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Amazon's New Refunds Policy Will 'Crush' Small Businesses, Outraged Sellers Say (cnbc.com)
Amazon sellers are up in arms over a new returns policy that will make it easier for consumers to send back items at the merchant's expense. From a report: Marketplace sellers who ship products from their home, garage or warehouse -- rather than using Amazon's facilities -- were told this week by email that starting Oct. 2, items they sell will be "automatically authorized" for return. That means a buyer will no longer need to contact the seller before sending an item back, and the merchant won't have the opportunity to communicate with the customer. If a consumer is returning an electronic device because it's difficult to use, for example, the seller won't be able to offer help before being forced to pay a refund. "Customers will be able to print a prepaid return shipping label via the Online Return Center instantly," the email said. Additionally, Amazon said that it's introducing "returnless refunds," a feature that the company said is "highly requested by sellers." The change enables sellers to offer a refund without taking back an item that may be expensive to ship and hard to resell.
Amazon isn't in the retail business. Amazon isn't in the cloud computing business. Amazon isn't in the logistics business. Amazon is in the business business. It is no longer The Everything Store; it is now the Everything Everything. It wants to be the platform around which all of the world's businesses depend.
This is about as ambitious a mission as a company has ever launched, in my opinion -- and Amazon may be the first company with a justifiable claim to such ambition. Its only business constraints at this point are geopolitical, really. I believe it aims even higher in the long run: it is aiming to become the macroeconomic backbone of at least the Western world.
When viewed in that context, traditional definitions of monopoly -- especially the most widely known definition of the state, which is based on market share within a specific industry -- almost feel antiquated. Jeff Bezos isn't JP Morgan; he's freaking Cohaagen from Total Recall.
(To be very clear, I say all of this in admiration of Jeff Bezos, not in fear or criticism of him.)
After my return experience with NewEgg where I bought a defective gaming motherboard and took three days of back and forth emails with tech support before finally having to pay for my own return shipping I switched to Amazon. Yes, I'll pay $5 more for that motherboard, but it takes 30 seconds to return it and the replacement will arrive in 24 hours.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
'Outraged sellers' are welcome to get the hell out of Amazon and sell somewhere else, on their own terms.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
How can I use this return less refunds to get free stuff?
Doesn't this mean someone could buy something, make a bogus claim, get a refund and just keep the item?
Like in the Netherlands where sellers are required to take anything sold online back in 14 days no questions asked and refunds include shipping cost (to get the product to there customer, not back to the seller)
I hear there's this place called eBay.
Also, Craigslist.
Also, etsy.
Also....Oh come on, I'm not going to do all the work for you.
Imagine the tragedy of a world where a seller is liable for making the products they sell actually useful out of the box rather than forcing customers to go down a "support" rabbit hole before they give up.
... now that Amazon is huge, the small merchants are no longer needed.
It's no secret that Jeff Bezos' first, second and third objectives are to please Amazon customers, giving them more stuff at the lowest prices and at faster speeds. But increasingly, those upgrades come at the expense of sellers, who often build their businesses on Amazon and have few other places to generate revenue.
The sellers put all their eggs in one basket. Now they are paying the price. Amazon customers too must remember this. Once the brick and mortar competition is driven to bankruptcy it will be their turn to pay the piper.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Yore adieu.
Fixed.
Amazon isn't in the retail business. Amazon isn't in the cloud computing business. Amazon isn't in the logistics business. Amazon is in the business business. It is no longer The Everything Store; it is now the Everything Everything. It wants to be the platform around which all of the world's businesses depend.
This is about as ambitious a mission as a company has ever launched, in my opinion -- and Amazon may be the first company with a justifiable claim to such ambition.
Uh, a justifiable claim? Yeah right. There is no justification to annihilate the concept of competition by becoming the global proxy for "Everything". There isn't a justifiable need for it either.
First rule of logistics; Don't become dependent on a single source provider.
