4.5-5 stars with thousands of reviews, go to the reviews, and see that all the top ones are 1-star with complaints about the product being counterfeit or breaking quickly. I don't go on Hacker News often but I do use Amazon, and I see this all the time.
        birksherty 6y ago
        Have you considered that most people can't recognise fake reviews? It's pretty common in India too where sellers even give you discount for 5 star.
      - deanCommie 6y ago
        Not every capitalistic market in the world is a cuthroat race to the bottom like the USA. This isn't a naive statement - this is a reflection of other markets that have had decades longer to manifest in the various societies compared to Amazon. Food quality is higher, waste is lower, trust in government is higher, social programs can succeed, infrastructure projects are cheaper - all of this is universally true across progressive nations from Western Europe to Canada, compared to the US.
    - eznzt 6y ago
      Fake reviews are a problem here in Europe, but I haven't heard of counterfeit goods. What I don't like of Amazon now is how it is flooded with Chinese crap. It looks like Aliexpress.
      - at-fates-hands 6y ago
        > but I haven't heard of counterfeit goods. If you peruse some of the sneakerhead forums, you'll see a lot of complaints about counterfeit dealers on Amazon. Nike used to partner with Amazon so you were assured your Nike's were coming directly from Nike. Nike killed the deal in 2019 and so now you have no idea where those Nike's and other sneaker companies products are coming from: And the Wall Street Journal reported this week that Nike was “disappointed the deal with Amazon didn’t eliminate counterfeits and give the brand more control over gray-market goods,” which are legitimate items that Amazon sellers buy from distributors or retailers, rather than from Nike itself. The problem for Nike is, removing itself from the Amazon platform won’t fix that problem. In fact, it’s likely to get worse. Amazon will now look to acquire more “gray market” Nike products to fill in the inventory gaps Nike’s departure will leave behind. https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/14/20965434/nike-amazon-partnership-deal-breakup-counterfeits https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/14/20965434/nike-amazon-p... Now Chinese Nike knockoffs are showing up under dubious brands like "fashion" or "Vitike": https://sneakerhistory.com/2019/11/14/8-unbelievably-fake-sneakers-available-on-amazon/ https://sneakerhistory.com/2019/11/14/8-unbelievably-fake-sn...
        hnlmorg 6y ago
        You're replying to a question about Amazon in Europe with stories about Amazon in America. The question wasn't whether it happens in America. The question was whether it also happens in Europe (personally I've always assumed it does but my point is your articles don't address that despite being in response to that question).
        jjoonathan 6y ago
        > gray-market goods, which are legitimate items that Amazon sellers buy from distributors or retailers, rather than from Nike itself. Nike trying to cast distributors and retailers as "gray market" is a little gross.
    - rraghur 6y ago
      It's a problem here in India as well.. and trigger same Ali express said with a mark up as well
    - at-fates-hands 6y ago
      There's been plenty of articles about it: Jessica — not her real name — has spent well over $15,000 on Amazon this year, buying everything from Halloween decorations to a queen-size inflatable mattress. She's purchased over 700 products, including three vacuum cleaners, six desk chairs, and no fewer than 26 pairs of earbuds. And even though most of the products are cheaply made, she’s given each a 5-star review. The twentysomething who lives on the East Coast isn’t a bad judge of quality — the companies that sell these products on Amazon reimburse her for the purchases. Third-party sellers know what it takes to make it on Amazon: Get good reviews and a high search ranking. But attracting genuine customers is tough, so some sellers use a reliable cheat — bribes. Because of Amazon’s vast scale, inscrutable algorithms, and capricious enforcement of its own rules, unscrupulous sellers and paid shills largely get away with it. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/her-amazon-purchases-are-real-the-reviews-are-fake https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/her-amazon...
      - hnlmorg 6y ago
