Anecdotally, I've seen a significant perception shift regarding Amazon over the last year, even among my non-techie friends. When this group of friends starts talking about these things I know it's moving beyond the Hacker News crowd to the general public.
It used to be the place where you could get anything for a good price in 2 days and trust the quality.
Now the selection is getting iffy in favor of house brands, Prime has a ton of strings attached (add-on, pantry, now) if it's offered at all, Amazon delivery is awful, the prices aren't nearly as good as they used to be, reviews are mostly fake, and you have to work to avoid knockoffs.
Most people I know have dropped Prime and significantly reduced their orders. They haven't stopped entirely, but it seems to be more of a "Wal-Mart" in their minds - a quick and easy necessary evil, not something they particularly enjoy.
It probably doesn't signify their decline yet, but it certainly seems to be a new stage in their lifecycle.
I also see the same shift. There's too much garbage to sift through and too high of a chance of getting something counterfeit.
Whoever thought the operational cost reductions of "commingling" was worth the loss of trust in the Amazon.com was wrong in my opinion. I think people with disposable income would rather pay a little extra to guarantee they get a legitimate product, and it's not hard to google the model number or product name and select from Target or Lowes or Best Buy.
Over here in Europe when I hear something negative about Amazon from non-techie people, it's always about working conditions. I guess the recent Spanish strikes have helped to publicize that more. Some people are thinking of avoiding ordering from Amazon, but I doubt that actually translates to that much of real action yet.
Indeed. Conversely as a Frenchie Prime still offers next-day shipping and works as well as it ever did (that is, pretty well most of the time). It's pretty amusing to me that we seem to have a better deal with Prime on the old continent than on Amazon's home turf.
> "Amazon is not too big to fail ... In fact, I predict one day Amazon will fail," Bezos reportedly said when addressing a question about Sears recently going bankrupt. "Amazon will go bankrupt. If you look at large companies, their lifespans tend to be 30-plus years, not a hundred-plus years."
> "If we start to focus on ourselves, instead of focusing on our customers, that will be the beginning of the end ... We have to try and delay that day for as long as possible."
As it grows larger, the "Amazon marketplace" is getting more and more filled with garbage knockoff products and fake reviews. There may eventually come a tipping point where they lose user trust.
I feel like every time there is a discussion about Amazon on the Internet, this point is brought up.
I spent about $9,000 on Amazon across 139 orders in 2018. I buy a lot on Amazon. I've never had a problem with receiving knockoff products. I don't understand how this can be such a prevalent issue when I've not run into it, given how much I use Amazon.
The only thing I can think is that, if I'm buying something expensive, I'll strictly only purchase items "Sold by: Amazon.com Services, Inc" or alternatively, I'll use a marketplace seller if the seller is the manufacturer of the item I'm buying.
> The only thing I can think is that, if I'm buying something expensive, I'll strictly only purchase items "Sold by: Amazon.com Services, Inc"
If you are trying to avoid counterfeits, that's not really helpful, since the problem with counterfeits is magnified by commingling, by which items sold by Amazon itself, and FBA sellers that do not opt-out of it are mixed and orders fulfilled with goods that may have been sourced by any of the sellers.
If that happens, I don't think the problem will be perceived as "Amazon" — people will say "online shopping" is untrustworthy, like how "social media" is responsible for the world's ills, not "Facebook".
My hope is that smaller, more focused online retailers and marketplaces emerge that can compete in specific verticals. For example, I already go to non-amazon sites where I prefer to buy music gear and computer hardware.
For many it is here. If I can get the same product from walmart I do because returns onstore are easier and the product comes quickier without prime. Products always come at the very end of the fullfillment date but with walmart they fill the order before the expected date.
For me, they’ve “fixed” that. I finally got their amazon couriers blacklisted, so they are shipping usps.
But, if i order from an account without prime, they wait 11 days to ship, thus giving me 12 day delivery (just within their promised 2 weeks). If i order from an account with prime, it alternates between next day and two days.
Editing to add:
Last order without prime, Dec 28. “Shipped” yesterday (usps shows it arriving to them at 4:35 this morning from amazon, out for delivery today).
I had to do the opposite because USPS is so bad about delivering packages. The Amazon branded couriers basically saved me as a Prime customer.
There was an article [1] from 2017 about USPS couriers lying about packages being delivered to keep up their Amazon delivery statistics. This routinely happened to me.
Constant complaining to customer support when the package kept being marked “building closed” when they decided they didn’t want to deliver (this is a house, not an apartment, so no building to close).
After 3-4 packages arrived a week or so late because of the same issues, they finally blacklisted amazon delivery. Since then, it’s been usps.