If returns are at the seller's expense, then I would expect the seller to charge more for any products that they determine is more likely to be returned so that the extra profit on the unreturned products can subsidized the expense the seller must bear for returned products. This might make it less likely that they move the product in the first place, but there's a fine line that the seller is going to have to try and balance, and if they cannot sell an item profitably because of the number of returns, then they are reasonably left with no choice but to discontinue that product (which is actually in the best interests of the customer as well, since it does not waste the customer's time with products they are going to have to return)
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
eBay, Amazon Marketplace, etc. have more in common with a flea market than a big box retailer. This shows a wildly idiotic misunderstanding of what they really are:
I am with the sellers here. Totally inappropriate to go the marketplace route (which is often cheaper) and expect the benefits of paying more from Amazon.
You buy an item that is so worthless that not even the seller wants it back. You then get to keep it for free and it's on you to dispose of it.
If you do this too many times, Amazon will close your account.
In other words, you can get a couple of cheap trinkets for "free", if you decide to game the system. And afterwards you might never be able to use any one of the many different Amazon services again.
It's a calculated risk for all parties involved
This seems to be a big issue with overseas sellers - I point to China because they're the most common - and shipping. My $5-20 item may come with free shipping, but when it arrives and is broken or turns out to be a fake piece of crap, the return cost may end up being more than the value of the item (especially if I want it tracked and within a reasonable time period).
I wonder if Amazon let the sellers force certain conditions, there are items that can't be resold, and companies will refund them with proof you destroyed them. A car seat for example might require a picture of the serial number with the straps cut off in the background.
And then you get another account under a different email address. Yawn.
Amazon is already taking 30% of the sales price PLUS 30% OF SHIPPING. There are very few things that can be sold for enough of a margin to make a profit with costs like that. Unlimited returns will remove any remaining profit from most merchants selling through Amazon.
But hey, who needs profit, right? Just keep selling things below cost, and eventually, you'll make a profit, right?
I don't respond to AC's.
Order weight lifting equipment.
becoming the global proxy for "Everything".
Do you realize that Amazon is the world's second biggest e-commerce company?
It is silly to label them a monopoly when they aren't even the market leader.
Let the seller beware.
As soon as eBay started forcing returns without reasonable excuses is the day it died for sellers. Now it's just a massive fraud market being used by stolen paypal accounts and forced refunds w/o having to even return the items. I had this happen 3 times a few years back. I purposely put tiny markings on any electronics sold so if they were returned, I would know it was the same part. I had a HDD, a mobo, and a cpu all returned to me (except they weren't the same items I sold them). They were broken same models but diff serials and no personal markings. Even after proving the scams via screenshots and pics of the items. eBay and PayPal ignored all evidence and forced the refunds. Before they could charge me, I closed the bank accounts linked to their sites and never looked back. F&#K eBay....and now Amazon...
https://www.amazon.com/forum/a...
They already do this. Many sellers on Amazon have their own online storefront where the exact same products are being sold for lower prices. Higher prices on Amazon account for the cut Amazon takes and the administration costs.
And eventually, your family gets their Amazon accounts closed, too, for using the same IP address.
(They also track credit card numbers. How many credit cards do you have?)
"Making a seller liable" is not anything like "Making the seller accept any and all returns".
I don't respond to AC's.
I would say Amazon is in all those businesses.
Imagine the tragedy of a world where you operate on 3% margins and 5% of your customers are legitimately mentally ill and cant figure out "on" from "off." Oh, wait...I don't have to image cause that's reality. Retail is a low margin god awful business where solid chunks of your customers are crooks legitimately seeking ways to rob you blind or crazy or both and you have to pretend to "value their business" when you actually wish there was a way to filter them out of the gene pool. Amazon doesn't care about returns because they make their bank off of fees you pay them whether an item sells or not. They charge you for the pleasure of storing your stuff in their warehouses. They are your landlord. They should not have the right to dictate my return policy -- unless they own my stuff but they don't want to buy my stuff -- they want me to sell it for them which takes giant brass balls on their part.
On one hand, your idea has merit.
On the other hand, my wife quit half.com after multiple "upstanding" buyers decided to abuse the return system and got her double-dinged for shipping after having received their books. Maybe they did a book report? Maybe it was an amazon arbitrage bot? Whatever it was, the refund reasons were bogus ("ripped cover" when in fact upon return the cover is not ripped), half.com didn't give a shit, didn't actually investigate, and didn't even contact my wife other than to reverse the payment.
