Ask HN: What is going wrong at Amazon? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is going wrong at Amazon?

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I feel like for the past 2-3 years you can't really rely on Amaozn anymore. Reviews are mostly fake, many deliveries are either broken or counterfeit... What happened?

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They matured, dominated the market, got lazy and comfortable, and basically took over the role of incumbent.

This is top of mind for me as my amazon use has declined from a peak a few years ago (with a dead cat bounce during covid) and I'm now actively avoiding them. As you say, for items you are not already familiar with, they are completely untrustworthy, and for stuff I know about and want to buy, a) they are unreliable for availability, b) they put so much effort into trying to trick me into signing up for prime or subscriptions, or for paying shipping when I qualify for free shipping, that I feel like I'm trading with a criminal. I can get better treatment literally anywhere else.

For better or worse, they changed the face of commerce, now they are an entitled dinosaur that I'll be happy to see pushed to the side.

Said it better than I could've. It's true for the German Amazon, too. Too many product ads also.

>dead cat bounce during covid

I had no idea about this until I looked it up. It made sense on its face but still such a weirdly well-put phrase.

Also they really began running their drivers into the ground. The few remaining people I knew working for them have all quit.

There's videos of the drivers getting so mad they destroy things along their route their last day. Much like doordashers eating/stealing/destroying an order in protest. Which I believe to be an asinine thing to do which only hurts the consumer, but I have to wonder at what leads to that kind of rage where no fucks are left to give.

We need to get rid of these incumbents and duopolies, shit Comcast gets away with being a monopoly and we all just take it,despite seeing repeatedly the end result of one company standing alone surrounded by laws of their own creation.

I used to love amazon when it was a book store. I loved online shopping I think about a decade ago now.

Someone recently mentioned I have that I'm jaded in my profile, and indeed I guess I am, but I was so hopeful as a child and young adult. This is the result of being lied to my whole life.

We were promised hover boards and and an internet that shared ideas and companies that could actually make the world a better place.

What we got is something far closer to Johnny Mnemonic imho.

Their goal was to make the world a better place for themselves. That's the bit they always leave out.

While I'm not actively seeking to remove Amazon from my online shopping as some people are, I've definitely sought out other options. Amazon has now become my store of last resort.

For me, a huge part of it is the mingling of direct manufacturer sales (or authorized distributors) with random third parties. That makes it impossible to trust that a received item is actually what it's claimed to be in he listing.

In addition, there's zero barrier to entry for sellers including basic stuff like safety certifications, so you see constantly about a billion entries of the same rebranded cheap AliExpress crap over and over.

Cancelled Prime membership this year due to a range of factors:

1. Product selection declining (one good product now has 20 knock off brands with 4.5-5.0 star review scores making it impossible to determine what quality level you're buying)

2. Increase in counterfeit goods enabled by the business model

3. Increase in awareness that the firm is not acting ethically or responsibly

4. Maturation of competitors that now offer similar online retail experiences, albeit within market subsets

I cancelled Prime membership a few years ago for these reasons, but ended up re-subscribing mostly for the video content. It's amazing how diversified the Prime offering is now.

They got me with Whole Foods discount, which was already where my family bought most of its groceries. 5% cashback on $15k/year is $750. Next best alternative is 2% ($300).

I 100% agree with the downhill trajectory of the web store, but don’t cancel because it’s cheaper than free.

and the extra 10% off on-sale items.

I did the same last year for basically the same reasons. I'll also add that Amazon are generally not the cheapest any more either.

Their only real advantages are fast delivery and the convenience of not having to enter my credit card details. I can live without those.

The marketplace.

If I wanted to deal with a bunch of randos on the internet, I'd use eBay.

In the last few years, I've had more issues with Amazon than the prior two decades. Almost all of these issues included a marketplace seller that blamed Amazon for the issue, and Amazon blamed them.

I appreciate that Amazon spoiled us with great prices and prompt shipping (10 days was a normal wait in 2000), but the marketplace is terribly inconsistent and this isn't what I want from my shopping experience.

Purchased a bad HDD? Amazon 1st-party would ship me a replacement before the return was even verified shipped back. Shipped by marketplace? Everyone has their own policy, and it can take a month or longer to resolve an issue that Amazon made painless.

So I feel like there's been a bait-and-switch. If I can't find a Sold/Fulfilled by Amazon product, I'll look elsewhere no problem now. The hassle wasn't worth it five years ago.

Same for NewEgg. Last year I purchased five Mellanox MCX311A-XCAT... the prices on NewEgg vary from $70-$300, and I was seeing the same variance on Amazon. From sellers with 1-star or no reviews. I ended up buying five on eBay for $150, from a seller with 4k+ reviews. Arrived in a week.

