Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I don't think sales tax will be much of an issue ... ever. The internet is too convenient now. Amazon has always collected sales tax in states they have presence in. All of that stuff has become very simple. Add Avalara for $20/mo, and all of the sales tax forms are printed and submitted with one-click authorization (or print/mail in some states).

The big shift... They just added penalties to FBA sellers who stock their products longer than six-or-so weeks. And it's not just a little penalty. They basically charge around 20x the storage fee, and also restrict the seller from stocking any additional inventory, based on quarterly reports. The algorithms are hidden and no sellers quite no exactly how they work yet. Nobody has any idea how it works yet. There is no "hack" to get your account into the green, other than moving your FBA inventory every six weeks.

My best estimate is that approximately 1/2 of all FBA sellers had their accounts restricted. Many (most?) of them will not survive the shift, and the inventory will be destroyed/liquidated (or shifted to Amazon Warehouse Deals) after their accounts reach default (from the negative balances that will hit in July and August).

They're also gating brands and categories daily. They're doing their best to push out most FBA sellers. All of those private labelers selling typical made-in-China merchandise (imagine bed linens, kitchen knives, cheap tools, etc.) because they want to sell their own under Amazon Basics.

In short, it's not a place for middlemen anymore. If you make a specialty dog food (for example), and want to stock it at Amazon, then FBA is a nice foot in the door - which will lead to Amazon contacting you and purchasing direct if your SKU performs well. If your SKU doesn't perform well (even though it's still profitable for you), you'll be kicked out of their system via storage penalties.

In the case of DVD's and books, Amazon already doubled/tripled the fulfillment fees last year. A lot of FBA sellers are just barely hanging on as-is. The new penalties will be their last leg in closing up and and moving on (I hear Amazon is hiring!).

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I don't normally complain about Amazon. But seriously, go fuck yourselves. I'm a real buyer. I buy on Amazon quite a bit. And I like to think I contribute helpful reviews. I'm taking this personally right now (I'll get over it). What a bunch of fucking assholes.

https://i.imgur.com/VWkYUYe.jpg

I think Amazon is reaching a tipping point. I feel like there's an undercurrent of disapproval and hostility brewing. They start chipping away at the goodwill of their customers (like me)... A company is too big to fail ... until it fails.

I was just defending Amazon feedback. This is a product review (which is different). The only thing I can think of, is that an listing got a 1-2 star review on a product, and an FBA seller disputed it, thus blocking my account from posting any more reviews.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

The digital age really sucks sometimes. As you mentioned earlier, a company may be trying to do right but gets hammered by bots. Then real customers get caught up in the flak. I have plenty of complaints about Amazon, but they have real challenges on their end.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

If you're that angry about not being able to post a review, maybe their reasoning has some merit if you really just had a bone to pick about the product and/or seller.

Not trying to judge here, but without more details about the content of your review and about the product and seller, can't really say that it's easy to judge if Amazon was acting correctly or not or if you were actually breaking their rules on reviews.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

This isn't a government or national bank. Any consumer goods company can and will eventually fail. If anything, Amazon is still steadily moving upward while the likes of Apple and Google are slowing down.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Glad this thread is still going strong.

That said ... if someone at the beginning of this thread (10/17/2012) had merely bought $100 of Amazon stock, that investment would have grown to be worth $753.

Said another way, the growth of that investment would have easily paid for Amazon Prime membership for all of those years.

Cheers,

ctyankee

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

It's no different than banning you from posting your thoughts on a new movie in the movie forum.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I just checked my profile. I had written 200 or 300 reviews over the past ten years. Nothing too fantastic. But I think they all had merit. Some, I hope would make people laugh. Most of them were five stars, with a few one or two stars in there, with legitimate problems regarding the product. I might have had a few hundred up-votes.

Amazon deleted all of them. What a waste.

You could argue that it's meaningless. But it's no different than IB deleting all of your posts on this forum. In that sense, I guess none of our opinions matter.

My best guess is that a third party seller didn't like that I left their private label, misleading, made-in-China garbage a one star or two star feedback, and they persistently requested that Amazon have my review removed. I've left so few bad reviews that I could narrow it down to probably five purchases. And just about everything at my new apartment was ordered on Amazon. I've ordered probably 200-300 products since March.