        The GP wasn't denying it happens in America (as your article demonstrates). He was asking how wide spread it is outside of America (which your article does not demonstrate). Not saying I disagree with your post, just saying that it doesn't actually address the comment you're replying to. In fairness to the GP, it does seem less prevalent in the UK (either that or the reports about fake reviews are greatly exaggerated in general) but there's definitely been a few reviews here that have "smelt off" -- either before purchasing or after having received the product. And I definitely know these bribes do happen too as I know of a few people who have been contacted. All of which refused to take the money.... but please do take this anecdotal sampling with a pinch of salt.
    - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      Are there any forums for Amazon users? Would they be English? Because Amazon has exactly the same problems in the UK, Germany, and Spain. Delivery and logistics are outstanding. But the rating/review/counterfeit/duplicate issues are a complete dumpster fire, and have made me pull back from using the site.
  - simsla 6y ago
    I suspect that most of these problems are being actively worked on. Unfortunately, while it's relatively straightforward to e.g. detect fake reviews in a static dataset, it's a constant arms race when you're doing so in an online adversarial setup. Same goes for counterfeit 3P goods. Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but not anywhere near the retail side.
    - rraghur 6y ago
      This seems a little hollow when there are third party sites who detect fake reviews on Amazons platform
      - simsla 6y ago
        My point is that if Amazon e.g. directly integrated with any one of those solutions you'd enter an adversarial scenario, and all of the scammers would try (and almost definitely succeed, even if just by brute force chasing false negatives) in finding a way around it. The same would happen if e.g. half of Amazon customers would use one of these solutions. The difference between being online versus being in an adversarial scenario largely depends on how / to what degree you're visibly impacting the bottom line of the scammers.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - SyzygistSix 6y ago
    And hate how poorly warehouse and other non-office employees are treated. Other than that, I like the business model. But it's difficult for me to shop with Amazon knowing how the employees are treated, so it is a last resort for me.
    - cosmodisk 6y ago
      Not in defence of Amazon,but how do you know how other retailers,the ones you use, treat their warehouse staff?
  - 8note 6y ago
    Are you sure they hate fake reviews and counterfeit goods? If those things didn't work reliably, I don't imagine the bad sellers would keep doing it
    - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
      yes, a customer hates fake reviews and counterfeit goods, the problem is you don't know its fake and counterfeit before buying. So it works reliably to get the buyer to buy, but it does not work reliably to make the buyer happy with what they bought. As a general the exact opposite.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >a ruthless focus on the customer. If by that we mean "token goodwill gestures where it doesn't hurt our bottom line", then yes.
  - arpyzo 6y ago
    I've heard it described as a focus on the customer in aggregate, as opposed to a focus on individual customers.
    - vaidhy 6y ago
      I work at Amazon and all the disclaimers apply. The key difference I see with Amazon is that it is actually focus on individual customers. The general idea is to go from anecdote to generalized solution. They call it "peculiar" inside. There are several stories inside that kinda exemplify these qualities - When kindle first launched in UK, they realized they need to do something different for folks in Isle of Man. There were something like 12 customers there at that point. The launch was delayed/additional people were added to make sure those 12 customers also got it at the same time. Jeff Bezos's famous question mark emails are mostly start with a single customer complaint. My biggest learning is that you have to focus on individual customers, but should learn to do it at scale.
      - coldtea 6y ago
