Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon | Hacker News Reader

Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

businessinsider.com

196 pointsgarraeth264 comments

My theory: Prime, and its 2-day shipping service, is a flat rate deal, priced according to 10.5 normal months and 1.5 batshit crazy delivery months. Since they can't charge on a demand basis for shipping like FedEx can, they've run into an internal train wreck where they can't afford to deliver all the orders the've received. So their bottleneck is actually a bottleneck of budgeted "delivery slots" for these Spring months, which they've excused as being "due to essential items only, can't keep up with demand."

I've noticed something that I found extremely curious: I've ordered several random things in the last month from Amazon, and all have been severely delayed. These are not surge items: drumsticks, a guitar wall hanger, and an APC ups. All were Prime items, and all have been severely delayed, waiting weeks now. I get it, they are 'focusing on essential items' and my guitars will be fine to wait a while longer. However...

I have not noticed many Prime delivery vans out in the neighborhood. During the holidays, Prime vans are everywhere. Today, they are not. Last mile shipping is one of those businesses that gets gloriously efficient with scale. Bezos announced that 100,000 person hire a few weeks back, which I assumed would be rehiring their holiday surge subcontractors. But few vans on the streets today.

Finally, what essential items does Amazon have in stock that is overtaking their delivery supply chain?

I 100% agree with this.

In a matter of 4 days, Amazon went from next day shipping to 1+ month "estimated" delivery timeframes. This was the final straw for me to finally commit to finding items from non-Amazon sources. So far everything I've ordered has come in a reasonable timeframe. Possibly, taking one day longer, but not 15x longer.

I ordered an air conditioner that showed up 2 days later with free shipping. Yet, Amazon failed to ship a PS4 controller for 3+ weeks (ended up cancelling and doing Best Buy pick-up 10 minutes after I ordered).

-----

Oh yea. I almost forgot about the thermometer that my wife order on March 28th. Today is April 23rd and we still have not received it. Estimated delivery is May 7th.

Maybe Amazon doesn't consider that an "essential" item, but I certainly wouldn't place it on the list of "useless" items.

I was in the same situation with a thermometer. I even had to buy one on eBay, and it was junk. I’m not endorsing this but I ended up getting one of these since it would be delivered in a few days https://ihealthlabs.com/product/PT3

My mom ended up shipping us her spare one. Thankfully.

As an interesting anecdote, the non-prime thermometer I ordered yesterday already shipped. But of course, I actually paid shipping for it, which probably put me near the front of the queue.

My prime orders got badly delayed though.

Was it from a third-party seller? If they're not using FBA, they shipped it from their own warehouse.

I've noticed the opposite in the UK - saying they'll take up to a week to deliver, and then the item turning up the next day, or the day after.

Same experience here (SF Bay), some items with moderate delays are on time (3-7 days), items with very long lead times (15-30 days) end up coming much faster. Still happy to not have to go to the store.

Same, Seattle, CPU, RAM and MB I ordered came a day early (last week). Was surprised, it was a day before the scheduled arrival I got when order was placed. Maybe just lucky.

Can confirm. Order something pretty unessential, delivered in 3 days.

Early on in the COVID crisis, Amazon was giving long delivery estimates and then delivering quickly anyway. That has since changed to their estimates matching reality.

I can second that for Canada; I've ordered at least 4-5 non-essential items in the last month and only one took more than 3-4 days to arrive.

tldr.. get a PRIME account

I'm in Canada.. you're right BUT you need a prime account. I ordered some stuff and it was due to come in a month (non prime account).. and after 1.5 weeks it didn't ship. I canceled it and used a family members Prime account (still the delivery date was ~1 month away).. I got the stuff within 3 days.

Have a Canadian prime account. Some items ship next day, others take over a month. I suspect locally-stocked deliveries are fine, it’s listings at further remote warehouses that are taking longer, maybe? Normally everything arrives within a day like clockwork at my location, especially during the holidays.

Also, despite delays, Amazon still delivers. Staples just cancelled my orders.

My Canadian prime account seems to be having no effect. Home cooking appliances not showing up.

Tomorrow I'm cancelling them and cancelling prime renewal. We started using Walmart and curbside delivery and its great.

I feel like covid will stress test existing "curbside pickup" systems and force them to become robust. Where before employees weren't well trained or didn't care, now they're well practiced.

Walmart, Homeless Despot, Zehrs, and Canadian Tire curbside have all been well oiled machines this month.

Same in Australia. I've been amazed at how well Amazon has been sticking to quick deliveries even here. We don't get same day (or even next day, as I'm rural) but I haven't had anything take more than 3 working days, which is the same as pre-COVID, despite ordering 10x what I usually do.

Same in Seattle. They give me a delayed estimate but usually I've been getting my packages days earlier.

same in Australia.

I have a friend at Amazon and they say absenteeism among employees is through the roof. They can neither hire nor keep the employees they do have.

That would fall under the "they can't afford to deliver the orders they have" bucket if they can't find anyone that wants to do the proposed work. If true, Amazon is selling a service that isn't robust or flexible enough for such a season. Will be interesting to see how it shakes out.

> If true, Amazon is selling a service that isn't robust or flexible enough for such a season.

Nobody in that area is robust enough for a once in a century pandemic.

This is still far smaller than other pandemics in the last 100 years. The 1957 "Asian flu" had around 1–4 million dead. AIDS is sitting around 770,000 dead per year and the total is vastly higher etc.

What makes things different about COVID-19 is how people are responding to it in the hope of saving vast numbers of lives.

> This is still far smaller than other pandemics in the last 100 years. > What makes things different..

We are still in the early days of this pandemic. The history of COVID-19 is still being written. No one knows how long we're in for or what the final death count will be.

After the meat shortage starts we'll all come out of this with a BMI of 20. It won't be because those remaining all lost weight.

Given R0 is around 4 and mortality rate is some single digit percentage, left unchecked this pandemic is bigger than those.

The only recourse we have to reduce R is stay the hell away from each other. No business really plans on that.

How well did Internet stores deliver during them?

AIDS isn't really a relevant comparison to COVID-19

Companies that have the ability to price according to the strain on their system, like FedEx and UPS, are presumably far more robust in this scenario. Here's the rub: Amazon Prime is a contract for services at a certain annual price between the customer and Amazon. Amazon cannot easily just ask for more if their end of the deal ends up more costly to deliver than forecasted.

It's a tangent, but at the All Hands where Jeff introduced Prime, he made it very clear that it was actually a money loser for the company at that point. He did it anyhow because it satisfied both the customer obsession and the long term growth principles Amazon has followed from the start.

Because of this, I very much doubt that Amazon will mind losing money on Prime member shipping during this pandemic. I wouldn't be shocked if some of the current management made noises in that direction and that was part of what got Jeff to take the reins again.

Losing money on the two-day shipping in order to make money on the volume of sales is just like saying “we will lose money on leasing planes but make it up on the product sale”. That announcement was certainly divergent e-commerce strategy at the time, but Amazon intends to cover its basis on the overall transaction.

In today’s plight, it’s the sheer scale of money Amazon might lose fulfilling its backlog of orders, and potentially why its delaying shipping with the “essential items” reasoning, that’s of particular interest.

They can just not deliver the service. Amazon Prime doesn't guarantee that any item you want will come in two days.

> Amazon Prime doesn't guarantee that any item you want will come in two days.

So you're saying their deal is "pay us $120/year but we make no commitment to provide anything in exchange?"

It’s sadly not uncommon for businesses to promise various services and then unilaterally change their minds. While I’m sure that there are some exceptions, most TOS have a ton of “we reserve the right to change our minds whenever for whatever reason, without warning”

Now that’s kind of different from the PR fallout. Amazon is risking a mass walkout of their customers over this; it just depends on whether or not customers see this as a reasonable response to a crazy circumstance, or a greedy move on Amazon’s part to maintain profitability over their commitments to customers.

> It’s sadly not uncommon for businesses to promise various services and then unilaterally change their minds. While I’m sure that there are some exceptions, most TOS have a ton of “we reserve the right to change our minds whenever for whatever reason, without warning”

I was under the impression that one party cannot unilaterally modify the terms of a contract without offering consideration to the other party, and the consideration can't be "we will continue to perform according to the terms of the contract".