It won't take long for the latter to drive any independent/non-full-time business off Amazon, and much like credit card fees, everyone is going to pay the price in terms of inflated prices (vs a baseline without this policy) to cover that sort of low-life behavior.
Wouldn't surprise me if they blacklist mailing addresses and credit cards, too.
Only in the US. Amazon is equal to "find the item you want, discover it doesn't ship to your country" over here. No filtering, so it's very good at showing all these nice things you cannot buy.
And shipping/billing address for good measure. Pretty sure for egregious actors Amazon will eventually blacklist you based on criteria other than just an e-mail address.
Justifiable in this context doesn't speak to the morality of the ambition, only that the ambition is believable. It may be a bad idea, but Amazon can justifiably be claimed to be trying to do it.
I think the claim is that Amazon is trying to get in to many more spaces that e-commerce. They are a major e-commerce player, but they are also trying to get in to many other areas as well.
Excellent point. Lots of third party sellers sell junk at lowball prices because it's not worth the trouble or expense to return it. This will definitely put a stop to that. Amazingly, Amazon eliminates a maze for customers.
Seems like patenting one-click fits as the first step on this path. (A patent that never should have been granted.)
This opens the door for a small-business-friendly competitor. Amazon is really not the end-all be-all of online shopping. Sure, you won't have access to the customer base it has developed, but that isn't a right guaranteed by law now is it?
--#
Imagine the tragedy of a world where a seller is liable for making the products they sell actually useful out of the box rather than forcing customers to go down a "support" rabbit hole before they give up.
The seller is a middle-man. Generally they are neither the manufacturer, nor trained in how to support the products they sell. They also do not necessarily have the expertise to evaluate every product before deciding to sell it to see if it is going to be "easy enough" for the customer to make them happy. The ones that do will have to recoup that cost in some way, normally through a after-sale paid support service or higher initial prices.
People need to stop being babies and make up their minds what they want:
- High-Quality Products
- Great Service
- Cheap Prices
They only get to pick two.
Justifiable in this context doesn't speak to the morality of the ambition, only that the ambition is believable. It may be a bad idea, but Amazon can justifiably be claimed to be trying to do it.
I think I'm rather justified in saying that corporate training related to morals and ethics shouldn't be mandated anymore when it clearly has fuck-all to do with business anymore.
Live in a place from which return shipping would be prohibitively expensive.
Do note that no place is prohibitively expensive to be flagged in a database, though.
I had a bunch of cases where I'd end up with "doubles" of banged up books or DVDs cause someone forgot to put an extra air-pack in the box.
Basically, if you're ordering a birthday present, pay to have it gift-wrapped.
Hell... one time I got free cash cause I rushed to return the things I ordered.
Some hours after I've already sent the banged-up items back, and informed Amazon of the cost of return shipping (which they are obliged to repay you if it's an issue due to packaging), I get the "Due to the prohibitively expensive costs of return shipping - just keep it" email.
So... I re-email them telling them, again, that I've already sent the items back. They refund me - but for the wrong order. And more than they should.
Then, after days of trying to explain that they've refunded me too much, them refunding me AGAIN, me trying to explain that I don't need another refund but that they've refunded me a wrong amount at their own expense... I get the "Aaah... just keep both refunds and thank you" email.
Well... Thank you India, I guess.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Do you realize that Amazon is the world's second biggest e-commerce company?
Different market. I don't want to have to deal with getting a quote or contacting a vendor to tell him what I want, I want to click on the "buy" button and buy it. Amazon does the latter. Alibaba, from every experience I've had with them, is the former.
Yes, if I want to buy 10,000 widgets and need to find a Chinese manufacturer, Alibaba is where I'd go. If I want to buy one I'll go to Amazon. As soon as I see the "price" listed as "Get Quote", I know I'm spending too much time. And then there's the "price" that is "$300-$500". Quite a range for one thing. Only the supplier can tell me the true price, and I'm not wasting time asking him.
Yore adieu.