        Doesn't this exactly fit the "token goodwill gestures where it doesn't hurt our bottom line" thing? If they cared for the customers they'll have improved things that affect hundreds of thousands or millions or all of them (tons of such long-standing, including for the Kindle, which has languished as hardware in neglect-land). Doing a fuss to make the release day the same for 12 customers (or 100) in the Isle of Man is not "caring for invididual customers". It's either a token empty feel-good gesture within the company, a whim of some superior, or a "nice story" empty marketing stunt.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- baxtr 6y ago
  This video from 1999 clearly shows how customer obsessed he was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxwjzVW7z5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxwjzVW7z5o
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
That's the right way to handle it. Not directly relevant to Amazon, but I had a comparable experience with a different and much less prominent streaming provider. The picture quality was exemplary, but the sound mix was movie-ruiningly atrocious. It had been normalised to the point that during a lull in a conversation, the background sound of chirping crickets would rise in volume to match the volume of the dialogue. I tried several playback devices, it made no difference. I tried reporting the issue, but didn't have the will to wade through their irrelevant questions, so I simply decided to never buy from them again. Turns out I'm not the only one: https://www.avforums.com/threads/chili-tv-audio-compression.2094439/ https://www.avforums.com/threads/chili-tv-audio-compression....
arafa 6y ago
You can also contact Customer Service about stuff like this and they'll handle it and that feedback often makes it back to the teams responsible. There's not a lot of CS contacts in Prime Video compared to retail but they can be meaningful.
willhslade 6y ago
Ok, so I'm only replying because this has some visibility and it might get seen / fixed at Amazon. Everybody loves that Amazon and Prime bought and made new episodes of the Expanse, right? Well, on my stock Sony Bravia Android TV, if you are watching the Expanse with English subtitles, when the text for the subtitles is on, the screen is brighter. It's noticeable, and quite annoying, and this ONLY happens on the Expanse. Other apps and other shows on Prime work.
- lukevp 6y ago
  Sounds like a dimming / dynamic contrast feature of your TV to me, does your TV only have edge lit dimming?
  - willhslade 6y ago
    I have set the settings on my TV not to do this; the common factor is the Expanse show on Prime. I have not backtested S04-.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
> This was totally unsolicited and it blew my mind. That is small time customer service. Even Costco and Nordstrom’s and Trader Joe’s do it. But the big time stuff, like Amazon providing retail products via a trusted supply chain, are where they screw you. It’s a low margin business, and Amazon wants as little to do with it as possible. So they removed the filter for showing only items shipped and sold by Amazon.com years ago, and they commingle inventory, so you have no idea of the supply chain of your product. Could be coming from some random product by some third party seller. Who knows? Obviously, Amazon wants that 15% top line revenue from being a platform rather than the 2% to 5% they get from sourcing and selling retail products. That doesn’t align with my interests as a consumer.
missedthecue 6y ago
One time many years ago, I accidentally selected one day $50 shipping on a small item. I frantically tried to contact customer service to change the shipping. Without any hesitation, they refunded my money and not only that, they let me keep the super fast shipping on the item. Blew my mind.
Smithalicious 6y ago
More than anything I'm sad to see that this is mind blowing nowadays... I feel like at one point, this kind of customer service was the norm
- waynesonfire 6y ago
  it still is, amazon just makes it easy and doesn't make you feel like you're the asshole.
- triceratops 6y ago
  > I feel like at one point, this kind of customer service was the norm When?
Person5478 6y ago
My biggest complaint wrt their prime video player is that the subtitles will, over time, slowly desync more and more with the audio. Having said that, one of the reasons why I'm a huge Amazon fan is because they have such great service. For example, I purchased a PS4 that died 3 days in and it was the easiest thing in the world to get it sent back and replaced. It's one of the reasons I generally trust ordering expensive items through Amazon.

