As Amazon has grown, eBay has too. Amazon has gotten to such a point that eBay has to take cues from Amazon just to stay as competitive as possible. But there are times when choosing one or the other depends on the circumstances or specific situations. I will try to describe my experiences and why I might choose one over the other when seeking out a product.
Seller's Perspective
Although the brunt of my article will be about buying, selling can be important too. The main concern for the buyer should be what kind of service they are getting, and what kind of fees they have to pay to each respective company.
For eBay, you have two parts to worry about. You not only have to deal with eBay, but will likely process most (if not all) of your transactions through PayPal. So while there are eBay fees that will need to be paid, PayPal will take its cut of the profits as well. In comparison to Amazon, eBay has lower seller fees. However, when including PayPal into the mix, this may amount to similar fees from either company.
Amazon allows you to send your product in so that they can ship it for you. eBay does have this option - now - but unlike Amazon, they have no special Prime account that will allow for express, free shipping. Shipping to a Prime account may not matter if the seller offers free shipping; but if they don't, it is much easier to entice buyers if they have a Prime account and don't have to worry about paying associated extra S&H (shipping and handling ) fees.
eBay can only do so much due to their selling platform, but it is still a good place to sell from. They offer a good ratings system that imbues trust from its customers. Amazon has its reviews, and although this can be quite helpful, sometimes reviews are lumped together for similar products making it confusing as to what a buyer is actually purchasing. In opposition to eBay, Amazon will allow users more writing room to describe if a seller is good or not. (eBay gives a short one-liner is this regard.)
PayPal itself helps bring in buyers as it is (somewhat) a name people can trust. A lot of people have PayPal and do business through it accordingly; so having it as a payment system - even if negligible - can turn a potential buyer into a definite one.
However, unlike eBay, Amazon is purely for selling at a fixed price. There are no auctions to get a lower price than average. eBay does offer Buy It Now, but in addition sellers can also add an offer option, both of which can go alongside the regular auction scheme.
Some people prefer to try their chances at the best deal possible, while others don't want the hassle of sniping or constant checking.
eBay
eBay has been around for a long time now. I used to use it to buy rare or hard-to-get items. My choices were slim with that or Yahoo! Auctions. Eventually, Yahoo! Auctions went by the wayside. Why? I think it was because eBay got most of the attention from sellers. It is purely for selling and buying, while Yahoo! was really know for just its search engine, email and messenger. Knowing that fraudulent dealings seemed to be more rampant on Yahoo! Auctions didn't help either.
Nowadays, eBay seems to be more about making profits than just getting rid of whatever you can for however much you can. Sure, it still has good deals from time-to-time, but with so many buyers (and keen sellers), it's a lot harder to get. At least now eBay has really become a marketplace where pricing is competitive.
Even stores like Newegg or TigerDirect have begun selling on eBay. You can usually find the exact same items on their own stores for the same prices, but they must know that many people go to eBay first and buy there.
Amazon
Amazon has grown to such an extent that government lawsuits have been deployed just to stop it from giving the tremendous bargains it did and still does (there used to be no sales tax for certain states...). As of now, they are the largest online retailer and are spreading into other areas like smartphones, tablets, and TV programming.
Amazon always caught my eye because they had everything! You want a 1 million dollar mech robot, Amazon has it [true]. You need a DSLR, Amazon has it. What about baby lotion or diapers? Amazon has that too.
On top of this, as previously mentioned, they have a Prime account, which it allows consumers to purchase at a yearly rate and take advantage of free 2-day shipping as well as free TV shows and movies. During holidays, Prime users will get some items at a discounted price before users without Prime access. I subscribe to them yearly, even with the new hike in price, just because I use them so much.
Prices
There are many reasons to choose either eBay or Amazon. One of the most obvious is cost. Sometimes eBay has a better deal, and sometimes Amazon does. Both sell used items, although eBay does far more, and both have competitive prices on new items.
Now, I find the newer items usually sell cheaper on eBay than on Amazon. Mainly because eBay will often have people selling their items as opposed to a company. A lot of times people will have the same new product for a bit cheaper on eBay, and because they will add free shipping and no sales tax (unless a storefront like Newegg), buying from eBay may save you a lot of cash depending on the final sale value.
One good secret that people usually don't know is that Amazon has "offers". People do see that there are offers for the same product for less expense, although they often forget that new and refurbished items are normally available along with used prices.
At times I do find good deals on used items on Amazon, but that is seldom. But the secret is that there are sellers who might sell the same product new for the same, lower, or higher price. The key is to drop it into your cart and go to checkout. There you will see if the seller adds sales tax. Many times they don't, so you can actually buy the same product new for less than the Amazon advertised price.
The secret on eBay used to be to buy from a store like Newegg and they would actually have no or less sales tax than from their own site. This would have the added benefit of support not just from eBay and PayPal, but from a large popular store like Newegg too. I believe that they (Newegg) have finally learned about this trick, so prices are now the same across-the-board...
