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Is your Amazon shopping experience better than 10 years ago? Is product discovery easier? Are you confident that you’re getting genuine merchandise? Are deliver

Is your Amazon shopping experience better than 10 years ago? Is product discovery easier? Are you confident that you’re getting genuine merchandise? Are delivery promises being met? Are the prices competitive with other online and offline retailers? All of those have gotten worse for me. The fact that FakeSpot exists is telling.

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pc86 4y ago
I'll go ahead and answer as well since we're just talking about anecdata anyway. > Is your Amazon shopping experience better than 10 years ago? Depends what you mean by "shopping experience." Some aspects better, some worse. Generally if I'm looking for a specific product/serial number or something, it's perfect. If I'm searching Amazon for a type of product, it's not as good - but then again, searching via Google or DDG and going from there is generally better. > Is product discovery easier? It was never particularly good, it's not particularly good now, but is probably marginally better especially if you have something specific in mind, e.g. something better than going on amazon.com and typing "waffle maker" into the search. > Are you confident that you’re getting genuine merchandise? Yes. IME the "OMG COUNTERFEITS" stuff is pretty overblown. Amazon not commingling inventory would be a step in the right direction but logistically that's difficult and would result in even less competitive pricing. > Are delivery promises being met? I can remember exactly two times where something wasn't delivered as promised, and one was years and years ago (maybe more than 10). The other one was damaged in transit and automatically reordered with a later shipping date so you can't even really blame that on them. > Are the prices competitive with other online and offline retailers? This is my only complaint. You end up paying a bit for the convenience and shipping speed which is worth it most of the time (IMO).
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  "OMG, counterfeits" is not overblown. I am careful with what I buy, and I got a dodgy charger that developed a burning smell without minutes of using it. If a UK retail shop sold such an item, Trading Standards would get involved asap. I have received other substandard items, where I was given a full refund if I took down a negative review.
scrum-treats 4y ago
> Is your Amazon shopping experience better than 10 years ago? No. Actually the site is overridden with fraudulent items, and the quality is in severe decline. The print-on-demand books are poorly printed, there's no way I'm buying anything over $100, especially not electronics. I can't trust any food items. The reviews are littered with bots. Not to mention, Amazon completely ruined Whole Foods. It's bad. As in, severely broken supply chain bad. I can't "trust" what I purchase from Amazon's website anymore. > Is product discovery easier? Maybe from 10 years ago, however in the last 2 years something happened with Search. It's routinely mis-categorizing items, which makes finding the item I want much harder. And it's riddled with ads and product placements (again for items that have low semantic overlap with what I am querying). > Are you confident that you’re getting genuine merchandise? No. There was actually a person in a different post who commented on being one of the few persons who had a team to work on fraud detection. And when they left Amazon the project was immediately dropped. Amazon knows this is an issue. We, the consumer, are just being sold short. It's not okay. > Are delivery promises being met? No. In fact Doug spoke in February about improving delivery times ("last mile" as it's sometimes called)[1]. The exact opposite has happened. From the article: 'Amazon now faces a class-action lawsuit in federal court for "false advertising" and "negligent misrepresentation" over Prime's two-day shipping guarantees.' In Doug's minor defense, the previous CEO of Consumer Goods, Dave Clark, was positively abhorrent. And Clark's actions and decisions cost Amazon huge monetary and employee losses. It doesn't justify the poor decisions made since Clark's departure (e.g., requiring customers file police reports for Amazon's wrongdoings; refusing customer refunds; banning customer accounts; knowingly selling fake goods; employing child labor). [1]https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-plans-for-faster-deliveries-despite-data-on-slowing-speeds-2023-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-plans-for-faster-deli... > Are the prices competitive with other online and offline retailers? Yes, in a way that is predatory. For instance "Price Labs" is Amazon's new gimmick to overcharge some customers and under charge others, dynamically, to further eliminate 3rd party vendor competition. In the last 1.5 - 2 yrs, it's gotten a lot worse.
- jonhohle 3y ago
  > “Price Labs” That’s interesting. When I started there in 2009, per customer dynamic pricing was a failed experiment and the people in my org treated it as a huge legal liability that was extremely taboo. At the same time, I’m not really surprised based on other MBA led initiatives that are the opposite of customer centric. I was never sure how those guys got enough purchase to get their projects done.
brookst 4y ago
Wait, are we talking about trends backed by data or anecdotes backed by Reddit and n=1 personal experiences?
- jonhohle 3y ago
  I worked at Amazon from 2009-2016. For a while near the end I worked on brand management which was specifically trying to address the counterfeit problem. If you’ve used Amazon in the last 14 years, you’ve used software I’ve worked on. My n=1, but from an informed position. It’s 2023 and I still get counterfeits.