Thats what they are doing, and I, the customer, am no longer getting the value I signed up for.

For a "customer obsession strategy," this one should hurt their bottom line, either with cancellation of prime subscriptions or lost sales. I am not saying amazon should be penalized or taken to court. This is just the biggest vulnerability I have seen out of the Amazon machine, and I think its very interesting.

> Amazon cannot easily just ask for more if their end of the deal ends up more costly to deliver than forecasted.

Under the circumstances there’s probably no legal obstacle to them doing so. A pandemic looks, walks and quacks like force majeure.

Legal, perhaps not. Economic, possibly. I wouldn't be surprised if a change in price acted as a shock to get people to cancel their membership.

The PR is probably more important than the legal in this case.

But they can easily take longer to deliver, and are, negating any need to change pricing.

Does anyone know how Alibaba and the like have fared in China?

I live in Shanghai. There were two or three weeks after Lunar New Year where deliveries were delayed or more expensive or both for everything and grocery delivery slots were scarce for a month. Things are back to normal with all deliveries now.

But since this was the Lunar New Year, I'm guessing that Ali Baba was already on a war footing?

It’s entirely possible that they’ve literally bottomed out on the labor pool in some areas, what with the increase of risk to drivers and increased robustness in the social safety net.

It’s kind of hard to plan around the “what if we can’t get more workers” scenario.

> Will be interesting to see how it shakes out.

Long term is probably a combination of autonomous robots, self-driving vehicles, and delivery drones. The current crisis might even accelerate its development and deployment.

Yea well those strategies keep on always able to be done "next year".

Unemployment compensation is high, so the incentive to show up to work has decreased.

They can solve this problem by paying more, although wage increases are hard to turn back time on. Maybe they should consider "hazard pay" during the pandemic.

You can't collect unemployment if you just decide to stop showing up for work. Unless Amazon formally lays you off (and Amazon hasn't laid off anybody) or you fall into one of the very specific categories of COVID-related exceptions, you're eligible for $0 in unemployment.

You might if you can demonstrate that the employer had a hazardous work environment. Given reports of conditions in some Amazon centers, a person could probably make a strong case, especially if they are someone or know someone who falls into a vulnerable category.

During a pandemic like this, you can definitely quit over fears of the virus and for the purpose of social distancing and be eligible for unemployment. I know a number of people who did.

In Florida unemployment is a max of 235 dollars for a max of 12 weeks. Nobody is going on unemployment for a raise here.

+600 from the feds per week. In most states, it is higher.

Except it's now $835 a week, or over $40k a year. You'd have to pay me a lot to get me back to work if I had that option.

You just cited the gross income, not what you get after taxes. You still get taxed on that AND you don't have benefits like health insurance - COBRA for continuing health care is expensive as is the alternative, although slightly less so, of paying for health care through an the ACA health care exchanges 100 percent out of your own pocket. For health care all that extra money will more than exceed health insurance for a family of 4. The extra money ends at the end of July.

Again, that is gross income NOT net income. That number is pre-tax income, unemployment is taxed just like income at a job. You can choose when filing to defer paying those taxes until when you file, but you do still need to pay them when you file for taxes come April for the previous year. So when you file you'll end up owing money and have to pay the income taxes you never paid. You're definitely still not coming out ahead.

So again, the additional 600 as part of the CARES act ends at the end of July. And you have to have to wait one week where you're unemployed - receiving no income - to be able to file. So you also lose one week of earnings no matter what. I don't think most people are coming out ahead on this by far.. it seems maybe a very small majority might briefly come out ahead but they seriously risk it all being canceled out if they're unemployed still past July.

If you make $40k for a family of 4, your ACA premiums will be much lower than that.

If you earn $30K/yr you pay very very little taxes, possibly negative

In normal times, true. However unemployment insurance has been significantly boosted by the CARES act during the pandemic

Even with the CARES act, Amazon employees can't just quit their jobs and choose to collect unemployment instead. People who quit their jobs aren't eligible for unemployment.

There are a few exceptions under the CARES act if you can't work because of something directly related to COVID, e.g., if you're a parent who has to take care of children because schools are closed. Being afraid you might catch the coronavirus at work is not a valid reason and would not make you eligible for unemployment payments.

> Amazon employees can't just quit their jobs and choose to collect unemployment instead

You're right, they can't.

However, the 26 million Americans who have been laid off from other jobs have negative incentive to sign up for a new job with Amazon because the benefits are tied to staying unemployed. That exacerbates the problem for Amazon.

Parents with kids in school sounds like a large chunk of the workforce, no?

Perhaps, but I don't know anything about the makeup of Amazon's distribution workforce.

Even among parents, I doubt that all of them would leap at the "opportunity" to quit their job just so they can take home slightly more money for a period of four months (which is all the CARES act covers). Surely most people must realize jobs are going to be extremely scarce four months from now, so if you have a job right now you probably should think very hard before throwing it away.

People who quit/get fired/don’t show don’t get unemployment.

Speaking from experience in California - if you are fired but not for misconduct, you may still collect unemployment.

There’s certainly a fine line between being bad at your job and actual misconduct, so if someone were so inclined they could probably just be a bad worker long enough to get fired without any specific alleged misconduct. Personally, I’d just quit if that pathway were on my mind, but I understand how people could decided to do this.

Although isn't it easy to get fired? Just work a bit too slowly?

Start agitating for a union

Or maybe they could solve this problem by permanently sharing more of their obscene profits with their workers, fully recognizing how essential their sacrifices and contributions (regardless of any 'hazard') are to those profits. If we're not learning that right now, we're rather missing the point of it.

Seems they aren't treating them well enough or paying them enough.

One more little note: I can't think of any other stores that have had to make a similar claim of 'focusing on the essentials.' At the other end of the spectrum, my local Costco has been fantastically stocked at all times except for the few super-demand items like toilet paper and soap.

And Amazon hasn't just said "yeah, your stuff might get delayed", they've actively asked large affiliates to cut referral traffic by 50-70%.

Chewy has been delaying delivery (they usually are two day deliveries). I've noticed some items take longer than others, and it seems to be on a priority basis (a poop rake set took longer than prescription medication, for example; like 2 weeks vs 2 days)

You are conflating bulk warehousing with delivery. Also, Costco isn't in the same league of complexity as Amazon catalog logistics

My anecdote is the opposite.

The desk in my home office overlooks the street, so I've gotten used to counting the delivery trucks during the day. (FedEx truck? Time for more coffee!)

We used to get one Prime van a day up my street. Now we get between five and eight a day.

My wife has ordered some very frivolous things from Amazon lately, including a cat tree, a cat scratching post, and an actual tree. All arrived early.

Sorry to hear that things are rough in your neighborhood. But I don't think that's enough data to point to some kind of conspiracy.

If you see no value in your Prime Membership why not cancel? I canceled mine over the fact that I have to screen what I buy because it could be counterfeit.

same

Around where I live (suburbs in Oregon/USA), the Amazon delivery vans have been making passes multiple times a day for the past few weeks.

Same here (Chapel Hill, NC) - I routinely get multiple Prime deliveries per day. And I see Prime vans running around everywhere.

Just to check, are you looking for the Amazon logo on the delivery vans? Because I've seen tons of deliveries for various services arrive in plain white Sprinters. You don't know whose van it is unless you can see the logo on the package. Some of them even seem to be subcontractors who work for multiple services, ie, Amazon and DHL packages arriving in the same truck.

Can confirm, I got a Prime delivery from a guy driving a white Budget Rent-a-car van two weeks ago. Have to say I was very thankful.

I've noticed the reverse - non-essential items are still delayed by weeks, but quasi-essentials (e.g., food, food storage items) are often faster than expected, and there are noticeably more Amazon trucks around than even at the holidays.

Getting a delivery from Amazon/Whole Foods has gone from difficult (get up at 2AM and have a 50% chance of finding a slot, and maybe a 2% chance during the day) in March to completely impossible since beginning of April - even the exceedingly rare event of "finding" a slot fails when trying to click through [Pay] and [Schedule] screens.