Fixed.
Yar! A doubloon!
This sounds great to me as a buyer. But consider:
1) Company A buys tons of products from a competitor
2) Company A returns them all at competitor's expense
3) Bye-bye competitor
becoming the global proxy for "Everything".
Do you realize that Amazon is the world's second biggest e-commerce company?
It is silly to label them a monopoly when they aren't even the market leader.
FFS, first or second place hardly matters when there are only two fucking players left. This isn't about "leaders". This is about destroying the market altogether. You can't point at the other monopoly to dismiss or justify the existence of the arrogant and soul-crushing behavior of market domination. It's become a pathetic joke to even have anti-monopoly laws on the books anymore. At this rate, the world will be reduced to a dozen mega-corps within the next decade or two, with Amazon being the "Everything Everything" proxy. The middle class will dissolve away just as the concept of competition will. In the end, there will only be the 0.0001%, and the rest of the enslaved planet.
There are many dangerous addictions, but Greed is the one that will ultimately lead to our demise.
I am bob. The greatest and biggliest
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
"Making a seller liable" is not anything like "Making the seller accept any and all returns".
Very convincing one line response, just like responses sellers give to people with defective products. Oh wait, no it isn't.
Either the customer, who pays the bills, is satisfied or you can fuck off and take your garbage back at your own expense.
They're taking the move straight out of YouTube's playbook.
Sign me up for some free stuff!
And you, AC, is why doing business online is so awful. People tend to be real shitheads online.
I don't respond to AC's.
No. There will be the .1%. Then the 1% that services them (politicians, hookers, surgeons, law partners), Then the 5% lapdogs (cops, top brass, etc.) then the slaves.
I bought some shorts from Zappos in June. The rear pocket came unstitched after wearing them two or three times. So I messaged them and asked if I should return them or send them to the manufacturer. They replied and told me they were giving me a refund and I could keep the shorts and trash them, donate them, burn them, or do whatever else I wanted. Also gave me a $20 credit for the inconvenience (which I used to order different shorts, that I didn't like, and returned).
While technically correct, well outside the scope of TFA, the reason for Amazon's policy change is that... if you've ever dealt with one of these garage shops, returning something may not be very easy even if the return is justified. The one time I had to do it, I had to talk to the seller on the phone for some reason, submit my refund request, had it closed by the seller with.... no refund and then finally amazon wound up eating the cost of the refund. Easily the worst return experience I've ever had, this is a case of the chickens coming home to roost for the shady small businesses that give unsuspecting customers a hard time outside of the amazon experience.
making the products they sell actually useful out of the box
Have you ever actually worked with the public before? People are idiots. I've worked in a retail environment for a number of years, and a consumer electronics repair shop for a couple years. The level of stupidity achieved by the general population would make your head spin. When I sold and serviced remote car starters it would be at least a weekly experience explaining to a customer that there was a battery in the remote that needed to be replaced. Not to mention the call where we had to instruct the customer on how to unlock their door with a key because their remote died.
I'm not in the market of selling shit to the public (thank god) but if I was forced to accept returns without the opportunity to communicate with my customer I would be strongly considering a different platform.
On the other hand, you do have a valid point. I've bought some stuff off Amazon where the instructions looked like they were translated by a drunken ape... So I do see your point there.
Could somebody please explain to me how this is not equivalent to Amazon enabling theft?
No, there will be the 100% that was the .01% before they realized robots don't throw bricks at them when they aren't fed.
If society fails to collapse before the megacorps perfect automation, eco-nuts will get their depopulation wish. We need to press for WORSE leaders than Trump to make sure it does. More of us will survive nuclear war.
This is how you get 100% china junk your site. Drive out the small sellers and used items; only mass produced China stuff remains. It happened on eBay and it will happen here. The high volume importers eat the tiny loss, the small guys stop selling and leave. You know all of the retail stories, now imagine those people shopping online.
If you're expecting them to just up and move to their own site or somewhere else: there is nowhere else. I'm not about to set up and advertise my own platform just to sell 5 things and neither will anyone else. You know what happens after a few years of this? They raise the prices. Amazon is already more expensive than most places because of the shipping and sales tax.