PayPal vs. Amazon Credit
Both PayPal and Amazon offer lines of credit to their customers. The main difference I have learned is that an Amazon line of credit can affect your credit score - positively or negatively - and that PayPal does not. This is a true toss up as I like the idea of not having my credit score affected, but at least on Amazon there should be far more choices to spend credit on.
That aside, both have different ways of charging interest. If you buy an item on Amazon's line of credit you will have no interest payments for 6 months if spending at least $149, or for an entire year if at least $600. eBay gives you 6 months at $99.
The other biggest difference between the two is that PayPal charges an APR of 19.99%, and Amazon charges an APR of 25.99%.
In this arena, it seems like PayPal is the obvious choice. It doesn't affect your credit and you have lower interest rates if applicable. But it really depends on what you're buying and how you're paying. If you buy thousands of dollars worth of items, then Amazon might be the place to choose since you could get at least a year to pay off your debt without interest. However, if you only buy $108 worth of items, then eBay would be the place to buy from in order to get no interest financing.
The choice between them is not as easy as pick one and give it a go. It will depend on what you are looking for, what you can afford, and personal preference.
Abundance
When talking about available stock, Amazon is the clear winner. Amazon usually has a large abundance of individual items, and to reiterate, has just about everything you could need. From groceries to electronics, Amazon has it all.
But if talking about the reverse in terms of rarity and old items, eBay is the winner. Amazon sometimes has old items for sale from users, but most people will be selling them on eBay. eBay is known for rare and old items, and because of that, people know that is the best place to get the best value.
I would say that unless a model of something is still in production, anything over 10 years old is going to be easier to find on eBay. If you're looking for autographs or mint condition issues of comics, eBay is the first place to search.
Support
I have dealt with eBay, PayPal, and Amazon support. And even though each has decent support, I would have to say that ultimately Amazon is leaps and bounds above the other two.
PayPal used to be absolutely horrible. If you got ripped off their response was pretty much, "We can't do anything, sorry". For many years I avoided them after having one such incident. I eventually used their services again because eBay lured me back in.
I ended up having another incident where all my money was taken from my bank account. This time PayPal stepped up to the plate and reimbursed me for everything lost. Since then I have had more faith in the company, and they have helped me get things done a lot more smoothly than before. Is the actual service stellar, no, it is the standard I expect a large company to provide to be considered as having good support.
eBay is a nightmare as of recently. There have been just as many horror stories for them as PayPal's past. They have cleaned up their act a lot, and have implemented policies that are better for both buyers and sellers. They have reimbursed me for non-received or non-working items and have ensured that I am taken care of when such situations occur. That being said, as of this month, I have lost a good amount of trust in their support. To make a long story short, eBay sent me a promotion for a measly $5 if I bought an item more than $20 through their eBay app on my smartphone or tablet. The $5 never appeared as stated and I have been jerked around for 3 hours (so far) proving the email was real, that I followed all the steps, and already being promised a $5 voucher that has yet to arrive (even after waiting twice the amount of time I was told it would take). After almost two weeks and three long hours of repeating myself, they did send me a $5 voucher with no spending requirement...
I recall one time where eBay just had the dumbest support person I have yet to encounter.
My order came from China. The product did not work as advertised so I attempted to settle it with the seller first. If you have read my articles, you know I don't have much trust in any Chinese product, but I do try nonetheless. Of course they wanted some sort of proof and promised afterwards to send my refund in full. After I had done so, I kept asking for a return address they never gave. So eBay gave it to me instead, and I sent it off to them. When I told them this they asked for the address and said that they didn't use this address, to which I replied that it wasn't my problem, and they would need to take that up with eBay. They then wanted other demands met where I just said, "F*ck this, time to go to the next level." I gave them horrible feedback, elevated the situation, and explained myself numerous times to eBay support.
You would think this would've been bad enough, but that wasn't the end. At one point I realize that because I sent my item back using the local post office (I have no intention spending around $100 on sending anything back to anyone), I have no way to track it back to China. This upsets me because already I know these Chinese people I'm dealing with are liars, and I'm not going to let them pretend the package did not arrive. So I call eBay support, again. This time is when I get the dumbest person working at eBay.
I explain the entire situation over, again. This guy somehow thinks that I will believe him when he literally tells me that they can track my package into China. So I ask him what the special service or program is that they use, and he tells me that he is not allowed to say. I ask him to check it then, and of course all he can see is that it reached the border of the country I sent it from, days ago... I try to explain his stupidity to him by describing how eBay is a big company, but no country, especially not China, is going to allow them any type of control to watch over packages. The guy trying to still push his fake ideas, and I end up just hanging up on him and calling back to get someone else. I get a woman who I explain the situation to yet another time. This time, she gives me back my money because she understands the predicament. I also ask her if they have some secret program to check foreign packages, and she tells me openly that there is no such thing, they merely use the tracking number with whatever service used (if possible).
