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June 11, 2003
Letters to The Man, Technology

Amazon.com Feedback

Your web site is becoming a useability nightmare, which is discouraging given that this has traditionally one of your core strengths.

I have a gift certificate. I try to buy something with it. I order a used item, I go through all this stuff, and it says NO YOU CAN’T BUY A USED ITEM WITH A GIFT CERTIFICATE. Why not? Hasn’t someone given you $10 to send to a third party?

Okay, so a few days later I want to see your price on color sidekick. You don’t have them. Pity. Ah, but I could afford a heavily-discounted hiptop carrier! Okay, let’s put that in.

And it says “your gift certificate wont cover it” which is interesting because the item is $8 and the GC is $10. How much IS shipping? It won’t tell me HOW MUCH my order costs, just that it needs a credit card, and submitting my credit card is the ONLY navigational option.

Okay … well, let’s do that, and there are items in my cart from WAY BACK, like the used item I tried to purchase the other day. The only option is to confirm my thirty dollar order. Where do I say no? There is what LOOKS LIKE a navigation bar on the top of the screen, but it doesn’t do anything, not even clicking on “Amazon.com” to start over.

So, I go in to my web browser and TYPE Amazon.com to get to the point where I can clear out my shopping cart to just the item I want, proceed to check-out, and you STILL want $3 shipping for a little piece of neoprene. After all this hassle? FORGET IT! I could stuff that thing in a padded envelope and smack an 80 cents stamp on it and send it USPS, but you can’t, because you’re designed to extort money out of your previously-loyal customers.

Please fix your user experience.

Thanks,
-danny

I try to be very laid-back about most things, but I guess I take customer service really personal now, huh? And it is all the more frustrating to be thwarted by Amazon.com because for a long time they distinguished themselves by being pretty clueful and user-friendly.

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Categories: Letters to The Man, Technology
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Responses

January 16th, 2008

Lois Lord

I just wanted to let you I was very satisfied with the service and the movie I ordered. The mans name Was maxcormae@hotmsil.com. I got it a lot sooner than I expected it. It was jungle book 2. My 2 year old granddaughter loves it and we couldn’t find it any where. So thanks very much. Lois Lord Mesa Az.

March 3rd, 2008

Amos Gileadi

I live in ROSE BAY, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. I used to order all my books from Amazon.com. No longer. In the first place, Amazon charges nearly $US12 to ship each and every book. Betterworld.com charges less than $US3 for the same service!

Also, many books are simply not available in the US at all, or at least not through Amazon.com. The British or German or Canadian companies of the Amazon group often do have books I am searching for, but because of antiquated territorial rules dating back to the days of the British Empire, we cannot easily access those books.

Finally, and most importantly, a few months ago, I ordered a book from Amazon. I received a an email confirming the order and another email stating that the book had been sent and my credit card had been debited accordingly.

Six weeks later I did not receive the book and when I checked under “My Account” the sale was not even recorded. Yeech!

Maybe Amazon should separate books and the like from general merchandise and provide them on separate web sites. They must have one of the most technically complex sites anywhere and they are probably stretching technology to the limit.

They also should consider that there are countries that have decent markets for their wares. They do not have to abuse them.

Amos Gileadi
ROSE BAY NSW 2029

Without a doubt, Amazon has the widest selection of books around.

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