No no no, we need to better understand the people who respond in the Q & A section with variants of "I don't know"

Amazon sends sends the questions out and presents them as if you specifically were being asked by somebody.

It's like if Amazon built a guide map by walking up to people on the street and asking, "how do you get to the airport from here?" and writing down the response verbatim. A reasonable person would tend to respond, "I don't know" rather than ignoring a direct question asked of them.

I think those are a side effect of Amazon sending out emails like 'what did you think of x product? Reply with your review!' after a purchase. Why they don't filter them out, I don't know.

Edit, I mean the ones that ask you questions about a product you purchased

My theory: I think Amazon is showing the unanswered questions to random people, and they answer "I don't know" to make them go away.

Shipping is part of the purchase process.

If the product is good, but the shipping is not, buyers deserve to be informed.

If there are separate reviews for the product and the shipping of a product (still tied to that product, but also the shipping carrier that was used for that order) then a split review (one for each) is legitimate. Otherwise if there's only one review spot, EVERYTHING is on the table.

And in shipping we could distinguish packaging and transport. I would like to rate both.

One of the problems here is when Amazon has one shared item listing for multiple sellers.

A bad review for the product due to one seller's shipping hurts all the other sellers too.

I’ve done this, and stand by it. Since Amazon allows you to rate the delivery by third party suppliers, but not by itself.

On the whole Amazon is good, but occasionally in the past it was poor, however there was no Avenue to raise that.

I have seen a 1 star review of a glass container, which broke when the buyer dropped it. I mean, come on!

Are you referring to the product named "Unbreakable Glass Container, AS SEEN ON TV"?

The customer paid not only for the product but also for the service of having that product delivered to them. Asking them to restrict their review to only one aspect of what they paid for does not seem reasonable.

I think the comment is more directed at folks who, and I noticed this weird behavior the other day myself, post tirades about the cardboard box being slightly damaged (while the goods and packaging inside are completely fine). These in particular are more akin to saying:

"hey this protective outer barrier did it's job, had a scratch on the shipping label, and successfully protected the contents. The contents were IN PERFECT CONDITION, 1 star review!!! CONSUMER RIGHTS!11!11!!1 REFUND NOW DAMAGED BOX"

The real weird part though; is how the outer packaging regardless of the quality of what is inside the box (their actual goods purchased) dominates their reviews. It's like a whole subculture, or something, I can't even begin to understand. The internet never ceases to to amaze me for the sheer breadth of absurdity one can find.

So, is it weird to say they expected the literal outer packaging to be pristine as well? I’m just saying, there must a textbook worth of analysis we can do on these people.

The list of these people is totally publicly available too, it would be great to just examine their world view to understand just who is actually wandering around out there.

There’s no way their pathology doesn’t bleed into how they impact life.

The behaviour you describe would be considered normal in Japan. There it's not a sub-culture. Pretty much any Japanese buyer would consider the packaging as part-and-parcel. And they'd complain in case of defective packaging, regardless of its functional impact.

As someone who lives in Japan that’s a behavior that a loud minority of unreasonable people exhibit, but most Japanese people I know don’t mind damage from transit like most well-adjusted humans anywhere - the delivery person might point it out when you sign for the package but it’s not a big deal. It’s more important for gifts and stuff though where the presentation is part of the gesture.

I was more thinking about B2B shipments, than consumer. The general presumption upon receipt of product at the loading dock in Japan is that slightly damaged packaging is a quality issue. It is applied to domestic and global suppliers alike. But the latter may sometimes fail to understand and vainly push back.

These are well-adjusted humans too. Just operating under a different set of criteria w.r.t. quality.

meanwhile you americans are into fleshlights,

I highly doubt that's a significant percentage but I don't need to defend someone's sex toy even though you felt the need to defend a virtual girlfriend. That's their deal.

But a virtual/robotic girlfriend is pathetic to me. In almost any country if you told a female you had one, they'd think that too. In fact, it would likely remove any chance you had at dating them if you wanted to. That's reality.

What I referenced earlier is a real thing in Japan. And a concern to many, including the government.

"a study by the Japanese government showed there to be 500,000 hikikomori (shut-ins) aged 16 to 39. “The initial findings before 2000 were that it was mostly young people. However, we have seen a marked increase in hikikomori amongst middle-aged and old people,” he says." [1]

For such a populated island, the Japanese are very lonely. A lot has to do with the aging population of course. Loneliness is a sad thing.

"A whole industry also has sprung up to provide company to younger customers, primarily men, who aren’t having human relationships. (A 2013 study found that 30 percent of Japanese men in their 20s and 30s had never dated.) Gatebox has developed the anime-inspired VR-companion, tailored toward younger men who, due to long work hours or other reasons, prefer the company of a virtual partner." [1]

Separately, I'll add that I find it ridiculous that a sizable percentage of Australians don't wear shoes. Almost every animal over there wants to kill you. Why do they go shoeless in public? It's not a poor country. Has to be something else. Can you provide any insight?

[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/japan-loneliness-aging-robots...

Issue here is that any given product on Amazon may be sold by numerous different sellers (and the set of sellers could of course change over time etc.). There is no indication which seller a reviewer purchased from (unless they explicitly state, but I've never seen that), so it's completely possible that they ordered from the one seller that packages the product terribly for shipping & the rest are all fine.

Depends. Oftentimes the shipping problem is the carrier's fault (e.g. UPS or FedEx) and not in control of the shipper at all. Other times they packaged it poorly and it predictably broke, leaked, or melted and it's entirely the carrier's fault. But I do see a plethora of comments that seem to be blaming things like shipping delays on the seller.

And in that case, the company's response is pretty important. There's a world of difference between (a) "it was fine on our end, take it up with the shipper", (b) "we are sorry this happened and are shipping a replacement", and (c) "thank you, and we are looking into other shipping options as a result of the frequent complaints". Some combination of (b) and (c) is acceptable. (a) is not acceptable.

It does if they are on a product page reviewing a product and not, say, reviewing Amazon’s service.

It's about giving proper weight to each aspect. Giving a 1 star review to an otherwise 4 star experience is dishonest if you only have some issue with the shipping (or marketing tactics), just as an example.

Right. Issues about shipping are not what product rating are for.

Of course it is a problem that Amazon does not provide a way to separately report packaging and transport problems.

"Proper weight" is subjective. Disagreeing with dfxm12 doesn't constitute dishonesty.