Even after I had already sent the package and got a refund, the Chinese seller still tried to contact me about giving them positive feedback. I already had my money back, and I didn't trust them, so I ignored them. A few weeks later the package was returned to me because the address eBay had given was wrong. Oh well!
Was their support good? Sometimes. Is it right now? No. Being that eBay seems to help cause more issues than it solves makes me think that they are just trying to avoid incidents in any way possible. I am now considering them as a possible risk in any future purchases if something significant were to happen after-the-fact. And just knowing that you get eBay support idiots who will try to lie to you, as if somehow people like me are as stupid as them, makes me just that much more wary...
Amazon is simply amazing. Anytime I have had to deal with them, I have always ended up satisfied, if not gratified, once my time with support has finished. A quick two examples, that I have written about in the past, are a Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone and a X-Men/Wolverine Blu-ray movie collection. For the Galaxy S4, I bought it and brought it overseas to use. Everything was fine until it just suddenly died. I tried restarting, pulling the battery, and anything else that I could, to no avail. I called Amazon and had one day left to return the phone. I explained that I was overseas and was upset that I had to pay for the fees to return it to the USA considering that I bought something advertised as fully functional when it clearly was not. After some yelling on my part, Amazon agreed to reimburse me for any and all shipping fees back to Amazon!
As for the movie collection, Amazon offered a special on the movie collection and I bought it. A month and a day later, they offered the same collection with the newest movie that had just been released. I tried my luck and called Amazon to explain my predicament. They understood and informed me that if I bought the movie, I could call back and have them reimburse me the difference. I did so and they actually gave me more than they should have, making the new movie a little less than $2.
I have plenty of positive stories for Amazon, but I can't recollect any negative ones to share. The same can't be said for eBay or PayPal...
Guarantees
eBay and Amazon both have guarantees to get your money-back. Both require returns to be done within 30 days, and once received, a refund will be issued if the items are DOA (dead-on-arrival), not as stated to be, or having other issues.
I have never had to do this for eBay. Yet, what is good to know, is that even if a seller specifies they do not accept returns, eBay will still honor the guarantee. This is how it should be regardless, but it is good to know eBay is on the right page.
Amazon is great about this. They actually go one step further in that if you get the product and you don't open it, you can still send it back and get your money back! You can only do this with eBay if the buyer explicitly states that you can do so.
Here is a little secret about Amazon most people likely have no idea can be done. Let's say you use your Amazon line of credit to get 6 months of no interest payments. You then realize that one of the items you bought you no longer want or need. If you call Amazon and tell them this, they will allow you to send the product back, but they will not void the 6 months of no interest payments if it brings the total below the amount to allow for special financing!
Again, it's a no brainer that Amazon has better guarantees.
Feedback
From what I have noticed, negative feedback tends to hurt sellers more on eBay more than it does on Amazon.
Even though sellers on either site can be flooded with so much positive feedback that negative feedback seems to all but disappear. And despite the fact that both sites will display a percentage of how "good" each seller is. I find myself more willing to buy from an Amazon seller than an eBay seller of equal "goodness".
Maybe it's because of Amazon's support, but when I see someone who has something like 87% on Amazon, my desire for an item does not waiver much. Instead, I just question if it is the best value. However, on eBay, if I see a seller who has something like 95%, I will look into their seller ratings and try to discern if they are trustworthy enough to buy from. As a reminder, Amazon does offer customers more space to write negative feedback, and being able to learn more about how bad a seller could be still has little affect on my buying decisions in these matters...
Mind you, this is just my preference. On a neutral field, all things being the same, Amazon and eBay offer the same type of feedback displays and manner of ratings.
Outcome
This isn't article isn't so much about which is better overall, but which one is better to go with during certain circumstances. That being said, if I had to use only one for the rest of my life, I would choose Amazon. Sometimes I do pay a premium to buy from Amazon over eBay, but given my history with them I think they deserve my business.
Don't get me wrong, if eBay has the better deal by a large margin, I will use them. If I need something old and/or rare, I'll get it off eBay if it's available. But when push comes to shove, Amazon just offers more at better values.
People know I'm a stickler for support, so that plays a huge role for me. Ignoring that, Amazon just has more items that I want. eBay eventually floods its marketplace with the same items, but often by then I have already paid for it on Amazon. And even though I did mention that eBay usually has the same items for cheaper, there have been numerous times I have found items on eBay going for a lot more than on Amazon!
Other Stores?
There are plenty of other stores to buy goods. I buy a lot of electronics so there are Internet stores like Newegg, Tigerdirect, MWave, Directron, Fry's Electronics, Rakuten (formerly Buy.com), Overstock (& O), etc. to choose from. Are they the best? I'd say no, but they do throw up decent deals every so often.