Marketplaces are great for company margins, but proving not-so-great for customers.

It kinda feels like how eBay went - just flooded with loads and loads of low quality tat. That is great if you just need something cheap and cheerful, but when you are looking for quality items it is hard unless you know specific brands which is not always obvious - example I had recently was a replacement shower hose after the Amazon-bought one I got two months earlier broke... I have no idea what a reputable brand is there! You end up just basically trying your luck since reviews cannot be trusted.

Can't say fake stuff has been a problem for me in the UK. Stuff is delivered fine, you just can't rely on the item's quality. Amazon win hands-down for delivery - no one else comes close in the UK as you are typically still left with 5-7 day delivery windows Vs reliable same-day/next-day with Amazon.

(I tried to leave a negative review of the shower hose that broke after 2 months - very matter-of-fact and even-headed wording... the review was rejected for not meeting "community guidelines" or something which I thought says a lot about the review problem with Amazon)

These days I often find myself going to eBay for when I need the best price on a commodity item. You can't easily find a 50 pack of CR2032 batteries on Amazon, on eBay it's easy.

I think what ruined Amazon was 1 day shipping - they prioritize high margin, high volume products which inevitably means you're getting lower than average quality for a higher than average price, but free 1 day shipping is addicting and people just keep buying.

The website experience is terrible. Search results initially surface organic results, but a millisecond later, the sponsored results are loaded, which shift the page layout.

Once you're on the page, it's hard to make out key details because of the god-awful CMS their vendors have to use. Some just end up posting giant JPG posters instead of text. Oh, and the page is swarming with 10 different alternatives to the product you are looking at.

These days I think Amazon cares more about landing fat AWS contracts than minding the store.

I hate the display and shift pattern in general. Visual studios search does this, as does JIRA as you type a username, drives me nuts as in the time I’ve decided to click until the click is processed the intended target has changed. Just make me wait or at least show one of those outline graphics until you have all the results.

so infuriating to see exactly what i wanted pop up after I hit search, only to have it disappear to page 2 or 3 after 50 milliseconds

I noticed it a few years ago, too. The fake reviews are glaringly obvious most times.

I've seen what sellers do, they'll sell a decent product, something that's like just hairties where nobody is really going to give negative reviews, then they'll add a "colour" to it, except instead of black hair ties, it's a smart watch. Then they'll remove the hairties, and ride on the smart watch now having 2k positive reviews. Here's the actual one I spotted: https://www.amazon.com/Fitness-Tracker-Activity-Waterproof-S... Look at the questions, look at the reviews. They were selling a totally different product, then added a 'variation' (of a totally different product).

This kinda trash plagues Amazon. I've actually been relying on Reddit for reviews on brands I'm not familiar with. It's sad, in a way, that I have to research products before buying from Amazon.

The quickest way I've been able to really validate reviews is to check out all the two and three star reviews. Those avoid the 1 star operator error "I'm too stupid to operate this product, so the product sucks" and the mostly useless or fake 5 star reviews. The 2 and 3 stars actually provide the most useful info about any problems with a product. Those are usually issues that don't even bother me or apply to me.

My experience trying to buy a camera on Amazon was awful.

I try to buy when I see the price a bit lower, it turns out it's always scammers that will cancel the order (by mistake according to them) and then proceed asking you to directly transfer the money to their bank account with a discount for the trouble of cancelling.

I got refunded by Amazon without a problem each time and never did the transfer to the scammers, but still is an awful waste of time to deal with this when it's so easy for them to sport this scam.

For cameras you want B&H or Adorama.

B&H is also amazing for telescopes for every level of astronomer. I can't even imagine trying to source a legitimate lense on amazon, much less a complete setup.

I think amazon's days are numbered now that most stores have great online equivalents like walmart, target, and best buy.

Does Amazon actually have a problem? I have certainly encountered (and been paid to write as I answered one of the cards) fake reviews, but the products have always been ok. Not great, but for the $10 I spent, acceptable.

This seems mostly to be a technical complaint, in the way that people complain about Electron wasting RAM.

Search at least is nearly useless, because of the sponsored results that are extremely similar visually to desired results. I've also searched for books and gotten results that weren't sponsored, but didn't fit my keywords, just randomly placed in the list. Amazon also habitually combines reviews for different versions of a product.

Also, their drivers drop things off at your front door even if your apartment has a lockbox for that purpose, and there is no way to complain about it because the complaint process for "problem with order" only allows you to report "other issue" problems to the seller, not to Amazon.