mhh__ 6y ago

Although they do seem to be reverting to the mean as time goes by, regardless of how much people love to hate them there's a cultural reason why Amazon have done so well - even from people who dislike him I always read that Jeff Bezos sets the standard throughout Amazon of a ruthless focus on the customer.

JKCalhoun 6y ago
I want to believe that but "the customers" hate the fake reviews, hate the counterfeit goods... Returning an item now is all over the map — it seems it depends on which 3rd party sold you the item. Yeah, they're backsliding. They need to get their house in order.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Although I don't contend that the problem is real, is "hate the fake reviews, hate the counterfeit goods" an American thing because I have only ever seen this complaint on hackernews.
  - lukeramsden 6y ago
    It's a big problem here in the UK too, at least for me and the people I know.
    - MrPatan 6y ago
      Maybe I just can't tell what's a knockoff and what's not, but I've never noticed anything wrong coming from amazon. Maybe I just don't buy brand stuff? I've bought stuff that turned out to be shit, but I never thought there was a "real" version of it anywhere, just a shitty product.
  - dwater 6y ago
    The 3rd party sellers in your region may not have fully realized all the arbitrage opportunities that the sellers in the US market have. Give them time, they won't leave that money on the table forever. It might just not be enough for them to get to first.
    - tshaddox 6y ago
      That sounds remarkably close to magical thinking. It’s easier for me to believe that the complaints about counterfeit goods are coming from a vanishingly tiny but vocal minority than that I’m the tiny minority somehow surrounded by a cloak that prevents me from seeing the counterfeit goods.
      - jawzz 6y ago
        These days, it's more and more common where you see a product with 4.5-5 stars with thousands of reviews, go to the reviews, and see that all the top ones are 1-star with complaints about the product being counterfeit or breaking quickly. I don't go on Hacker News often but I do use Amazon, and I see this all the time.
      - birksherty 6y ago
        Have you considered that most people can't recognise fake reviews? It's pretty common in India too where sellers even give you discount for 5 star.
    - deanCommie 6y ago
      Not every capitalistic market in the world is a cuthroat race to the bottom like the USA. This isn't a naive statement - this is a reflection of other markets that have had decades longer to manifest in the various societies compared to Amazon. Food quality is higher, waste is lower, trust in government is higher, social programs can succeed, infrastructure projects are cheaper - all of this is universally true across progressive nations from Western Europe to Canada, compared to the US.
  - eznzt 6y ago
    Fake reviews are a problem here in Europe, but I haven't heard of counterfeit goods. What I don't like of Amazon now is how it is flooded with Chinese crap. It looks like Aliexpress.
    - at-fates-hands 6y ago
      > but I haven't heard of counterfeit goods. If you peruse some of the sneakerhead forums, you'll see a lot of complaints about counterfeit dealers on Amazon. Nike used to partner with Amazon so you were assured your Nike's were coming directly from Nike. Nike killed the deal in 2019 and so now you have no idea where those Nike's and other sneaker companies products are coming from: And the Wall Street Journal reported this week that Nike was “disappointed the deal with Amazon didn’t eliminate counterfeits and give the brand more control over gray-market goods,” which are legitimate items that Amazon sellers buy from distributors or retailers, rather than from Nike itself. The problem for Nike is, removing itself from the Amazon platform won’t fix that problem. In fact, it’s likely to get worse. Amazon will now look to acquire more “gray market” Nike products to fill in the inventory gaps Nike’s departure will leave behind. https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/14/20965434/nike-amazon-partnership-deal-breakup-counterfeits https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/14/20965434/nike-amazon-p... Now Chinese Nike knockoffs are showing up under dubious brands like "fashion" or "Vitike": https://sneakerhistory.com/2019/11/14/8-unbelievably-fake-sneakers-available-on-amazon/ https://sneakerhistory.com/2019/11/14/8-unbelievably-fake-sn...
      - hnlmorg 6y ago
        You're replying to a question about Amazon in Europe with stories about Amazon in America. The question wasn't whether it happens in America. The question was whether it also happens in Europe (personally I've always assumed it does but my point is your articles don't address that despite being in response to that question).
      - jjoonathan 6y ago
        > gray-market goods, which are legitimate items that Amazon sellers buy from distributors or retailers, rather than from Nike itself. Nike trying to cast distributors and retailers as "gray market" is a little gross.
  - rraghur 6y ago
    It's a problem here in India as well.. and trigger same Ali express said with a mark up as well
  - at-fates-hands 6y ago