Why don't I use these stores more often? Well, for example, I have noticed that sometimes a graphics card might be priced $10 cheaper on Amazon over Newegg. I then check Newegg to find that the card in question has a rebate for $10. I don't know if Amazon has a special agreement with some graphics card manufacturers, or if they drop their price of their own accord, but I prefer this strategy. I have done rebates before and on average they take up to 3 months or more. Why do that when I can just get an "instant rebate" from Amazon?
If we're talking about the best deals, and used items, there are also plenty of forums to comb through that will provide amazing prices. However, support is a different story as it is all about trusting individuals given that no protection is generally given.
Reiterate
Again, this is not about who is the best. I am biased as evident by my experiences. And there have been several times that I choose eBay over Amazon. It's all about the best deal you can make. If you're buying an expensive item, is it better to have great support over okay support? If you need a lengthy time to pay off your purchase, are you likely to miss a payment and affect your credit score? Is the price advertised actually going to be less pricey in the other store once taxes and shipping are factored in?
Whatever your reasons are, you'll find that the above information should help determine what the best route is to take. Don't be loyal for the sake of being loyal, be a smart shopper and save money where you can.
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Amazon: The Good, The Bad & The 3rd Party
What is Amazon?
Amazon is the world's largest online retailer. It provides thousands of products at competitive prices, including pre-owned items. Their support is the best I have ever dealt with. They have also started trends like their special Amazon-only credit line, and 2-day shipping through their Prime membership for $79 annually (which includes a growing free library of movies and shows!). Despite these benefits, Amazon still has their own shortcomings to deal with, many of which are not well-known because what retailer giant fesses up to their downsides before being caught?
The Past
Amazon was in hot water last year around this time for removing numerous reviews, many without a true just cause. People had long been complaining about the way reviews were done in Amazon. A majority of those complaints centered around fake reviews. Amazon finally got around to doing something about them, but not without taking down numerous reviews that were real.
Authors Be Damned!
Some of those reviews were of author's reviewing other authors. Amazon had changed their policy so that reviews could not be done on behalf of a person or company that had a competing product, including authors. It's a bit ridiculous but its easier for Amazon to do that then setup a special set of rules and measures to allow authors to write reviews for one another.
Amazon In Context
Beyond the authors fiasco, it seemed that Amazon had done more good than harm. Besides fake reviews, paid reviewers, and friends-reviewing-friends, there were numerous top-reviewers who were not doing their "job". Top-reviewers create the most "helpful" reviews. A review is designated as "helpful" if a person with an Amazon account has clicked the respective button to make it "helpful".
These top-reviewers get the benefit of having free products sent to them to try and then review. However, many top-reviewers, who are meant to just be normal buyers (like you or me) were carefully calculating what to review in terms of what product and what content to write, as this would determine what free products they could get next.
The Bad
Just when everything had settled down, it looks like Amazon is looking to start riling people up again. Deleting reviews is one matter, but Amazon has now changed their tactics to be even sneakier!
Amazon Is Self-Aware!
So the reason people knew that their reviews were being deleted is that they could look at the number of reviews they had written and easily notice a drop in their total. Amazon has likely realized this and does not want any more flack, so they have altered their methods.
Sneaky, Sneaky
Someone had posted a comment to one of my reviews for the Cellulon Epic, which I have gone into greater detail here. The comment was a point I had not fully addressed so I went back to my review to answer. What I found was that parts of my review were missing! I remember it because I was going to mention one part in my post from my review and re-read a part of my review unable to find it. I dismissed it and mentioned a different part of my review that would have been near the end. I decided to re-read the rest of my review and found that part missing as well. In all, I could recall three parts that had suddenly gone missing!
I ignored it and began reading through some reviews of products I was interested in. Before long I noticed that people's links were replaced with [...] instead of the URL. Yet, it seems there were some links left, not as URL's, but as clickable names which I am unaware of how to actually create... I ended up on a review I had done sometime last year and noticed the exact same thing. However, according to Amazon's rules, Amazon can make these edits.
Here is a link to their rules, some of which are quite vague, obviously to give Amazon leeway to do whatever they want. One of the sections is:
This is under things not permitted in a review, but without details it can be used however they like. Profanity and illegal conduct is straightforward, but what about everything else which is left to the interpretation of Amazon? If I start talking about nude people in the sense of art, is that obscene? What if I mention abortion, is that distasteful? What if I say something that is spiteful but not directly related to the seller or product in question?
The Cellulon Epic Example
Maybe it seems obsessive to focus on these rules because they should be rather obvious to the lay person, right? Wrong. I'll give you my example which has to do with the Cellulon Epic. If you do not know what the Cellulon Epic is, here is my article on it and why I do not recommend it to anyone. In short, it is a portable lazer keyboard. Pause for oohs and aahs...
