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> The way to avoid this is to buy items that are “shipped from and sold by” Amazon or the manufacturer. The way to avoid this is that Amazon steps up their gam

> The way to avoid this is to buy items that are “shipped from and sold by” Amazon or the manufacturer. The way to avoid this is that Amazon steps up their game and verifies the high ticket items before shipping them. It simply has to fit into the profit margin of selling things with upwards of 500 dollar sticker price. And the other way to avoid this is simply dropping the “you have signed for the package so it is your fault if we scammed you” bullshit. > They make mistakes, but imo actually do a pretty good job. Yeah. No. They don’t do a pretty good job handling the non-happy path. I ordered a second hand book from them. It did not arrive even two months later than it was promised. Their database and interfaces correctly reflected of this fact. What should have happened? They should have noticed that they dropped the ball all the way to china and sent me a refund automatically with an email where they apologise about it. What would have been also acceptable, but shitty? A big button on the order where they were saying that it is two months late which refunds me instantly. Because of course. What happened instead? Super hard to get an agent to talk with. I’m quite handy with computers, and I had to use all my web-fu to figure out how to do it. Then after much waiting, the agent scolded me that my order is with a third party. As if I care. I ordered something from amazon’s website, amazon shows up in my bank statement, I clearly have a business relationship here with Amazon. And only after that did they refund me. None of this is a mistake. It is intentionally designed like this in the hopes that you forgot about your order, or find it too hard to jump through hoops.

donalhunt 4y ago
Good point on companies needing to focus on the happy path and non-happy path. Thanks for the reminder of the terminology. Doesn't Amazon make it easy to cancel items that have not been dispatched? I've noticed language highlighting this ability in the past.
toasterlovin 4y ago
You’re thinking about their processes from the point of view of how you, a unified being in complete control of its central nervous system, would handle things. But that is not what Amazon is. They are operating at the extremes of scale and have to build systems that work even though there are adversarial actors at all levels (customers, sellers, employees). Literally no one has done what they are doing before. Not excusing it, but we don’t actually have a benchmark to compare to. Having better visibility into it than your typical consumer, I actually think they do a decent job. They need to be better, but I can assure you that they are constantly iterating and improving. I would encourage you to consider that this is realistically the best that any company could be at building the type of system that Amazon is building.
- krisoft 4y ago
  I get it. As a software enginer who is familiar with the problems of scale, and did some work in adversarial environment I understand what makes their job wicked hard. (In fact if you read back in my comments you will see one where I write very similar arguments you are saying.) As a customer, I don’t care. I really don’t. All of these are excuses. Either they did right by me or not. They are not yet in the “never buy from them again” bucket, but they are in the “maximum caution potentially scammy” bucket. These have all kind of negative consequences to them. I would never buy a high ticket item from them. I wouldn’t buy anything which goes into a person’s body or stays in prolonged contact with it. I wouldn’t buy safety critical equipment from them. And I am advising my friends about these too when the topic comes up. These are whole market segments Amazon lost in my eye. And trust is hard to build back. It is possible that two months from now they will launch a brand new way of validating things which will fix 90% of these issues, yet i will never hear about it, and die as an old man 50 years from now still not trusting them. > I actually think they do a decent job By the results they are not. Companies who are doing a decent job don’t get BBC articles written about them. Companies who are doing a decent job don’t get long HN comments where someone explains what arcane things you need to be aware of to safely use their services. (Just see the one in this thread a bit higher.) > I would encourage you to consider that this is realistically the best that any company could be at building the type of system that Amazon is building. Perhaps. But as a customer I don’t care. I just move my cursor to the address bar and go somewhere else to service my needs. I go to apple to buy my computer directly, I buy my diy tools from screwfix, I buy my precious metals from cooksongold, I buy my electronic parts from digikey, and I buy food items from the local grocery stores or order it from hello fresh. These are all purchases I have made recently and these are all transactions where Amazon could have got my money, but they were not even considered because of their well known failings. I don’t mind, maybe they do.

donalhunt 4y ago

Good point on companies needing to focus on the happy path and non-happy path. Thanks for the reminder of the terminology. Doesn't Amazon make it easy to cancel items that have not been dispatched? I've noticed language highlighting this ability in the past.

toasterlovin 4y ago

You’re thinking about their processes from the point of view of how you, a unified being in complete control of its central nervous system, would handle things. But that is not what Amazon is. They are operating at the extremes of scale and have to build systems that work even though there are adversarial actors at all levels (customers, sellers, employees). Literally no one has done what they are doing before. Not excusing it, but we don’t actually have a benchmark to compare to. Having better visibility into it than your typical consumer, I actually think they do a decent job. They need to be better, but I can assure you that they are constantly iterating and improving. I would encourage you to consider that this is realistically the best that any company could be at building the type of system that Amazon is building.

krisoft 4y ago
I get it. As a software enginer who is familiar with the problems of scale, and did some work in adversarial environment I understand what makes their job wicked hard. (In fact if you read back in my comments you will see one where I write very similar arguments you are saying.) As a customer, I don’t care. I really don’t. All of these are excuses. Either they did right by me or not. They are not yet in the “never buy from them again” bucket, but they are in the “maximum caution potentially scammy” bucket. These have all kind of negative consequences to them. I would never buy a high ticket item from them. I wouldn’t buy anything which goes into a person’s body or stays in prolonged contact with it. I wouldn’t buy safety critical equipment from them. And I am advising my friends about these too when the topic comes up. These are whole market segments Amazon lost in my eye. And trust is hard to build back. It is possible that two months from now they will launch a brand new way of validating things which will fix 90% of these issues, yet i will never hear about it, and die as an old man 50 years from now still not trusting them. > I actually think they do a decent job By the results they are not. Companies who are doing a decent job don’t get BBC articles written about them. Companies who are doing a decent job don’t get long HN comments where someone explains what arcane things you need to be aware of to safely use their services. (Just see the one in this thread a bit higher.) > I would encourage you to consider that this is realistically the best that any company could be at building the type of system that Amazon is building. Perhaps. But as a customer I don’t care. I just move my cursor to the address bar and go somewhere else to service my needs. I go to apple to buy my computer directly, I buy my diy tools from screwfix, I buy my precious metals from cooksongold, I buy my electronic parts from digikey, and I buy food items from the local grocery stores or order it from hello fresh. These are all purchases I have made recently and these are all transactions where Amazon could have got my money, but they were not even considered because of their well known failings. I don’t mind, maybe they do.