    There's been plenty of articles about it: Jessica — not her real name — has spent well over $15,000 on Amazon this year, buying everything from Halloween decorations to a queen-size inflatable mattress. She's purchased over 700 products, including three vacuum cleaners, six desk chairs, and no fewer than 26 pairs of earbuds. And even though most of the products are cheaply made, she’s given each a 5-star review. The twentysomething who lives on the East Coast isn’t a bad judge of quality — the companies that sell these products on Amazon reimburse her for the purchases. Third-party sellers know what it takes to make it on Amazon: Get good reviews and a high search ranking. But attracting genuine customers is tough, so some sellers use a reliable cheat — bribes. Because of Amazon’s vast scale, inscrutable algorithms, and capricious enforcement of its own rules, unscrupulous sellers and paid shills largely get away with it. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/her-amazon-purchases-are-real-the-reviews-are-fake https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/her-amazon...
    - hnlmorg 6y ago
      The GP wasn't denying it happens in America (as your article demonstrates). He was asking how wide spread it is outside of America (which your article does not demonstrate). Not saying I disagree with your post, just saying that it doesn't actually address the comment you're replying to. In fairness to the GP, it does seem less prevalent in the UK (either that or the reports about fake reviews are greatly exaggerated in general) but there's definitely been a few reviews here that have "smelt off" -- either before purchasing or after having received the product. And I definitely know these bribes do happen too as I know of a few people who have been contacted. All of which refused to take the money.... but please do take this anecdotal sampling with a pinch of salt.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Are there any forums for Amazon users? Would they be English? Because Amazon has exactly the same problems in the UK, Germany, and Spain. Delivery and logistics are outstanding. But the rating/review/counterfeit/duplicate issues are a complete dumpster fire, and have made me pull back from using the site.
- simsla 6y ago
  I suspect that most of these problems are being actively worked on. Unfortunately, while it's relatively straightforward to e.g. detect fake reviews in a static dataset, it's a constant arms race when you're doing so in an online adversarial setup. Same goes for counterfeit 3P goods. Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but not anywhere near the retail side.
  - rraghur 6y ago
    This seems a little hollow when there are third party sites who detect fake reviews on Amazons platform
    - simsla 6y ago
      My point is that if Amazon e.g. directly integrated with any one of those solutions you'd enter an adversarial scenario, and all of the scammers would try (and almost definitely succeed, even if just by brute force chasing false negatives) in finding a way around it. The same would happen if e.g. half of Amazon customers would use one of these solutions. The difference between being online versus being in an adversarial scenario largely depends on how / to what degree you're visibly impacting the bottom line of the scammers.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- SyzygistSix 6y ago
  And hate how poorly warehouse and other non-office employees are treated. Other than that, I like the business model. But it's difficult for me to shop with Amazon knowing how the employees are treated, so it is a last resort for me.
  - cosmodisk 6y ago
    Not in defence of Amazon,but how do you know how other retailers,the ones you use, treat their warehouse staff?
- 8note 6y ago
  Are you sure they hate fake reviews and counterfeit goods? If those things didn't work reliably, I don't imagine the bad sellers would keep doing it
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    yes, a customer hates fake reviews and counterfeit goods, the problem is you don't know its fake and counterfeit before buying. So it works reliably to get the buyer to buy, but it does not work reliably to make the buyer happy with what they bought. As a general the exact opposite.
coldtea 6y ago
>a ruthless focus on the customer. If by that we mean "token goodwill gestures where it doesn't hurt our bottom line", then yes.
- arpyzo 6y ago
  I've heard it described as a focus on the customer in aggregate, as opposed to a focus on individual customers.
  - vaidhy 6y ago
    I work at Amazon and all the disclaimers apply. The key difference I see with Amazon is that it is actually focus on individual customers. The general idea is to go from anecdote to generalized solution. They call it "peculiar" inside. There are several stories inside that kinda exemplify these qualities - When kindle first launched in UK, they realized they need to do something different for folks in Isle of Man. There were something like 12 customers there at that point. The launch was delayed/additional people were added to make sure those 12 customers also got it at the same time. Jeff Bezos's famous question mark emails are mostly start with a single customer complaint. My biggest learning is that you have to focus on individual customers, but should learn to do it at scale.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      Doesn't this exactly fit the "token goodwill gestures where it doesn't hurt our bottom line" thing? If they cared for the customers they'll have improved things that affect hundreds of thousands or millions or all of them (tons of such long-standing, including for the Kindle, which has languished as hardware in neglect-land). Doing a fuss to make the release day the same for 12 customers (or 100) in the Isle of Man is not "caring for invididual customers". It's either a token empty feel-good gesture within the company, a whim of some superior, or a "nice story" empty marketing stunt.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
baxtr 6y ago
This video from 1999 clearly shows how customer obsessed he was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxwjzVW7z5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxwjzVW7z5o

