Amazon Hell

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Amazon Hell

Jeff Jarvis showed the power of blogging with his Dell Hell posts.

Apparently they have caused Dell to change the way they deal with blogs and customer service.

That's good.

Let's see if we can do the same thing with Amazon.

We have been Amazon customers for over 10 years. We are prime shipping customers because we use the service so much we are happy to pay $75 upfront to get free shipping.

You'd think Amazon would like customers like us.

But I guess not.

Because they are screwing their best customers by switching from UPS to US Postal Service to save money.

The Gotham Gal blogs the whole story here.

Suffice it to say that our love of Amazon is turning to hate.

And that's a sad thing.

Because I must link to Amazon almost every day.

The Gotham Gal and I have generated 47,000 clicks to Amazon since the beginning of the year, generating 174 orders and $3,375 dollars of business to Amazon.

And they return the favor by screwing us over by shipping stuff we ordered for two day delivery to our beach house by US Postal Service even though we specifically told them that US Postal Service doesn't deliver here and that we require UPS.

That sucks and we are in Amazon hell today.

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Amazon Hell:

» Can Blogs Change Amazon's Policies? from BusinessPundit
Dell has changed its policies due to blogs, now Fred wants to see if Amazon will change too. They should learn that cutting costs isn't always a good idea if it effects customers in negative ways.... [Read More]

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» ON ADS WITH COMMENTS from *michael parekh on IT*
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Tracked on Aug 26, 2005 1:48:13 AM

» ON "DELL HELL" TREND EVOLVING INTO "COMPANY X HELL" from *michael parekh on IT*
CRIES IN THE DARKNESS My last post made reference to the recent trend of prominent bloggers complaining about computer problems directly to the vendors via their blogs. The trend got kicked off by A-list blogger Jeff Jarvis a few weeks ago complaining ... [Read More]

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Tracked on Dec 15, 2005 10:43:03 AM

Posted August 23, 2005 in Venture Capital and Technology

Comments

Jeff's experience doesn't show the power of blogging, it shows the power of being Jeff. He got an amazing response because he's Jeff. Any old citizen blogger wouldn't have gotten nearly the same amount of attention.

Posted by: Ben Casnocha | Aug 23, 2005 12:17:34 PM

I don't think Dell has learnt the right lesson. What they're doing is a cover up operation, they still don't realise that this isn't a singular case...the root of the problem is, that the quality of their products sucks and the customer service is rotten.

There will be hundreds of Jarvis' to deal with tommorow and each one will blog influencing thousands of prospective customers of Dell. How many of them will they contact personally to refund?

Amazon has never been at the forefront of customer service either when it comes to fulfillment. Epinions has hundreds of customer stories of Amazon's sevice gone bad.

However, their latest move from UPS to US Postal service as their shipping carrier was kind of anticipated in the wake of rising oil prices. The steep rise in oil prices have hit ecommerce firms hard as their shipping carriers have started adding additional surcharge. Cnet carried the story recently.

Posted by: Manu Sharma | Aug 23, 2005 1:32:58 PM

As someone who has stopped using amazon because they were only shipping UPS I am happy to hear of this news. UPS refused to leave packages on my step when I was not home, signing the little yellow slip and asking them to leave the package did not matter either. I was told that in my neighborhood they were not allowed to leave packages, too many Law and Medical students I guess. So, I always had to drive ten miles to the UPS distribution center to pick up packages shipped from Amazon. I wonder if that means Amazon realized that less people who use their service live in beach houses as compared to the number who live in apartment buildings with neighbors who don't mind stealing packages left on the front steps.

Posted by: Will | Aug 23, 2005 2:42:34 PM

I should clarify something that will help make my previous comment make more sense. The mail person in my neighborhood has a "mail key" and can leave packages inside the main entrance of my building. The UPS man has no such key, hence forcing him to leave packages outside for the general public to see.

Posted by: Will | Aug 23, 2005 2:48:41 PM

Powell's is better anyway.

Posted by: Abby | Aug 23, 2005 8:55:27 PM

Strange that this move comes so soon after Amazon did the whole 10th anniversary "watch Moby deliver his latest disk to an unsuspecting customer" thing. There was some serious UPS cobranding throughout that campaign, with UPS drivers front and center.

Posted by: Greg | Aug 24, 2005 10:12:04 AM

Let me add Google to the list.

The NYTIMES did an article on the new evil empire today. MS is now one of the good guys.

Here are some thoughts on Google from an entrepreneur's perspective http://smartstartup.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/08/google_and_the_.html

Posted by: Peter | Aug 24, 2005 1:55:18 PM

Have you gotten any word back from Amazon on this, Fred? Can you keep us apprised?

Thanks.

Posted by: Michael Parekh | Aug 27, 2005 3:25:16 PM

The Postal Service cannot compete with the parcel carriers so they keep raising the cost of mailing 1st class letters. The overcharge goes to their package operations. As tax-payers, we should enjoy the cheaper USPS rates.

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