Why Do We Trust Amazon?

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/amazon-2013-3/

by jmduke • 13 years ago

57 43 13 years ago

As a seller, you shouldn't.

They don't have any support beyond automated email bots.

Unlike Ebay, they also sell the same items alongside your listings, which means they can and will use your sales data to find out which items are profitable (and put you out of business).

I sold on Amazon for 5 years and saw Amazon slowly cut me out of every market I was in..until they finally banned my account and would now allow me to explain anything.

Near 100% feedback with virtually no customer complaints wasn't enough.

GhotiFish• 13 years ago

Out of curiosity, what grounds did they provide to ban your account?

If they had marginalized you, they wouldn't need to ban you.

robryan2• 13 years ago

As a seller I have been relative happy with the support. Granted they will usually follow their rules down to the letter which won't usually favor you as a seller.

The responses I have got though have often felt like someone actually took the time to understand the question.

jrockway2• 13 years ago

Amazon has very clever marketing which is evident in the sentiment reflected in the comments.

One comment mentions that Amazon is the "cheapest possible way" to get anything. False. Many other retailers are likely to have the item you want at a lower price, even including shipping.

Another comment mentions the customer service. Honestly, I don't think Amazon has very good customer service: every interaction is handled in the form of giving you your money back. "Hi Amazon, I really liked item X, when will it be back in stock?" "Sorry about your experience with item X. We're refunding your credit card." "What?" (My specific experience involves buying bike tires. I ordered a certain model of road bike tires, but got mountian bike tires instead. I emailed customer service, who wrote back apologizing and overnighting me two new tires. Same problem. Same email. Same result. Now I have 6 incorrect bike tires. Thanks, "great customer service". While I'm never out any money after dealing with Amazon, sometimes I'm annoyed because I know my concerns aren't being heard. And I'm never going to get that time back that I spent talking with them.)

Amazon's real assets are a huge inventory and a great order-fulfillment system. I never really wonder if my order is going to show up or not, modulo occasional randomness from the shipping companies.

georgemcbay• 13 years ago

More or less the entire reason I use Amazon to buy things online over any other online retailer is predictability of delivery. If I order something and it tells me it will arrive on day X after ordering it (next day or two day generally since I'm a Prime user so two day is free), it actually arrives when stated. I don't sit around waiting for two days only to be informed the item is backordered or two-day shipping means two-day shipping but that's two days after we sit on your order for a week before we ship it from the warehouse, etc, which are events that happen all too often for me on other sites.

Of course this only applies to things fulfilled by Amazon, things fulfilled by Amazon affiliates are just as much a wildcard as on any other site and thus I try to avoid them as well generally.

jrockway2• 13 years ago

I think Amazon does a pretty good job vetting merchants. While they aren't as good as Amazon at sending me things, they generally do a pretty good job. The only thing I dislike is how often the spam me with things like "Is everything ok? If there are problems please contact us immediately!" I know why they do this (unhappy customers = no longer able to accept Amazon payments), but it doesn't mean I have to like it. Nothing a mail filter can't solve, however :)

ryanmolden• 13 years ago

Or maybe your experience is an anomaly and it isn't that Amazon has just brainwashed everyone else via their clever marketing. I have bought a large number of items from Amazon, the price has always been competitive and even where slightly higher knowing I am not simply dealing with some remote company who managed to slap together a web page and who will have god knows what kind of service if I have a problem is worth some small(ish) price differential. As another anecdote, opposite to yours, a few years ago for Christmas I bought a flat panel monitor for my mom. It was kind of late and I did three day delivery. It was dropped on my porch (according to UPS) and was not there when I got home. I wrote Amazon expressing a bit of annoyance that they (actually, UPS) hadn't required a signature for a $400 monitor and just left it on my porch where it was apparently stolen. They were apologetic and said they would send another one overnight. It arrived early the next afternoon. No mixups, no blaming the shipper, no "sorry we will get you a replacement in a week", just good customer service, and on a tight deadline too. That said, I could be the anomaly, but I have heard similar good customer service stories from Amazon and Zappos (who Amazon bought and whose CEO is notorious for focusing on customer sat, which may have rubbed off in some small way on Amazon).

