
Why Do We Trust Amazon? - jmduke
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/amazon-2013-3/
======
manaskarekar
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
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!

~~~
jlgreco
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.

------
jrockway
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
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.

~~~
jrockway
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 :)

~~~
secabeen
They're also good at vetting buyers. As a merchant, I appreciate the fact that
even when the most skeezy-feeling buyers are legitimate. You can get screwed
by the customer service requirements, but at least you see fewer customers
with fake credit cards and the like.

The spam you'd describing is an attempt to get you to rate them. I've sold
many things, and the rating rate is less than 10%, so you need to sell a lot
to get out of the new vendor ghetto.

~~~
robryan
And even if you do get chargebacks as long as the reason given is fraud amazon
will cover them.

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

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

------
Turing_Machine
"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
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
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.

------
pnathan
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).

------
kayoone
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...](http://www.dw.de/amazon-scrambles-after-damning-german-
documentary/a-16603329)

------
stevewilhelm
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
Thanks Steve, I really appreciate that!

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

------
ww520
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.

------
boostventilator
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...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/01/29/amazon_q4_profits_fall_45_percent.html)

------
nanofortnight
NYT article on the single-word press release:
[http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/09/business/media-talk-
bookst...](http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/09/business/media-talk-bookstore-
goliaths-fax-to-the-finish.html)

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

------
Bjartr
Over a decade of consistently met expectations?

------
enjo
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
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).

~~~
enjo
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.

------
alexdowad
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).

------
PeterisP
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.

------
akurilin
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
*is now available

------
zaidrahman
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.

------
rmk2
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...](http://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/neue-vorwuerfe-gegen-amazon-als-
wuerden-die-menschen-dressiert-werden-1.1614066) [german]

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

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/amazon-
used-n...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/amazon-used-neonazi-
guards-to-keep-immigrant-workforce-under-control-in-germany-8495843.html)

[http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-to-investigate-
german-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-to-investigate-german-
factories-2013-2)

------
paulhauggis
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.

~~~
robryan
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.