I had wrote a review explaining that the device was nothing special, why their support sucked, that it was not compatible with all Bluetooth devices, and that it used annoying beeps to indicate a touch of a button. The gist of my review is still available, but pieces I consider important have been cut out.
Here are things that were cut from my review:
Smarter, Secret Censorship
A more important question remains: Did Amazon ever make me aware of this censorship? No. Which leads me to believe that they know that people will make a large fuss about it, and rightfully so. If you want to make people aware they have done wrong, you notify them. Hiding the censorship just makes it look like what Amazon is doing is wrong, and I do believe it is.
How is this smarter on Amazon's part? Well, instead of deleting the reviews, they censor them. You can no longer look at the amount of reviews and determine something is wrong, you actually have to review your reviews, which can be a pain if you have a lot of them.
Reviews Open To All
I wanted to note that you do not have to buy the product from Amazon that you want to review. All you need is an Amazon account and you can write as many reviews as you want. This can be good for items that are old and discontinued, but it can be bad if someone got a "dud" product and just wants to tell everyone about how much they hate that product.
This would not be as bad as it seems if this did not have the 5-star rating system that accompanies the reviews and directly affects the product being sold. However, much like deleting authors' reviews of other authors, I think this does more good than harm.
Shoot The Messenger, Not The Manufacturer
The reviews are only connected to a product, not the party selling the product. And sometimes that review is incorrectly posted to a similar but different product. While there are products sold on behalf of the the manufacturer by Amazon, there are much more third-party sellers selling the same products.
While there are numerous reasons to blame the manufacturer (shoddy workmanship, a missing piece, etc.), many times the faults are because of the seller. Even when not, the seller should still be made aware that they are selling a bad product. A smart seller would then inspect their stock to avoid the same problem with future sales of that product.
Instead, Amazon gives them a feedback system, but that feedback system is not viewed from the product page, only the 5-star rating of the product is. What is worse is if you end up finding the feedback system, negative reviews can go unseen if there are tons of positive feedback piled on top (more on this below in 3rd Party Seller).
The Good
As I said before, Amazon has the best support I have ever dealt with. If you check my previous article on how to cheat them out of sales tax, you'll see one very huge reason why. I stated many of the great things in the first paragraph, so I won't reiterate. Instead, I'd rather give two more examples of their amazing support...
The Callings
About a day ago I purchased a few items from Amazon, all computer parts for a new build. There was a big issue that occurred with two of my items (more on this below in 3rd Party Seller) that I was irate over. I called Amazon to complain and have something done about it.
India Support
I presume the person I reached was from India (the accent is what makes me presume, and the fact that outsourcing is most common to give to India or Asian countries). I talked for an hour explaining that I was not going to get off the phone until I was either given some sort of compensation, or the seller of the items was given harsh consequences. The support ended up giving me a $30 credit (for two items) since if I now bought the items from a different seller would cost me at least $100 (apparently they can only give up to $30...).
US Support - Part I
I called back a day later in regards to a motherboard I had purchased the day before. Amazon had a few left before I had purchased it, but ran out when I did try to make the purchase. It would've been with my Prime membership, so I instead had to buy from a third-party seller and pay an extra $5-6 for regular shipping. I asked about a credit for the difference after giving the circumstances as to why and the lady I was speaking to gave me a $16 credit! However, the credit amount may have had to do more with the 3rd Party Seller...
How do I know the lady was from the US? Well, her accent was a dead giveaway, and I even mentioned that to her in which she agreed that she was. I have to admit that while the support is always good - or at least I consider it good by the end of the call - I always find it easier to communicate with people from the US. It took me about 20 minutes, which included going over everything from my last call.
Not only that, the Indian support did not even bother to do as they had said in terms of filing a claim or starting an investigation. Does that mean that they are bad at support? No, you just can not assume that things will get done (and should call back to make sure as I did). In addition, Indian support gave me $30 credit for two items, while the US support gave me $16 credit for one item. In all fairness though, the latter item was already shipped...
3rd Party Seller
While Amazon sells many products for other companies and people, there are third-party sellers. I would say that most of them seem to be on the up-and-up, but there are a few that should not be allowed to operate on Amazon or anywhere else.
I had gone onto Amazon looking for the best deal on at least two Radeon graphics cards. Anyone who is a Radeon graphics card fan, or who is into Bitcoin (or alternative coin) mining, will tell you that this line of graphic cards are becoming impossible to get at decent prices.
AntOnline.com (BEWARE!)
I ended up finding an Asus Direct CUII R9 280X (which is arguably better than most of the other 280x variants) from a third-party seller named, "antonline" for $345 shipped! This was an amazing find considering that most other sellers were selling 280X's for about $400. (Keep in mind that when these cards were first introduced to the market a couple months ago they retailed for about $300-$320 depending on the variant.)
