Reflections of a "Book Pirate" | Hacker News Reader

Reflections of a "Book Pirate"

doalchemy.org

20 pointsalexleavitt25 comments

Businesses with microscopic margins and high fraud losses (hello, eBay / Amazon Marketplace / etc vendors) sometimes get a little peevish about it. It is less commentary about you than commentary about the ten thieves they dealt with this week whose visible actions were indistinguishable from your own.

That said, I get to deal with the occasional "OK, now that our event is over I don't need this anymore, how do I get a refund" email. I eat all the costs on those and don't argue because there is no profit in arguing, but one can understand if I don't have those folks in my Favorite Customers Hall of Fame. You bought a book from a mom-and-pop business, got exactly what you were promised, and then -- because it was convenient -- reversed the transaction and stuck them with all costs. You're a textbook pathological customer. Do you understand why people might not want to work with you?

[Edit: Oh, the economics of the "dispose of it how you want" are fairly straightforward. It simply isn't worth restocking/shipping/admin overhead to take the item back. We had a similar canned line at the office supply store I worked at: if you complained your paper was "Made out of trees!!!" and that prevented you from using it, I would tell you to "Donate it to a local charity or otherwise dispose of it in any way convenient to you." Same thing with BCC disks: they're cheaper to print than to ship and if you hypothetically sent one back to the factory they would just destroy it and charge me for wasting their time.]

1) Thanks for the edit; the more you know!

2) I think I've flash-learned a lot about the process now (of which I knew little before). I'm really interested in disruptive uses of digital social systems, so taking advantage of online vendors might be something I'll actually look into for a future research project.

3) Random thought: Given the increase in algorithms that weigh prices against other sellers (and the obvious examples I linked to in the piece) I wonder what the potential is for mom-and-pop businesses to employ their own algorithms... or at least what the conflicts are when you have small businesses with different levels of technical skills and access to those sorts of advantages. Is that a new business competency that's necessary if you're a small business looking to work within these systems?

You might be more interested in an ethnography of eBay sellers / etc than the algorithmic question. They're typically lower-middle or working class Americans, often severely underemployed (SAHMs are common), who make margins which are actually negative if you impute any cost to their time. They're even more sensitive to losing $3.12 on shipping than PhD students.

This feels to me that this is probably news to you, which is why I'm making it explicit. Given this background, talking about their algorithms sounds silly: they're not sophisticated Internet businesses with Stanford CS majors optimizing for ROi, they're closer to flea market merchants and their accounting controls would have gotten them dismissed for incompetence by any bank in Renaissance Italy.

For those of you not up on your acronyms:

SAHM -- stay at home moms.

I can understand why it might be cheaper to not to restock it, but doesn't it provide an incentive to the customer to keep the item?

Customers are generally unaware of the policy prior to making the decision to return it and, if it provides adverse incentives, that is a "cost of doing business." I won't give you numbers for ex-employers, but returns for BCC were less than .9% of sales last year. Even if every last one was fraudulent, whee, it cost me less than hamburgers and milkshakes at one particular restaurant in Mountain View that I happened to be at a lot. (Steak something, on Castro Street. Two thumbs up.)

Sounds like you are referring to the SteakOut:

http://www.steakout.us/

I think that the vendor should have kept his cool, but he was probably pissed that someone expected him to eat $8 worth of shipping to return a book he was only trying to get $6 from. What is especially frustrating is that the customer got exactly what they wanted, in the advertised condition, yet still returned it.

If this wasn't bad enough, the author also brings up the time that they asked for a refund from a 16 cent book.

I also try to save money however I can, but the person who wrote this article is exceptionally unreasonable.

Yet, in my mind it becomes part of being on the Amazon.com storefront. Customers have the expectation (and aren't told any differently by Amazon) that they'll be able to treat purchases just like any other on Amazon.

On Amazon if I get something (a shirt) and when I get it I realize that I simply don't really like it, I can return it and they are more than happy to take the return. Same with Zappos or other companies that are generally excellent with returns from customers. But the reason they are cool with it, is because there is a large chance you'll deal with them again. A small loss in trade of happiness for likely future purchases.

But being one of the thousands of vendors on Amazon, I'm guessing you don't have this outlook. I personally can't remember the name of a single Amazon vendor I've bought from. I only buy from them if there's either no other options, or if they are offerring significantly cheaper (even when factoring in Prime shipping, which few of them do) than Amazon themselves.

Another thing it brings up is why these companies sell books for 16 cents, or even less to begin with. Clearly, that can't be a way to make for successful business, so like sellers on eBay tried many years ago (and still some today) they are trying to make up for it on shipping fees, in order to beat out competition and likely to avoid giving Amazon a cut.

I don't think Alex is being unreasonable, given that the standards of the Amazon storefront are such that allow for such. On other storefronts, it would be less acceptable. I don't think trying to return an item in an eBay auction for example that is in perfect condition and as-described in acceptable. Yet on Amazon, it would seem to be an ok thing to do. Just as there are social norms, there are corporate norms, and being in a storefront like this carries those norms.

Books are information, they are only /things/ due to convenience. We still sell them as objects due to historical reasons, but that is slowly starting to change.

I think buying a shirt is different from buying a book. The author got exactly what he wanted. He wasn't expecting a different book, or even one with a slightly different colour, or a different fit.

The real problem is that merchants can't state that they don't accept refunds in cases where people bought and received what they asked for but they didn't actually want the think they bought. Kind of a corner case I'd think, but one that led to the disappointment of both people in this transaction.

