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Re:The Advertising Bubble by ciaranm on Monday November 16, 2015 @12:39PM (#10575771)
How many consumers have this style of interaction:

* buy an item from Amazon (coffee maker or otherwise)

* realize the build quality/size is rubbish (which from some of the less well known sellers, it really can be)

* return the item using Amazon's generous returns policies (never had one rejected, I've used it many times)

* buy a different item in the same category.

* repeat?

If this type of purchase happens a non-negligible number of times, could that be the reason we see so many 'buy more of X!' style ads?

Re:The Advertising Bubble by vitd on Monday November 16, 2015 @01:34PM (#10576125)
But wouldn't it make sense to only do that if the return actually happens? It's not like Amazon doesn't know whether or not the item has been returned.
Re:The Advertising Bubble by fineman on Monday November 16, 2015 @02:37PM (#10576590)
I truly hope so, that means Amazon ad-networks' ads are hurting Amazon. Internalizing the externality of spam and privacy violations.

Haven't you ever wish for a 'Punch Advertiser' button during commercials? This would be like hearing they built it themselves.

(To be clear, by having someone making $0.03/click sign their customer up for buyer's remorse thus destroying the profit from serving them because those return policies, the customer service time, etc, aren't free.)