About Amazon, how fucking hard is it to use a fucking Naive Bayes classifier to just check if product title or description changes significantly? Hell, do it with Babbage or some other (not L)LM that's cheap as fuck. We already have clear leaks showing that they fuck over sellers with their price lockins, are you really hurting them more by dropping all those product reviews? You can also do way better by using an image classifier. I have a hard time believing a company that's bragging about how many robots it uses in its warehouses and replaces shitty support with even shittier LLMs is not going to actually result in higher profits by doing this. A few returns probably covers the cost because shipping is expensive (something they already don't get right. Haven't had 2 day prime delivered in 2 days since 2018...)
Also, anyone else find it weird that stores on Amazon don't list all their products? Like you can click on the store page from the product and then that product is nowhere to be found. Want to reduce scams? Force the listing of their entire product directory. I already can't rely on reviews, you just are making it harder to trust you.
I really do wish there was a halfway decent alternative to Amazon. Even Target and Walmart's online stores are more attractive, just limited. But this seems to be a generally sucky space and I don't understand why. Don't even get me started on NewEgg...
> Money is one hell of a drug because they are high.
They're so high they're even turning down higher profits. But I guess the issue is caring FAR more about short term profits (quarterly statements) than long term (hell, even a fucking year). I really don't get this metric hacking bullshit bureaucracy we've built (and its not just isolated to the US or the West).
Because the margins are incredibly low (thanks, Walmart and Amazon?), which means you need capital-heavy hyperefficient warehousing/distribution to even compete, which means you need scale, which means there's little competition to make things better.
I think there'd be a lot of room for innovation if you turned Amazon/Walmart/Home Depot's logistics into their own companies, then allowed people to put whatever between that and the customer that they wanted to.
Which is essentially what Amazon does now... the only difference is they get to control that link and the revenue flow from it.
Segregating market functions forevermore would go a long way towards returning competition to marketplaces, imho. (E.g. logistics|retail, advertising|everything, etc.)
I mean, they already do exactly this — this is what Amazon Lockers are. It's just only seemingly worth it to Amazon to deploy them to commercial customers, e.g. at post offices, in front of Whole Foods locations, in some very large apartment building complexes, etc.
(My own guess as to why the economics don't work out for individual residences, is that a hypothetical smaller locker — one small enough to fit on a porch — would also inherently be lightweight enough for thieves to just cart away wholesale.)
Every country has these to some degree; I imagine they're most popular in places that 1. have colder climates, but 2. where people don't tend to drive (like Poland?) The US has some, but the suburban long-distance-commute car culture + generally not-too-bad climate, means that people in the US generally expect to pick up packages from further away, and so implementation of these in the US has lagged behind other countries.
However, my comment, and the one it was replying to, are talking about something else — a hypothetical concept of small lockers that serve single homes, given to the homeowner, to be located near the home's mailbox/mailslot. (Basically, logistics-provider-provided versions of these things that you can technically buy online — but where I've never seen anyone with one: https://www.amazon.ca/WeHere-Package-Delivery-Anti-Theft-Pas...).
And the thing about these is... they really aren't a good idea. They're not too big and heavy to just steal. Anyone who can walk up to your porch with a moving dolly can walk away with it.
I agree that per-household lockers are... tricky at best. But then, if we're talking homes, and thus presumably lawns in front of them, I wonder what are the difficulties of selling a multi-slot locker that would be bolted down to the ground (or perhaps a bunch of concrete filling a hole in the ground), and thus as easy to steal as a thick fence post or an ATM? Is this too expensive for homeowners?
I get hundreds of packages per year (not an exaggeration) and as far as I know, exactly zero have ever been stolen. Missing packages are invariably delivered to someplace else that must have had a better vibe for the driver that day. (I’ll get pics of proof of delivery with a package that is clearly not at my house.)
In that environment, what problem do I have that could be solved by this, how much effort (and aesthetics) am I willing to spend to solve it.
Now, if my house shared a wall with two other houses and people walked by my front door all the time, maybe I’d have a theft problem due to greater opportunities for it to happen.
Places with lawns probably don’t have nearly as much package theft just due to less foot traffic.
When this happens you have to go to a post office to get your mail.
I suspect that some of the the same reasons that lockers aren't economically feasible in most of the US is the same reason that the theft isn't a problem: low density. If you're a porch pirate, you need to expect that the value of your stolen goods covers at least your gas and time driving around stealing stuff, plus some risk premium for doing the crime. If the average value of a package is below this amount, the crime doesn't pay. There will still be instances where people haven't done this math, or crimes of opportunity, or just dense stretches where it does make sense depending on the price of gas, but it isn't a nationwide problem.