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pc86 4y ago

I'll go ahead and answer as well since we're just talking about anecdata anyway. > Is your Amazon shopping experience better than 10 years ago? Depends what you mean by "shopping experience." Some aspects better, some worse. Generally if I'm looking for a specific product/serial number or something, it's perfect. If I'm searching Amazon for a type of product, it's not as good - but then again, searching via Google or DDG and going from there is generally better. > Is product discovery easier? It was never particularly good, it's not particularly good now, but is probably marginally better especially if you have something specific in mind, e.g. something better than going on amazon.com and typing "waffle maker" into the search. > Are you confident that you’re getting genuine merchandise? Yes. IME the "OMG COUNTERFEITS" stuff is pretty overblown. Amazon not commingling inventory would be a step in the right direction but logistically that's difficult and would result in even less competitive pricing. > Are delivery promises being met? I can remember exactly two times where something wasn't delivered as promised, and one was years and years ago (maybe more than 10). The other one was damaged in transit and automatically reordered with a later shipping date so you can't even really blame that on them. > Are the prices competitive with other online and offline retailers? This is my only complaint. You end up paying a bit for the convenience and shipping speed which is worth it most of the time (IMO).

oxfordmale 4y ago
"OMG, counterfeits" is not overblown. I am careful with what I buy, and I got a dodgy charger that developed a burning smell without minutes of using it. If a UK retail shop sold such an item, Trading Standards would get involved asap. I have received other substandard items, where I was given a full refund if I took down a negative review.

scrum-treats 4y ago

> Is your Amazon shopping experience better than 10 years ago? No. Actually the site is overridden with fraudulent items, and the quality is in severe decline. The print-on-demand books are poorly printed, there's no way I'm buying anything over $100, especially not electronics. I can't trust any food items. The reviews are littered with bots. Not to mention, Amazon completely ruined Whole Foods. It's bad. As in, severely broken supply chain bad. I can't "trust" what I purchase from Amazon's website anymore. > Is product discovery easier? Maybe from 10 years ago, however in the last 2 years something happened with Search. It's routinely mis-categorizing items, which makes finding the item I want much harder. And it's riddled with ads and product placements (again for items that have low semantic overlap with what I am querying). > Are you confident that you’re getting genuine merchandise? No. There was actually a person in a different post who commented on being one of the few persons who had a team to work on fraud detection. And when they left Amazon the project was immediately dropped. Amazon knows this is an issue. We, the consumer, are just being sold short. It's not okay. > Are delivery promises being met? No. In fact Doug spoke in February about improving delivery times ("last mile" as it's sometimes called)[1]. The exact opposite has happened. From the article: 'Amazon now faces a class-action lawsuit in federal court for "false advertising" and "negligent misrepresentation" over Prime's two-day shipping guarantees.' In Doug's minor defense, the previous CEO of Consumer Goods, Dave Clark, was positively abhorrent. And Clark's actions and decisions cost Amazon huge monetary and employee losses. It doesn't justify the poor decisions made since Clark's departure (e.g., requiring customers file police reports for Amazon's wrongdoings; refusing customer refunds; banning customer accounts; knowingly selling fake goods; employing child labor). [1]https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-plans-for-faster-deliveries-despite-data-on-slowing-speeds-2023-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-plans-for-faster-deli... > Are the prices competitive with other online and offline retailers? Yes, in a way that is predatory. For instance "Price Labs" is Amazon's new gimmick to overcharge some customers and under charge others, dynamically, to further eliminate 3rd party vendor competition. In the last 1.5 - 2 yrs, it's gotten a lot worse.

jonhohle 3y ago
> “Price Labs” That’s interesting. When I started there in 2009, per customer dynamic pricing was a failed experiment and the people in my org treated it as a huge legal liability that was extremely taboo. At the same time, I’m not really surprised based on other MBA led initiatives that are the opposite of customer centric. I was never sure how those guys got enough purchase to get their projects done.

brookst 4y ago

Wait, are we talking about trends backed by data or anecdotes backed by Reddit and n=1 personal experiences?

jonhohle 3y ago
I worked at Amazon from 2009-2016. For a while near the end I worked on brand management which was specifically trying to address the counterfeit problem. If you’ve used Amazon in the last 14 years, you’ve used software I’ve worked on. My n=1, but from an informed position. It’s 2023 and I still get counterfeits.