Good prices, not the best. Normal service, not fast. Easy to use.
by stenz - Written: Jan 20 '04
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I have spent thousands of dollars on the net over the past 10 years. After about 1999, I must say that 99% of any purchase that I make on the net is at Amazon.
The only thing that prevents me from using them now is that I now live in Bermuda and it is a pain in the neck to get things here off of the net.
Amazon has fantastic selection, they have great write-ups and reviews (rivals Epinions in that respect), and they are respectable and trustworthy.
That said, they are in a strange situation right now that I am noticing. I should first say that I love Amazon and I really want them to succeed since I use them for so much (I have a 256 item wishlist and have purchased thousands of dollars of things from there).
But the issue is that in the days gone by they were all about customer service and getting the products out to them quickly and a great price.
Now obviously they also need to make money, and it has been shown that by keeping everything in the warehouse requires too much staff to maintain and therefore drives costs up or conversely drives profits down.
So they get around that by keeping less in the warehouse and instead restocking on demand. If someone orders product XYZ, then they can get XYZ on demand or better yet ship it right from the source of XYZ.
This helps them make money, so I am all for it - because making money will keep the company that I enjoy so much in the game and I can keep using them.
But... and this is where I get annoyed - there is a problem.
With this system, not everything gets to shipping right away. As a result, they need to let the customer know how long they should expect to have to wait for the item to be shipped.
So for example, if product XYZ says that the waiting time is 3 days, and then the user buys it and chooses overnight delivery - they won't get it overnight - they will get it once the 3 days is up, then gets passed to shipping, and then the shipping is overnight.
That is all well and good as long as the customer is made aware of that so that they can take it into account.
But the issue is that Amazon sees that customers are more likely to buy a product if they see that it is available within 24 hours, so they label more items like that - even though they aren't really available in 24 hours.
Once the order is put through, they send you a message saying that it will actually take a little longer and if you have any issues, you can send your package back when you get it and get a full refund.
What this does is allow Amazon to show higher revenues to their shareholders and therefore increase stock price, and then hide the returned merchandise in some dark corner of the shareholder report.
I love being able to use Amazon, but there have been many times where I needed an item fast - and I trusted that if it said 24 hours, then it would get to shipping in 24 hours and then I could have it overnighted to myself.
And within those many times, I have had way too many cases where the 24 hour note is not even close (it would be one thing to be a day late, but I routinely see a week late before it even gets to shipping).
And it isn't just me - coworkers, friends, and family in 5 different states have expressed (without me bringing it up) to me their annoyance with the issue (they come to me because they know how gung-ho I am about Amazon and use them all of the time).
I would love for this to all be some random coincidence - but it sadly looks like a trend for the past year at least. Complaints by myself and others that I know get ignored or responded to effectively with "such is life" by their customer service department.
I hope that this problem is resolved soon and most certainly doesn't get worse.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? hundreds. cds, dvds, tvs, dvd players, etc
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