I immediately bought the card, proud of my find. As luck would have it, 20 minutes later the seller listed same exact card at the same price! I had been snooping around on Amazon trying to find the best deal for a second 280X so I again immediately purchased it.
The Scam
I can't really say it was a scam from my own experience because nothing truly negative happened to me. However, there are many indicators that some very shady business practices were going on...
I received an email the day after my purchase from antonline which began with an apology. Already a bad start. It continued by stating that they no longer had stock of the item so it wouldn't be shipped until after Christmas. Okay, not so bad. The email concluded by telling me that they would not likely get anymore stock, and if they didn't by the end of the month (10 days), they would cancel my order. What...
What To Know
There are a few things of note, some I gathered on my own, some from the support calls, and some from the email:
On my call I explained the situation that I had already gone through with India support, but it seems nothing had been done. Hooray for outsourcing! Anyways, the lady seemed much more helpful in the matter.
We got through everything and did a little bit of our own investigating. She began the claim that was meant to be started by India support, and agreed that this third-party seller seemed "shady". We parted ways at that point.
The Vow
I had already requested my payment be canceled due to obvious reasons, and had explained to the seller that I would be contacting Amazon frequently about the investigation and what was being done to reprimand them.
I am going to continue contacing Amazon about this incident because it is important that sellers like this don't dictate how they get to operate, it should be Amazon, and more importantly buyers, who dictate how they properly operate.
What really gets my goat are three things:
Overall
If anything, you should learn the following from this article:
Amazon is the world's largest online retailer. It provides thousands of products at competitive prices, including pre-owned items. Their support is the best I have ever dealt with. They have also started trends like their special Amazon-only credit line, and 2-day shipping through their Prime membership for $79 annually (which includes a growing free library of movies and shows!). Despite these benefits, Amazon still has their own shortcomings to deal with, many of which are not well-known because what retailer giant fesses up to their downsides before being caught?
Click to skip to: The Good, The Bad, or The 3rd Party.
The Past
Amazon was in hot water last year around this time for removing numerous reviews, many without a true just cause. People had long been complaining about the way reviews were done in Amazon. A majority of those complaints centered around fake reviews. Amazon finally got around to doing something about them, but not without taking down numerous reviews that were real.
Authors Be Damned!
Some of those reviews were of author's reviewing other authors. Amazon had changed their policy so that reviews could not be done on behalf of a person or company that had a competing product, including authors. It's a bit ridiculous but its easier for Amazon to do that then setup a special set of rules and measures to allow authors to write reviews for one another.
Amazon In Context
Beyond the authors fiasco, it seemed that Amazon had done more good than harm. Besides fake reviews, paid reviewers, and friends-reviewing-friends, there were numerous top-reviewers who were not doing their "job". Top-reviewers create the most "helpful" reviews. A review is designated as "helpful" if a person with an Amazon account has clicked the respective button to make it "helpful".
These top-reviewers get the benefit of having free products sent to them to try and then review. However, many top-reviewers, who are meant to just be normal buyers (like you or me) were carefully calculating what to review in terms of what product and what content to write, as this would determine what free products they could get next.
The Bad
Just when everything had settled down, it looks like Amazon is looking to start riling people up again. Deleting reviews is one matter, but Amazon has now changed their tactics to be even sneakier!
Amazon Is Self-Aware!
So the reason people knew that their reviews were being deleted is that they could look at the number of reviews they had written and easily notice a drop in their total. Amazon has likely realized this and does not want any more flack, so they have altered their methods.
Sneaky, Sneaky
Someone had posted a comment to one of my reviews for the Cellulon Epic, which I have gone into greater detail here. The comment was a point I had not fully addressed so I went back to my review to answer. What I found was that parts of my review were missing! I remember it because I was going to mention one part in my post from my review and re-read a part of my review unable to find it. I dismissed it and mentioned a different part of my review that would have been near the end. I decided to re-read the rest of my review and found that part missing as well. In all, I could recall three parts that had suddenly gone missing!
I ignored it and began reading through some reviews of products I was interested in. Before long I noticed that people's links were replaced with [...] instead of the URL. Yet, it seems there were some links left, not as URL's, but as clickable names which I am unaware of how to actually create... I ended up on a review I had done sometime last year and noticed the exact same thing. However, according to Amazon's rules, Amazon can make these edits.
Here is a link to their rules, some of which are quite vague, obviously to give Amazon leeway to do whatever they want. One of the sections is:
Objectionable material:
• Obscene or distasteful content
• Profanity or spiteful remarks
• Promotion of illegal or immoral conduct
• Obscene or distasteful content
• Profanity or spiteful remarks
• Promotion of illegal or immoral conduct
This is under things not permitted in a review, but without details it can be used however they like. Profanity and illegal conduct is straightforward, but what about everything else which is left to the interpretation of Amazon? If I start talking about nude people in the sense of art, is that obscene? What if I mention abortion, is that distasteful? What if I say something that is spiteful but not directly related to the seller or product in question?