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

That's the right way to handle it. Not directly relevant to Amazon, but I had a comparable experience with a different and much less prominent streaming provider. The picture quality was exemplary, but the sound mix was movie-ruiningly atrocious. It had been normalised to the point that during a lull in a conversation, the background sound of chirping crickets would rise in volume to match the volume of the dialogue. I tried several playback devices, it made no difference. I tried reporting the issue, but didn't have the will to wade through their irrelevant questions, so I simply decided to never buy from them again. Turns out I'm not the only one: https://www.avforums.com/threads/chili-tv-audio-compression.2094439/ https://www.avforums.com/threads/chili-tv-audio-compression....

arafa 6y ago

You can also contact Customer Service about stuff like this and they'll handle it and that feedback often makes it back to the teams responsible. There's not a lot of CS contacts in Prime Video compared to retail but they can be meaningful.

willhslade 6y ago

Ok, so I'm only replying because this has some visibility and it might get seen / fixed at Amazon. Everybody loves that Amazon and Prime bought and made new episodes of the Expanse, right? Well, on my stock Sony Bravia Android TV, if you are watching the Expanse with English subtitles, when the text for the subtitles is on, the screen is brighter. It's noticeable, and quite annoying, and this ONLY happens on the Expanse. Other apps and other shows on Prime work.

lukevp 6y ago
Sounds like a dimming / dynamic contrast feature of your TV to me, does your TV only have edge lit dimming?
- willhslade 6y ago
  I have set the settings on my TV not to do this; the common factor is the Expanse show on Prime. I have not backtested S04-.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

> This was totally unsolicited and it blew my mind. That is small time customer service. Even Costco and Nordstrom’s and Trader Joe’s do it. But the big time stuff, like Amazon providing retail products via a trusted supply chain, are where they screw you. It’s a low margin business, and Amazon wants as little to do with it as possible. So they removed the filter for showing only items shipped and sold by Amazon.com years ago, and they commingle inventory, so you have no idea of the supply chain of your product. Could be coming from some random product by some third party seller. Who knows? Obviously, Amazon wants that 15% top line revenue from being a platform rather than the 2% to 5% they get from sourcing and selling retail products. That doesn’t align with my interests as a consumer.

missedthecue 6y ago

One time many years ago, I accidentally selected one day $50 shipping on a small item. I frantically tried to contact customer service to change the shipping. Without any hesitation, they refunded my money and not only that, they let me keep the super fast shipping on the item. Blew my mind.

Smithalicious 6y ago

More than anything I'm sad to see that this is mind blowing nowadays... I feel like at one point, this kind of customer service was the norm

waynesonfire 6y ago
it still is, amazon just makes it easy and doesn't make you feel like you're the asshole.
triceratops 6y ago
> I feel like at one point, this kind of customer service was the norm When?

Person5478 6y ago

My biggest complaint wrt their prime video player is that the subtitles will, over time, slowly desync more and more with the audio. Having said that, one of the reasons why I'm a huge Amazon fan is because they have such great service. For example, I purchased a PS4 that died 3 days in and it was the easiest thing in the world to get it sent back and replaced. It's one of the reasons I generally trust ordering expensive items through Amazon.