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> Amazons top priority is the customer This is not and should not be true. If it were true, Amazon would operate completely differently. It should be more true

> Amazons top priority is the customer This is not and should not be true. If it were true, Amazon would operate completely differently. It should be more true than it is.

munk-a 5y ago
For at least one specific example - Amazon does an extremely poor job vetting products posted on its site which causes a lot of defective items to end up getting piped through it to consumers. Prioritizing your customer over everything else means delivering a high quality consistent product - which it fails to do with regular listings and fails spectacularly to do with Amazon Basics.
- dangus 5y ago
  IMO you’re misunderstanding the customer. The customer wants cheap. They WANT Amazon to be AliExpress with fast shipping. That’s why Amazon has free returns and they offer returns in a million different ways. Amazon doesn’t care that it’s inefficient on resources and that these items end up in a landfill. The manufacturing cost of cheap items is so low that it’s no big deal. As long as the customer has no friction in buying or returning they are happy. I think there are certain categories of products where many customers would actually prefer counterfeit items as long as the quality is acceptable. Just walk down a cereal aisle.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    IMO you're misunderstanding this customer. The returns are pretty friction-less but they're still a burden that I'd rather not deal with - and I specifically don't want to order an electrical device off amazon and have it fail in a spectacular way that damages my other equipment. The most luxurious thing you can tell me as a seller is that you're minimizing the longest potential time until I have a correctly functioning product - shipping is a big part of that, but not having to go through the hassle of getting it shipped out twice and returning one of them is another component. Also I think AliExpress is a pretty terrible comparison - Amazon does beat it hand over fist. I think Amazon wants to be NewEgg but with less shipping time (and maybe the reputation it had a decade ago - it seems to be struggling lately). And it wants to be every other specialist store as well. I think it's possible for them to do this, but the thing they're lacking right now is the budget or motivation to actually vet products - they rely on peer reviews and manufacturer statements to try and suggest products.
    - dangus 5y ago
      I fully believe that your choices are logical for your own tastes. I myself don’t prefer Amazon for most things I buy for similar reasons to yours. At the same time, I have absolutely heard multiple people say the words “if it sucks you can always return it.” Low-friction returns are like business school 101 for retail. I think the typical Amazon customer doesn’t shop on quality for many product categories, they are price sensitive. They don’t want to pay $50 for the Apple-certified power brick and cable. I don’t think anyone wants to be NewEgg, if you ask me :-)
ilamont 5y ago
Amazon follows a core set of Leadership Principles (LPs) that we Amazonians aspire to every day. They are ingrained in our culture, and they guide the behaviors we value. It’s very telling that the first LP is Customer Obsession—leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/industries/an-inside-look-at-the-amazon-culture-experimentation-failure-and-customer-obsession/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/industries/an-inside-look-at-th...
- jorblumesea 5y ago
  haaaaah Anyone who knows Amazon knows there's tons of politics and leeway in those LPs, and they get twisted for nefarious purposes.
- ruddct 5y ago
  Would love to hear how a catalog riddled with counterfeits, fake reviews and listing-hijacking is a Customer Obsession. Not trolling, Ex-Amazon so I'm curious how current Amazonians rationalize these things.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    Because you’re focusing on small but visible details that are hard unsolved problems for a company that’s Amazon’s size. If you have the solution to any of these problems you would have a genuinely game-changing business and would be a 100M company selling it to every online marketplace.
    - freeopinion 5y ago
      There you go. You just prioritized size over solving those problems. It is more important to be big than to get it right.
      - ozzythecat 5y ago
        Alternatively, you can try to do both. If this issue was systemic, I imagine it would pose a systemic risk to Amazons business? Presumably it isn’t a systemic issue. (I don’t work in Amazon retail so I don’t know, but I’m trying to frame this logically from a business sense).
bityard 5y ago
You're taking this to mean something different than the parent intended. The intended meaning is more along the lines of the old trope, "the customer is always right." This means that in any dispute between the seller and the buyer, Amazon favors the buyer 99% of the time. To the point that it's incredibly easy (and common) to be a hobbyist Amazon scammer as long as you stick to scamming marketplace sellers instead of Amazon itself.

