On another note, I am beyond tired of the craptacular deals that are >80% fly-by-night products with astroturf reviews. The gold box deals used to be a favorite bookmarked stop.
I used to read reviews on Amazon religiously even if I was buying somewhere else. That habit has kinda faded, though it's still one of the better sources of real world product knowledge.
You can say that again. I recently bought a kitchen knife with Amazon Prime that had ~100 reviews, an average of 5 stars. It cost £33, so wasn't particularly cheap. Just after I bought it the seller sent me one of those nagging emails asking for a review which I ignored. A week after they sent me another email, a copy of the first one. By the time I've already used the knife and found out it wasn't very sharp (my >5 year old knife of a different brand was still sharper), so I thought "be careful what you ask for, 'cause you may get it" and gave them an honest 3 star review. Not even 2 hours later I get an email from their rep apologizing for a "faulty item" and offering either send me another one or issue a refund and I can keep the knife in both cases. I realized what was the catch, but opted for a refund and removed my review when they asked me on the next email (obviously). So now this knife is still sold on Amazon, with 100 reviews and counting, only one 4 star review and the rest of them 5 stars.
I am not intending to emit a moral judgement, just to point out that he was sufficiently outraged to complain about it and to use such strong vocabulary as "fraud", and yet he acquiesced.
Helping (a little bit) to fix the problem wouldn't have been that much of an inconvenience, and if we customers were more like that this kind of behaviour wouldn't be possible, or at least harder.
If nothing else, someone almost without fail will leave a one-star review that has nothing to do with the item itself. "Package was damaged, one star." "UPS left it in the rain..." If Jesus asked for reviews at Mount Olive (the loaves and fishes thing), there'd be a one-star review somewhere, "fish was a little dry, and I don't like sourdough bread. Better miracles at Joe's House of Wonder, one star." (Though I guess even in reality he got one star from the Pharisees: "shouldn't be doing miracles on Sabbath; one star.") Nothing and nobody, even Jesus, gets nothing but five star reviews.
IOW, your suggestion would be as good as anything Amazon has right now.
At least ~30%+ of Amazon's products are cheap Chinese garbage resold from Albiaba under 10+ different "brands." (private label) There's are also tons of very obvious fake and counterfeit products that could be spotted with a simple human review of new listings.
The point of the fraud is to make money. He denied them that money.
Yet you feel jaded by the other reviewers. You don't owe me anything, but I would encourage you to go back and leave a negative review if the product isn't worth the price. I'm in the market for a cooking knife and would appreciate good reviews. Thanks.
Don't use it on frozen stuff.
If money is no object get a global along with the global specific ceramic roller sharpener.
Yes there are better things out there but for the cost Ikea is very good.
I don't agree with your actions, but I definitely agree with your statement. It's like judging people for paying less taxes via loopholes, yet it's perfectly legal. We focus on judging the action, rather than fixing the problem.
In this case, judging you for using a broken system, akin to tax loopholes, may not be "good" - but it's certainly not the root of the problem. Judging you would, at best, just cause one more "victim" (for lack of a better word), and completely ignore the root cause.
We as a nation need to - at the very least - focus equally on the root cause as much as those doing something we don't like. In this case, the company and/or Amazon are far more meaningful and fruitful subjects to lay blame on. Forcing one person to keep an item is not going to fix anything but ensure they have a wasted money, and have 1 bad review in a likely sea of reviews. A possibly insignificant digit. Yet, if the company is accurately called out, if Amazon are accurately called out, we may see real change.
I assume we blame you because it's easy. "Don't dodge taxes!" we scream. Yet, it's our laziness that enables tax dodgers due to ultimately ignoring and not fixing the root problems.
Wouldn't the greed of man be the true root of the problem? It just so happens that we can't actually fix it in a practical manner so the next best thing we can do is to be make it so it's difficult to take advantage of others.
I mean, I think we can. In the case of tax loopholes, they should be plugged. The corruption in politics that created, and also support the loopholes, should be prosecuted. The list goes on and on.
Sure, you are correct, the "greed of man" is to blame - but my point is systems shouldn't be set up where greedy people can freely exploit, and good people exist solely to be taken advantage of.