Seriously, go fuck yourself Amazon.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Oh check this out. http://dtopp.com

That's fun. A "service" that deletes bad reviews on behalf of sellers, by persistently bugging Amazon customer service until they cave in. There's probably a hundred others like it. I'm likely a casualty of some douchebag company like this.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

That sucks to have all those reviews deleted.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I'll add: This isn't like IB deleting all of my posts on here. It's like Universal sending IB a message, requesting that all of my posts from the past nineteen years (ugh, kill me) be deleted because I didn't like Tom Cruise's The Mummy. I'll say it again: fuck you, Amazon.

I've read seller POV complaints, about having 20+ or 1000+ reviews on their product. And then all of those reviews disappear. They don't like it, because those reviews disappear and then sales diminish. I think this is all linked. There are people like me, who are leaving real, honest reviews. And leaving one bad review (likely on a non-Amazon item), can lead to your entire review history being deleted. So now I understand what happens when so many reviews vanish. It should also be noted that Amazon does remove legitimately fake reviews (seller pays dipshit company to have a network of scammers gift/buy/return/etc. and post fake reviews).

My personal experience invalidates every review ever posted on Amazon. That means there's no truth to any review.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

My point previously was that it certainly depends on the content of your review or post, and frequency of infractions, which is certainly under moderation here. Especially if it was targeted at the seller, which is against Amazon rules (also, as someone that uses Amazon reviews I hate when a review doesn't focus on the product itself.)

That said, lame for them to delete all your reviews. That I don't agree with and certainly bothers me in trusting user reviews for products on the site.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Fair points.

I particularly think that Amazon should reach out to a user and request that they modify a post (that might be over the top) rather than simply saying "you're banned" and eliminating (potentially) a whole bunch of legitimate reviews that user may have posted.

I also reject the notion that some entity selling a product should have more rights than the ultimate customer.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I don't think Amazon cares enough go that detailed in to moderation and denying a single review is pretty simple on their part and fair, which I can understand since they would have to pay real humans to do all that work to pay closer attention to review content.

But I agree, I don't really understand the jump to blocking and deleting all reviews from a user though. And that sellers ability to have any influence on reviews should be very limited.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

"Legitimate" reviews are questionable too. These are customer reviews, not journalism. At that link I posted, those douchebags take pride in creating a case against your negative review, by cross-referencing your social media accounts, and looking for any dirt against you online. It's pretty fucking creepy. All in defense of someone putting out a lousy product that attracts a negative review.

By deleting my reviews and banning me from posting any reviews in the future, Amazon delegitimized tens-or-hundreds of millions of existing reviews. Between sellers paying for positive reviews, paying to remove negative reviews, and having accounts "wiped clean" (like mine), there's no truth to any review on there.

Amazon reviews no longer mean anything to me. And Amazon should just get rid of the entire review portion of their website if they're going to allow this kind of activity.

I mentioned I rarely leave a negative review for any product. Looking back at my order history, I suspect it was from ONE set of curtains I purchased, which looked much different in the pictures than they did in real life. So my review was probably 5 or 7 sentences, and said something like, "these don't look the way they do in the pictures. The actual color is much more faded and not the "gem" color you see in the pics. I will be returning these." I didn't reference the seller or service. I don't think I broke any rules. If I had to guess, I'd say it was that review is what got me kicked off. The private label brand probably paid a third party company to harass Amazon Customer Service until they caved and removed the review, which then blocked my account from ever writing a review again.

I also question the legitimacy of any "Top Reviewer". As I don't understand how anyone, other than a professional reviewer, could be leaving thousands of lengthy reviews. I know they started investigating and banning reviewers who are suspected of taking compensation (money or free product) from the seller. That was a discussion a year-or-so ago when they made changes (and I think the story made the news).

For what it's worth, I checked Google, and this seems to be a relatively common problem. I'm not the only buyer who's been incorrectly banned from leaving reviews.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I could see Amazon scapegoating internet tax when their marketplace begins to slow in the very near future. I predict that's going to be an excuse for investors, as growth slows. But I think they're really crossing the line on a few things...