> Amazons top priority is the customer This is not and should not be true. If it were true, Amazon would operate completely differently. It should be more true than it is.

munk-a 5y ago

For at least one specific example - Amazon does an extremely poor job vetting products posted on its site which causes a lot of defective items to end up getting piped through it to consumers. Prioritizing your customer over everything else means delivering a high quality consistent product - which it fails to do with regular listings and fails spectacularly to do with Amazon Basics.

dangus 5y ago
IMO you’re misunderstanding the customer. The customer wants cheap. They WANT Amazon to be AliExpress with fast shipping. That’s why Amazon has free returns and they offer returns in a million different ways. Amazon doesn’t care that it’s inefficient on resources and that these items end up in a landfill. The manufacturing cost of cheap items is so low that it’s no big deal. As long as the customer has no friction in buying or returning they are happy. I think there are certain categories of products where many customers would actually prefer counterfeit items as long as the quality is acceptable. Just walk down a cereal aisle.
- munk-a 5y ago
  IMO you're misunderstanding this customer. The returns are pretty friction-less but they're still a burden that I'd rather not deal with - and I specifically don't want to order an electrical device off amazon and have it fail in a spectacular way that damages my other equipment. The most luxurious thing you can tell me as a seller is that you're minimizing the longest potential time until I have a correctly functioning product - shipping is a big part of that, but not having to go through the hassle of getting it shipped out twice and returning one of them is another component. Also I think AliExpress is a pretty terrible comparison - Amazon does beat it hand over fist. I think Amazon wants to be NewEgg but with less shipping time (and maybe the reputation it had a decade ago - it seems to be struggling lately). And it wants to be every other specialist store as well. I think it's possible for them to do this, but the thing they're lacking right now is the budget or motivation to actually vet products - they rely on peer reviews and manufacturer statements to try and suggest products.
  - dangus 5y ago
    I fully believe that your choices are logical for your own tastes. I myself don’t prefer Amazon for most things I buy for similar reasons to yours. At the same time, I have absolutely heard multiple people say the words “if it sucks you can always return it.” Low-friction returns are like business school 101 for retail. I think the typical Amazon customer doesn’t shop on quality for many product categories, they are price sensitive. They don’t want to pay $50 for the Apple-certified power brick and cable. I don’t think anyone wants to be NewEgg, if you ask me :-)

ilamont 5y ago

Amazon follows a core set of Leadership Principles (LPs) that we Amazonians aspire to every day. They are ingrained in our culture, and they guide the behaviors we value. It’s very telling that the first LP is Customer Obsession—leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/industries/an-inside-look-at-the-amazon-culture-experimentation-failure-and-customer-obsession/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/industries/an-inside-look-at-th...

jorblumesea 5y ago
haaaaah Anyone who knows Amazon knows there's tons of politics and leeway in those LPs, and they get twisted for nefarious purposes.
ruddct 5y ago
Would love to hear how a catalog riddled with counterfeits, fake reviews and listing-hijacking is a Customer Obsession. Not trolling, Ex-Amazon so I'm curious how current Amazonians rationalize these things.
- Spivak 5y ago
  Because you’re focusing on small but visible details that are hard unsolved problems for a company that’s Amazon’s size. If you have the solution to any of these problems you would have a genuinely game-changing business and would be a 100M company selling it to every online marketplace.
  - freeopinion 5y ago
    There you go. You just prioritized size over solving those problems. It is more important to be big than to get it right.
    - ozzythecat 5y ago
      Alternatively, you can try to do both. If this issue was systemic, I imagine it would pose a systemic risk to Amazons business? Presumably it isn’t a systemic issue. (I don’t work in Amazon retail so I don’t know, but I’m trying to frame this logically from a business sense).

bityard 5y ago

You're taking this to mean something different than the parent intended. The intended meaning is more along the lines of the old trope, "the customer is always right." This means that in any dispute between the seller and the buyer, Amazon favors the buyer 99% of the time. To the point that it's incredibly easy (and common) to be a hobbyist Amazon scammer as long as you stick to scamming marketplace sellers instead of Amazon itself.