Funny, at least in my neighborhood in Seattle, I've been seeing those vans all over the place.

Has Amazon refunded everyone's Prime membership fees yet? At least partially? Or offered cancellations for people who don't use Prime digital services? That's an obvious first step to stop needlessly angering people.

I just did the math and cancelled prime. I realized that I didn't care to have items in within 2 days and I can still get free shipping if I batch my ordering a bit more.

Amazon is still delivering "non-essential" items, or else, what they consider "essential" is extremely broad. I use Amazon a lot - I've had energy drinks, candy, a radio wiring harness, fitness (Pilates) equipment, paper plates, pre-printed eBay thank you cards, a flood light, and more all delivered in the last few weeks, most of which arrived inside of the Prime window.

Amazon sucks now. I can't buy most of the specific items I use in my work, and when I do find something it's swimming in a sea of clone crap. The best thing it does still is books. Anything else is a mizxed bag. AMZ is just Ali Baba for people who can't wait for the ship.

This. I used to read this comments and think it only applied to the US. Also happening to Spain. Amazon has become useless. Rankings are weird, quality stuff is is very hard to find and I have to resort to forums that point to Amazon links that you cannot find using Amazon search.

Also, I'm more and more attracted to specialized shops again. For example for the last two years I've been buying most electronic stuff from a local shop. I needed a laptop charger and it was a totally awful experience going by Amazon, even typing output values and such. Fed up, went out, walked 15 mins, got one that wasn't the same I had but did the job and matched the specs.

It's exactly that. Why should I use Amazon if I can go to Alibaba or Aliexpress, what's the point if it isn't more convenient than moving my ass to a local store or get it cheaper in China.

> Why should I use Amazon if I can go to Alibaba or Aliexpress

Because you want it tomorrow and not in 3 months (if ever)? And want to be able to return it?

I'm all for hating things that are popular, but I don't think anyone suggesting AliExpress as a replacement for Amazon has seriously used it.

AliExpress is for things like a replacement cable you don't need soon but you'll need sometime in the next few years, so you can save a few bucks. Anything else I'd use Amazon.

Buying from manufacturers' websites rarely seems worth it to me either. There's always an issue. I've been trying to talk to the manufacturer of my high-end ski goggles to get them replaced. They leisurely take a month to reply to my ticket. Some manufacturers don't even bother.

Amazon has issues, but let's not forget how good we have it. The alternatives aren't exactly slaying it either.

Basically getting some echo chamber fatigue where every HNer has to hop on the whiny bandwagon. We can order anything to our doorstep anytime from anywhere and return it. It's not that bad just because you can enumerate some issues and pet peeves.

This may change soon Worldwide shipments within 72 hours

Alibaba owns more than 50 % in Cainiao, a logistical company, and the latter organized a Global Smart Logistic Summit today, where it revealed new technologies for smart logistics. The summit was also the location where the group unveiled its plans to expand its global network with another five hubs: Dubai, Hangzhou, Kuala Lumpur, Liege (BELGIUM, note added by me) and Moscow.

https://www.retaildetail.eu/en/news/general/alibaba-opens-be...

It's not hating, I wouldn't buy something expensive in Amazon either. Anything where I need some real backup in case of something going bad I buy somewhere physical that I trust. In case of consumer electronics and pc parts I use Pcbox and App Informática, two Spanish franchises. Most of the times the price difference is under 5€ but guess most people is not aware.

It has been this way for me for two years or so. I think I made the right choice. Research on the internet, go fnac, pcbox, appinformatica, cetronic, decathlon... I don't even live in a big city and there are good options for almost everything.

And I'm +30, it's not like I didn't adapt to the internet.

I use both Amazon and AliExpress a fair amount. There are a lot of things I can wait 2-3 weeks for. I broke a car phone vent mount the other day. $10 or so on Amazon. $2.60 or so on Ali. I can keep my phone in the cup holder or my pocket for 75% saving.

When ePacket was often free, I used Ali a lot and small parcels would often be just over a week to the east coast.

With all the Amazon clones/fake/crap, I've found that eBay is quickly filling my needs. I used to overlook eBay because the same problems Amazon now has, but I'm finding eBay an easier platform to weed out the fakes...and things tend to ship quicker.

Same in Germany. Started training archery in the woods as sport and needed arm protector. Amazon offered plenty of them, most the same as in AliExpress. Or the ones as in specialized archery stores with 20% higher prices. Sadly there were no archery store near by to walk in and I was limited to online shopping.

Niche stores tend to be better, at least the feedback from clients means something, unlike amazon where sellers just open up with another account. And some of them test what they buy.

The problem is it varies so much. I've been trying to find a replacement pedal for a sewing machine. As far as I can tell there's no model number for the part. I just have the sewing machine model. Everything is sold out online.

I found a local place. Normally I would just go in and talk to them, but because of the circumstances I called. I called Saturday at 1pm and left a message and got a call back mid-day Monday. Their website still shows hours 7-days a week, but maybe they've reduced hours or staff and haven't updated. They confirm the style and model I'm looking for and say they'll call me back if it's in stock or if they'll have to order it. I called them today (Thursday) late-afternoon and they said they had been meaning to call me back. They have the part, I pay for it, and they say they'll call when it's available. When I ask when that might be they said, "If it makes it on the truck, then tomorrow. If not, probably in a week."

None of this is bad customer service, but it's really nice to click "buy" with a good faith estimation for delivery and expect it to show up on my doorstep in a day or two.

I noticed professional businesses are really into their thing, but aren't always on top of the customer service/running a business part of things. It's most obvious to me with tradesmen who make house calls. It's hard to schedule something, it's hard to get an invoice and even sometimes pay them.

Amazon ships in 1-2 days, while at least from Europe Alibaba/AliExpress seem to be in the 14-60 days timeframe, and I imagine returns would be more hassle.

Amazon ships many things 14-30 days now anyway.

That’s a temporary situation.

Temporary but for over a month already.

I bought a 3d printer from aliexpress. I received it in 6 days.

of course it was a more expensive item, and it shipped straight away via DHL.

The cheaper items I bought through alixpress typically ship via china post, and that took rather longer.

I find this odd. I read these sorts of comments every time Amazon in mentioned on HN, how its literally only clones, fakes, and scams, and impossible to find legitimate products anymore.

I have literally never received a fake/clone/scam off amazon, and I can't explain that discrepancy. I personally only buy things that are sold or fulfilled by amazon, never shipped by third party sellers, but surely everyone else as savy as HN readers does the same? Why order things with brutal shipping costs and times, only things fulfilled by amazon are quick.

I’ve made you’re exact same comment in the past. And more recently I’ve responded to comments like yours with this exact same comment that I’m leaving now.

It never happened to me so I assumed it was people blowing it out of proportion or bad shopping habits. Then I got a fake item. Sold by a legit manufacturer and fulfilled by amazon from the manufacturers official page. But the item was a fake. Then it happen again. And again. And again. All on legit-looking items.

It’s certainly not often, maybe once out of 10 items. But it’s often enough that there are certain items I’d never buy from Amazon. Any food item, or something I put in my body or something I depend on the quality more than the price. It’s just both worth the risk.

After having my “completely legitimate” Swiss Gear backpack split wide open in an airport and realizing the truth of a couple of reviews saying they had fakes with cheaper stitching and a few other wrong things, I don’t leave comments like that anymore.

I'd add anything plugged in unattended that could burn down your apartment. There are reports of fake UL certs.

> reports of fake UL certs.

When I visited Shenzhen a few years ago I marveled at how any certification label you needed (UL, CSA, ESA) were being openly sold by the roll by dozens of vendors.

They even had "PASSED" and "TESTED" labels with what appeared to be hand written (blue ink) signatures/initials - making them look like ones that a QA person on the line would stick onto the product after testing.

I've been through Shenzhen a few times and saw rolls and rolls of tamper proof hologram stickers (for Nokia and Microsoft and Sony and so on ...).

I did not see fake UL stickers ... however, I don't doubt that they are there.

