10 ms·

Tell HN: Amazon.com is limiting purchases of Audio CDs to four-per-week

145 points by erichocean 4y ago

According to customer service, all customers are limited to buying four Audio CDs per week from any seller, in any combination, on Amazon.com. This is not a per-title nor a per-seller limit, nor is it related to Amazon Prime or FREE Shipping or whatever. It's across all titles and sellers, in any combination (including 3rd party sellers), with any form of shipping, Prime or non-Prime. Talking with customer support over the weekend, they claimed it was an error and would be fixed today, but as of this posting, the four-per-week purchase limit is still active. The specific error message (during checkout) is: There was a problem with some of the items in your order (see below for more information): You have reached the purchase limit for this item. We have changed the quantity to the maximum allowable. If the quantity has been set to 0, please delete the item (below the item details) to proceed. More info on the problem here: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/anyone-having-troubles-ordering-from-amazon.1143712/ The problem first appeared on Friday, April 22, 2022. If anyone at Amazon can get this fixed, that would be great.

toast0 4y ago
I guess I'll just buy tapes then?
Finnucane 4y ago
For the moment at least, there's still bandcamp.
tsol 4y ago
That's weird. I wonder why that is?
- nikanj 4y ago
  Customer service already acknowledged it's an error and should be fixed soon. This thread has huge amounts of speculation on why Amazon did this, when the likely answer is "oops crap I need to rollback that change"
  - netsharc 4y ago
    Do you always trust what customer service say? What if they just told him that to make him go away and be next week's problem for some other call-taker? Either because they don't give a crap or because corporate told them to say this... I'd like to live in your world where we can trust what others, and especially what a big corporation that's been shown to be a lying, thieving, scumbaggy one, say.
    - nikanj 4y ago
      Because I’ve worked at a video game company for years, and gotten a good perspective on the value of speculation. This one time our DC does network maintenance, we alert players of possible larger latencies on the coming weekend, and the playerbase is absolutely certain the latency comes from some mythical AI-based anticheat - and that we’ll announce a massive round of bans soon. I’m not sure whose razor it should be, but essentially ”what if there is no conspiracy” should IMHO be the default mode. If you spot weird behaviour and the vendor acknowledges it as a bug, why presume it’s actually something nefarious?
josephcsible 4y ago
They really don't want you to be able to actually own music anymore.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
lowbloodsugar 4y ago
I think the complete absence of "me too" or "not me" posts shows the state of the market for CDs.
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  Well, four in a single week is also a lot. Not absurd by any stretch, but high enough that I'd expect few people to hit it. How many people buy more than four hard cover books in a week? What about AAA video games?
  - webmaven 4y ago
    If you were asking how many people buy four CDs every week, you would have a point, but people often bunch up their purchases for many different reasons. Buying five CDs once a year shouldn't be impossible.
  - jmillikin 4y ago
    I've bought 11 CDs in the past week, with another 3 in the mail. Might be something of an outlier though. CDs are a lot less expensive than hardcovers or newly-released video games, especially if you buy them used.
koboll 4y ago
Maybe to stop mass buying gaming sales rankings?
- jandrese 4y ago
  If you were limited from buying more than 4 of the same CD that might make sense, but this seems to be hit after any 4 CDs are bought.
  - n8ta 4y ago
    Someone running a r(ating)-aas business might have 1000 accounts and order 1 cd per customer per account. Limiting per account forces them to make more accounts, which means more phone #s, more cc numbers, more cost, and makes them easier to spot.
    - jandrese 4y ago
      If they have 1000+ accounts ordering 1 CD per customer then this won't affect them until they have more than 4 customers at once.
    - adhesive_wombat 4y ago
      It's completely bizarre to me that Amazon, with all that data and ML cannot detect this and hammer down. Then again their best recommendations to me are extremely simplistic "you bought a washing machine, maybe you want a washing machine?" attempts, so I guess not. Or they just don't care that much because that costs money and this is just easier and cheaper.
      - Rebelgecko 4y ago
        I've seen this brought up a lot, but if you split all your customers into people who have ordered washing machines in the last month and people who haven't, the first group is almost certainly more likely to be ordering a washing machine in the near future. Keep in mind that Amazon also knows the exact return rate for every item. Even if 99% of washing machine buyers won't be in the market for a new one, that's probably still a better ratio than you'd get from advertising to random people who haven't bought one lately.
alar44 4y ago
- quanticle 4y ago
  Because some people like having access to music that they've paid for on a permanent basis? Because some people don't like dealing with whatever the current drama is between Spotify and the artist they want to listen to? Because some people like being able to specify the encoding format and bitrate of their music?
  - alar44 4y ago
    - russelg 4y ago