Some older houses have passthroughs built into the walls for deliveries of milk or coal or ice. I’m surprised this feature hasn’t been resurrected for package deliveries.
Regarding missed packages, are you talking about stolen packages? I've had a few cases where delivery was one day late and one time I got the wrong order (but got to keep the free groceries along with a full refund for my actual order) but I've never had a package just disappear altogether. Even Aliexpress orders that take 2-4 weeks from China eventually show up.
I've had a single-digit number of packages never delivered, most of them years ago, from Aliexpress (which, at least back then, had a very buyer-favoring dispute process, so I would get my money back with three clicks or so).
In the US all carriers drop packages at door (or in the building's locker if you live in an apartment complex). Some packages need to be signed (alcohol, nicotine, gun ammo, etc) but the vast majority of deliveries involve zero human interaction
Sort of. Note that I'm a city dweller, living in a flat in an apartment block.
This is a real problem; classical solutions involve having another household member receive the parcel, asking the delivery person to deliver to a neighbor who you know is OK with it (since I started working remotely, I frequently am that neighbor), having them drop the package in front of your door (undesirable, but works in case where there's an extra door between your flat and the staircase), or putting your place of work as delivery address (if your company is happy about it; some are not). Dedicated "package send/receive" stores became a thing, then started disappearing as grocery store chains became package drop points. And then came the parcel lockers.
I imagine this problem was the primary driver of mass, enthusiastic adoption of parcel lockers - for the last decade, I've had at least one within 5 minutes of home, and this let me pick the parcel up at my leisure.
These days, most packages we order go through lockers; the ones are don't are usually medical or plain heavy (10-20kg worth of cat litter, soft drinks, etc.). This works because I work remotely, and my wife is yet to return to work after post-partum period.
Only if I really needed that specific thing pretty badly today would I spend a few bucks and 15 minutes to drive over to come get it.
I ordered some physical thing, not that thing and a quest.
Then why so much effort is needed to stop package theft to the point of giving access to your house to strangers? Apparently getting package on your doorstep is not as convenient as you would like others to believe. Using such lockers is convenient and secure, giving package to recipient hands is secure but not convenient, leaving package at doorstep* is neither.
*or any other place convenient for whomever is delivering it
Most people get quite irked when someone steals their Amazon package between the time it was left at their door and the time they actually try to get the package. Hence for most people who occasionally receive Amazon packages when no one is home to quickly take it inside a way to let Amazon put the package in their locked garage is a benefit.
> How about amazon builds (at their expense) an amazon controlled box, slap a mcu on, do authentication over nfc, rfid, etc etc. Offer it to customers free of charge, hell throw in a sweetener to get them to adopt.
Like Amazon Lockers? That's not as convenient as delivery to your home. Or do you mean they should provide lockers to individual homes?
I'm not sure that would work. If the home locker was not very heavy or very securely attached to something immovable package thieves would just steal the lockers.
How expensive pouring some concrete into a small hole in the ground would be? Or would this become real estate then, or otherwise require a construction permit?
The problem is that it's prohibitively expensive compared to just eating the cost of any thefts, keeping an eye on pickup times so you (or a family member) can take the package inside ASAP, and using pick-up for any truly expensive ($1k+) items when possible.
Let’s just take a step back here and recognise that we’re asking online retailers to leave our deliveries outside our homes, with direct access to members of the public, but we’re also asking for them to assume responsibility if the packages are stolen.
Morally, in isolation, it’s not a very defensible position for the consumer to take. I personally don’t feel so bad about it when it’s Amazon — they can afford it, basically — but in general it’s not realistic for porch pirates to be anyone else’s problem except the consumer’s.
If I order something for delivery, it is the retailer's responsibility to deliver it to me. If they leave it where it is stolen before it's in my posession than that is not my problem.
Were it any other way I would not order anything online!
If Amazon want to leave packages securely, then I am more then happy for them to partner with mail carriers and other delivery services and come up with a common standard for an externally secure lockbox system*. But they're not getting an open door into my house.
The problem in the delivery space is everyone does whatever - there's no standard or common code for communicating secure delivery logic for a premises. You can come up with whatever and it just won't be used. But "give me access to inside your private property" is one of the more insane solutions given that a garage is not an unvaluable area, nor necessarily a non-hazardous one.
