4 ms·

For me, Amazon cuts delivery times, improves reliability and makes returns 10x easier.

by asah 2y ago

giraffe_lady 2y ago
I live in a big city and the last few years especially it's very easy to see the cost of that approach to delivery. Residential streets are clogged with double parked amazon vehicles, I can't go three blocks in the bike lane without having to get into traffic to go around one. If they can't figure out the apartment buzzer in a few seconds they just ring them all, I'm buzzed multiple times a day even if I don't use amazon. It has made life worse in small but tangible, concrete ways. I don't need it that fast, probably neither do you. You can blame enforcement or the individual drivers or whatever but I think that's a cop out. Amazon demands efficiency of its drivers, this is what efficiency looks like.
aliasxneo 2y ago
I've gotten a lot of free stuff from Amazon. Shipped duplicate products to me? Just keep the other. Food bottle slightly cracked and leaked in transit? Keep it and we'll send another. I was even able to get another 30% off an already sale price for a Kindle because my old one (>5 years) died, and they couldn't fix it. Not justifying any particular actions on their part, but their customer service has been above and beyond and other major retailer I've interacted with.
- AcerbicZero 2y ago
  I recall it used to be like that....but I haven't had that level of customer service out of amazon since like, 2017-2018 at the latest. Amazon earned my business back in the day, but they don't seem very interested in it anymore.
  - aliasxneo 2y ago
    Strange, the cracked bottle example was from only a few months ago.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  > Food bottle slightly cracked and leaked in transit? Keep it and we'll send another. Hah, I have the opposite experience. My shampoo bottle leaked and filled a bubble wrap. Amazon said, "We'll send a replacement, but you need to return this." After discussing it, I went to the UPS Store for the return. UPS, reasonably, refused to accept it. Had to debate this for far too long with another customer service person before they would agree that "We don't really want a ziploc bag of shampoo back".
lobsterthief 2y ago
Making me drive 20 mins to Whole Foods to deliver some items, and wait in a line where there’s one kiosk, has completely turned me off of Amazon. This is probably by design, but I don’t return a whole lot.
- jimmydddd 2y ago
  Mine is 5 minutes away. Two kiosks plus a person is always on site. The most I've ever had to wait for the person is 30 seconds -- all they do is scan the QR code and take the item. So I guess it's YMMV.
  - neilv 2y ago
    Until the person enters something wrong on the screen, and you get emails claiming you will be billed if you don't return the item, and you end up spending a few hours with Kafkaesque customer service, repeatedly, over the course of weeks, interrupting multiple days with time-sucking aggravation. Unless Mr. Bezos has been putting on a disguise, and secret-shoppering his own company, I have a suspicion he has no idea how much his Leadership Principles have been eroded in the last few years. I don't think metrics will tell you that, when your staff has been conditioned to desperately make their metrics look good. The short-term quantitative metrics will be hit, at least on paper, and everything else will be neglected or outright cannibalized.
Glyptodon 2y ago
Ease of returns is probably the main feature that makes my household have some degree of Amazon preference. But that's increasingly offset by an inability to find quality products.
- criddell 2y ago
  I'm always surprised how often I contact Amazon to do a return and they refund my money and tell me to keep the item.
  - tharkun__ 2y ago
    I suspect it's just cheaper for many things. You not only have to consider the money spent on shipping it back to them at their own cost but also then deciding whether the product is still in good enough condition to be resold or most likely it would just go wholesale directly to a business that sells returns at a cheaper price and they handle that checking / repackaging. That by itself still probably costs money to handle. At Amazon scale, all of that together is a lot of money. If the amount of profit they made from selling to you is offset by all those costs, why not let the customer keep it and get free goodwill and repeat business?
vel0city 2y ago
> makes returns 10x easier. Makes dumping what would otherwise be useful goods into landfills 10x easier*
switch007 2y ago
They're also 10x more efficient at providing counterfeits
- asah 2y ago
  I hear people complain about this but maybe I'm just better at serving fake goods. I grew up in a place and time where scams were everywhere. I now invest in garage stage startups, and endlessly amused.
int_19h 2y ago
You sure need that ease of return when Amazon repeatedly ships the wrong item again and again.