Know this: a fake UL sticker is a criminally negligent act. Setting aside the appallingly negative morality of anyone that would deploy one, Amazon needs to be brought to regulatory action in the US and the EU for each and every single counterfeit UL device they ship.

This is a life and death issue. People should not pay, with their lives, for the refusal of Amazon to regulate this behavior.

>I have literally never received a fake/clone/scam off amazon, and I can't explain that discrepancy.

Shopping patterns?

I buy a lot of things, not just for myself but as gifts for a large family. I have found some areas are so filled with scams that I no longer buy items from those areas on Amazon. Other areas (which make up the majority) I have no problem at all, at worst getting a slightly delayed or damaged box.

Any sort of name brand small electronic was a scam more times than not to the point now I no longer order them off Amazon. But books, board games, or video games have been 100% what I payed for. As far as I can tell I've never received a fake Amiibo, though a few times I never had it delivered and had to call for a refund. Even my few orders of used electronics have been good (though I never did get around to converting my used PS Vita into an emulation center).

Food is good too, but I rarely buy it and only for a few specific items as most other things are far too overpriced. Mainly I order tea and I pay close attention to who is filling the order.

Gardening supplies are probably the most mixed bag of the bunch. Often enough I don't get the seeds I order but it can sometimes be fun to see what actually does spout up.

Result: A few areas: 90%+ rip offs. A few other areas: 50/50. Most areas: 100% good.

As a side note, on anything I buy I go read the 1 star reviews and skip if they mention fakes or if there aren't any at all.

The problem is that many 1-star reviews that are meaningful are being drowned in the inane. ("I bought seeds, but they don't sprout if I don't add soil and water" kind of inane).

There's either a massive influx of stupidity, or this is deliberately useless one-stars to drown out useful ones.

Blind box seeds sounds like an untapped market, I'd buy those!

Fakes: Are you sure you haven't received a fake item? If you don't have a reference point, you might not be able to tell unless/until something goes wrong with it.

Clones: If you shop through referral links (e.g. click through from The Wirecutter) or seek out a specific model number from a major brand you won't experience the clone problem.

But how confident do you feel starting your search at Amazon for items like Bluetooth Headphones? There are 20 pages of results that look identical. Or how about a search for Bike Tail Light?

Are the latter fakes or clones? or is it just rebadging of the same product by the same factory?

I'm in maybe a similar boat, except I've gotten exactly one thing that was later determined to be a fake (and AMZN refunded).

There are things which are fake and things which aren't. For instance, if you get cologne, it can be nonsense.

Never had any issues either. Like you most things I buy are fulfilled by amazon. I believe people who experience this must be buying exclusively from 3rd parties. Ideally Amazon would try to stop this, but to do so they'd need to solve the fake review problem first.

Yep, this is a great example of an echo-chamber that's developed in the HN community. Some of it is deserved, but not all.

It's highly dependent on what you're looking for. If you search for "Belkin USB charger", you'll usually end up getting some good results at the top of the listings.

But if you search for "USB charger", you need to prepare yourself for pages upon pages of identical-looking chargers from "Amoner", "RAVpower", "iSmart", "Ailkin", "Anker", "Power7", "Nekmit", etc.

And most of them have hundreds or thousands of 4/5-star reviews, most of them compensated in some form or another, so good luck trying to separate the wheat from the chaff.

For about half the things I search for on Amazon, it's a similar situation.

Some of those are legitimately good brands (Anker and RAVpower being two I'm personally familiar with). Anker has even grown in North America to the point of having distribution within physical stores such as Sam's Club[1].

That said, your point still stands. These are not household names in the North American market, and it's not immediately obvious what is a legitimate and reliable option vs. a throw-away brand selling imported fire hazards.

[1] https://www.samsclub.com/p/anker-6-port-qc-blk-spring2017/pr...

> But if you search for "USB charger", you need to prepare yourself for pages upon pages of identical-looking chargers from "Amoner", "RAVpower"

RAVpower is actually a pretty good maker, with some pretty unique offerings (RP-PB19 is a USB UPS which takes in USB!). They even have an informative blog staffed with support personnel who reply to comments.

From my experience, Anker make good products. I specifically look for them when I'm buying charging hardware, and they've never failed me. I think it's possible you're dismissing perfectly fine products unfairly.

Maybe monoprice is an option for some items: https://www.monoprice.com

RAVPower has a totally awesome GaN based USB-C charger in 60 watts for like $30, and 100w for not much more, which is about 1/3 the size of the Apple one.

Absolutely agree, Amazon used to be my first stop for most online purchases. If I was shopping for something I wasn't super familiar with it was a fair bet I could quickly find most of the 'best' products in whatever category it is on Amazon. These days I have to wade through cheap clones of the exact same product rebranded, all with wildly different reviews and product descriptions in broken English.

Recently I find myself doing a 180 and returning more to in-store purchasing (Current pandemic situation aside) because I've been burned so many times by random Amazon orders in the last few years. To be fair their support has always made the situation right, but after a point the value from ordering from Amazon is gone if I'm rolling the dice on whether the product will match the description or be defective.

They also removed customer-based recommendations and replaced them with paid ads.

Two examples:

- Search results used to be order-able by popularity, but now only "featured" aka who pays the most.

- "Customers also purchased" or "Customers also viewed" boxes on item pages now replaced by sponsored boxes.

Amazon has gone from a site which made it effortless to find things and buy them, to a site that values advertising revenue over actual retail.

Unfortunately both Walmart and Target have gone the same way and also offer third party seller's items for sale, and sell paid advertisement.

Walmart at least has a filter you can enabled for "Retailer: Walmart" to remove the third-party stuff from search results.

Books aren’t even reliably great with certain knock offs and or different version/condition substitutions. No Starch Press has had issues With counterfeit printed books. https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch...

Books are a huge nightmare. Especially older books - search results are completely flooded and dominated by poor-quality fly-by-night print-on-demand publishing "companies" that take bad OCRs or even worse and reprint them. Making matters worse, reviews for different editions (including electronic editions!), publishers, and translations are all conflated!

This makes it impossible to ascertain anything about the quality and nature of the book you are actually buying - you might read ten reviews complaining about the translation, only none of them are actually about the translation you're looking at - you have no way of knowing unless they happen to mention it in the review you're looking at. You might read many reviews about very poor binding - but is it from the publisher you're looking at? No clue!

This isn't even getting onto the counterfeit issue you mention.

Another huge problem is translations between versions. An example of this is the paperback and hardcover versions of a book being well-translated by person X, but the Kindle version being a poor translation done by person Y. All of these will be on the same "book" page, even though they're fundamentally different.

I love my kindle, but translation + kindle is an awful experience.

Books also often arrive damaged due to the bizarre way they get packed.

I recently ordered from Powell's and was shocked at just how good the packing job is. They basically shrink-wrap your books to a thick piece of cardboard to prevent damage. With Amazon, I don't think I've ever gotten a book without a bit of damage.

I agree. I stupidly ordered a copy of Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier from Amazon and it just arrived yesterday, and the back cover was all bent along the edge because they did a terrible job of packing it.

Yes. Especially when most of the physical books I do order from Amazon are hardcover photography coffee table books. Probably at least half get sent back for obvious damage, and I could go more if I was even more picky.

Amazon first solved the Discovery problem, and they went and solved distribution, but somehow Discovery was completely lost after they solved Distribution.

You cant make distribution work without huge selection and volume. And selection is the enemy of discovery. It is a hard balance.

Agree with you about Amazon experience becoming less ideal.

Since the beginning of 2020, I submitted a couple of product reviews with detailed and factual explanation about why products in question aren't good enough. One of them was Amazon basic chair [https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Low-Back-Computer-Chair-...], which makes squeaky noises after 6 months of use (I'm a 135 lbs male), and another was Secura milk frother, which also make screechy noises after 1 month of light use (once or twice everyday). Turns out my review for their chair didn't get posted, so I tried again and finally wrote a question on the product page as to why my review isn't showing up. Then the review somehow showed up a week after. For Secura, they don't have a way to upload a video in product review (I see some people uploaded videos/images, but in my Amazon account UI for product review, there's no such feature), so I took a video and uploaded it to YouTube and shared the link as an example in my review. They wrote me a week later saying my review was not posted because of third-party links, so I went ahead and removed the YouTube link and only described the title of my YouTube video if anyone wants to search for it. No words from Amazon after two weeks of submitting that revised review. So I just checked the product review button (as seen in My Orders section) and the message I wrote there is still there. So I just clicked submit again. We'll see what happens.