Systems, laws and limitations should exist to mitigate the damage done by greedy individuals as best possible. The water in the boat may be a pressing concern, but it'll just keep coming back if our main focus is to just bucket the water out of the boat. It needs to be a combined focus, or we only delay eventually being overtaken completely.
Theft is a crime, and laws exist to punish the bad actors. Yet, we still have locks on doors to mitigate who can steal from us.
We are a society built on good will. The kindness of others has given me everything I value in life. It is my responsibility to pay into it.
Sometimes we cannot afford to. That is fine. A lifetime of good deeds covers moments of necessary selfishness. If this was one such moment for you, don't feel bad about it. But if you could afford to take the time and wealth to make the world better, do.
Some people have not given up on having a moral society and believe that there is great benefit in debating the issues. Because you are not open to debate doesn't mean the debate has no value, but I appreciate your perspective.
Knives are meant to me sharpened. The cheapest knife can be sharpened to razor blade sharpness. Sometimes new knives come sharpened somewhat, but in my experience all mass-produced knives need sharpening when new, even $250 knives.
I genuinely can't comprehend the complaint. What next, buy a new car and complain it didn't come with the tank full?
Yes. You should complain if you buy a new car and it doesn't come with a full tank of gas, or needs new tires, or needs an oil change right from the dealership. Those are things you expect from a new car, and they're the reasons you buy a new car.
If I bought a used knife, I'd expect to sharpen it. If I buy a brand new knife, I expect it to be sharp right from the factory. If it's not, I could have saved money and just bought a steel rod and made my own knife out of it. A knife has one purpose: to be sharp. If it's not, it's not a knife. It's a cheap hunk of thin steel that they told you was a knife.
There is zero reason a brand new product needs immediate maintenance before it can be used.
Those are thing you expect from a new car, and they most certainly are not the reason I would buy a new car.
> If I buy a brand new knife, I expect it to be sharp right from the factory.
You might expect that, but the practical reality is that knives don't really come truly pre-sharpened, and there are many reasons for that. People don't realise that this is the case, because most people, in general, have really, really dull knives, so even a mediocre edge will seem comparatively sharp. But it isn't, it's just mediocre and once you have used a really sharp knife the difference becomes very apparent.
There isn't one way to sharpen a knife. Some people prefer an asymmetric edge, some people hate asymmetric edges. Some people prefer shallow angles, some people prefer steep angles. Some people prefer knives sharped for slashing, some people prefer knives sharpened for slicing. There is no right way to sharpen a knife, it is something extremely user-specific and personal and there cannot be a way to pre-sharpen them that would satisfy all people.
Because it is such a personal issue, I fully expect that I need to sharpen a new knife the way I want it, just as I fully expect I need to installs the apps I want and configure a new phone before I can use it.
> I could have saved money and just bought a steel rod and made my own knife out of it.
This is just hyperbole.
> There is zero reason a brand new product needs immediate maintenance before it can be used.
And yet many products are like that. For example DSLR cameras come without SD/CF cards. The user has to buy them and put them in the camera before he can use it.
However, that price point is the bottom of the bottom of the lowest end when it comes to knives and should be reviewed as such.
I mean, a BMW may be a high quality car, but most people are going to just get a base model Toyota Corolla and they're just fine with that choice. I can buy a kit car that makes me supply my own engine and tires and exhaust and electrics and it will be custom fit to my exact needs, but for the Toyota Corolla owners, they want to buy a car that already has all of those things and can be driven off the lot.
I'm not criticizing your choices, you seem very knowledgable. I'm just trying to help you understand that when you say "a knife shouldn't come sharp from the factory" and "that $45 knife is the bottom of the lowest end", it makes you seem incredibly out of touch with how most people buy knives.
If I bought a knife that wasn't sharp, I would return it to the store and get a different one.
1: http://www.kyoceraknife.com/how-to-sharpen-ceramic-knives.ht...
Not that I doubt your assessment of the knife but..
As far as kitchen knives go this is cheap, although you can still get very good and sharp knives for this price like the Tojiro DP Gyuto or Victorinox Fibrox.
Usually people don't judge a knife by it's out of box sharpness but the sharpness after sharpening, ease of sharpening, edge retention, balance, and overall craftsmanship.
Maybe knife connoisseurs don't, but normal people certainly do. I don't know the names of any knives, those names you mentioned might as well be brands of washing machines. But if I buy a knife and it's not sharp, what's the point? Why can the factory not sharpen it before selling it to me?
