Good Prices, Good Service
by stactom - Written: Dec 05 '07 (Updated Jan 05 '08)
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Updated Remarks
In the Saturday January 5, 2008 issue of The New York Times (Business Day) there is a most favorable review of Amazon by Joe Nocera entitled "Put Buyers First? What a Concept."
Preliminary Remarks
As I surfed around the Epinions site I noticed that several of the recent reviews of Amazon.com were quite negative and that the reviewers had written very few (if any) other reviews and had very little track record here at Epinions. One wonders.
Conversely, one of the recent positive reviews was by dlstewart who is an advisor and a top reviewer here at Epinions. As a reviewer here at Epinions with a little less history I want to join dlstewart with another positive review.
To begin I would like to make an analogy. Amazon.com is like the New York Yankees. The Yankees are big, bad, and detested yet more than four million fans paid their big, bad bucks to watch them play in 2007 including yours truly who roots for the Mets. Amazon is BIG (and probably on occasion bad—independent book sellers despise them) but sales revenue for the company was almost $11 billion in 2006. Negative reviews on Epinions or anywhere else won’t make Amazon go away. Amazon is BIG—$37 billion in equity at today’s market price on the Nasdaq of about $93.
So I will try in this review to give you my perspective on Amazon from both a buyer and a seller. I will forgo descriptions about the Amazon site and how it works since I think you have probably been there. If not, visit and there are more than a thousand reviews here at Epinions to garner more opinions and information.
As a Buyer
I have bought on Amazon since their beginning and have bought a lot of stuff. I have never sent anything back so I have no personal experience there as I did with other online stores. See my review of Dick’s Sporting Goods. See Dick’s Sporting Goods
While Amazon underestimates the length of delivery (since I always batch orders to get free delivery), often saying it would arrive in 7 to 10 days, I have repeatedly (90% or more) found that the delivery is often less than three days. I have no proof about why this is so but I do have a theory. My buying account on Amazon is set up for what Amazon calls “Buy with 1 Click.” Put item in cart, click and you’re done. My theory is that these purchases get sent to the front of the warehouse line. I haven’t experienced any problem with Amazon storing my personal or credit information. But 1-Click isn’t for everyone.
Most of my purchases have been from Amazon itself. Very few have been from a third party. However, just this week (December 2007) I bought a Nikon zoom lens for my son for a Christmas present. After I 1-Clicked I noticed that the lens would be sent from a third party in New Jersey. I got nervous because I had ordered some items from Overstock.com for the first time more than two weeks ago (a promotion) and they still haven’t arrived. At the same time that I bought the lens I also I bought a UV filter for this lens directly from Amazon. To my utter surprise the lens arrived in two days while the filter took three. My Overstock.com package is still out there somewhere.
As a Seller
I have been a seller on Amazon for about three years. I sell mostly books and a few CDs and my seller account with Amazon is with a different screen name and email address than I have here at Epinions. The process of listing and selling items is easy and Amazon does a punctual job of crediting your account about twice a month. As a seller I am honest in describing my books but every now and again some buyer will give me a poor rating. Some people are never satisfied (see above in the first paragraph). Fortunately for small sellers like me, Amazon has a system where the seller can leave a response to a buyer’s comments.
Amazon—like the river—BIG and will continue to flow.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Nikon Lens
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