That's true. But it really could be any product. You get what you want, realize you already had one, find that you no longer have the use for it you imagined, etc.

One problem inherent to buying books online is that you aren't always sure of their content. Google Books and previews help with this, but they aren't of all books. Sometimes you get a book and realize that it just isn't what you wanted (Oh... this book on Ruby assumes you're using 1.8.6, etc).

If the seller has a return policy that accepts it in that time, and its in good condition, then the retailer should accept it back. This is how I view it to work on Amazon anyway. Other places like eBay, it doesn't work like that, but it is known.

Order a pair of shoes from Zappos. Get them. Look at them, and then send them a return note saying, "They are exactly as I wanted, and fit perfectly, but I just realized I don't need them", and you will not get a return note about how you might have 3D scanned them.

Overall, I really feel that if you're going to sell in Amazon's house, then you've gotta act like Amazon. If not, then you should consider selling elsewhere.

But I see an interesting parallel between clothing and media, in terms of "trying them out," if you will. Over the years, Amazon has (at least anecdotally -- would be interesting to confirm this empirically) adopted a try-and-return policy on a lot of clothing, taking a hit on the shipping so that people can retain the "in-store experience" of making sure everything fits. Why does that necessarily have to be different for books and other media? Is it just a question of physical weight + price?

I think the difference between Amazon Inc and Amazon Marketplace sellers is that Amazon knows you'll come back if you're happy. Marketplace sellers will probably/likely never see you again, happy or not. So Amazon sees it as an investment in the future, but the Marketplace sellers just see it as a loss.

merchants can't state that they don't accept refunds in cases where people bought and received what they asked for but they didn't actually want the think they bought

As an aside, in some juristictions, customers are legally entitled to a full refund if they buy something online and within 7 days, decide they don't want it.

I felt the author was making a bit much out of this, especially to spend so much time mulling over the negative feedback. This is a passive aggressive blog, spawned by passive aggressive transaction notes.

If I received such notes and felt moved to action, I would have either a) shot an email back explaining my laziness and apologizing, admitting I understand their position (because I do), and offering once more to send the book back, or b) viewed the notes as a jaded but fair note given my slow reaction, not responded at all, and just given the feedback as if the note did not exist.

But I doubt I would have returned the thing at all, and probably have just either given it away or sold it to a used book store nearby (probably at a loss) because I personally don't feel 10$ is much to eat when my own hasty purchase resulted in me getting something I didn't need. I do realize that everyone has their own habits, though, when it comes to returns/money/etc.

edit: clarity

Absolutely! I came here to read some interesting story related to book piracy and left with having read some random ramblings of someone pretending to be completely taken by surprise that a seller is giving some snaky remark because the return was clearly not his fault. The only thing that kept me reading was the mentioning of danah boyd that early on in the posting. My pity to sellers who have to deal with people like that.

Forget piracy, the blogger also had time to read the book and then try to sell it back - for full price. That is still, in the words of the seller "...taking advantage of the system… at my expense."

There is an issue (with Amazon) if there is no "Other" option for the reason of returning the book, but telling the seller "I no longer want/need this" book after (reasonably assumed to be) using the book for three weeks seems disingenuous at best. This implies that you did want the book at one time, you've gotten all the use you can out of it, and now you want a full refund.

Imagine if you go to the car dealership at the end of the life of your car and did the same thing...

Can you even return a car after you purchase it? That's a poor metaphor.

Sorry, but your response sounded a lot like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU

It would seem if this is the case, then for "returns without defect or seller error" then the seller should have a shorter return window as part of their clear selling terms.

Dude gets a book for free, vendor pays out-of-pocket to ship merchandise he oesn't get paid for, and vendor's reward is snarky comments on social media because he had the temerity to complain about the situation.

And the book ends up on the shelf next to some expensive new hardbacks. Gotta get that $6.16 back from the used sellers so it can be spent on the worst deal in publishing, meant for those buyers who don't mind spending money unneccessarily.

I remember selling some used textbooks on Amazon back in my student days, and for the ones that needed returning, I remember that having the buyer eat both send and return shipping charges STRONGLY deters frivolous returns.

"In cases where you are not responsible for the return, the return shipping costs should be borne by the buyer. Upon receipt, please issue a refund to the buyer. Learn how to Issue a Refund."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=xm_1...

Seems like the seller could have just asked the guy to send it back (at his own cost) before giving him a PARTIAL refund (book cost sans shipping fees) and just avoided this all. :)

(It'd probably be less than $1 via media mail anyway.)

The primary cost of return is time, TBH. $1 mail fee + 15 minutes of your time (at $1/min just to be simple) is not really worth it for a $15 book.

What a peculiar incident. While its helped expand the inventory of Amazon considerably, it does seem that their storefront model ends up exposing consumers to thousands of potentially less than great sellers who, while they might do the right thing in the end, don't end up acting with the proper decorum that Amazon themselves would. Yet, I still "feel" like I am trusting them initially as I would trust Amazon. Yet, I don't know if I really should.

I'm shocked at the tone of the accusations, as they could have just said, "I'm sorry the book didn't work out for you, it will end up costing us more in shipping and reinventory costs than its worth, so you can just keep and it and have a refund". Yet for some reason, I'm not terribly surprised.

Perhaps they have them, but Amazon should perhaps have better guidelines for communicating with customers for 3rd party vendors?

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