      OK, just let me buy lossless music from iTunes then, nope can't do that... neither can I on Amazon. The reality of the situation is that many artists are not releasing digital versions on sites that provide lossless downloads (like bandcamp or beatport). So if you want the highest quality you can get, you're either subscribing to Tidal/Deezer/Apple Music (where you don't own the music) or you're buying a CD.
      - fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
        You can buy FLAC from Qobuz, even without the subscription.
        wedowhatwedo 4y ago
        I wasn't aware of this so I looked. A CD I bought recently for $11.99 was $15.09 for a "Hi-Res 48K" version on Qobuz. Another one I bought for $11.14 was $9.99 in "CD quality", a third was $12.59 for the CD, $11.99 for "CD quality". I couldn't find a definition of "CD quality" or "Hi-Res 48K" on the FAQ so don't know exactly what I would be getting. But as you can see, buying on CD is still about the same price as downloading files yet the artist usually still makes more for CD sales (from my understanding). That doesn't count the fact that I sometimes buy used CDs for much cheaper and the fact that I get to read the album credits. I still think buying a physical CD and ripping it is a better deal if I want to control my music and don't want it to disappear from a streaming service with no warning. I'm disappointed that this option will be going away because when it goes away, the cost of buying downloaded files will go up even more. bandcamp is a good option for the artists that use it.
tempnow987 4y ago
Wasn't this because of rating spiking? They'd buy tons of these, then after rating went up return them to spike ratings on the charts as a form of marketing. Is hacker news now the place SEO spammers go to get support?
- blondin 4y ago
  i have never considered or heard of this. the more you know...
  - tempnow987 4y ago
    I think it worked because you could buy a lot of CD's each week on behalf of folks who needed the ratings bump, then when the 30 days were up you could return them. So amazon was covering labor and shipping both ways on large quantities of these - stock, then pick and ship, then dealing with the returns and restock etc. Of course I hope the account would get canceled, but based on other areas these folks seem able to create reasonable numbers of accounts.
    - erichocean 4y ago
      The problem is that no one on Earth buys used music CDs due to the Amazon.com best seller ranks. The whole SEO spammer idea is nonsensical in this case, and I highly doubt Amazon is trying to target SEO spammers buying thousands of copies of used Audio CDs. I'm like 99.9% certain it's a mistake. USB chargers? HDMI cables? Sure, I'd buy your SEO spammer theory that people are messing with the product rankings somehow. But not used music CDs. You search Amazon for the used CD you already know you want, pray they have even one copy, then buy it. I don't think in 20+ years of buying CDs online, I've ever looked at a best seller rank. But the real problem with your theory is that there aren't many copies of these things! Certainly not "thousands" as you implied. There's like…two (if you're lucky, a lot of times Amazon doesn't have any 3rd party sellers and you have to check eBay or whatever). I don't see how buying two used CDs, then returning them 30 days later to a 3rd party seller, helps anything with the best seller ranking.
codazoda 4y ago
I miss AimeStreet. It was a site for independent artists that started tracks at free and then slowly increased them to $0.99 as they sold more copies. Amazon gobbled them up and shuttered the site. I’ve never found a replacement.
- zenexer 4y ago
  How did it compare to something like Bandcamp? Many of the artists I enjoy sell their music there.
- atrus 4y ago
  Even better, if you reviewed a song, and the price went up, you received the difference as store credits. So reviewing a song early could potentially net you some credit if it became popular. That was one of the most interesting features I've seen in a music store.
vanchor3 4y ago
I tested this just now, sure enough when I get past four CDs I can no longer checkout. I did another quick test, and it appears it affects Vinyl as well.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
8191 4y ago
Seems to be a region specific issue; I’ve just tried to proceed to checkout with 7 CDs in the cart on Amazon.de and the only warning I got was a changed price notification.
beagle3 4y ago
This is likely to avoid buying-for-ratings and then returning; and the solution is to factor it in rating only after the return window expires (or the user explicitly says “I like it, giving up my right to return it”. (True fans will do that happily, SEO staffers……. Not so much)
offsky 4y ago
To fix rating spiking could they simply remove reviews if the customer returned the item?
- radford-neal 4y ago
  Or they could just not count the purchases beyond 4 CDs in a week, when computing the ratings, while still allowing the customer to buy those CDs. If what's going on is really what people here seem to think, one might conclude that Amazon is run by total idiots. So maybe it's not what people think? Hard to believe that Amazon foregoes real income this way... On the other hand, I suppose it could be misaligned internal incentives - that it somehow makes sense from some manager's point of view, though not from the stockholder's point of view.
erichocean 4y ago
Latest update from the Steve Hoffman thread: > Jeff Bezos team just responded to my email by phone. The problem is a glitch not policy, and is being worked on. Everyone can calm down.
- erichocean 4y ago
  Update: issue appears to be fixed now.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

145 points by erichocean 4y ago

toast0 4y ago

I guess I'll just buy tapes then?

