jlparkin

Dear Mr. Bezos,

I've been an Amazon customer since day one. I wrote you an early email of
congratulations and not only received an answer of grateful appreciation but a
request to quote my words in your promotional materials. I was happy to agree. But
as a long-time believer in your brilliant concept of a company and as a fanatical
promoter of your site, I was deeply dismayed to read the Washington Post's story
about another of your "trials:" dynamic pricing .

Are we starting to see a pattern? This is not the first time (or the second!) you've
taken advantage of your rich databases, and, by extension, your customers. And each
time you've been caught looking sheepish. You feign sorrow, then hurry right out to
develop another scheme for squeezing profits from questionable means.

Such continued actions are not only stupid, they are corporate suicide.

While I recognize that Amazon is losing money, your recent approaches of raising
the bottom line are indefensible. They are akin to banks' current strategies of adding
fees for speaking to tellers, accessing ATMs, receiving posted checks. (And you know
the public opinion of banks.) But unlike banks, Amazon is not a necessary service.
You have lots of worthy competitors (whom I'm now making a point to become
acquainted with).

Your dynamic pricing practice punishes--not rewards--one of the most prized assets a
company has: customer loyalty. What intelligent business would ever bilk their best
clients like an inexhaustible resource?

Because dynamic pricing, by its very nature, must be secret, it fuels conspiracy
theories and customer suspicion. It darkens the public image of a once-virtuous
company. It breeds distrust. Can any of these side effects be worth it to you?

But worst of all, dynamic pricing is flat out unethical. Charging people more for the
same product simply because you have inside dirt on them is greedy, reckless, and
arrogant. Not to mention an idiotic way to win friends and influence people. And no
matter how your PR folks spin it, all us Amazon fans out here can see through your
facades. You were taking advantage of us!

Your behavior reveals the lack of a corporate moral compass as well as a contempt
for your customers. This from your own spokesman, Bill Curry: "Dynamic pricing is
stupid, because people will find out," Dynamic pricing is stupid because people will
find out?! How about dynamic pricing is stupid because it is wrong? Being caught
has never meant contrition.

I've saved the Jeff Bezos TIME Man of the Year issue, I've talked your company up to
friends, I've even stood by you through your last series of similar exploitative policy
"trials." But this time, you've crossed a line. I'm openly looking at my Amazon
alternatives and will say as much to friends. I'm no longer sure you can be trusted.
And if I've taken the time to write it, how many haven't?

You are branding your company as another HMO or Microsoft or Disney: companies
willing to make a buck at anyone's expense. That happy smile you've added beneath
your logo is fast becoming the self-satisfied smirk of a con artist who's found his
mark: us.

My fondness for you and your company lingers somewhere far off. I deeply hope you
can regain my trust.

Best of luck,
J.L Parkin