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Comment by simias | Hacker News Reader

It's really baffling to me how despite being one of the largest companies in the world and being centered around e-commerce Amazon doesn't do anything about these issues weakening their core product. I say "do nothing" not "fail to stop" because I haven't seen any evidence that Amazon does anything at all to prevent or discourage these behaviors.

I wonder if it's because they push the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mantra too far. After all, their current approach is successful so why risk changing anything? That would also explain why the website overall looks so dated in many areas.

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I don't think it's baffling at all. Facebook is the largest social media company, and what do they do to try to stop all of the propaganda, troll factories and hateful things going on there? Naught. They know that they are the largest company and therefore doesn't have to do anything as long as their position stays the same. Which it seems to be doing. Yes, there are people leaving the platform but where do they go? There is no real contender, therefore Facebook will remain number 1.

On my city Startup Facebook group, I see lots of posts offering fake Facebook & Amazon review services. When I report such posts, the response I get is, the said posts doesn't violate Facbook's Community standard Guidlines.

I don't think it's completely the same thing though, this propaganda and trolling could arguably be a positive for Facebook by driving engagement. Of course there's a balance to maintain but it's not necessarily all bad. Socially and ethically it might be bad but bean-counting-wise it might not be that terrible. Facebook doesn't really care if people trust what they see on the platform as long as they generate pageviews and get ad impressions.

On the other hand I don't see how fake reviews and bootleg items do anything but hurt Amazon by making people distrust the platform. You don't want to add friction to the buying process by making people triple check that they're not getting duped.

And it's not like it's a new problem either, lack of trust was a huge issue in the early days of e-commerce, I'm sure Amazon doesn't want to return to these days where you felt like you were swimming in a sea of scams.

The problem is that before you bought stuff largely from Amazon.

Whereas now it's more akin to eBay which always suffered with scam problems (and responded by giving buyers far more power - which then resulted in buyers scamming sellers instead of the reverse).

I wish it could return to the days where you just bought stuff from Amazon - or at least make it very easy to only search for their products.

Have you tried eBay recently? I’ve bought a few things from there in the last year and found it pleasant and professional.

I have friends who work on teams in Facebook who use ML to detect and filter out “undesirable content”. It’s a difficult problem but they’re a pretty intense team (workaholics) so I wouldn’t say they spend 0 effort.

It hasn't hurt their revenues, so they have no commercial reason to do anything about it. In other words - it's a leading indicator.

> also explain why the website overall looks so dated in many areas.

As pointed out by UX experts "what's good for Amazon is not good for normal sites."

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/amazon-no-e-commerce-role-m...

> It hasn't hurt their revenues, so they have no commercial reason to do anything about it.

That can't be the explanation. They surely must be aware of it, and surely must be looking forward in time, right?

I guess it's possible that everyone there is a moron, but it doesn't seem likely.

> They surely must be aware of it,

I know for a fact from an Amazon employee that they are aware of it. It's more that they don't have a focus on fixing it.

That seems shortsighted for such a traditionally longsighted company. If you sell tents to people who sell fruit, and don't screen the fruit for disease, and then people get sick, they will use other bazaars.

I think a major reason behind this problem is that their entire seller system to Add/Edit Amazon product listings (Amazon Seller Central) is run almost entirely as an outsourced division.

The website is entirely different (although Amazon themed/branded). It still doesn't have full mobile support. Phone support is almost non-existent. Most customer support is outsourced to foreign countries. It is a joke.

It once took me 3 months of arguing back and forth to get an erroneous $30 seller fee refunded since there was no "supervisor" to speak to and only a broken ticket system where I would received canned apologies and promises - just to have the same result over and over.

They are clearly understaffed and/or don't know what they're doing most of the time, so counterfeit, duplicate, and junk/low quality listings get through all the time.

They're betting on the regulatory force of their review system and product listing SEO, which is linked to their search algorithm. The truth is that it's easier for smaller sellers/brands who laser focus on one or a few products to outcompete bigger brands with many products, and as a consequence appear first in the search results.

The more niche a product is, the easier it is to compete. It's just hard to tell an establish brand apart from a brand that just does Amazon, if you search for something (brands) outside of your knowledge domain. Smaller private label brands can appear more professional as a result of that mentioned laser focus and having Amazon as only channel.

In my opinion it's also the fault of the bigger brands not investing enough into the optimization of their listing, they don't depend on it.

>also the fault of the bigger brands not investing enough into the optimization of their listing, they don't depend on it.

I wouldn't call it their "fault", per se. Thought experiment: If I'm a third party seller on Amazon, why should I / what do I gain by investing into the optimization of my listing if I do not depend on my Amazon listing for the majority of my revenue?

Edit. Agree with the rest of your post btw

>If I'm a third party seller on Amazon, why should I / what do I gain by investing into the optimization of my listing if I do not depend on my Amazon listing for the majority of my revenue?

Sure, you're right, that's how businesses think, and it makes sense. But the side effect is the situation that was brought up, that customers don't understand why their favorite products don't show up higher up in the list, if at all. there might be a point where it can affect a brand and their domain authority. Like Google search, the stuff that doesn't show up on the first pages is perceived as less relevant.

Sorry for this late response, just saw your reply.

A cynical explanation would be that Amazon has looked into it but have decided that it is more beneficial to promote Chinese crap over quality products, precisely because they break more often (more replacements sold) and more people buy low priced crap than high quality products that cost more (more earnings for Amazon).

It's amazing the extent that Chinese crap covers in meeting product market demands. I could see why some people will just chance it on cheap electronics like a Chinese GoPro when the real thing is already expensive and may be 4-5x the price. But what's infuriating is when obscure things like fake ear plugs and knock-off lighters get delivered to you because it's so unexpected it becomes nonsensical. Lower value discretionary things are now prevalently faked to the point that it makes you wonder why the hell would someone go through the effort of manufacturing and shipping a product that brings in such a small profit after fees and expenses unless millions of items were being sold. In the end, sellers supplying cheap crap through Amazon now have a huge market in reach, Amazon makes more money from more transactions, and customers are stuck hoping Amazon will still provide proper support and refunds for legitimate purchase issues.

The status quo seems inconsistent with their mission (stated as "earth's most customer-centric company").

https://www.amazon.jobs/en/working/working-amazon

Perhaps shoppers aren't the customer they have in mind?

thing is, you perceive it as a problem. it’s not. like google dumbing down email and usenet and so on, the next growth market is the folks that want the cheap shit.

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