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> Does anyone really think Amazon is the world's "most customer-centric company" now? Absolutely, their customer support is stellar, across countries. The pro

> Does anyone really think Amazon is the world's "most customer-centric company" now? Absolutely, their customer support is stellar, across countries. The problem of fake reviews and junk products is indeed a real problem. But I would argue that this by itself doesn't imply that Amazon doesn't care about it's customers, rather that it is a general problem that's largely unsolved in most (BIG) online marketplaces where manual curation of inventory is not feasible due to scale.

kingcharles 5y ago
Amazon has so many big problems that are easily solved though, that I don't understand them. 1) Their search is less than useless. Even eBay has a better search. 2) They allow sellers to switch out products and leave the old reviews.
- StreamBright 5y ago
  3, Forwarding calls to scam providers. 4, Letting packages be stolen and cancelling the accounts of legitimate users. 5, Displaying goods that are completely fake, including books. Just what I have on the top of my head. I have not used Amazon in the US for 6 years now due to these. I had used it for almost everything before.
- lozenge 5y ago
  1) They are selling ad slots ("sponsored results") on their searches, which increases overheads for their suppliers and lets them take a bigger margin. 2) The inflated review counts increase sales. It's also a form of social proof - "if 5,000 people like it, maybe it isn't a bad product, it's just what I can expect for the price I paid."
JaimeThompson 5y ago
Amazon makes money from selling ads so it is in their best interest to make the non-ad search worse.
- belval 5y ago
  That is so comically inaccurate. Amazon made about $9B in advertising against half a trillion in revenue. That's like 2% of their revenue.
  - JaimeThompson 5y ago
    31 billion if this is correct [1] almost all of which is much higher margin then product sales. If the user buys product anyway from amazon they make either way. [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amazons-advertising-revenue-is-dollar31-billion-and-growing-heres-everything-we-know-about-its-booming-ad-business/ar-BB1aJqz6 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amazons-advertisin...
  - wpietri 5y ago
    That's the wrong baseline to use. Their total profit for 2021 was $33B. Most of their sales revenue is going to be low margin, whereas ads will be very high margin. Moreover, it's not clear that the two revenue sources are in competition. Advertising generally boosts demand. So it's possible that they win twice with ads: once for getting you to click on it and once when you buy the product. And given that the purpose of ads is to distort normal market outcomes, maybe they get even more when you come back and buy the right thing.
EL_Loco 5y ago
>their customer support is stellar, across countries. People in the US have no idea how bad customer support can be in third world countries. If I go to a store and buy something (pair of shoes, book, backpack, can of paint) and 5 minutes later I go back and decide that it doesn't fit or even show that it was broken, I can't get a refund. The salesperson, manager, etc will tell me that I can exchange it for another product, but since "we already logged the receipt on our system" (or some other BS explanation), there's no way to refund the money, only exchange for something else. Amazon's customer service is 10 times better than whatever was here before it. Now a few others have caught up and today offer good customer service. But Amazon is still better.
wpietri 5y ago
> Absolutely, their customer support is stellar, across countries. What? You're the first person I've heard say this. It's certainly not my experience. For example, I tried to get a subscription to a soccer magazine for a young relative's birthday. They took the order and then apparently did nothing with it. I contacted them at least a half-dozen times over the following year and received a litany of excuses, promises of callback, and transfers to other people. Eventually, the order was quietly canceled. The one thing they've been good at for me is basic returns. But if I've ever needed to contact them for anything complex or unusual, they've been painfully clueless.

kingcharles 5y ago

Amazon has so many big problems that are easily solved though, that I don't understand them. 1) Their search is less than useless. Even eBay has a better search. 2) They allow sellers to switch out products and leave the old reviews.

StreamBright 5y ago
3, Forwarding calls to scam providers. 4, Letting packages be stolen and cancelling the accounts of legitimate users. 5, Displaying goods that are completely fake, including books. Just what I have on the top of my head. I have not used Amazon in the US for 6 years now due to these. I had used it for almost everything before.
lozenge 5y ago
1) They are selling ad slots ("sponsored results") on their searches, which increases overheads for their suppliers and lets them take a bigger margin. 2) The inflated review counts increase sales. It's also a form of social proof - "if 5,000 people like it, maybe it isn't a bad product, it's just what I can expect for the price I paid."

JaimeThompson 5y ago

Amazon makes money from selling ads so it is in their best interest to make the non-ad search worse.

belval 5y ago
That is so comically inaccurate. Amazon made about $9B in advertising against half a trillion in revenue. That's like 2% of their revenue.
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  31 billion if this is correct [1] almost all of which is much higher margin then product sales. If the user buys product anyway from amazon they make either way. [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amazons-advertising-revenue-is-dollar31-billion-and-growing-heres-everything-we-know-about-its-booming-ad-business/ar-BB1aJqz6 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amazons-advertisin...
- wpietri 5y ago
  That's the wrong baseline to use. Their total profit for 2021 was $33B. Most of their sales revenue is going to be low margin, whereas ads will be very high margin. Moreover, it's not clear that the two revenue sources are in competition. Advertising generally boosts demand. So it's possible that they win twice with ads: once for getting you to click on it and once when you buy the product. And given that the purpose of ads is to distort normal market outcomes, maybe they get even more when you come back and buy the right thing.

EL_Loco 5y ago

>their customer support is stellar, across countries. People in the US have no idea how bad customer support can be in third world countries. If I go to a store and buy something (pair of shoes, book, backpack, can of paint) and 5 minutes later I go back and decide that it doesn't fit or even show that it was broken, I can't get a refund. The salesperson, manager, etc will tell me that I can exchange it for another product, but since "we already logged the receipt on our system" (or some other BS explanation), there's no way to refund the money, only exchange for something else. Amazon's customer service is 10 times better than whatever was here before it. Now a few others have caught up and today offer good customer service. But Amazon is still better.

wpietri 5y ago

> Absolutely, their customer support is stellar, across countries. What? You're the first person I've heard say this. It's certainly not my experience. For example, I tried to get a subscription to a soccer magazine for a young relative's birthday. They took the order and then apparently did nothing with it. I contacted them at least a half-dozen times over the following year and received a litany of excuses, promises of callback, and transfers to other people. Eventually, the order was quietly canceled. The one thing they've been good at for me is basic returns. But if I've ever needed to contact them for anything complex or unusual, they've been painfully clueless.