1. Packaging. It's getting to absurd levels. When am I going to receive an Amazon box that hasn't been broken open?

2. FBA Seller Banishment. They're clearing over half of their FBA inventory and sellers. Ebay did the same thing right before their trouble started in 2012. Their growth never recovered.

3. General customer distrust. Amazon's policy has been to eat the cost of losses and make the customer happy. But there's so much buyer fraud, seller fraud, and other issues (such as their reviews problem). I don't know how much the customer can take before they start distancing themselves from purchasing on Amazon. You can only wear down the good will of your customers for so long, before its over. I think that Amazon is very close to the end. Not that nobody will buy on Amazon. But will enough people keep buying to keep up their growth and make their investors happy? Once you stop returning that magical 10%, a lot of investors move on.

It should be noted that Amazon MWS (web services) account for over half their revenue. At this point, their marketplace is less than half the revenue.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

So ... you think Amazon is "very close to the end?" Tell you what you should do. You should use your insight into the market and put your money where your mouth is and join the 1 percent that are currently shorting Amazon stock.

Good luck with that. Hopefully, like in Trading Places, you'll be ordering both the lobster and cracked crab from a waiter at the beach real soon.

http://static3.businessinsider.com/i...0-411/tp17.png

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Eventually that will happen sooner than later. :thumbsup: I agree. I can see that happening.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

So, we agree at last?? I guess you've faced Amazon's music. Deleting all of your reviews without notice was a shitty thing to do. But, being shitty is par for the course for Amazon these days, all in the name of profit and crunching numbers.

Is Amazon being "close to the end?" As much as I would love for that to be a fact, I can't see how it's possible with so many sheeple sucked into Amazon's funnel, and the suction is still gaining... The demise of Bezos and his minions would take some sort divine miracle, in that people would need to become "unplugged" from Amazon's world, by the millions, synchronously en masse for it to ever happen.

But, the jist of it is that, yes, Mr. Bezos can go fuck himself. Right, x1000.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

The dramatic hyperbole here amuses me greatly.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Yes, I believe that Amazon's end is near. It's not that they'll disappear. But, as their growth slows, less money stays in their stocks and investors move onto something else. Eventually they'll be back down to on par with Wal-Mart. It could be 50 years until they're K-Mart. Plus, less than half their revenue comes from their marketplace. It's sort of like how PayPal propped up a failing Ebay for an extra five-or-so years before they split.

FYI, I've been in ecommerce since I was 16 years old. I predict there's going to be a renaissance of very lean brick and mortar stores. They'll be lean, so they can keep their prices competitive with online warehouse shopping. Who knows ... maybe Amazon themselves will invest in the trend. But I'm almost positive that's where this is going.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I'm getting close to the 1%. But the stock market isn't my thing. I prefer to earn my money. :lol:

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Do they even make much money from the storefront? I thought a lot of their worth is basically AWS, which I don't see going away anytime soon.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I'm guessing others here only see Amazon as an online retailer, without considering everything else they do.

It's like saying GE is going to go out of business because their appliances aren't what they used to be.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Ebay is up 39 percent since they split into separate companies.

If that's failing, please share your view on other failures as I may have to look into purchasing their stock.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Amazon has already rolled out some very limited physical bookstores.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Yeah, Amazon Web Services is the leading cloud provider in the world. I don't think people realize how many websites and services that they frequent rely on AWS.

I've been to one of the Amazon physical stores. They're great too, I hope they expand those.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Indeed. Plus they are testing Amazon Go with the general public, a cashless small grocer/convenience store in the Seattle area. Plus Amazon purchased Whole Foods. We'll get a better sense of how Whole Foods is performing when Amazon reports earnings on Thursday.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

If the Whole Foods around me are any indication, they're doing very well. A new giant store just opened in a mall; took the floor space of JC Penny. Giant two story Whole Foods.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

But not me, of course. :)

And yes, Whole Foods is a great premium grocery store. I shop there daily. I was a little worried Amazon was going to take away the "premium" part. But it seems to be holding up well.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

If you're aware of AWS and are a fan of Whole Foods why are you so sure Amazon is heading downwards, towards failure?