Imagine the tragedy of a world where people have at least some responsibility not to be total dumbasses.
Seriously...
I used to work part time at a bicycle retailer. We actually had someone come in and spend about $1000 on a nice road bike. They brought it back the next day and returned it, saying it was defective. When I asked how it was defective, they said they just kept on falling over when they tried to ride it...
Reason for return: Customer does not know how to ride a bike.
eBay doesn't even store or ship anything for you and they still dictate your return policy. Sure, they'll let you say that you don't accept returns, but good luck actually denying a return. Can't be done. The buyer will always be granted a return because eBay has no reason not to believe the buyer, even when the buyer admits that the return request is fraudulent. At least Amazon is being up front about how they intend to screw you.
They charge you for the pleasure of storing your stuff in their warehouses. They are your landlord. They should not have the right to dictate my return policy -- unless they own my stuff but they don't want to buy my stuff -- they want me to sell it for them which takes giant brass balls on their part.
It's their fucking site. They aren't making you sell it on their site. List it on Craigslist if you don't like Amazon. It's free and no return policy. You want to ride on Amazon's coat tails but you don't want to pay the toll. Typical shitty retailer. That's why you guys are getting curb stomped.
And when I'm buying something, I always make sure I'm buying directly from Amazon.com rather than a third party even though it often costs more. Even if everything on Amazon were the same price or slightly more than local stores, I'd still shop there just because they give me better service.
You act like police haven't used a robot to hand deliver bomb to kill a civilian causing then grief (Dallas). Much less the military ones dropping bombs and misses from the sky.
You think civilian owned, armed robots aren't already patrolling private property? They have tasers already, firearms are just a matter of time. There is the televised ad campaign for knighscopes stock scam already. That's how prevalent they are.
So don't go to the .com version. Go to the .co.uk or whatever version your country has. Or start your own for your country.
Yes! I once received a product that was fraudulently represented as a hardcover U.S. textbook to find out it was a paperback international edition. Crickets from the seller.
It's not automation in general you need to worry about, it's killbots specifically. All is not lost until a practical autonomous killbot is developed. Then we enter the Oppression Singularity, leading quickly to widespread killbot-powered genocide. This is much closer to completion and more immediately dangerous than the disembodied AI with superhuman intelligence that some people keep harping on about.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
They should have to reach out for customer support first before allowing a blind refund. Customers are stupid and don't read directions, which shouldn't be the fault of the seller, it should be the fault of the customer. This is a major negative score.
Why bother with CC and all theta crap, just send me the stuff now, on and add 100$ to it , it will boos economy for sure, Now Trump will be able to beat Obama in money printing competition...
Do you realize that Amazon is the world's second biggest e-commerce company?
Different market. I don't want to have to deal with getting a quote or contacting a vendor to tell him what I want, I want to click on the "buy" button and buy it. Amazon does the latter. Alibaba, from every experience I've had with them, is the former.
www.aliexpress.com
In fact, Amazon's new policy is a direct result of Alibaba. People buy a bunch of shit wholesale from Alibaba and relist it on Amazon with huge markups. They "seller" on Amazon often never sees the product. They drop ship it straight to the customer who buys it off of Amazon.
Amazon's new policy is a FUCK YOU to those "sellers". If Amazon doesn't touch the inventory then they assume it's drop shipped, and will let customers get instant refunds, no questions asked. This will quickly be abused.
> (To be very clear, I say all of this in admiration of Jeff Bezos, not in fear or criticism of him.)
His goons are standing right behind you with a knife, aren't they?
That is Amazon Approved! Just buy all your competitors products, and then return them all... Should Zero out all their operating capitol, no problem! Not to mention, this behavior is now SANCTIONED by Amazon! But no, this won't be abused by anyone... LoL
This is how Amazon behaves when sellers have no choice. This is how it will behave once buyers have no choice.
Everyone seems to think that the market will always provide choice. If the cost of entry is too expensive, there will be little choice for the consumer as well.
People tend to be real shitheads online.
People were shitheads long before there was an online; and still are.