And you can't turn off recommendations, but Amazon will happily make recommendations based on any porn you searched or purchased, so you can't use Amazon in front of other people without exposing your porn preferences.

In my experience, almost nothing is 10 bucks anymore at Amazon. Having prime would have meant - 5 years ago- that I would get it tomorrow or within 2 days, but now it means I will get it by the end of next week. Then the product I bought will come apart within 2 months. Right around the time the return deadline expires. The customer experience is at least one order of magnitude worse than 5 years ago.

Interesting. Where are you located? Here in Calgary, Prime is still same day or next day, with two days being for a few niche items (like a warehouse deal on a monitor).

Located in Washington DC. It used to be like this half a decade ago. Now, many things take longer to deliver.

They have a provenance problem. If you're okay with cheap plastic that may work acceptably for a while, it's great. But if you have a specific product or brand in mind, it's not a good choice.

Real-world example: I have a device with sensitive optics, and the manufacturer recommends a specific brand of lens wipes to clean them. The wipes can be found in some stores, but the manufacturer directs customers to Amazon to buy them.

That was good advice 5 years ago, but now the recommended Amazon listing is full of reviews saying that people received dry expired wipes, often loose in generic packaging.

I won't risk an expensive lens by using a possibly-expired cleaning product that has been comingled with counterfeits. So I buy the wipes from local pharmacies or camera shops, even if it means an extra trip.

These days, I have the same view for food, cosmetics, fire risks like chargers and batteries, etc. Today, there aren't many things that I do feel comfortable buying from "the everything store".

What I usually use Amazon for is physical media books and videos. (There's some irony there, similar to watching a music video on MTV.) Nobody counterfeits them (there are counterfeit Chinese DVDs, but I've yet to get one), and you don't have to worry about bad workmanship. They don't get fake reviews, although you have to ignore all the reviews of the wrong version, and they don't expire. And you don't need to look at them before you buy them.

Not quite true. Amazon will happily sell you counterfeit books, printed by their own publishing-as-a-service subsidiary.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/amazo...

They won't do anything that threatens the money fire hose. If they start enforcing rules around fake reviews, counterfeits, used or returned items being sold as "new", or co-mingling, that might increase costs and decrease sales.

That, and complacency and coasting on customers' good will that was built up in the years to decades prior. My older relatives, for example, use Amazon out of habit.

>If they started enforcing rules around fake reviews, counterfeits, used or returned items being sold as "new", or co-mingling, that might increase costs and decrease sales.

Didn't they literally ban 400 chinese brands for fake reviews?

I don't care about a handful of Chinese brands when there are tens of thousands of shitty domestic brands reselling knock-off goods, selling used goods as new, and manipulating reviews.

That sounds like a nice PR stunt, but absolutely nothing has changed in my experience as a user.

My friend who sells $$$$$$ through Amazon says Chinese manufacturers are absolutely unscrupulous and engage in every kind of fraud, IP theft, adulteration and so forth, and Amazon mostly looks the other way unless they are really pressured or lawsuits are brought. Then the Chinese seller disappears and pops up under a different name with the same tactics. Rinse and repeat.

This hasn't been my experience in the UK. I can't speak about the reviews but their deliveries are pretty good - very reliable next day delivery with Prime.

Deliveries are fine but I find the selection in the UK is going downhill. For commodity items – cables, some consumables, undifferentiated products, it's great. For brand names though it's not very good, either lacking selection or with uncompetitive prices.

I avoided them for a while, but where I live Amazon is unfortunately the only online company that will ship to me and the local stores are very limited in the tiny nearby town. I still avoid electronics and anything not directly fulfilled by Amazon and anything that has a small number of reviews. I will for sure never buy anything computer related from them again. Standard household items, common supplements, clothing that is fulfilled by them directly, those have all been fine for me.

Last two years have been flawless for me. I purchase about 50-70 times/year from them, and here in Michigan (Ann Arbor) things have gotten better. Lots more same-day delivery, and deliveries have gotten very reliable - I've only had a single delayed delivery (arrived 3 days after it was supposed to) - and Amazon Refunded me for that (and then the package arrived).

I love the free shipping, and I have a pretty large list of stuff on camelcamelcamel that both lets me get a decent price and prevents me from overpaying for anything.

I'm really happy with the selection - but I don't know if I would go to them to purchase anything like a computer, laptop, or camera - mostly household goods, low-end appliances, and that sort of thing. I always go direct to the retailer/manufacturer for anything significant.

So - just an anecdote, but my experience with Amazon has been really good. Also - I love The Expanse, and that was worth $20-$30 of the prime membership right there.