In the past, when you write review, you get an email from Amazon telling you either that they are reviewing it or that it has been posted. Now, the experience is super confusing and subpar. In the worst interpretation, you even start to suspect if they post every review or they censor some based on their bias toward the seller (e.g., Amazon Basics products get less negative reviews)

Also, since COVID-19 made the shipping times are significantly slower on Amazon, I opened an account on AliExpress last week and started ordering some items. Unfortunately though, the effort it takes to sift through products on AliExpress is still much more challenging/tiring than that is on Amazon now. So some of the comments here are correct that although Amazon is not living up to our ideal vision of how an online retailer should be like, they are still ahead of their competition... I hope it changes some day and we see a decent competitor so that it is better for consumers (although I'm not sure if it'd be better for warehouse workers though...)

I'm curious about your product review diligence. Mainly: why do you bother? I stopped around 2015 when I started to sense that I was shouting into a void. Now I don't give any feedback, ever, not even stars. I either keep the item or return it; that's about as far as I'm willing to go in terms of being unpaid to provide a signal to the producers of items.

I bother because I felt like these products were particularly bad and yet have good ratings. So I wanted others to avoid the same fate as I faced. But yeah, generally, I will stop providing ratings after these two incidents. It could be the beginning of Amazon's slow downfall if they don't fix it and IF another rival can consistently compete with them on the quick shipping front.

Aliexpress had round, upon round of bad UI redesigns.

Amazon used to protect books for shipment, sealing them in plastic with a piece of carboard so the book couldn’t move. Now they just shove it in an envelope. Almost all books are delivered with at least minor damage. You’re better off buying a used book.

I buy always used if I have the option.

I was actually sad when Amazon bough Abebooks.com I think this should not have been allowed due to monopoly rights.

Alibris.com is an independent book marketplace like Abebooks. You may recognize some of the bigger vendors on there.

I didn't renew my prime membership. Why am I paying for things that no longer get shipped in a timely manner, and a lot of things I want I can no longer get because they have determined it's "non essential." Most deliveries take 2 weeks to get here instead of 2 days. Yes, I'm aware what's going on, but that doesn't change the fact I'm paying $100 for a service that I am no longer receiving.

It is surprising that their relevance algorithms isn't able to show diverse results. If you look 4 or 5 pages down the search, you can still find innovating items but they are literally in the sea of almost exact same looking white-label items. My guess is that there are SEO businesses making ton of money by SEOing the hell out of Amazon for white label products off of Alibaba.

If Amazon did nothing else but allowed to filter products by where was it made/designed, the problem will be solved in significant way.

> AMZ is just Ali Baba for people who can't wait for the ship.

So it's Ali Baba for... approximately every American?

I've essentially stopped shopping at Amazon, their Audible product is really all I use.

I used to be an Amazon seller, and ran through maybe 100K in sales a year, but I stopped (wasn't profitable enough for the time spent.) I should have known, with my experience all those years ago, how easy it would be for scammers to get into the market. Hijacking a listing or mislabeling your product under a listing was really really easy. And for the volumes you can move, I can see why you'd do it.

I have some acquaintances that just buy in bulk from Alibaba and then sell them on Amazon. The seller usually doesn't know what they received is fake...nor do they care. The margin is high enough. Amazon seller fees absorb so much of your profit, you're fighting a losing battle unless you can find a cheap supplier or own the market on an in demand item. Then there are actual scammers that know what they are selling is fake and are manipulating listings...so there are multiple problems with the setup.

Of course the bad thing is Amazon doesn't seem to care, and if anything they try to screw the people doing the -right- thing with huge seller fees, and then killing them with their own line of Basic products.

I don't know how to solve it, and I don't think Amazon does either. I actually don't think Amazon cares, because their ultimate goal is to absorb fees and to take over markets with their own products. They can't do that without sales data, fulfillment fees, seller fees, etc. On top of that they make the big kids compete for coveted listing space with ads. They compete with their own logistics companies, but have them over the coals because they make up so much volume. It's a racket.

I did the same during my college days in Canada in 2009-2012.

Regularly made few hundred bucks a months from sunglasses, then my normal job took off.

It even sucks for books. Defaulting to the Kindle/Audible versions, changing the search category to Kindle/Audible, and the unique key of a book in a list is (format, title), so collision detection is predicated on you remembering which format you preferred. Absolute garbage overall and very hostile to prospective bookbuyers who prefer paper formats.

I've switched to https://bookshop.org. I'm in a better place financially than I was when Amazon was my default for books, I can afford the mark-up and don't mind.

> The best thing it does still is books.

Well, that's a pretty strong indictment of how badly their business operates. Every book I've ever ordered from Amazon has been damaged (either badly folded covers or even ripped pages). I started buying from local bookshops and the experience is infinitely better.

Can't even trust the books now: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/6/24/18715584/amazon-coun...

Agreed. I've had so many problems in the last few months. An incredibly lazy fake that was "Sold by Amazon", a book with water damage in pristine packaging, and food items that had gone stale.

I order everything from Walmart now.

I’ve had an annoying time with books too. In particular with ordering a book which is not particularly common and getting something that was printed on demand. The quality has been terrible, much worse than something offset printed. But I’ve heard that Amazon’s print on demand offering produced pretty good quality books so maybe this is an issue with the sellers of the books I’ve bought. Obviously I notice bad printing but don’t really notice good printing

They're prioritizing only essential goods, everything else is delayed until later. That's the best solution for the largest number of people, especially those at higher risk, for whom one click one stop shop is a very attractive value proposition. But if you can, this is a perfect time to buy direct from your local businesses who offer curb side pick-up or delivery.

Are you talking about covid essential goods? From the context of your post, it sounds like you are. The Amazon shopping horribleness has been ongoing for at least a couple years, this isn't a new thing. It's been at least 18 months since I've stopped purchasing things I need to trust, like laptop chargers, electronics, etc, from Amazon.

What is the competition though. We need someone with a clue on competition. I'd go with anyone with a broad / reliable selection - ebay has been working recently - is that the future?

The competition is the niche retailers that have always been there. They focus on one or a few related areas, and do them well.

Outdoor gear is always genuine from REI or Backcountry. Spices are always fresh from The Spice House or Penzey's. Et cetera.

Exactly this. For computer parts in the UK I usually go to Overclockers UK - free shipping is possible if you take part in their forums and prices are often identical to Amazon.

Even the big-box electronics retailers like Currys regularly peg their prices to the Amazon one now, and I've got three within a 25-minute drive so I can get the item the same day rather than waiting 1-2 days for delivery.

Not to mention their treatment of workers, whether it's in the warehouse or the ip restrictions on white collar employees.

What IP restrictions? Must be different in other orgs. But I've never run into any IP restriction whatsoever.

Search for the Game Development Policy for an example. You cannot develop games in your spare time with friends.

> The best thing it does still is books

Sure, if you don't care what state your book arrives in.

That has been my experience as well

Literally any article about Amazon on HN inevitably devolves into a bunch of useless anecdotes about how much Amazon supposedly sucks. You could set a watch to it. It's beyond tiresome. If you did nothing but read HN you'd think Amazon was filing for bankruptcy imminently.

The fact that amazon sucks as a place to get reputable items or find brand-specific stuff, and that they are rolling in money, should show several things:

* They still satisfy consumer demand "enough"

* They don't have enough competition in enough spaces

* They can suck at some things, be good at others, and make money

Feel free to provide basis for any of these claims.

Sure: everyone I know almost exclusively uses Amazon (20-40 age bracket) aside from the grocery store, so Amazon clearly can't be as bad as HN's Chicken Littles suggest.

If only my friends read HN to know how useless Amazon was!

One final comment on this thread for me:

I don't think people are saying "Amazon is useless" or "Amazon is going to go out of business".