E.g for us in South Africa, this would be unthinkable, regardless of how much time it saves the delivery company. The only time a parcel is left at the door is when it's UberEats. Otherwise delivery is rescheduled if we don't physically collect parcels in person. This is partly an access issue (many houses/apartments/estates have gated access) and largely a trust/crime issue.
But the US still seems to have some remnants of a high trust society, which has been only a temporary thing in many places, if at all.
Not having such a society adds frictions in all kind of interactions. In the end, that means cost. I can understand why people and company try to shift that cost when it comes up in areas where it wasn't present beforehand.
I'm friends with all my neighbors but I find this practice completely bizarre.
And when you're back from hiking the Alps your neighbor will have build a shed around it to protect it from the rain and moved in 10 of his pigs to keep it warm.
Unless of course your delivery guy tied your package to a special tree called Maibaum by mistake. Then you'll find a sign telling you that it has been redirected to one of the 5 villages called Kirchberg in your area.
But instead they just put a piece of paper in your mailbox that says 'you weren't home, we'll come back tomorrow'. Next day same thing. Only then can you go and pick it up at the post office.
Oh and there are many stories of people seeing the mail carrier defaulting to the piece of paper and not even knocking because of time pressure.
Anecdotally, in France, the parcels "delivered by Amazon" have hands down the best service. They're the only ones who've ever actually delivered the parcel to my door (I live in an apartment). If they can't leave the parcel in the mailbox, they'll call me up and ask what to do, usually offering to come back some other day if I'm not at home.
If the item fits in your mailbox (letter size), they do that.
If not, they knock, and leave a "we missed you" note if the package is insured. Or leave it on the doorstep if not.
If you get the note, you have to go the post office in two days, during normal office hours (9-5ish), or Saturday morning (9-12). If you don't make in a few days, they return to sender.
But this is only for USPS. If the package is FedEx/UPS/courier, it's the wild west. Sometimes they leave it. Sometimes they leave a note. Frequently they claim they attempted delivery but didn't. And if they miss you a few times, you have to pick it up at the distribution warehouse which could be a 30 min drive away. This is the worst - even for items you know need a signature, there's no guarantee they'll deliver - we ran into this a few months ago with some jewelry - delivery was schedule Monday 12-5pm, we waited in the living room (right by the door) and nobody came. Their system showed a failed attempt (courier lied). Repeated Tues. Called courier warehouse, they asked if we had doorbell video proving the delivery attempt was never made (WTactualFuck). Repeat on Wed. Item was returned to sender. We called sender, asked them to use USPS because private shipping can be a disaster. USPS is often a day slower, but it's fairly reliable.
Some areas have problems with package theft. Fortunately mine isn't one of them, so I'm ok with packages being left.
This is one of several reasons I no longer buy anything from Amazon. Not even if it's the cheapest source. Even if it gets to a Filiale, those are further than most of the shops that would sell similar items.
It's rare the Amazon sends something via them, but whenever they do, I expect to not get the package. And when I don't, I just call up Amazon support and complain about them and make it a point to mention I often have issues with that specific company. They usually offer to cancel the shipment and reship overnight. Don't know if they can actually control it or if it's coincidence, but all reshipments have been via Amazon.
It's difficult to figure out exactly where the facilities are and you're not guaranteed the package won't still be on the original truck or on a new one.
Additionally, it's common that no delivery attempt is made at all -- the delivery driver will walk up to the door with a "we missed you we'll try again someday" slip already filled out and won't even knock.
The main reason we are cool with deliveries being left on the porch isn't that we trust our neighbors, it's that the alternative is so much worse.
when I lived in the urban core of a top 10 population US city, I still trusted my neighbors
another comment said the US still had "remnants" of a high trust society. I grew up in that high trust society. I am not old.
if our high trust society is gone, we should do whatever is necessary to get it back. It's clearly a better way to live.
If the latest shipment of crap from Amazon/Temu went missing. Annoying, but you'd just tell them the package got stolen and get a replacement sent out.
The problem is that there are people who drives through residential areas looking for packages to steal, cars to break into, etc. and that occurs quite frequently, as caught on our security camera.
It doesn't take many motorized perpetrators to lower the overall confidence in how secure it is to leave packages outside, given how much range the porch pirates can cover in a single afternoon.
No lol, you just enter the tracking number of the missed delivery tag into the carriers website and they tell you where to go pick it up.
It's not unknowable; FedEx and UPS at least will reattempt delivery every day for a certain number of days before giving up. At least that's the case in urban and suburban environments. Maybe you live somewhere rural where their policy is less clear?