Finnucane 4y ago

For the moment at least, there's still bandcamp.

tsol 4y ago

That's weird. I wonder why that is?

nikanj 4y ago
Customer service already acknowledged it's an error and should be fixed soon. This thread has huge amounts of speculation on why Amazon did this, when the likely answer is "oops crap I need to rollback that change"
- netsharc 4y ago
  Do you always trust what customer service say? What if they just told him that to make him go away and be next week's problem for some other call-taker? Either because they don't give a crap or because corporate told them to say this... I'd like to live in your world where we can trust what others, and especially what a big corporation that's been shown to be a lying, thieving, scumbaggy one, say.
  - nikanj 4y ago
    Because I’ve worked at a video game company for years, and gotten a good perspective on the value of speculation. This one time our DC does network maintenance, we alert players of possible larger latencies on the coming weekend, and the playerbase is absolutely certain the latency comes from some mythical AI-based anticheat - and that we’ll announce a massive round of bans soon. I’m not sure whose razor it should be, but essentially ”what if there is no conspiracy” should IMHO be the default mode. If you spot weird behaviour and the vendor acknowledges it as a bug, why presume it’s actually something nefarious?

josephcsible 4y ago

They really don't want you to be able to actually own music anymore.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

lowbloodsugar 4y ago

I think the complete absence of "me too" or "not me" posts shows the state of the market for CDs.

Wowfunhappy 4y ago
Well, four in a single week is also a lot. Not absurd by any stretch, but high enough that I'd expect few people to hit it. How many people buy more than four hard cover books in a week? What about AAA video games?
- webmaven 4y ago
  If you were asking how many people buy four CDs every week, you would have a point, but people often bunch up their purchases for many different reasons. Buying five CDs once a year shouldn't be impossible.
- jmillikin 4y ago
  I've bought 11 CDs in the past week, with another 3 in the mail. Might be something of an outlier though. CDs are a lot less expensive than hardcovers or newly-released video games, especially if you buy them used.

koboll 4y ago

Maybe to stop mass buying gaming sales rankings?

jandrese 4y ago
If you were limited from buying more than 4 of the same CD that might make sense, but this seems to be hit after any 4 CDs are bought.
- n8ta 4y ago
  Someone running a r(ating)-aas business might have 1000 accounts and order 1 cd per customer per account. Limiting per account forces them to make more accounts, which means more phone #s, more cc numbers, more cost, and makes them easier to spot.
  - jandrese 4y ago
    If they have 1000+ accounts ordering 1 CD per customer then this won't affect them until they have more than 4 customers at once.
  - adhesive_wombat 4y ago
    It's completely bizarre to me that Amazon, with all that data and ML cannot detect this and hammer down. Then again their best recommendations to me are extremely simplistic "you bought a washing machine, maybe you want a washing machine?" attempts, so I guess not. Or they just don't care that much because that costs money and this is just easier and cheaper.
    - Rebelgecko 4y ago
      I've seen this brought up a lot, but if you split all your customers into people who have ordered washing machines in the last month and people who haven't, the first group is almost certainly more likely to be ordering a washing machine in the near future. Keep in mind that Amazon also knows the exact return rate for every item. Even if 99% of washing machine buyers won't be in the market for a new one, that's probably still a better ratio than you'd get from advertising to random people who haven't bought one lately.