Zigurd• 13 years ago

What you say about price is sometimes true, but Amazon has proven trustworthy, so they end up being the vendor backstopping a short list of specialists.

For electronics I try Newegg first. For cables, Monoprice. For espresso machines, WholeLatteLove. If I can't find a specialist site with good prices and a good reputation pretty quickly, Amazon gets the deal.

There are some categories where Amazon is a really bad shopping experience because they do not properly police vendors who "spam" a category so that finding the best price in a search is thwarted by pages of redundant listings. But for "stuff I might buy at Target but Target probably won't have as many choices" Amazon is tough to beat. Or you could say "for stuff that people are not passionate enough about to support an obviously good specialist site that can match or beat Amazon prices..."

xtracto• 13 years ago

The majority of time I am hunting for a good price the Invisible Hand extension takes me to Amazon as having the best price. Some few times it tells me that the item is maybe 1% to 5% cheaper in Ebay (the last place I would buy from).

So in a pragmatic way (considering all the potential risks and waste of time/money) Amazon seems really to be the cheapest possible way.

notatoad2• 13 years ago

I think people still trust amazon because they are an easy to understand company: at it's core, amazon is a business that sells things for a profit. Everybody can understand how they make their money.

ams6110• 13 years ago

Until you get into the cloud stuff... AWS, EBS and all that... I'm sure you start losing people at that point.

Turing_Machine2• 13 years ago

Mmm... maybe. Most people could probably understand "they'll rent you a computer to run your website".

notatoad2• 13 years ago

Yeah, but people don't hear about that. Amazons got all sorts of stuff going on, like the article starts to go into. Their public facing image, though, is just simple retail.

Samuel_Michon• 13 years ago

"amazon is a business that sells things for a profit."

Their financial reports sure don't support that theory. Apart from making very little profit as a company [1], they sell many products at a loss [2].

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/29/amazon-calendar-q4-2012-e...

[2] http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/technology/2012/10/amazon-...

fennecfoxen• 13 years ago

[1]: They sell the things at a profit, then turn that profit into more infrastructure to sell things before it gets to the shareholders -- which may or may not be the best deal for the shareholders, but that part impacts the customers little. [2]: "many products" - what, Prime and the Kindle? Plenty of people don't interact with either. :P

Turing_Machine2• 13 years ago

"It’s also clear that Amazon doesn’t care about what it sells; it just cares about the selling."

On the contrary. It's clear that Bezos cares very much about books. Yes, he sells lots of other stuff, and yes, he's in business to make a profit, but no one who's followed his career could seriously deny that books are very special to him.

thaiphan• 13 years ago

You never hear about Amazon "going to war" with other companies. Whilst other companies, e.g. Google and Apple, are constantly bickering amongst each other, Amazon just stays in the background, doing it's own thing. I personally think that's a breath of fresh air.

larrydavid• 13 years ago

You must not have been listening hard enough: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com_controversies

All major companies have their fair share of controversy. That being said, I've had nothing but good service with Amazon. And Apple/Google for that matter.

ww520• 13 years ago

Money back guarantee is an extremely powerful marketing tool to establish trust with a faceless corporation far away over the net. Trust is the basis of a long lasting business relationship. Customers simply trust Amazon won't screw up and will bend over backward to make it up if thing goes wrong. Customers just go back to Amazon because of its trusting brand.

manaskarekar2• 13 years ago

1. I know I'm getting a reasonable price.

2. With Prime I know when I'm getting my stuff and I know it will be fast.

3. I don't have to be afraid of getting screwed over, even by third party merchants through amazon.

4. Their no hassle return policy.

5. Their going out of the way to make it right.

6. Multiple ways of getting customer service. One of the best experiences you can have today. As opposed to, Netflix, for example. The worst service I have experienced.