They are bloated with Chinese knock-offs. No name brands that are all the same thing with a different sticker and a bribe to offer a 5-star review. Listings are manipulated to get max reviews. There is so much wrong with trying to find consistent brands and any quality.

That said, if you want knock-off stuff that may work as well as you expect for the price, it's not bad. When the pandemic isn't here, you have quick shipping on everything. And certainly, many other stores have inferior navigation to Amazon.

One more time: No one is saying Amazon is going anywhere or that it sucks for everything. For the goal of looking for non-Chinese crap, though, it has regressed significantly.

This isn't an academic journal, and none of those opinions are that hard to rationalize. Points 1 and 2 are assertions and point 3 is self-evident.

But Jeff you have to understand why people act that way.

Because internet commenters trample over each other to hop on the bandwagon once they ID any situation as "oh, it's pet peeve time? Everyone must hear my story about how things aren't perfect!"

People love hearing themselves whine.

Those who complain about Amazon should try eBay.

I recently bought a relatively expensive item ($3k) that was being advertised as "New - Open box" one month old item.

What I received was a 5 year old used item. Trying to return it was the most stressful online shopping experience I have ever had.

One you open a return request, eBay gives the seller 5 working days to reply to your request. Seller took advantage of all 5.

When I finally got a return label, the seller left the item waiting for pick up for 3 days, until finally picking it up.

Once picked up, eBay gives seller another 5 working days to issue a refund.

In the mean time there is no way to ask help from eBay. All they do is just close the case asking you to wait.

So for a total of 3-4 weeks I have my money sitting in seller's PayPal account.

At least with Amazon, retail* support is usually pretty good.

I bought some N95 reusable children's masks from a reputable seller (5 digit feedback, 99.9% positive, all the "eBay verified/premium seller" crap)... 4 for $80. They ended up being BLATANTLY fake, basically 1mm craft foam cut out in the shape of a mask. I sent in macro photos and a full description demanding a refund, they said "nope, you opened them, they're used now".

eBay sided with the seller.

I've been on eBay since it first came to my country, I've bought/sold many hundreds of items, but eBay has noticeably become an utter mess in the last couple years, and their support is non-existent. I'll never use eBay again, for anything.

> 5 digit feedback, 99.9% positive, all the "eBay verified/premium seller"

Yeap, it's all smoke and mirrors.

Also it's ridiculously easy to ask them to remove any negative feedback.

... And eBay/Paypal won their era's fight because they offered the better experience compared to the others, they were considered the safe and reliable one.

Early web shopping really was wild. And not the good kind.

And then came Amazon an roller-steam them all. And in my opinion it's because of their super buyer-friendly, stress free experience.

Every time you would buy a book from them, and you were happy that they gave you the best possible price, they didn't give you hard time when the book was lost in the mail or you wanted to return it because the sent you the wrong book, or whatever, your trust in them would increase.

Once you consumers trust you with buying A, selling them B, is just a matter of making it available through your store.

I see a lot of online stores, operating the old way; with hidden discounts, dedicated seller-teams trying to sell stuff to you, pushing back when you want to return an item, etc. and can't help thinking how they are ever alive.

This is quite significant given market is very bullish on Amazon (Goldman is just all over it). The expectations are set sky high to do well during these times. But if you look at things as consumer, it doesn't look so good. Personally, I've significantly less orders on Amazon these days because of huge delivery times. Sure, orders for "essentials" might have gone up but can that offset the gap? Also, sellers are very dissopointed with their items not getting delivered and many have started to look for alternate channels.

Given all these, I wonder how things will pan out. Wall street expectations for Amazon to do well this quarter is sky high but behind the curtain things might have taken significant hit.

This is sort of a "no one goes there anymore, it's too crowded" criticism. Huge delivery times are because they're getting so many orders (which means so much revenue, which means so much profit).

> This is sort of a "no one goes there anymore, it's too crowded" criticism. Huge delivery times are because they're getting so many orders (which means so much revenue, which means so much profit).

Is that completely true? I thought the delays were at least partially due to staffing problems (e.g. increased absenteeism, worker social distancing).

That might be the case now but the initial cause was a big spike since people couldn’t or didn’t want to go to stores.

> Huge delivery times are because they're getting so many orders

From my limited probing, it doesn't look like that. Instead my guess is that operations are violently broken right now at Amazon. You can find lot of non-essentials shipping in 2-3 days while a lot more important items with waits exceeding 3 weeks. This would explain Bezos turning off self-drive button and taking the wheels.

Isn't that because they're sold out of the essential items and don't expect to get enough to satisfy your order for 3+ weeks? Or in other words, they've gotten too many orders.

Short term.

Unfortunately, Amazon isn't measured against some platonic ideal of what an online retailer could be. They are measured against their competition. And, as far as I can tell, there is no credible competition.

I agree. I find myself dissatisfied with Amazon, but whenever I order from somewhere else I end up regretting it half the time. Amazon's making a lot of mistakes, especially with knockoff crap and comingling inventory. But they're still better than walmart.

I ordered a "survival" order from Walmart to restock my pantry back in early March after returning from a long trip. I made the mistake of including milk and some grocery items. Not only did I have to pay the delivery, but it took two weeks and by then they didn't have any of the things I ordered in stock anymore.

At that point I temporarily had a vehicle so I just went to Costco.

I've been using Whole Foods app for grocery delivery for a little while, and I tried using the QFC one the other day, figuring Amazon needed some competition. It was a complete joke. Half the items in the store said they were only available for pickup, not delivery (why?), and there was no way to filter for delivery items only. And then even when I filled my cart, when I went to check out it removed half the items in there because they were out of stock or because they weren't actually available for delivery after all. Why did you show them in the first place? This app was worse than having nothing, in that it wasted so much of my time.

It's hard to see how Amazon will ever be challenged when the competition is so bad.

FWIW, I'm optimistic that the grocery stores will get better. We use the Fred Meyer app to schedule grocery pickup (Fred Meyer is a grocery chain owned by Kroger, like QFC). They have consistently improved the app and the pickup experience. I think the key to any real competition for Amazon is some high ranking exec being measured by the right KPI. From what I've seen, it seems like that process is well under way at Kroger. But they're coming from way behind, so I think it'll take a while.

FYI Whole Foods is wholly owned by amazon.

I know, that was my point.

I'm the opposite. I use them for 99% of my shopping. Almost everything I buy can wait a few days. I hate finding parking, waiting in line at registers, and driving to the store. It's a whole morning of my weekend off to go shopping. The amount of time saved from using Amazon in my day to day life is staggering.

Delivery times are up because of the volume of business. As essentials business falls down (or 'if', if people get used to using Amazon over their local store), delivery times will fall as well. This isn't a meaningful long-term criticism.

FWIW, I think that several things are getting confused in Amazon's messaging. A while back, Amazon shut down inbound shipments of non-essential items (since opened back up, but with quantity limitations on a case-by-case basis). I think people mis-interpreted this to mean that they were shutting down outbound shipments of non-essentials. But that was not the case. Then, as my sibling commenter mentions: you can't even buy essential items right now, so they can't be over capacity in general because of shipments of essential items.

My take is that they are experiencing something akin to holiday season levels of sales, but that they're not staffed for that kind of volume, since it's spring. So they temporarily shut down inbound shipments of non-essentials so that they could free up warehouse staff for outbound shipments in general. If this is correct, then I think their delivery times are dependent on two things: 1. how quickly they can staff up for the increased volume, and/or 2. how quickly and to what degree retail spending shifts back to physical stores. But demand for essentials returning to normal will probably not make a difference.

I am skeptical of this because there are almost no essentials that are available to order.

Amazon is more than just amazon.com. AWS is a behemoth all on its own. While everything about AWS isn't amazing, it does a lot of things well, which is why they are one of the leaders in that space with a dominate market share of 33%. I don't know if Amazon breaks out profits from AWS in their financial reports or not, but I would venture AWS is probably their biggest cash cow. I bet Amazon.com could bleed money year-after-year and AWS alone would still make Amazon one of the most profitable companies.

Source on market share: https://www.parkmycloud.com/blog/aws-vs-azure-vs-google-clou...