Using knives makes them not sharp, so the ability to sharpen is the definition of the knife not being junk. A dull knife is not a garbage knife that needs replacement, it is just a knife that needs sharpening.
I use a Lansky sharpener [1] and it is the cat's meow. Just takes a couple of minutes to put a great edge on.
[1]: http://lansky.com/index.php/products/dlx-5-stone-system/
And to be fair, at scale, given that most people are idiots and don't know astroturf reviews exist, it might never be for them.
But they are definitely in danger of losing the people who told everyone else about "that Amazon thing."
Amazon doesn't benefit financially from negative or average reviews, but they do benefit from the positive reviews, regardless of their legitimacy, as the parent poster demonstrated.
A good review system translates to trust, which enables sales.
I’m mad that they now hide book reviews that aren’t from “verified purchasers” unless you spend several clicks hunting for them.
It’s really unfortunate that there’s no independent page for book reviews with a big enough community to be remotely comprehensive.
But what's the Newegg of other stuff?
nailgunsdirect.com had the odd sized nails I needed for a project that were not stocked locally, they also have buyers guides which helped me decide a interesting new nailgun wasn't right for me. toolpartsdirect.com had the switch I needed for my drill, and a wiring diagram so I knew how to hook it up. Racketballworld.com had shoes in my size, and a lot of advice to step up my game. Those are just a few of places I've ordered from - there are many others that that I each which instead of selling everything and making me choose based on reviews only stocks quality products so I cannot go wrong.
I find when going to small sites there are lots of signs that they are not shady: they generate own reviews and advice that is more than marketing. A little poking around will tell a lot. And of course I buy with a credit card so I'm protected against loss in the worst case.
I can't say the same thing for a billion other little shops online. If you can't trust that a product on Amazon is legit, how can you trust some no-name site? I can't see how "www.Totally-Legit-Nail-Gun-Depot.info" can be any more deserving of trust than the largest online retailer in the world who has a better-than-world-class return policy.
That's like saying "I've been burned by bad doctors in the past, I'm going to have my brain surgery performed by this guy in an alley". I don't care how many patient referrals Alley Guy has, or that I have life insurance in case he kills me.
Better the devil you know, right?
The other day I save $40 on a price gun from Staples. It was 89 in store, and 49 on on Amazon.
Competition is good.
Users a b and c all at some point search for information on products x y and z. Many users, many products.
User d comes along and has previously looked at product z and is now searching for product y. It's now worth putting product x in the "you may also be interested in" segment. It might land a sale, it might not. That data can then be added to the pool to decide if they should show product x to people who search similar products
Why bother at all if they didn't purchase? You don't know why they didn't purchase. Maybe they were shopping around, maybe they were price matching, maybe they just don't have the cash right now.
It's machine learning, not if statements.
All you got from this person is that they looked at two products. Maybe those two products are related, but maybe they aren't. Adding this to your model is just adding noise to the "people who liked this also liked" references, and Amazon surely already has better qualified data for that (i.e. actual conversions).
With Walmart drastically increasing their instore pay and providing better than retail avg. advanced scheduling + Amazons poor pay and working conditions for distro workers Amazon doesn't even even have a moral advantage. (According to my radio Walmart distro workers even start at above 16.50/hr, and thats in a rural area...)
2nd item was through a reseller though.
I don't use Amazon too often these days, but Newegg's lost me from these last few experiences. Their support basically said "meh" about both cases.
on Amazon it's the same if you buy from anything that doesn't say "sold and shipped by amazon". quality and return policy is a crapfest.
But isn't the value in not having to travel to Walmart, select the item, wait in line, pay for the item, and transporting the item back to your home worth something?
I assume you already go to the grocery store, so picking up tweezers isn't much effort. But what about something that isn't sold at a grocery store?
No. At least not for me, and I imagine a large chunk of other users.
The value of amazon was
1. Reviews: I can see feedback on the item in a way that's simply not possible with local stores
2. Selection: I have access to far more products than I do at a local store.
3. Price: Amazon used to essentially do the price matching work for me, they would always be around the same dollar price (and sometimes far lower) than local stores.
I would much rather go to a store and purchase an item because it does away with the hassle of waiting. But I used to value the reviews and increased selection size more than the immediacy of the purchase, and the price is just a great bonus.
