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A View From Under the Long Tail
An anonymous reader writes "Here's a funny article by James Boyle in the Financial Times on what it really feels like to be part of the long tail economy." From the article: "Where Amazon's normal customer service seems to be run by suspiciously cheerful MBAs from Stanford, who break off from counting their stock options to write apologies and deliver refunds, 'Amazon Advantage', the ironically named system for selling wares, is clearly based on the last days of the Soviet system. The problem with their representatives is not that their native language is not English, it is that their native planet is not Earth."
Amazon's service is quite overrated actually. It usually works fine, and if there is a problem they usually fix it, but there are times when talking to amazon's rep is like talking to a wall.
An example: For large orders, Amazons usually splits the items in several boxes - at no cost for the customer. This is usually fine, except for the fact that each box lists the contents of the whole order.
If you are overseas, this means that you will have to pay taxes for the value of the whole order for each box.
Last time my order was split in 3 boxes. I have to pay 16% VAT, so the net result is that I had to pay 48%.
Add to this that UPS has a policy of dealing with customs without talking to the customer first - they pay the taxes (VAT, custom fees, etc), and then you pay them upon delivery. So talking to the customs officials is not an option, since by the time you know about this the boxes are already out for the delivery. Refusing to pay taxes is not an option, since UPS will not deliver. You can't tell UPS to return everything to Amazon, since they paid for the taxes and will keep the stuff hostage.
In the end, I had to pay triple taxes. And still, Amazon refuses to acknoledge that the problem is that they don't write the actual contents of each box in the sleave.
I sell my CGI books through Amazon, and I've been quite happy with the Advantage program. They clearly use an automated system to determine how many books to order. If demand is constant, orders are (usually) constant too. When they place a small order (for 2 books, say), I just send it via media mail to save on shipping. Larger orders go by UPS. It's worked out well for me.
Of course, after having gone through the hassle of working with "regular" distributors, Amazon's been a dream. They order consistently, they pay a month after the sales are made, and they never return anything! Compare that to Ingram, who would order WAY too many books, return half of them (most of them damaged), and take forever to pay. No thanks, I'll take Amazon any time.