It's definitely an Amazon failure, as Amazon controls all sides of this return.

It can be a failure on Amazons part without it being a failure of the cashierless store concept.

Well it's definitely a failure of the Amazon cashier less store concept if they railroad you into doing your returns there but then it doesn't even work.

Sounds more like a failure on the returns drop off location listing. It seems that improving the filters and visibility of what you'll need to have to drop off returns in each location is a far less drastic solution than dropping some stores because otherwise it messes the website lists.

Amazon gives you very few choices on how to return items, oftentimes just 1 (and it'll be something bad like UPS pickup or Kohl's dropoff). They would need to change this too. The problem really is with the overall experience.

That's the experience with the Amazon website though, not the cashierless store. That's the point.

I personally don't like the website too much. Full of fakes, bad quality items everywhere. I only use it for cheap stuff I wouldn't return anyway. I do get that. Amazon go and whole foods are good though. Amazon go is very convenient and whole foods often have brands which I like and I don't easily find elsewhere. I also enjoy their fruit.

I mean, I agree with you; it’s incomprehensible to me someone would go there without an app or at least their device logged into the Amazon website.

…but, let’s be charitable and say some has lost their phone or whatever; it’s not totally unreasonable to expect some kind of special process for it.

…turns out, there was a special process for it. Without a receipt. Oh well…

/shrug

Some people are just weird about it. Live and let live I say.

Lesson learnt I hope: next time, I hope they go somewhere else and let other people get on with their perfectly mundane shopping.

Just wait until they have facial recognition stores, and you’ll find people complaining they couldn’t get in while wearing high powered IR leds all over their heads. You just can’t win in some of these arguments.

This is literally the modern version of the old person who refuses to use anything but cash and won't use the internet or get an email account. People who elect to be luddites even of small degree will always have an suboptimal experience to people who adopt change.

"if you don't give up all your privacy to mega corp then you deserve to be blacklisted by society"

Thank you, I was feeling like I was very far outside of this thread until your comment.

It's somewhat unclear to me what you have to lose here. You're going to their retail store that is littered with cameras as a feature they heavily advertise. You're returning a package with your name and address on it. If typing your password into the turnstile is the last straw, that just seems weird to me.

But even that wasn't required. OP did their return successfully.

The loss of privacy comes not from actions taken at the Amazon store, but from having the app installed on the phone 24/7, including when you’re not at the Amazon store.

A somewhat similar example would be using Facebook purely through its Tor onion address, while simultaneously blocking facebook.com on your home network. The point is not to keep Meta from having any information about you, but to limit Meta to information it can acquire from your direct interactions, as opposed to the piles of unrelated browsing history it normally acquires through IP address correlation and Like buttons.

OK, I'll bite: what could possibly be the issue with keeping an app installed?

If you quit it it's not running, and if you don't give it location permissions it's not tracking your location.

Is there something I'm missing?

The situation has gotten better over time as the OS manufacturers have locked down permissions and made background operations more visible. But many privacy leaks have been only recently fixed or remain unfixed—for instance, it was only in 2021 that Android removed the ability for apps to collect the full list of installed apps. And there have been some real stinkers in the past, like when Facebook used its app to modify people’s contacts lists to make @facebook.com email addresses the primary. Companies that make money from aggregating data will always be on the cutting edge of these techniques compared to ordinary people. The app that’s not installed leaks no data at all, and I don’t blame anyone for avoiding apps that aren’t absolutely necessary.

The whole point of the go stores was to do retail in a different way, where you had to conform to their way or it wouldn't work. Yes, it was limiting for people that didn't have a phone with them or account info. Do all of these people befuddled by the phone/app requirement for go stores struggle when they go to pick up something at an amazon locker? It's basically the same thing, you can't "talk to someone" to get your locker opened that is on the back wall of the drugstore.

You can access an Amazon locker with a barcode printed from the Amazon website, or even from your confirmation email. The app is not required.

good point - I forgot about that. I added my son's account once to access a locker for pickup too.

What's the problem with cash? Counting change make you feel like a dummy?

> Is that an issue with the store concept, or an issue with not making it clear to users that it’s a non standard drop off location?

It's a flaw with how Amazon communicated drop off locations for returns.

You would say, "I want to return this." And they would respond with, "Take it here!" no additional information about having to have an app.

If you take a return to The UPS Store, for example, you just bring the item you're returning and a little QR / UPC code they scan and you're done.

If you take a return to the Amazon store... they won't even let you get to the point where you can return without having an app on your phone. It was annoying.

Especially if you were taking someone else's package back with your own. Or... more accurately, returning something for your girlfriend since she bought 3 tops with the intent of only keeping one and had to do a return like every 3 days because of her shopping habits. And she just assumed it worked the same as returns at The UPS Store... and then when you got there to drop off the package you couldn't even sign in as her. Ha.

I feel the original posters frustration around this. For a company that has always said, "It's all about the customer experience..." it was REALLY BAD customer experience. And, because it wasn't me setting up the original returns, I got sent to the dumb little "make you log in before you can enter" store a few times by mistake.

You get a whole class of issues like this making stuff rely on a phone app.