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

They're a good case of why I don't partake in the stock market. It's all based on speculation. I'd rather open a carwash than invest in Wall Street. Here's an article that has some insight about Ebay.

https://investorplace.com/2017/09/eb...naround-story/

Ebay has been labeled one of the worst-run companies in the world. They're coasting on the brand and lack of disruption. Their actual platform is garbage. They will be out like a light (similar to Myspace -> Facebook) when its legitimate competition makes it to market.

Other notes: They recently had to lay off 1600 employees. Again. And they've been cannibalizing other acquisitions post-PayPal to make their reports look better. In example, they paid $2.4B for GSI Commerce (a fulfillment company for lots of big brands). And liquidated it for $925M. Fulfillment services are one of the hottest markets right now. It takes effort to drive that into the ground.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

The signal-to-noise ratio on Amazon's reviews has gone down each year over the past decade. You have manufacturers gaming the system, Amazon discovering that negative reviews seriously hurt product sales, and increasingly less educated customers participating. There is less and less reason to pay attention to them or write a review for Amazon.

The Amazon of today relies on network effects - they have built up such a gigantic customer base of paying members and the truly unique Prime distribution network for delivery across the country, they have no real competition as retail shifts from brick-and-mortar to the Internet. Virtually every Internet-shopping adult in the United States uses Amazon for something.

Even if Amazon stopped innovating tomorrow, they will coast off their built-up advantages for decades and decades.

They aren't the customer-friendly company they were a decade ago, when attracting customers was still the top priority. They are now in the business phase of maximizing profitability by extracting as much as they can from their customer base.

The only company with even a chance at disrupting Amazon is Walmart, but Walmart appears perfectly content controlling the remaining brick-and-mortar retail space. It would likely take some combination of Apple, using its huge cash reserves, joining up with Walmart to take Amazon head-on.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

For people with loads of money to spend, but very poor financial management skills. Spend, spend, spend, foodies, and enjoy your 3x-4x markup! The monthly rents on such a place must be exhorbitant, that cost is being passed right along to those same foodies...

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Quoted for truth! Agree wholeheartedly. Amazon is a titan, too big for its britches, and well-nigh indestructable at this point.

More competition is good, that is why I'm so against Amazon being so big, it hurts the customers in the long run. Walmart needs to survive to give people the freedom of choice in purchasing goods and staples. Long-live Walmart, even though I'm not that much of a Wal-mart fan, either. But they, Target, and Costco need to exist for the good of society.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Yes and no.

Yes, "Whole Paycheck" is a pretty fair response to the pricing of "free range" meat and poultry etc.

No, nothing to do with the cost of leases. If anything, supply is much higher than demand with the reduction of all of the brick and mortar of the last several years. For example, I live in the Northeast where Pathmark and Waldbaum grocery store locations still have not found new tenants.

It's not just retail. The WSJ had an article back a few years ago sharing how Amazon was making a killing getting warehousing on the cheap because of the over-supply of large and empty warehouses in New Jersey (convenient for serving the tri-state area).

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Whole Foods is expensive, and some people probably shop there for prestige, but some make that choice for reasons of fair trade, ethical treatment of animals, and sustainable resources. They don't deserve derision for "poor financial management skills." -ohbfrank-

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

If you have an issue with people who pay 3-4x markup on products, I really hope you never see what the base cost is for a BD disc...

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Has anyone noticed that in some instances Amazon doesn't even give a firm shipment date?

I ordered a couple of BD's on Sunday (New releases that were supposed to come out on Tuesday) and usually they would come the day they're released. I guess not anymore. I got a Will be arriving "July 27-31". And for the record, it still hasn't shipped yet.

So has Amazon stopped delivering new releases on Tuesday now? I don't care as I'm in no rush to get them, but I could see many being annoyed by this.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

No issues for me with Prime. I had a Final Fantasy art book on preorder which arrived on its release day this past Fri. It always tells me when things will arrive because it's always 2 day shipping.