For me, Amazon cuts delivery times, improves reliability and makes returns 10x easier.

by asah 2y ago

For me, Amazon cuts delivery times, improves reliability and makes returns 10x easier.

I live in a big city and the last few years especially it's very easy to see the cost of that approach to delivery. Residential streets are clogged with double parked amazon vehicles, I can't go three blocks in the bike lane without having to get into traffic to go around one. If they can't figure out the apartment buzzer in a few seconds they just ring them all, I'm buzzed multiple times a day even if I don't use amazon. It has made life worse in small but tangible, concrete ways. I don't need it that fast, probably neither do you. You can blame enforcement or the individual drivers or whatever but I think that's a cop out. Amazon demands efficiency of its drivers, this is what efficiency looks like.

aliasxneo 2y ago

I've gotten a lot of free stuff from Amazon. Shipped duplicate products to me? Just keep the other. Food bottle slightly cracked and leaked in transit? Keep it and we'll send another. I was even able to get another 30% off an already sale price for a Kindle because my old one (>5 years) died, and they couldn't fix it. Not justifying any particular actions on their part, but their customer service has been above and beyond and other major retailer I've interacted with.

AcerbicZero 2y ago
I recall it used to be like that....but I haven't had that level of customer service out of amazon since like, 2017-2018 at the latest. Amazon earned my business back in the day, but they don't seem very interested in it anymore.
- aliasxneo 2y ago
  Strange, the cracked bottle example was from only a few months ago.
FireBeyond 2y ago
> Food bottle slightly cracked and leaked in transit? Keep it and we'll send another. Hah, I have the opposite experience. My shampoo bottle leaked and filled a bubble wrap. Amazon said, "We'll send a replacement, but you need to return this." After discussing it, I went to the UPS Store for the return. UPS, reasonably, refused to accept it. Had to debate this for far too long with another customer service person before they would agree that "We don't really want a ziploc bag of shampoo back".

lobsterthief 2y ago

Making me drive 20 mins to Whole Foods to deliver some items, and wait in a line where there’s one kiosk, has completely turned me off of Amazon. This is probably by design, but I don’t return a whole lot.

jimmydddd 2y ago
Mine is 5 minutes away. Two kiosks plus a person is always on site. The most I've ever had to wait for the person is 30 seconds -- all they do is scan the QR code and take the item. So I guess it's YMMV.
- neilv 2y ago
  Until the person enters something wrong on the screen, and you get emails claiming you will be billed if you don't return the item, and you end up spending a few hours with Kafkaesque customer service, repeatedly, over the course of weeks, interrupting multiple days with time-sucking aggravation. Unless Mr. Bezos has been putting on a disguise, and secret-shoppering his own company, I have a suspicion he has no idea how much his Leadership Principles have been eroded in the last few years. I don't think metrics will tell you that, when your staff has been conditioned to desperately make their metrics look good. The short-term quantitative metrics will be hit, at least on paper, and everything else will be neglected or outright cannibalized.

Glyptodon 2y ago

Ease of returns is probably the main feature that makes my household have some degree of Amazon preference. But that's increasingly offset by an inability to find quality products.

criddell 2y ago
I'm always surprised how often I contact Amazon to do a return and they refund my money and tell me to keep the item.
- tharkun__ 2y ago
  I suspect it's just cheaper for many things. You not only have to consider the money spent on shipping it back to them at their own cost but also then deciding whether the product is still in good enough condition to be resold or most likely it would just go wholesale directly to a business that sells returns at a cheaper price and they handle that checking / repackaging. That by itself still probably costs money to handle. At Amazon scale, all of that together is a lot of money. If the amount of profit they made from selling to you is offset by all those costs, why not let the customer keep it and get free goodwill and repeat business?

vel0city 2y ago

> makes returns 10x easier. Makes dumping what would otherwise be useful goods into landfills 10x easier*

switch007 2y ago

They're also 10x more efficient at providing counterfeits

asah 2y ago
I hear people complain about this but maybe I'm just better at serving fake goods. I grew up in a place and time where scams were everywhere. I now invest in garage stage startups, and endlessly amused.

int_19h 2y ago

You sure need that ease of return when Amazon repeatedly ships the wrong item again and again.