
Ask HN: Has Amazon.com gone downhill? - personlurking
I recently moved back to the US after many years abroad and started using Amazon again, buying around a dozen items w&#x2F; Prime.<p>____<p>1. Most items don&#x27;t ship for around two weeks.<p>2. The tracking is all over the place (the delivery windows are mostly incorrect due to #1).<p>3. The reasons for delays are - from what I can see - totally made up (per my private conversations with the product-maker, or due to localized weather which just doesn&#x27;t exist).<p>4. The directionality of the packages en route is illogical (ie, a package is in one state then in another, two minutes later).<p>5. Their live chat support agents consistently give further incorrect information&#x2F;explanations regarding the problems I listed above.<p>6. Not to mention the problems I read from other HNers about fake reviews and knock-off products.
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halfbrown
I use Amazon a lot and I don't have the same experience. I've trended toward
buying more through Amazon than elsewhere for things like clothes and various
sundries like soap, toothpaste, etc. and overall it's been a good experience.

Granted, I try to use Prime whenever possible, and as much as I can, I try to
buy items that are fulfilled by Amazon. Where I have run into issues are
things shipped directly from China. Those can take weeks, but generally
speaking I know ahead of time.

Fake reviews are a part of ecommerce so I'm not too terribly worried about
that, but some of the reviews can be funny, too. Mostly I try to use the stars
a product has received as a barometer and then vet the 5-star ones to see if
they seem real. Ditto for the 1-star reviews, because often times people will
complain about something that is outside of the seller's control, or even
something that is subjective.

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TokyoKid
It will vary greatly based on whether the product is fulfilled by Amazon or
not. If it's Prime-eligible it should show up on time (even at great cost to
the workers delivering them, sadly). Despite appearances, Amazon is actually
an eBay-like marketplace of thousand of individual sellers.

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WheelsAtLarge
I would say that if you're not a prime member then yes. I was a prime member
and then decided to cancel my membership and service has gotten worse for me.
It takes longer to get items sent to me. example: I ordered an item 1/1 but
did not get it until 1/11\. That would never have happened before prime was
created. What's funny is that the item as shipped on 1/10\. I got next day
shipping but the held it for 8-9 days.

Also, there are a lot of prime incentive sale items on the site that I can't
order but I see every time I'm there. What it does for me is to make me lose
interest in Amazon.

I've started to order more from Newegg and Walmart. The prices are not that
much different but I don't need to be a prime member to get acceptable
service.

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chadash
As a consumer, Amazon is amazing in terms of breadth, price and ease of use.
I'm not claiming that they have every product, nor are their prices always the
best. _But_ their selection is very good and their prices are typically very
competitive. And if I'm just buying run-of-the-mill stuff that doesn't require
too much research (e.g. a USB memory stick), it takes me about 60-120 seconds
to search the site and check out and I'll almost always receive the product on
time, 2 days later. Very few other retailers can match the shipping time.
Plus, when I have had issues with products, I've generally been very happy
with their customer service.

However, from a consumer's perspective, I have two major issues with them:

1) Knock off and counterfeit products - there seems to be more and more of
them these days, especially with third party sellers or even fulfilled-by-
Amazon items, since it seems like they might co-mingle inventory. If I'm
making a large purchase where there is risk of buying a counterfeit item (e.g.
Bose headphones), I tend to go elsewhere these days, unless Amazon has a very
competitive price. In particular, for electronics, Best Buy will match Amazon
prices and I trust their supply chain more. I also find that B&H has excellent
customer service, a great selection, great interface and are reliable to work
with.

2) Suspicious Reviews - No doubt there are a lot of fake reviews on Amazon.
When you're talking about the largest online retailer where reviews make or
break a product, obviously there are going to be fake reviews. Then there are
products with what I'd call "hired reviews". I believe that this is no longer
permitted, but this is where a company gives free (or very cheap) samples in
exchange for an "honest" review of the product. Naturally, people who are
given free (or cheap) samples in exchange for writing a review are going to
give biased reviews. Finally, for many items, it could be as simple as friends
and family writing reviews of your product, which are also going to be biased.
Because there's so much incentive to game reviews, it's gotten to a point
where I no longer trust them anymore [1].

As a consumer, what I'd really like to see is a competitor to Amazon with a
more curated selection. For example, I don't need 250 different options for
blenders. What I would prefer is a site that offers 5 options at various price
points which have all been vetted by the store owner. User reviews are
helpful, but most users aren't really familiar with the alternatives. I can
say that I like my blender, but at most, I have experience with one or two
other blenders. However, when a store-owner says they prefer a blender, I have
more trust that they have experience with the other models (even if they
haven't used them, they've seen the returns and/or customer complaints) [2].

From third party sellers' points of view, I've heard many horror stories of
issues they have had selling with Amazon, but I won't get into that right now.

[1] There are two other big issues with user reviews in general. The first is
that when a product (or establishment) gets enough good reviews, people buy
the product and are inevitably disappointed. This is an even bigger issue with
reviews for things like restaurants. For example, say a local diner gets 100
five-star reviews on Yelp. Now, people come across the place on Yelp and they
see it has great reviews and so they decide to check it out. But they came in
with very high expectations so they are inevitably disappointed and so when
they write their own review, it will be lower than it might have been if they
had gone in with average expectations and were pleasantly surprised. The other
issue with user reviews is that every user has different needs and
expectations and many of them won't match mine. For example, say I'm a
professional photographer reviewing the Sony RX100 V camera, which retails for
about $950 and is popular with amateurs as well as professionals looking for a
small sized travel camera. If I'm a professional in need of a very small
camera for travel, I've got completely different expectations than an amateur
who is using this as their primary camera. For example, $950 might be a lot to
spend on a camera and an amateur might justifiably feel that the $500
alternative does the job 90% as well. But for a professional, $950 is almost a
budget camera and if it performs even a little bit better, the difference in
price might be negligible. Needless to say, the reviews from both professional
and amateur users of this camera get grouped together on Amazon, which ends up
meaning that the reviews are less helpful for both groups.

[2] This is why I love sites like The Wirecutter, where they examine five to
ten options and pick the one they like best. Consumers generally don't do this
and so I find a single review from the Wirecutter to be more useful than 1000
reviews on Amazon.