People can't understand that wooden shipping pallets are equivalent to automation because they're trying to imagine a block of wood versus Bender, instead of looking at what exactly happened with literally every step of technical progress in history.
You don't have to worry about automation or any other form of technical progress; you need to worry about when the steps of progress start to run faster than your economy can keep up. Progress replaces jobs with fewer jobs, causing changes of employment (some people are replaced with other people) and unemployment (more people are replaced than replacements). The downstream effect is an improvement in the consumer market, and so the unemployment rebounds and we get a wealthier society--unless we keep progressing at a thunderous rate with which the market cannot keep pace, and so keep growing unemployment.
Self-driving taxis and freight trucks phased in over as little as five years might not even draw any notice from the economy at large, although it'll mean a lot of trucker put out of work and few of them absorbed into other parallel economies (including the new ones). Self-driving taxis and freight trucks phased in over six months? We're looking at a new recession with the magnitude and the terrible poverty of the 2008 Great Recession from which we just escaped.
As for "General AI", that's largely more of the fantasy people have about a machine that does everything--which is what the overstated scale of automation is really about. We can't make machines that do everything in general unless we can make one machine that can, on its own, analyze a problem, redesign itself, obtain resources, retool itself, and place itself into work.
That kind of intelligence would also be able to solve the problem of imitation of human intelligence. It would then become self-aware and, at a minimum, would demand wages. Congratulation: you've made the most-metal people in history. Rock on, dude.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Amazon loves you. They're going to love you even more once those pesky suppliers are completely wiped out.
And have PayPal arbitrarily decide to sit on your money for however long they feel like? That's way worse than the "instant refunds" on Amazon.
Or how about a market place that rewards sellers who make their products useful out of the box.
Customers say this is what they want. What they really want is fast, cheap, and high quality. They refuse to believe that they can only have two out of three. And no matter how happy they are with their purchase and the price they paid, if they find someone got it for a buck-fifty less they feel cheated for the rest of their lives.
Yo! Where?
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
The seller is a middle-man. Generally they are neither the manufacturer, nor trained in how to support the products they sell. They also do not necessarily have the expertise to evaluate every product before deciding to sell it to see if it is going to be "easy enough" for the customer to make them happy.
Then what right does this middle-man "seller" who isn't providing any discernible service have to insert himself between the real seller and the buyer and take a cut? I'm reminded of what we used to say in the bad old days when mp3 was just getting started and the RIAA was whining about how nobody wanted to buy CDs with 2 good songs on them for $15.99 anymore - "It's not our fault that your business model sucks".
Exactly how easy do you think being a merchant is supposed to be?
The seller is in a prime position to determine whether they're selling crap or not. If they can't be bothered to make that determination before taking people's money for the product, then they deserve what they get.
As for your "pick two" that I'm sure you feel ever-so /r/iamverysmart about, you do realize that you're essentially asking people to forget all about the free market, right? I mean, I want high-quality products and great service, so I should just give up on cheap prices and pay whatever anyone asks, right? If a seller can't offer quality products and good service at a certain price, then they simply shouldn't offer that price, and if they do, it's 100% their own fault when they can't deliver.
"They also track credit card numbers. How many credit cards do you have"
Thousands of temporary ones, thanks to my banks services for online purchases.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
There's a potential idea for a startup: aggregate basic listings and links from many smaller sites using a combination of site scraping and registered vendors who key in or supply clean data. The revenue would be generated by product-specific ads and/or listing placement. It's kind of a commerce-oriented Google, but with structured elements to make shopping-centric searching easier (thumbnail, title, model# , price, shipping price range, synopsis, color/sizes, and a link to vendor's detail). If it gets good enough, Google may even buy your site for jillions.
Table-ized A.I.
Except, e-commerce is easy to do. Without spending more than a few minutes of time, you can be set up and ready to accept credit card payments - Paypal makes it easy. Yes, it involves dealing with Paypal, but it's super-easy to accept credit cards without all the PCI crap. And you can quickly make up product pages on a web site and have Paypal manage a cart, too.