It is broken out. AWS has provided Amazon's largest operating income since 2018.

The headline is pretty sensationalist. It's not like he is coming out of retirement. He is just updating his schedule to focus on immediate problems rather than longer term projects (like every other CEO in the world right now).

I mean, it's an all hands on deck, putting out fires, type of situation after all. So it makes sense for him to be more involved with the daily stuff.

The other issue which Bezos has less control over is delivery, especially in areas where its own logistics service is limited.

A friend living in rural New Hampshire says Amazon will no longer deliver goods to people in his town, which indicates a last-mile delivery problem.

Another friend in North Carolina said the U.S. Post Office stopped delivery to all of the buildings in his apartment complex because the leasing office was now closed.

There are other situations in which delivery companies understandably don't want to follow pre-COVID procedures because it's no longer safe to do so.

Has anyone else noticed Amazon shipping them more of items than they ordered? I've recently had this happen in two separate orders, including receiving 3 SSDs when I'd just ordered 1, for a free $300 of SSD.

You may be a money mule! And you may want to report this, someone vulnerable could be racking up massive debt paying for free stuff. see : https://youtu.be/2IT2oAzTcvU?t=300

It's actually very unlikely for this to be the case for the three SSDs. If what is presented in the video is actually happening, there would be no reason for the fraudster to pay for 3 SSDs with a stolen card and send them to the customer, because a higher transaction amount could pop off some alerts at the stolen card's bank, which is a pointless risk.

You also have to take into account honest people which would try to notify the fraudulent seller or possibly the platform through which the item was bought, which is another unnecessary risk for a fraudster.

I mean obviously you could be right about that. In the case I linked though basically the exact same thing happened, the speaker ordered some coffee and received that plus a free nespresso machine!

It’s possible that the credit card wasn’t stolen but was opened using a stolen identity, so any alerts could go straight to the fraudster.

The other problem is that there are not many incentives for the platform to do anything about this, proving fraud is hard because this thing can happen through legitimate mistakes. Both the vendor and platform got paid, and the buyer got what they paid for plus some. In the case above the fraud was reported but no one did anything.

The advantage for the fraudster would be hopefully repeat business / positive reviews that generate more business. Admittedly this makes less sense for SSDs compared to coffee.

Lucky you. We found empty packaging for Airpod in our baby toys delivery. I turned the cardboard box upside down a few times but no airpods unfortunately :-(

Maybe an employee stole airpods and shipped the evidence out of the warehouse?

About two or three years ago I had Amazon ship me a box of 128GB USB3 flash drives when I ordered one. Their product support told me to keep the rest which was pretty nice.

Unhappy employees.

Yep, received 5 of a product instead of one.

It wasn't anything expensive, but it looked like it didn't get split out of the bulk packaging it was likely received in (barcode for single item was applied to bundle of 5).

Only ever happened to me once, and with SSD. They initially sent me 1 instead of the 2 that I ordered. Then they sent me two more instead of the additional one.

I've ordered thousands of items and this has never happened.

Never happened

I don’t know what is going on but their “essential items” excuse is totally bogus. There are no essential items in stock! Go try to buy toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, etc. I can’t buy ANY of that and haven’t been able to for at least 4-6 weeks.

And the “normal” products have shipping delays of 4+ weeks sometimes. And then other times, none. It seems totally random and nonsensical.

I think they have serious labor issues that they are covering up. I’m just guessing here with absolutely no information. Just can’t make sense at what is going on.

Not sure why comments change to the degrading quality of Amazon retail.

The article is pretty obvious. The CEO needs to always focus on the most critical matter. Sometime it's long-term strategic investment, like Alexa. Some other time, it's a ongoing emergency that will have profound long-term impact.

And Mr. Bezos is doing the right thing to align the company right now.

Is this a good or bad sign?

What problems exist that only the founder can solve and require his involvement? or is that just what he wants to do?

It's a good sign.

In cases of normal business operation, normal corporate management, delegation, and accountability techniques generally work quite well. Decisions are extensively researched and weighed before being taken. Doing things right, not quickly, is the goal here.

In times of urgent emergency, normal management techniques fail because they can't respond quickly enough. Not because they're inferior, but because they weren't designed for it. Therefore you need one person making big, hard decisions in a timely manner.

There's probably nobody in the world who is better qualified to make big, hard, fast decisions for Amazon than Bezos, obviously. And considering his wealth is tied up in the company too, this is the smart, responsible choice for everyone involved.

I agree with you but for different reasons.

> In cases of normal business operation, normal corporate management, delegation, and accountability techniques generally work quite well. Decisions are extensively researched and weighed before being taken. Doing things right, not quickly, is the goal here.

In Amazon’s case, the opposite is heavily encouraged. Here is one of their “leadership principles”:

> Bias for Action: Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.

Of course, there are other principles like “Dive Deep” and “Be Right A Lot” that balance this out, but Amazon is definitely tuned for speed of decision-making.

If anything, I would take the opposite side of this change as the real indicator. In normal circumstances, Amazon does what it does well enough for Jeff to deep-dive into specifically interesting projects while the S-Team (the executives reporting to Jeff) are trusted to run the company day-to-day. We are in far from normal circumstances now.

It could be a good thing for Amazon at this moment, due to the reasons you listed, or it could indicate unknown issues.

And from the descriptions of Bezos I've heard, he can be an obsessive micromanager type, flying down to make super low-level decisions for some random warehouse when he gets set off by some mistake. Having worked under a CEO like that, I can imagine Bezos suddenly steamrolling some important internal processes out of some mix of passion and narcissism, driving even more damage.

Thanks, appreciate the answer. Makes a lot of sense.

He's not just the founder. He's the CEO. His one and only necessary job function is to make critical decisions and actions when business is not usual.

Probably the latter. Bezos wants a piece of the action.

What a missed opportunity, Boeing is on its knees and shown it cannot compete with SpaceX, and Blue Origin has the best opportunity to displace SLS with New Glenn program once and for all. When else will you be able to kill a crony-Goliath like ULA, by their own incompetence no less, and gain the public's adoration for it as CEO?

I get it, this is his golden goose and its undergoing huge stress and delays due to COVID; but for all the talk about why he got into tech and wanted to make Billions was essentially to get into Aerospace in the first place makes it seem like the vapid platitudes of Billionaire.

I'm not surprised, just disappointed in Bezos. I guess we're going to have to live with ULA clogging up the system and spending billions more without producing results all while SpaceX is sending astronauts to ISS next month.

I don't buy things from Amazon anymore, their supply chain optimization results in inhumane business practices, and despite having access to Prime I still prefer to stream shows on it elsewhere. The quality looks equally mediocre in comparison to Netflix on a 4k screen anyway.

SpaceX isn't turning a profit, though, especially since the number of launched has been dropping precipitously in the last couple of years. Bezos is smart enough to know that there's no rush in this.

What? SpaceX has increased its manifest dramatically over the years, Starlink missions put it way over its previous highs, and 2020 is their record breaking year:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/12/spacex-record-breaki...

You cannot know if SpaceX operates at a profit or not, its a private company and funding is most certainly not an issue, so of course Cap-Ex isn't reigned in when you now have definitive domestic market share for resupply missions to ISS and US Military contracts, as well as a long wait-list for international customers as well fleshing out your future forms of revenue with Starlink and Starship (already in its 5th iteration in just 7 months!) missions and several Factories churning rockets and engines 24/7.

I've seen it with my own eyes, and stood inches away from several prototype raptor engines all over the place. As awesome as Starship SN2 was, I really got my highest fanboy feeling looking at it.

Launching their own payloads is not the same as launching those from a paying customer. They do not make any money off launching their own satellites until those satellites are profitable. We can known if SpaceX turns a profit based on their employees and funding they've been raising.

Just because you saw one in real life doesn't mean it's special compared to any of the other companies doing launches. Sure, they have lower cost, but you need paying customers to pay the 7,000 employees you have. They have a total of 2 paying customers (NASA) in 2020, 11 in 2019, and 20 in 2018. Do you see the trend now?

> They do not make any money off launching their own satellites until those satellites are profitable. We can known if SpaceX turns a profit based on their employees and funding they've been raising.