As a previous heavy user of Amazon, my usage has essentially tanked over the past year because I no longer trust reviews.
Are some fake reviews easy to spot? sure. Are all of them? hell no.
Couple that with rapidly increasing prices and I'm thoroughly disillusioned. Finally, a lot of the larger local chains now have to-store shipping for less frequently bought items. I can hop on HomeDepot's site and have them ship a rare item to a local store, and pick it up in a few days. Often at a better price than Amazon.
Frankly, I loved prime 4 years ago. Not a big fan today.
Of recent purchases on Amazon (sold by others, but dispatched and warehoused by Amazon) 50% have been faulty and needed to be returned ... that's put friction into the process because they don't do any QC on what they're stocking.
I've also had an instance recently of something shipped by Amazon that was meant to be with me next day not turning up and needing to be re-ordered. They only admitted it was lost days later, so I didn't re-order sooner. OK, I got a free month of Prime for my troubles, but it's not the amazing friction free experience it used to be.
It is if you avoid third party sellers like the plague. I only order from a small handful of third party sellers I trust; otherwise it better be shipped and sold by Amazon or I'm looking elsewhere.
I've also bought games and computer parts on Amazon instead of NewEgg because I dislike NewEgg's shipping system and customer service. I'd rather pay a little more and have a nicer experience. And if I have to return it, I know it'll be easy to return to Amazon without a restocking fee or shipping charge.
For "locally" I meant "at the shop just around the corner", or however in a "convenient, known, usual, place" not a "drive in search of the lowest price across the city".
I have no experience whatever with NewEgg, from what I have seen around they seem on par with other online shops, and I - maybe I am just lucky - never needed the customer service of either Amazon of other vendors, what I can say is that at least here (Italy) Amazon is usually very fast in delivering (but all in all not that much faster than other online retailers, maybe there is a slight advantage for orders on Friday night, Saturday and Sunday).
For instance, I recently wanted to buy "Goo Gone Automotive" to get something off my car windshield. I'd read up online about it, and determined it was what I wanted.
My wife went to Target and the closest thing she found was "Automotive Glass Cleaner". Target has a dedicated automotive section, and I was pretty sure they'd have it or something like it, but they didn't.
In the end, I ended up buying it on Amazon rather than go from local shop to local shop hoping to find something close. (I could also have called first, but that's also very distasteful.) It was much easier to go on Amazon and just pay what they were asking.
Amazon prices might beat local retail, but they are only sometimes competitive with other (often more specizlized) online retailers at this point.
Also, at least for me, shipping New Egg, Walmart and BBAB was faster than Amazon. I don't have Prime however.
Maybe I'm way off, but I was always under the impression that those returned items are re-packaged (if necessary) and sold as new.
And I think that's fine since I really don't see any other way to handle it. Think about europe, where every shop has to offer a free 14 day return policy, regardless of if you're Amazon or a small Shopify seller.
If the item can't be sold as new, that means the customer overstepped and should be held accountable.
For example, go into any Best Buy and ask them where the open box deals are, or look on their website.
Or go to a Fry's Electronics store. They put returned items on the shelf with new ones, but there is a special label on the package noting this and generally offering a small discount.
Lenovo has a factory outlet separate from their main website where they sell customer returns. Unopened returns may be listed as new; opened returns are listed as used or refurbished.
Amazon lists returned products under "Amazon Warehouse Deals" in the New and Used section of a product listing, with the product condition noted in the description.
For most product categories, Amazon prohibits a returned item from being resold as "New":
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
> New: Just like it sounds. A brand-new, unused, unopened item in its original packaging, with all original packaging materials included. Original protective wrapping, if any, is intact. Original manufacturer's warranty, if any, still applies, with warranty details included in the listing comments.
There are some different policies in certain product categories; the page above lists them.
Of course, third-party sellers on Amazon may well re-sell customer returns as "new". But if they don't comply with the rules on this page, they are violating their seller agreement.
In those three cases.... * I returned the incorrect product in exchange for the item I'd actually ordered, and was charged a restocking fee despite it being Newegg's error. * I returned the damaged motherboard in exchange for an undamaged one, and was charged a restocking fee despite it being Newegg's error. * I contacted support about the slower-than-paid-for shipping, and was told, effectively "it'll get there eventually; no refund on shipping speed."