Oh, one sort of Amazon related thing that go worse - we used to have Free delivery from Whole Foods, which I made use of once a month or so - they're adding a $10 fee to that. On the pro side, might mean more delivery slots, but on the con side - that's another $120/year or so.

> Amazon Basics has knocked off Peak Design's Everyday Sling, right down to the shape of the tag--and incredibly, they gave their copy the exact same name.

https://www.core77.com/posts/106033/Amazon-Basics-Knocks-Off...

I ordered 2 books from Amazon last week. An email said 'delivered' but nothing in the letterbox or outside the house. A chat to a friendly neighbour revealed he had a parcel put in between his dustbins. I went to my bins and there were the books. Not pleased at this, I expect a sane experience.

Amazon's only business is your eyeballs. Their physical and digital e-commerce is a platform to monetize your eyeballs. Prime Videos, eyeballs. FireTV eyeballs. Kindle, eyeballs. The products they directly sell you are basically a loss leader. The real money is in monetizing your eyeballs at some point I'm the shopping journey.

The retail and delivery / supply chain part of the business is about ruthless efficiency and delivering against customer expectations. The problems you me too are the hard parts of retail. Amazon is working on them, but not solving those problems well doesn't get in the way of their strategy and ambitions.

Will this be Walmart's opportunity? Walmart is pushing their amazon prime membership equivalent at $99 a year right now.

What Amazon to me today, is an eBay with trustworthy return policy and prime free 2-day shipping. Nothing more and nothing less.

You'd have to take your own responsibility to do research and identify quality product and reasonable price. Don't have time to do research, don't fall for amazon's review, but sign up Costco, that's what Costco does the best, they only select the best quality/close to best price product to list. But because of that, costco's selection is limited.

I've only used amazon to actually order things twice, but I've looked at products and searched for things many times.

The reviews, listings, search and product-pages have always been terrible in my experience. In a some cases even ebay has more structured product info. The search experience and categorization feels like it's trying to steer me to buy all the things I don't want to buy and I never find the things I do.

My addon question to this, is what alternatives do we have?

What service that gives us 2 day or less shipping. Has significant enough stock that I don't have drive all over town to 10 different stores to get 3 of the same thing. If there was a resource that had these features I would drop Amazon in a second.

> What service that gives us 2 day or less shipping.

I think you'd find your options opening up if you were willing to concede a day or two here. Amazon has got its customers conditioned to expect instant gratification, but do you really need it? You have the whole rest of your life to enjoy the goods you've ordered.

Amazon appears to be more interested in bottom line than being a curator of reliable content.

I've honestly placed 100 orders in the last year, without issue. Couple returns in there, no issues.

This thread keeps popping up, but obviously the issues are rather rare. See Amazon's continuing growth if you want an example.

No problem with Amazon here. It’s an impressive company!

I think this essay is worth reading to answer your question.

https://zackkanter.com/2019/03/13/what-is-amazon/

Tl;dr incentives.

I tried to read the linked article. Its author considers Walmart to be a wonder of the world, which uplifts the poor and "is the most successful social welfare system ever implemented, saving billions and billions of dollars for everyday Americans without costing taxpayers a dime".

Prior to this mind-boggling statement, Zack presents his bona fides regarding his knowledge of Amazon; I'm sure he's pretty clever, and doubly so regarding Amazon. But his lack of insight when it comes to Walmart, let alone the factual inaccuracy of his statements regarding the way Walmart takes advantage of its employees' crushing poverty [0] is fucking insanity. Walmart absolutely does cost taxpayers. It disturbs me that someone so incapable of grokking the consequences of these so-called Wonders of the World should be so well-positioned to benefit from them.

On the other hand, I suppose that it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. [1]

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-...

[1] --Upton Sinclair

I interviewed with Zack once. Whip smart and driven. Definitely has a point of view that I don't always agree with (check out his twitter: https://twitter.com/zackkanter/ ).

I think Walmart has done a ton of damage (The Walmart Effect being a great book about it: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/294987/the-wal-mart... ). But Walmart has done some good things too, in terms of material prosperity and supply chain revolutions (my understanding is that the wonder of the bar code being fully rolled out is due to Walmart).

Anyway, I don't want to defend all of Zack's positions (trust me, I don't) but I still find his analysis provocative.

Remember when prime meant you got your package in two days, not that’s they’d maybe sometimes put it in the mail in two days?

Unregulated Capitalism

Monopoly happened.

By the metrics society judges people and companies, Amazon is fucking killing it, few are doing things better (Apple?).

You still buy from them, what incentive do they have to return to former quality?

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