The Cellulon Epic Example
Maybe it seems obsessive to focus on these rules because they should be rather obvious to the lay person, right? Wrong. I'll give you my example which has to do with the Cellulon Epic. If you do not know what the Cellulon Epic is, here is my article on it and why I do not recommend it to anyone. In short, it is a portable lazer keyboard. Pause for oohs and aahs...
I had wrote a review explaining that the device was nothing special, why their support sucked, that it was not compatible with all Bluetooth devices, and that it used annoying beeps to indicate a touch of a button. The gist of my review is still available, but pieces I consider important have been cut out.
Here are things that were cut from my review:
- I wrote details about the calls I made to support. I included that there was support from either Korea or the US and that I chose the US because I only speak English. This is not significant, but why the need to delete it?
- I wrote about how my Bluetooth device works with the Wii controller and a generic PS3 controller. There is a rule about how promotional material should not appear repeatedly, I mentioned these two controllers once!
- I ended my review by telling readers that it would be better to get a flexible, roll-up keyboard because it would be cheaper and more accurate. This I remember adding specifically so that people had an alternative if they were looking for a unique, portable keyboard. Was I promoting something? No. I was not giving a specific product recommendation, nor was I mentioning it in excess. Was I doing this on behalf of a company or product? No. Again, a specific product was not specified.
Smarter, Secret Censorship
A more important question remains: Did Amazon ever make me aware of this censorship? No. Which leads me to believe that they know that people will make a large fuss about it, and rightfully so. If you want to make people aware they have done wrong, you notify them. Hiding the censorship just makes it look like what Amazon is doing is wrong, and I do believe it is.
How is this smarter on Amazon's part? Well, instead of deleting the reviews, they censor them. You can no longer look at the amount of reviews and determine something is wrong, you actually have to review your reviews, which can be a pain if you have a lot of them.
Reviews Open To All
I wanted to note that you do not have to buy the product from Amazon that you want to review. All you need is an Amazon account and you can write as many reviews as you want. This can be good for items that are old and discontinued, but it can be bad if someone got a "dud" product and just wants to tell everyone about how much they hate that product.
This would not be as bad as it seems if this did not have the 5-star rating system that accompanies the reviews and directly affects the product being sold. However, much like deleting authors' reviews of other authors, I think this does more good than harm.
Shoot The Messenger, Not The Manufacturer
The reviews are only connected to a product, not the party selling the product. And sometimes that review is incorrectly posted to a similar but different product. While there are products sold on behalf of the the manufacturer by Amazon, there are much more third-party sellers selling the same products.
While there are numerous reasons to blame the manufacturer (shoddy workmanship, a missing piece, etc.), many times the faults are because of the seller. Even when not, the seller should still be made aware that they are selling a bad product. A smart seller would then inspect their stock to avoid the same problem with future sales of that product.
Instead, Amazon gives them a feedback system, but that feedback system is not viewed from the product page, only the 5-star rating of the product is. What is worse is if you end up finding the feedback system, negative reviews can go unseen if there are tons of positive feedback piled on top (more on this below in 3rd Party Seller).
The Good
As I said before, Amazon has the best support I have ever dealt with. If you check my previous article on how to cheat them out of sales tax, you'll see one very huge reason why. I stated many of the great things in the first paragraph, so I won't reiterate. Instead, I'd rather give two more examples of their amazing support...
The Callings
About a day ago I purchased a few items from Amazon, all computer parts for a new build. There was a big issue that occurred with two of my items (more on this below in 3rd Party Seller) that I was irate over. I called Amazon to complain and have something done about it.
India Support
I presume the person I reached was from India (the accent is what makes me presume, and the fact that outsourcing is most common to give to India or Asian countries). I talked for an hour explaining that I was not going to get off the phone until I was either given some sort of compensation, or the seller of the items was given harsh consequences. The support ended up giving me a $30 credit (for two items) since if I now bought the items from a different seller would cost me at least $100 (apparently they can only give up to $30...).
US Support - Part I
I called back a day later in regards to a motherboard I had purchased the day before. Amazon had a few left before I had purchased it, but ran out when I did try to make the purchase. It would've been with my Prime membership, so I instead had to buy from a third-party seller and pay an extra $5-6 for regular shipping. I asked about a credit for the difference after giving the circumstances as to why and the lady I was speaking to gave me a $16 credit! However, the credit amount may have had to do more with the 3rd Party Seller...
How do I know the lady was from the US? Well, her accent was a dead giveaway, and I even mentioned that to her in which she agreed that she was. I have to admit that while the support is always good - or at least I consider it good by the end of the call - I always find it easier to communicate with people from the US. It took me about 20 minutes, which included going over everything from my last call.