alar44 4y ago

quanticle 4y ago
Because some people like having access to music that they've paid for on a permanent basis? Because some people don't like dealing with whatever the current drama is between Spotify and the artist they want to listen to? Because some people like being able to specify the encoding format and bitrate of their music?
- alar44 4y ago
  - russelg 4y ago
    OK, just let me buy lossless music from iTunes then, nope can't do that... neither can I on Amazon. The reality of the situation is that many artists are not releasing digital versions on sites that provide lossless downloads (like bandcamp or beatport). So if you want the highest quality you can get, you're either subscribing to Tidal/Deezer/Apple Music (where you don't own the music) or you're buying a CD.
    - fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
      You can buy FLAC from Qobuz, even without the subscription.
      - wedowhatwedo 4y ago
        I wasn't aware of this so I looked. A CD I bought recently for $11.99 was $15.09 for a "Hi-Res 48K" version on Qobuz. Another one I bought for $11.14 was $9.99 in "CD quality", a third was $12.59 for the CD, $11.99 for "CD quality". I couldn't find a definition of "CD quality" or "Hi-Res 48K" on the FAQ so don't know exactly what I would be getting. But as you can see, buying on CD is still about the same price as downloading files yet the artist usually still makes more for CD sales (from my understanding). That doesn't count the fact that I sometimes buy used CDs for much cheaper and the fact that I get to read the album credits. I still think buying a physical CD and ripping it is a better deal if I want to control my music and don't want it to disappear from a streaming service with no warning. I'm disappointed that this option will be going away because when it goes away, the cost of buying downloaded files will go up even more. bandcamp is a good option for the artists that use it.

tempnow987 4y ago

Wasn't this because of rating spiking? They'd buy tons of these, then after rating went up return them to spike ratings on the charts as a form of marketing. Is hacker news now the place SEO spammers go to get support?

blondin 4y ago
i have never considered or heard of this. the more you know...
- tempnow987 4y ago
  I think it worked because you could buy a lot of CD's each week on behalf of folks who needed the ratings bump, then when the 30 days were up you could return them. So amazon was covering labor and shipping both ways on large quantities of these - stock, then pick and ship, then dealing with the returns and restock etc. Of course I hope the account would get canceled, but based on other areas these folks seem able to create reasonable numbers of accounts.
  - erichocean 4y ago
    The problem is that no one on Earth buys used music CDs due to the Amazon.com best seller ranks. The whole SEO spammer idea is nonsensical in this case, and I highly doubt Amazon is trying to target SEO spammers buying thousands of copies of used Audio CDs. I'm like 99.9% certain it's a mistake. USB chargers? HDMI cables? Sure, I'd buy your SEO spammer theory that people are messing with the product rankings somehow. But not used music CDs. You search Amazon for the used CD you already know you want, pray they have even one copy, then buy it. I don't think in 20+ years of buying CDs online, I've ever looked at a best seller rank. But the real problem with your theory is that there aren't many copies of these things! Certainly not "thousands" as you implied. There's like…two (if you're lucky, a lot of times Amazon doesn't have any 3rd party sellers and you have to check eBay or whatever). I don't see how buying two used CDs, then returning them 30 days later to a 3rd party seller, helps anything with the best seller ranking.

codazoda 4y ago

I miss AimeStreet. It was a site for independent artists that started tracks at free and then slowly increased them to $0.99 as they sold more copies. Amazon gobbled them up and shuttered the site. I’ve never found a replacement.

zenexer 4y ago
How did it compare to something like Bandcamp? Many of the artists I enjoy sell their music there.
atrus 4y ago
Even better, if you reviewed a song, and the price went up, you received the difference as store credits. So reviewing a song early could potentially net you some credit if it became popular. That was one of the most interesting features I've seen in a music store.

vanchor3 4y ago

I tested this just now, sure enough when I get past four CDs I can no longer checkout. I did another quick test, and it appears it affects Vinyl as well.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

8191 4y ago

Seems to be a region specific issue; I’ve just tried to proceed to checkout with 7 CDs in the cart on Amazon.de and the only warning I got was a changed price notification.

beagle3 4y ago

This is likely to avoid buying-for-ratings and then returning; and the solution is to factor it in rating only after the return window expires (or the user explicitly says “I like it, giving up my right to return it”. (True fans will do that happily, SEO staffers……. Not so much)

offsky 4y ago

To fix rating spiking could they simply remove reviews if the customer returned the item?

radford-neal 4y ago
Or they could just not count the purchases beyond 4 CDs in a week, when computing the ratings, while still allowing the customer to buy those CDs. If what's going on is really what people here seem to think, one might conclude that Amazon is run by total idiots. So maybe it's not what people think? Hard to believe that Amazon foregoes real income this way... On the other hand, I suppose it could be misaligned internal incentives - that it somehow makes sense from some manager's point of view, though not from the stockholder's point of view.

erichocean 4y ago

Latest update from the Steve Hoffman thread: > Jeff Bezos team just responded to my email by phone. The problem is a glitch not policy, and is being worked on. Everyone can calm down.

erichocean 4y ago
Update: issue appears to be fixed now.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]