> They must bleed refund money though, and I thought Bezos was all about right margins?

That's the part that worries me. Amazon surely knows this is a problem, and I'm sure they know much more about it than we do. And yet they allow it to continue. It genuinely makes me concerned for the future of their business, where they know actually providing a quality experience is going to hammer their revenue/profits.

Many customers (myself included) don't bother going through the refund process for a <$20 item. I've been shifting my buying to other sites, instead.

What percentage of customers go through the refund process? I think I refund maybe one purchase every 4-5 years, for all of my retail activity combined. I don't believe I've ever bothered with Amazon.

I wish I was as discerning a buyer. I send back half of what I get off of Amazon, something like once every other month. By volume it's a lot more than I return anywhere else except for games impulse purchased and "returned" to Valve on Steam.

> I send back half of what I get off of Amazon

If you return too much stuff amazon will cut you off: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2018/05/23/a...

I'm sure the people who get cut off are serious outliers though. Like so far out there it is obvious that they should be cut off.

The article mentioned one example of someone returning around 1/10 items. Considering how bad their counterfeit problem is now, I'd say that's pretty low when an uninformed customer could probably expect more than that many items to be disingenuous.

If it's around 1/10, it must be over a long period of time. There have certainly been periods where I've returned _way_ more than that, including things like 'These headphones I bought a year ago have broke, this hard drive I bought 6 months ago has stopped working, AND I'd like to return this expensive item I've just bought, and the only other things I've bought recently are £5-10 books'.

I suspect it's more likely to be done on total purchase _price_ - I spend a fair amount of money on things that are very difficult to counterfeit (video games), so they are obviously never returned, which probably tips the balance back in my favour (the fact that I'm in the EU, and have a statutory right to return (for any reason) may also be a factor).

You’re right, they go after the serious outliers. Amazon announced this policy change right after this case[1] was charged.

Honestly, after reading the facts, I was shocked it took Amazon so long to take action.

But it certainly seems the average shopper/returner has nothing to worry about.

[1]https://bgr.com/2017/10/02/amazon-returns-fraud-theft/

Their refund system is great. Any time I've gotten something subpar I've messaged the seller and had my money back in days with zero hassle.