Product development takes time, and aerospace is a tightly regulated affair that the FAA has way too much control over, and still the fact remains that reusing first stages, and fairings drops the cost dramatically. So, what you are extrapolating is hardly going to give you a very definitive view in profitability.

Also, why wouldn't you take as much funding as you want when you're in the development of other Value added services to add to your core program, especially when you've become the darling of the Aerospace Industry and anyone with money is falling over themselves to give you funding? That just seems like a horrible argument and doesn't detract from anything SpaceX is doing.

The reason its significant is because how quickly they can iterate a design in real-time due the their vertical integration, Merlins seemed like they were were a choke point for future mission success from Falcon 1 to 9 so they overcame it using that methodology [1], so they realized moving over to Raptor was going to be fundamental to keep up with Starship's try/fail iteration as well.

But just so its clear, I saw 5 just standing in front of the office at the Starship factory. At Hawthrone they have a bunch parts overflowing out the factory, a bunch of shrouds and shield prototypes were just propped up against the walls into the parking lot when I was there. And its clear to me that they're prioritizing their resources/funds where it matters most when you're trying to go for Market Share: innovation. But what makes you think they don't have investment in outside ventures that make them not just solvent, but profitable? Do you have access to their book keeping? What you're saying seem altogether academic, and nothing more than conjecture.

Correction: NASA and the US DoD, the latter essentially having unlimited budgets and the former have granted them exclusive access to the ISS for resupply and transportation. Satelite missions from other private corps do pay bills but they're not as frequent and also have a lengthy lead-time with years of development and costs--I'm sure COVID will have disrupted it even further in ways we cannot discern until we go back online.

I'd say if anything it shows how economies of scale can incentivize a company, if successful, to be able to create more supply then demand when they take the risks and iterate as much as the SpaceX Team has. Those boosters, fairing and engines are still being cranked out in earnest at HQ while the rest of the World has shutdown.

I'm sure if you saw Facebook's satellite mission succeed you'd be clamoring about how great the company is because now they have a 'real pipeline developed' to serve the needs of FAANG.

Honestly, the only trend I see is the ever greater lift capability because of R/D funding being where it was supposed to. I'm less convinced about their civilian transport usecase, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

Other than that, they beat Nation States (specifically the only 2 super powers left in the World 20th/21st Century) out of an Industry that only they had access to despite how rigged the system is through creative destruction and left all of their competitors for dead in the wake of their disruption. Its a successful model anyway you cut it.

But, lets assume for one second you are right and its not profitable: lets not forget that the World's richest Man is the CEO of a (exploitative) company that has never turned a profit in it's entire existence and yet it has become evidently what the World relies on during pandemics for delivery of goods. (With nearly a trillion in Market share in 2019.) Which is what my reply, and this thread, was actually about, mind you.

So my final question is: what have you actually proven?

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Merlin

I don't think you read my comment. Well before covid hit, their launch cadence was dropping dramatically. They still have DoD and NASA missions, but those aren't enough (look at the manifest) to sustain a company of that size.

> I don't think you read my comment.

I read it, I just don't see how that's anymore than conjecture.

This was my response to that:

> the latter [DoD] essentially having unlimited budgets

The DoD also being a a customer that not only has an unlimited budget, but pays in advance, and gives you essential work status during Global shutdowns is more than enough to make it sustainable. NASA's involvement for missions to the Moon and Mars will also have a significant ramp up when this next mission gets the media attention it deserves and a viable Starship itertation is created.

Believe me, I actually hate they have such deep Military and Government ties, because of my pwn personal ideology/ethics/morals but the fact remains its sustainable and is objectively a brilliant strategy: its pragmatic as it is effective and uses the latter to determine its trajectory and business model.

I really have heard your (cyclical) argument, I disagree and I don't think we're doing much other than arguing the same points for what seems like arguments sake, so I'll leave it at that.

Jeff being back to day to day will make a difference. Ex-amazonian, I've seen a lot of people go work for them recently and more than a few are B, and at least one a C level players.

OP1/OP2 presentations in front of Jeff will make a difference.

One of my client sells medical devices on amazon.

They sold out their entire 2020 forecast by mid April.

Amazon warehouses also got a little humility and flexibility towards warehouse workers.

The shipping demands are real.

I have been ordering random things on eBay and Amazon- it turns out that right at this moment, eBay shipping is faster than Amazon Prime.

Ebay is decentralized which is much more scalable than Amazon's centralized approach.

Similar to you, I've noticed things on Ebay ship and arrive very quickly.

AliExpress is somehow still cheaper than Amazon for cheap things that don't need to be high quality or perfect. You just have to wait two weeks for it to arrive -- which isn't much different than the wait for Amazon currently.

Anyone else noticed that Amazon started to charge different prices to different users in the last year?

This of course means someone who used to be doing day to day management is no longer in that role.

Who was running things in Jeff's absence?

There’s two CEOs below him. Andy Jassy for AWS and Jeff Wilkie for Amazon Retail.

i wonder where he shops for clothing

Buy Amazon. It’s seeing Black Friday traffic everyday and AWS can’t be feeling better then ever during this period

I think retail will be more consistent than AWS. IMO the economic impact to AWS is delayed a few months. Businesses are making personnel cuts now and will shore up ops costs by Q4 2020 if not sooner.

From Q1 2021 it'll be hard to sell and onboard new service till the economy recovers.

There’s also the apparently massive use of Azure, if the companies currently jumping in there are looking to do huge cloud spend in a few months I’m not sure AWS will be the winner there. Though maybe this is all a big enough market for them both to see massive growth, I’m definitely just speculating.

Maybe this will bring him back to Earth and see that not everything is as good as in the bubble he lives by focusing on futuristic projects. It'd be nice to see an impact

I guess now we'll see how much of the perceived shit show was actually his making, and how much was his leadership group. This should be interesting.

I don't think there's any "perceived shit show" from the perspective of investors or management.

If you're referring to the treatment of warehouse workers over the past decade, Amazon pays them market rates, like pretty much every other business pays market rates. So Amazon can sell goods at the lowest price possible. It's not a "shit show", it's a business strategy that has paid off.

If you're upset about how workers are treated, bring it up with Congress to set minimum wage and employee treatment laws that will apply to all businesses and warehouse fulfillment centers, not just Amazon.

> Amazon pays them market rates

Actually substantially over market rates this year. Everyone wants to work in amazon when the alternative is walmart...

> perceived shit show

Honest question: what are you talking about?

Probably referring to the media reports about either the warehouse worker complaints or internal corporate politics.

Ah, makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

Those reports struck me more as "normal big company issues" than "shit show" but maybe I'm a bit jaded.

They seem to be a bit sensationalized, but with the way news media works these days, everything is. So, it's hard to know what's real and what isn't these days.

I have no idea what this means, can you get me up to speed on what this show was?

To get up to speed on Amazon's sub-par attitude to warehouse workers' welfare, prior to Bezos re-assuming day-to-day leadership, start here:

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22759575

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22770092

Did Bezos care about warehouse worker safety when he ran things day to day? I thought there have been sporadic reports of warehouse worker mistreatment going back years, like that story about the one warehouse that had to have an ambulance parked outside to pick up workers who got heat stroke because it was cheaper than installing A/C. (No idea if that story's true. Just, this stuff has been circulating for a while. The new stories are no more or less credible, so I'm not changing my opinion of what's happening on the ground.)

Please explain how it's "sub par", which is different from "bad".

Maybe he should set his sites lower and get some work done to fix Amazon Fresh. I have tried to order something everyday since Mar 12 and no time slots have been available.

I hear the same thing is happening with all grocery deliveries (at leat in the UK), Amazon Fresh isn't special in that regard. You probably know current times are rather exceptional.

I'm willing to give Amazon a pass on this one for the moment. I haven't been able to use any grocery delivery services in weeks. If there are time slots available they are getting filled pretty much immediately when they open up, and I've not been lucky enough to catch it.

Do they lack sufficient personnel (deshelvers, drivers) to increase delivery slots?

Essentially. No company can hire enough of those right now.

Increasing pay is the obvious answer. Maybe the profit margin is too thin.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com