7. Ease of browsing and window shopping combined with good reviews and meta-reviews (comments and ratings on each review that is). Amazon reviews seem to be MUCH more unbiased than any independent reviewer for that product that you may find elsewhere.

8. Prime freebies like Instant video etc.

They're doing everything a customer expects, right, and that is pretty much why I love Amazon.

jtreminio• 13 years ago

For the record, the one time I was forced to contact Netflix for support was when my brand new Roku was not connecting to my account. The Netflix rep I spoke with was very patient, and helped me solve the issue, which turned out to be with my Roku, not Netflix.

Other than that, I have never needed to call, email or otherwise contact Netflix at all, which I think is a great thing in and of itself!

manaskarekar2• 13 years ago

I have had to deal with their customer service for one issue. After multiple 15-20 minute calls, spread over multiple weeks, my issue is unresolved, or not sure if resolved, at best.

They were not rude to me on the phone, but customer service isn't just about politeness. It's about resolving the problem. And that did not happen.

jlgreco• 13 years ago

The first time I had to contact Netflix support was actually while I was attempting to give them my money and sign up. For some reason their systems were rejecting all new signups and their customer support was in complete disarray. Took me 45 minutes on the phone (44 minutes and 30 seconds on hold) to confirm I wasn't the only person having a problem.

With that experience in mind, I am not terribly surprised other people have had issues.

degenerate• 13 years ago

Anyone having to call DirecTV, Dish, AT&T, eBay, Comcast, Paypal (the list goes on) would scoff at your attack at Netflix customer service. I and many others have had great experience with them, and the best part is I only needed to call them once -- was on and off the phone in minutes too.

niggler• 13 years ago

I want to see someone contrast this with costco, (I'm genuinely surprised that costco has a lesser reputation than amazon)

akurilin• 13 years ago

Amazon AutoRip is another nice touch. Every music CD I've ever purchased with them over the years is not available to me in the cloud as if I had purchased the MP3s as well.

Now if only we could do the same with Kindle.

MichaelApproved• 13 years ago

*is now available

stevewilhelm• 13 years ago

I trust Amazon's Web Services division because they "eat their own dog food."

I also have to give a shout out to Jeff Barr, AWS's Chief Evangelist. He has always made it clear what AWS could and couldn't do and strives to understand what AWS customers really need.

jeffbarr• 13 years ago

Thanks Steve, I really appreciate that!

enjo2• 13 years ago

Amazon is such an enigma to me. There are things about Amazon I really hate. The silly patents. The absolutely non-stop ad-retargeting. The often intrusive marketing emails.

Yet if you asked, I'd rate them as my absolutely favorite online company.

There is something extremely compelling about their brand. When my wife signed us up for prime, I actually became an even bigger fan (and I paid for the privilege!).

At the end of the day prime has been the thing that has made me into a internet-first consumer. I know I'll get it in two days, and it turns out that is soon enough for just about everything.

dmd• 13 years ago

I'm curious what you mean by "intrustive marketing emails". I've been a heavy Amazon customer more than 14 years (I easily spend five digits annually with them on products alone), I'm a Prime member, I use AWS, ... and I have never once received a single unsolicited email from Amazon (i.e., one not associated with the logistics of a specific purchase).

enjo2• 13 years ago

Really? The most recent:

  "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
 
  Customers who have shopped Movies & TV might like to know that "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is now available for pre-order on DVD, DVD/Blu-ray combo and 3D/DVD/Blu-ray combo. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" will be released March 19, 2013.

  ....

I'm sure there is a setting that I can use to make these stop, but I'm far too lazy to do it.

nanofortnight• 13 years ago

NYT article on the single-word press release: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/09/business/media-talk-bookst...

