Slashdot Mirror
Inside the Unrelenting Scams of the Amazon Marketplace (theverge.com)
Fascinating article on The Verge on the many ways Amazon Marketplace, the ecommerce giant's the company's third-party platform, sellers sabotage each other and defraud customers, and how Amazon is run its own government, so to speak -- with its own rules that its suppliers have no choice but to follow. And, of course, sellers have little choice but to continue with Amazon. The story starts with this anecdote: framing a seller for false advertising by buying fake five-star reviews for their products. Select excerpts from the report: For sellers, Amazon is a quasi-state. They rely on its infrastructure -- its warehouses, shipping network, financial systems, and portal to millions of customers -- and pay taxes in the form of fees. They also live in terror of its rules, which often change and are harshly enforced. A cryptic email like the one Plansky received can send a seller's business into bankruptcy, with few avenues for appeal. Sellers are more worried about a case being opened on Amazon than in actual court, says Dave Bryant, an Amazon seller and blogger. Amazon's judgment is swifter and less predictable, and now that the company controls nearly half of the online retail market in the US, its rulings can instantly determine the success or failure of your business, he says. "Amazon is the judge, the jury, and the executioner."
I have seen many, many examples of insufficient management at Amazon.
It is VERY important to recognize ALL of the abusiveness of Amazon. Only a small part of that is mentioned here, in this re-post of a former comment, with added information:
My opinion: Jeff Bezos is not a sufficiently capable manager. Evidence: Look at any Amazon web page. As you are researching some product that is interesting, you are often distracted by other products. One fix: Put any distractions at the bottom of the page. There are many other shortcomings of the Amazon web site besides those mentioned in this Slashdot story.
A few of the stories about Amazon being abusive:
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace. (New York Times, Aug. 15, 2015)
Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."
Amazon warehouse jobs push workers to physical limit (Seattle Times, April 3, 2012)
Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (Salon.com, Feb. 23, 2014)
Amazon paid no US income taxes for 2017 (SeattlePI, Feb. 27, 2018)
Undercover author finds Amazon warehouse workers in UK 'peed in bottles' over fears of being punished for taking a break (Business Insider, April 16, 2018)
The undercover author who discovered Amazon warehouse workers were peeing in bottles tells us the culture was like a 'prison' (Business Insider, April 18, 2018)
Amazon Gets Tax Breaks While Its Employees Rely on Food Stamps, New Data Shows (The Intercept, April 19, 2018)
Quote: "Though the company now employs 200,000 people in the United States, many of its workers are not making enough money to put food on the table."
Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany (bloomberg.com, Feb 19, 2013)
Quote from the Wikipedia page for Jeff Bezos. (Nov. 29, 2018):
"Journalist Nellie Bowles of The New York Times has described the public persona and personality of Bezos as that of 'a brilliant but mysterious and coldblooded corporate titan'. During the 1990s, Bezos earned a reputation for relentlessly pushing Amazon forward, often at the expense of public charity and social welfare."
In my opinion, Bezos is not "brilliant". No one who is habitually abusive can be called brilliant; his abusiveness damages the quality of his own life.
Would you fly into space if the company has a manager who shows serious limits? Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns Blue Origin.. Blue Origin does NOT now have the capability of orbiting the earth. Would you fly into space with a company owned by someone who makes huge mistakes and doesn't detect them?
Sold by or Fulfilled by Amazon. Stick to this and so far I have had no problems - but then I don't buy much from them anymore and I do my due diligence before buying anything.
Their prices are generally the same now as other retailers, and the marketplace just gets in the way when I do try shop there.