Those three experiences burned me on Newegg entirely. I'll pay the extra $10-20 to get the product somewhere else with less headache, especially since the restocking fees mean I come out close to break-even on price.
Edit: I have NewEgg Premier though, so I get free shipping on certain items and free RMAs. Cheaper than Amazon Prime. I'm always amazed NewEgg doesn't get more love around here.
I can't imagine why they'd ban someone permanently. I mean, they want money, right? That seems weird. But, also sucks.
Compared to other major retailers (Walmart, NewEgg) the experience is just so much more smoother on Amazon.
Sometimes speciality items are cheaper on manufacturer's website. But that requires me to make an account and fill a bunch of forms! Some websites allow guest checkout, but there's often some fuckup happening with that and then I can't even complain properly and/or have a good reference number without an account. And even without an account I still have to fill all those terrible, terrible forms.
Plus it always takes longer to receive my merchandise from random websites than amazon. Even if I pay for the super-quick option, which, by the way, is usually more expensive than the equivalent option on Amazon, I still get my merchandise later because the small store will more likely ship tomorrow while Amazon will gladly do night operations.
For example, let's look at laptops. Here's a list from PriceSpy of 15"-18" 1080p laptops with AMD graphics, 16+GB of RAM, SSDs, and 3+ USB ports.[3] For comparison, Webhallen[4] and Inet[5] (enthusiast shops, comparable to Newegg) only let you filter by class, screen size, or a few manufacturers. Elgiganten[6] and Media Markt[7] (similar to Best Buy in the US) have a few free-form options, but still nothing even close to the organization or breadth offered by Prisjakt. There are also few to no sliders or groups, instead you're stuck either approving individual screen sizes or predefined buckets of CPU series. Oddly, Elgiganten lets you filter for Intel's CPU price classes (i3/5/7) but not generations.
Amazon seems to follow the same recipe as Elgiganten/MM, which definitely leaves me wondering how Americans shop for computers. Or perhaps that's why so many seem to give up and praise Apple's "simple" lineup...
[3]: https://pricespy.co.uk/category.php?m=s320733439
[4]: https://www.webhallen.com/se-sv/datorer_och_tillbehor/barbar...
[5]: https://www.inet.se/kategori/81/15-16
[6]: https://www.elgiganten.se/catalog/datorer-tillbehor/se_barba...
[7]: http://www.mediamarkt.se/sv/category/_b%C3%A4rbar-dator-5103...
I saw ads for chrome extensions but I don't know if they are good.
You can visit the site and/or install a plugin.
All you'd see is the price you're being asked to pay, so you can evaluate whether it's worth that price or not.
For just about everything else, Amazon doesn't really offer a great price and the "convenience" value isn't really worth it anymore to me. I can't order lots of routine stuff due to the fraud issues. Even books are usually cheaper at the local bookstore these days.
Maybe that's a sign they've trapped me.
Electronics is really my only big/expensive habit and NewEgg gets a lot of my business. I bought my last laptop directly from Dell Outlet during a sale and saved about $300 off of the same refurbished machine from Amazon. Though the ordering process from Dell was stupidly inconvenient as I had to get an agent involved to apply the discount and to deal with payment, as for some reason my business debit card wouldn't work. It took half a day, so it's not something I would do for less than a significant discount.
And, as I mentioned, Walmart is often a better choice for regular stuff, and they now have a quite large online selection including stuff that is not stocked in stores.
Oh, yeah, I buy truck stuff, parts and the like for my old pickup. I buy about half from Amazon market sellers and half direct from diesel specialty dealers. And parts for my old RV, same story. Big items never come from Amazon, though; my rooftop AC replacement was purchased from a local dealer for $240 less than the Amazon price.
I guess Google Shopping is how I've found most of the specialty shops.
Amazon's goal is to make that well-nigh impossible.
I mean, Amazon is still a very good customer experience, but when I'm buying something big I always comparison shop now. As recently as a couple years ago, I would just buy it. No thought to whether it might be cheaper elsewhere. The convenience of Prime, plus the reasonable confidence that the price would be competitive with everybody else, was enough to where I didn't bother comparison shopping.
Obviously, Amazon isn't hurting. But, I can't help but think that having more of their longtime customers starting to comparison shop is a bad thing.