If you want to go fancy, there are online store sites as well like Shopify and Yahoo Shops - here these are more full service arrangements where you create product pages and they handle everything but shipping the product. You pay a monthly fee and they take a percentage of the payment, but you don't have to deal with Paypal, and they host and take all the payment and you just sit back. And yes, security issues are their problem, too.
Then there's also eBay if you really must.
There are many sellers who do all of them - they do Amazon, eBay and have their own e-commerce site. Sometimes it pays to check it out since their own site might actually be cheaper as they're not paying Amazon or eBay fees.
This part of the internet at least is amenable to the "little guy". Even big established companies may not run their own e-commerce site, but use Shopify as well - eliminates a lot of hassle but provides people a way to quickly order stuff. Nothing's more discouraging that trying to buy a product and ending up at "please call to talk to a distributor".
They refund me - but for the wrong order. And more than they should.
Their system doesn't allow a negative balance on an order, I don't think. I end up with customer service credits on random orders from months back. It sure looks amateurish from the customer side, though.
It would greatly surprise me if they did not do so.
Just keep telling yourself that. If they contact your bank and say "We believe all these one use number are the same person, and they're committing fraud against us," that, too, will go away.
If you think that your penny ante account matters more to the credit card companies than their 1.9% of Amazon's billions, you're in for a very unpleasant surprise.
Amazon is definitely on the sellers side in disputes. I ordered some motorcycle gear that didn't fit. In addition to finding out there was a restocking fee, I printed out the sellers USPS return label and sent the item back. There is no tracking info. But there's Amazon's guarantee right, so no problem. The seller didn't acknowledge receipt ... I disputed the purchase and Amazon opened a ticket. Then the seller said the merchandise wasn't received. I asked Amazon to honor their guarantee. They said since there was no proof it had been returned they weren't going to honor it. And the seller didn't honor their own returns policy. The guy at the UPS store can only vouch for the fact I emailed a package, not contents or destination since it was USPS and pre-packed and postage paid up front.
So Amazon's guarantee is worthless.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Have you ever actually worked with the public before? People are idiots
Unfortunately, having a business selling stuff on Amazon doesn't stop someone from being an idiot. Hence the businesses with frustrating return policies, or ones that pester people to give them 5-star reviews, or so on. Sometimes it's not just customers being idiots.
Turns out they can have all three, and if you don't like that, you don't sell online.
That works when customers are honest. How about when people buy a thing, use it for the one time they needed it, and then return the now used (and probably scratched / soiled / damaged ) goods back for a full refund?
... All of your nits about alibaba are why they also have aliexpress.
For that reason I must stay Anonymous even though I have been on /. since the 90's
The actual problem is the prepaid return label issued for each return by Amazon. Amazon charges us Amazon's rates even though some sellers have better rates through their own portals. Now Amazon is making more money off the returns by selling us the labels. When we use Amazon's shipping service we can't put in a claim because it's amazon's account. If the item is not packaged correctly by the buyer and damaged in transit back to us, Amazon's instructions to us are to put in a claim. As I already stated, sellers can't put in a claim because it's Amazon's account. Most buyers don't care when they return an item. They throw it in a box and send it back.
Amazon itself does not provide free shipping for returns. It is deducted from the buyers refund. Sellers won't have that option. They will have to put in a request to be reimbursed for the return shipping and deal with the Indian support staff that barely speaks English and gets paid by the number of cases they clear. They have little to no knowledge of Amazon policy even when you quote it to them and provide links to support your argument. Sellers also used to be able to asses a restocking fee if an item was damaged by a buyer, now we have to appeal the refund to the same support staff I already mentioned.
Many scammers out there already know how to play the Amazon system to get a return paid for by the seller, this just makes it easier for them to game the system. You have students who "rent" a textbook for 30 days, return it, order it from another seller, rinse repeat. Under the old system Sellers had some control over this, no more.
Buyers often return items missing parts, return the wrong item etc.. There was time for communication between buyer and seller to straighten this out as sellers had 5 business days to refund. Now they have 2 business days to refund or Amazon will refund for them. So if someone orders a phone and returns a pair of boots (or rocks) and then ignores the seller trying to straighten it out, Amazon refunds them. The seller then has to appeal the refund.