> It's difficult to figure out exactly where the facilities are
No it's not. The tag they leave behind will often tell you, or you can enter the tracking number online and it'll tell you there. And usually it's the same place every time, so once you figure it out, you're good for future packages.
> and you're not guaranteed the package won't still be on the original truck or on a new one
This is the annoying thing. It's never clear when the package will actually get back to the facility (after they failed to deliver it to you), so you don't actually know if it'll be there when you show up. Many many years ago it was a simple matter of giving them a call, but nowadays you end up in customer support / phone menu hell, and it's incredibly difficult to talk to someone who is actually physically present at the facility.
> The main reason we are cool with deliveries being left on the porch isn't that we trust our neighbors, it's that the alternative is so much worse.
I'm absolutely not cool with this. I trust my neighbors just fine, but I don't trust all the random people who might be walking around, specifically looking for packages to steal.
I'd much rather have to drive over to a facility to pick up the package, or just wait until the next day for another delivery attempt, but most delivery drivers don't give me that choice.
If the package does get stolen (incredibly likely, if it's left outside), I'll usually have to wait several days for the merchant to ship a new one (because they figure it's possible it wasn't stolen, and want me to wait and see if it still gets delivered in a day or two). And then I have to wait for another shipping-time cycle.
They claim this, but my experience is that it's not true. VERY VERY often, it will be multiple days or up to a week before they attempt again. Sometimes they never attempt again, and a week or more later I get the notification that it's available to pick up at their depot. It's certainly not consistent enough to rely on.
Yeah, in a city I would expect the mail person to leave a receipt in your mailbox.
In the countryside, though, that's not unheard of :-)
Just like I would easily leave my bike unattended and unlocked in the country side but not in a city.
Places in the US that have high level of porch piracy also have high levels of gun control, and low levels of gun ownership.
You have to really want my $5 towel to risk your life doing that around my parts of the US
It varies greatly depending on where you live. My sister lives in suburban Maryland, and leaving a package outside on a porch is just no big deal. The probability that it gets stolen is actually ridiculously low. In this case the high trust is completely warranted.
I live in San Francisco, and if a delivery person ever leaves a package outside, it's always a scramble to either get there to take it in, or find a neighbor who can do it for you. (I live in a 4-unit condo building, so we all try to look out for each other's packages when this happens.) It's just bizarre to me that delivery people aren't specifically instructed to never leave packages outside here. I suspect they may be, but they're overworked and don't want to have to add yet another package to their delivery schedule for the next day. And/or they may be evaluated on number of completed deliveries, no idea.
(On the flip side, there are some neighborhoods in SF where it's ok for a package to sit on a doorstep for a while. Not many, but... they exist.)
This obvs does not work for other delivery companies but now you can see an option in the order forms to allow the delivery company leave the package at the door (e.g. IKEA). Otherwise, it is just unthinkable that someone would leave the package at the door without ringing you and agreeing in advance.
Physically, they're about as secure as an Amazon cardboard box.
Not sure what effect this has but I live in an area with a lot of Ring (or other) front door cameras which is a rather severe disincentive to theft of packages left at the door (as well as mishandling of package delivery by the driver)
To put things in perspective, it's common over here for people selling things on Facebook/Gumtree to just leave the item outside and have the buyer slide the cash under the doormat. It's less secure but way more convenient, since you don't need to be home to complete the transaction.
I've left tools and other semi-valuables in my unsecured carport, in clear sight from the street, on a main road, for years now and they've never gone missing.
My sister in law lost her iPhone in a public bathroom and got it back simply by calling it and working out a time and location to meet up with the person who found it.
These aren't just freak anecdotes, by the way, they're the norm.
You should really consider coming over here. We need more Saffas in Australia!
As for your security concern it's not unfounded but if your garage is built like most in the US there's probably already a locking exterior grade door between it and the outside because a garage door isn't that great as a security barrier to begin with unless you remove the pull cord that unlocks the door from the carrier.
AND
Chamberlain expects me to weaken my digital security posture so they can run some opaque crap on my network¹ that I have very little observability into and even less control over so they can make money?
Money is one hell of a drug because they are high.
How about amazon builds (at their expense) an amazon controlled box, slap a mcu on, do authentication over nfc, rfid, etc etc. Offer it to customers free of charge, hell throw in a sweetener to get them to adopt.
[1] I have a default deny in AND out isolated vlan for crap like this, even if you don't have a network background try to set one up if your networking equipment is capable.