Not only that, the Indian support did not even bother to do as they had said in terms of filing a claim or starting an investigation. Does that mean that they are bad at support? No, you just can not assume that things will get done (and should call back to make sure as I did). In addition, Indian support gave me $30 credit for two items, while the US support gave me $16 credit for one item. In all fairness though, the latter item was already shipped...
3rd Party Seller
While Amazon sells many products for other companies and people, there are third-party sellers. I would say that most of them seem to be on the up-and-up, but there are a few that should not be allowed to operate on Amazon or anywhere else.
I had gone onto Amazon looking for the best deal on at least two Radeon graphics cards. Anyone who is a Radeon graphics card fan, or who is into Bitcoin (or alternative coin) mining, will tell you that this line of graphic cards are becoming impossible to get at decent prices.
AntOnline.com (BEWARE!)
I ended up finding an Asus Direct CUII R9 280X (which is arguably better than most of the other 280x variants) from a third-party seller named, "antonline" for $345 shipped! This was an amazing find considering that most other sellers were selling 280X's for about $400. (Keep in mind that when these cards were first introduced to the market a couple months ago they retailed for about $300-$320 depending on the variant.)
I immediately bought the card, proud of my find. As luck would have it, 20 minutes later the seller listed same exact card at the same price! I had been snooping around on Amazon trying to find the best deal for a second 280X so I again immediately purchased it.
The Scam
I can't really say it was a scam from my own experience because nothing truly negative happened to me. However, there are many indicators that some very shady business practices were going on...
I received an email the day after my purchase from antonline which began with an apology. Already a bad start. It continued by stating that they no longer had stock of the item so it wouldn't be shipped until after Christmas. Okay, not so bad. The email concluded by telling me that they would not likely get anymore stock, and if they didn't by the end of the month (10 days), they would cancel my order. What...
What To Know
There are a few things of note, some I gathered on my own, some from the support calls, and some from the email:
- The email stated that Amazon sometimes holds orders to the seller from 2 hours to 2 days! I confirmed that Amazon never does that.
- I was curious if companies manually listed their items, or had a way to automate inventory through Amazon. I confirmed that sellers must manually input new items, which means that antonline put up a listing 20 minutes later even though they didn't even have enough stock to fulfill my previous order...
- As of right now, the site antonline.com does not come up. When Amazon support tried to pull up the site it blocked them from doing so because that website's reputation is to poor to allow Amazon employees access...
- Knowing that antonline put up a listing 20 minutes later without having knowledge about their stock prior to doing so shows me that they are probably using one inventory for their Amazon and website business (and maybe more?). A smart and trustworthy business model would have two separate inventories for each business.
- On the same day that I received the email I checked their feedback from their Amazon store page. They sell a lot of random (you-can-get-anywhere) items, so there was positive feedback. About 3-4 "next" clicks away a buyer by the name of George T. had experienced the exact same situation as me for a XFX 280X from them. They even had the audacity to re-list the 280X a couple days later, which George spotted and mentioned along with his 1/5 feedback score.
- George's feedback post had been made the same day I received antonline's email, which means that this was not something happening few-and-far between.
On my call I explained the situation that I had already gone through with India support, but it seems nothing had been done. Hooray for outsourcing! Anyways, the lady seemed much more helpful in the matter.
We got through everything and did a little bit of our own investigating. She began the claim that was meant to be started by India support, and agreed that this third-party seller seemed "shady". We parted ways at that point.
The Vow
I had already requested my payment be canceled due to obvious reasons, and had explained to the seller that I would be contacting Amazon frequently about the investigation and what was being done to reprimand them.
I am going to continue contacing Amazon about this incident because it is important that sellers like this don't dictate how they get to operate, it should be Amazon, and more importantly buyers, who dictate how they properly operate.
What really gets my goat are three things:
- During the day it took for antonline to contact me I had already missed at least one other deal on the same card (albeit for a slightly price).
- I had bought the aforementioned motherboard, a power supply unit, and a hard drive after the graphic cards purchases because I had already paid for them.
- On antonline's Amazon page it states that a 15% restocking fee is charged to people who return brand new, unopened items. So, I have to pay a 15% restocking fee if I do a return, but they do not have to give me a 15% fee for the time wasted lying to me; which led me to buying other related items? Or for screwing me out of deals that went by while I was left to think I was (rightfully) getting an item I already paid for? I prefer to censor my swears in my articles, but that is bullshit!
Overall
If anything, you should learn the following from this article:
- Do your own research when buying a product, never rely solely on Amazon reviews.
- If using Amazon support, be sure to always follow up if there is anything important they are meant to do.
- Buy directly from Amazon whenever possible.
- If you must use a third-party seller, check their feedback first for any important information that a buyer may have left.
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