Amazon has a history of holding sellers to higher standards then they do themselves. Prime used to be 2 day shipping. Now many items have a "takes (x) days to ship" so it can now be as long as a week to get to to you. 3p sellers have 2 days to get it to you, no shipping delays, or anything.
If anything amazon should be trying to get their counterfeit problem under control, not punishing sellers who are doing the right thing and being crushed under Amazon policy and useless support techs.
As for alternatives there are none. Ebay is good for some things, but most buyers stay away from it. Your own website is a good idea but try to compete with Amazon.
It wasn't an order refund. It was a reimbursement of shipping costs, for the items I sent back.
I asked them to cancel it if they have to and issue another one.
To which they issued me another amount without first canceling the original reimbursement.
The issue was basically of a PEBKAC somewhere in their customer support.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The shipping is FREE not because the item is crap, but because it takes over a month to ship, and they don't tell you that before you buy.
Ruthless Refunds.
Let that one stick...
counterfeit vitamins
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for some of their own products. I once tried to return an inflatable travel pillow but they let me keep it (presumably since you have to use your mouth to inflate it). I also tried to return a surge protector that was marked hazardous for some reason (it was just a regular surge protector) and had a plug cover on the wrong way - they let me keep it and also sent me a free replacement.
I know what you meant. That's the only way they have to put money back on your card in the system (at least from the customer service side). I forgot to include that part. So the reimbursement would make the order go into negative, which apparently doesn't work.
Caveat venditor.
Ah, the old vote for the worst guy because things will have to get worse before they get better.
Always been wrong in the past, and still wrong now.
That's what revolutions are for, I think we are somewhat overdue. The worst part (for me) is that a lot of the middle class are going to be dragged to the wall and shot as well.
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
your a doosh
At least you spelled “a” correctly. Allow me to give you a little tip: If you’re going to insult someone in print, you always want to have your spelling and grammar correct. Otherwise, you just end up looking stupid yourself. For instance, if I were to call you a sub-literate moron, but spelled something incorrectly, you can see how it’d take all the sting out of it. Of course, a sub-literate moron probably wouldn’t notice the difference.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
It's made it easier but as a buyer you were guaranteed to always get a refund, if you didn't want to wait on the seller to answer, you could actually call Amazon for an instant refund.
If sellers don't like it, they can go back to eBay and compete worldwide with Chinese manufacturers, Amazon articles almost always have a much higher markup compared to other markets, partly to cover their refund and shipping policies.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I buy books, BluRay, hard-to-find DVDs, board games, and video games online. All of these items are perfect for Amazon, yet I can almost always find them cheaper elsewhere. I usually start my search on Amazon to establish a ballpark, then do the usual rounds of sites to find it at a lower price. I end up only making 2 or 3 orders a year on Amazon, not even enough to justify getting Prime.
Well said!
You can be a monopoly within a geographic location. This is a well documented concept.
What if the .co.uk one doesn't have the item I want? .com version sells it for half the price? .de version can get it to me three weeks sooner?
The
The
Amazon competes with itself as well as the other online retailers.
The thing is, this is also how Amazon behaves. I've seldom needed to request a refund from Amazon (maybe one in thirty items?) but every time I have, it's been instant and unchallenged. They even cover the postage on the return.
They're not the only retailer offering a sensible online experience. I had a minor issue with a year old keyboard, raised a ticket with the manufacturer, they told me to destroy the old keyboard (and send them photographic evidence) then sent me a shiny new one. It was cheaper for them than return/repair/resend.
This is far easier for large retailers than small ones, as a single return of a high value item wont break Amazon but could put a small retailer under. Under UK law though the return must be honoured anyway, so it's not Amazon causing the problem, it's the operating environment and a business risk small sellers should be managing.
You act like police haven't used a robot to hand deliver bomb to kill a civilian causing then grief (Dallas).
I'm sorry, calling a sniper attack 'grief' is just a tiny bit dis-honest.
The Dallas sniper that was 'blowed-up' by a robot killed five officers - that's a bit worse than 'grief'.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/08/...
Ken
small vendors live.