Can't find the press release on Amazon's site though.

kayoone• 13 years ago

amazon Germany just recently got under heavy fire for bad working conditions, bullying and low pay after making higher inital offers. only affects there warehouse people but it got pretty bad in the press. My mom was like "i am not buying from amazon anymore for the time being"

Just wanted to post this as it was in the news just days ago to give a counter perspective. Obv. amazon germany is a different company but its their second largest market.

[1] http://www.dw.de/amazon-scrambles-after-damning-german-docum...

PeterisP• 13 years ago

Well, as everywhere, trust is earned by repeated posive interactions.

Compared to small webshops (in my personal experience), Amazon doesn't screw up nearly as often; and if it does screw up, then it makes things right - since it treats me as a probably-returning-customer.

rmk2• 13 years ago

I trust Amazon because their practices make me feel warm and gooey inside. The fact that (foreign) workers are actively exploited just so I can get something delivered that I could have bought for roughly the same price in an actual store for roughly the same price while simultaneously supporting the local economy aligns nicely with my worldview.

I trust Amazon because they treat their workers like cattle, allowing me to feel superior due the fact that I have not yet sunk low enough due to economic pressures that I have to leave my home (and family and/or country) in order to work for sub-standard wages in aforeign country without any actual enforcable rights. I trust Amazon because they successfully subvert union influence , hollowing out any form of social or political control in favour of laissez-faire. I trust Amazon because they fight essentially fight the fascism-socialism-communism of regulatory influence on a market.

I trust Amazon because their ideology does not just include jostling workers like livestock, rather, it also allows right-wing security contractors with Neo-Nazi affiliations to watch and exert control over a mostly foreign workforce.

I trust Amazon because it exploits present social laws if at all possible, showing us nicely that an international company really does good things for local communities.

I trust Amazon, since it is a company that can in all seriousness act surprised once its systematic and systemic abuse of people is uncovered, feigning unawareness and promising immediate consequences.

I trust Amazon because it can now hide behind the "mistake" made with a right-wing militiaesque security outfit instead of addressing the actual scandal, which is the ruthless exploitation of workers who have little choice.

I trust Amazon because it can rely on our own inactivity, complacency and convenience which will let us order things instead of realising the sick machinery that Amazon's behaviour is just a product and example of and that is far more widespread, where everyone involved can defer responsibility because they are but a cog in an overall bigger, self-perpetuating scheme.

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/neue-vorwuerfe-gegen-amazo... [german]

https://www.taz.de/!111213/ [german]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/amazon-used-n...

http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-to-investigate-german-...

alexdowad• 13 years ago

When I saw the title of this article, I thought it referred to the fact that something like 1% of Internet sites run on Amazon Elastic Cloud. I was expecting the author to intimate that Amazon might be spying on everything done on those millions of virtual servers (data stored in their databases, access logs, etc).

It seems to actually be saying something a lot less interesting (at least to me).

zaidrahman• 13 years ago

The crux isn't a list of things they do right, but the emphasis of "doing it right" is what makes the company so reliable.

Bjartr• 13 years ago

Over a decade of consistently met expectations?

pnathan• 13 years ago

I 'trust' Amazon because its a very classic buyer-seller relationship. I give them money, they give me things. They do a good job of giving me things, I give them more money. Incentives are aligned to benefit me. This is a relationship I can trust to 'do a good job of giving me things'.

I wouldn't say I trust Amazon, but I am comfortable in the relationship we have going on. :)

I am the customer, and I know it. This is not so with advertising-based companies (i.e., Facebook, Google).

boostventilator• 13 years ago

This is my favourite characterization of Amazon:

“Amazon, as best I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers. The shareholders put up the equity, and instead of owning a claim on a steady stream of fat profits, they get a claim on a mighty engine of consumer surplus. Amazon sells things to people at prices that seem impossible because it actually is impossible to make money that way. And the competitive pressure of needing to square off against Amazon cuts profit margins at other companies, thus benefiting people who don't even buy anything from Amazon.“

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/01/29/amazon_q4_pro...

Why Do We Trust Amazon?

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