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Amazon.com - The best place to buy. But read and write reviews???? hahahahahaha... HA. HA.
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May 26, 2011
- by Madpenguin
- posted in WHAT CAN I SAY?
Rating:
Ah yes, amazon.com. The place with the misguided vote ratings and home of the flame wars(Oh wow, the memories). However, I would like to think of it as the best site on the Internet, when it comes down to buying quality products, saving a truck load of money, and some pretty good service. To include, that is the site where I began to write reviews some years ago, and made so many friends on the way. Altogether, I've been dealing with them for 7 years now.
+4
Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with the site. But before I get into my personal reasons about the site. I would like to talk about some of its features and my experience with buying things.
Now where do I begin:
Ok, I think amazon has the best search engine ever. When a customer comes on the site and begins to type up a product name, there are product names already being displayed before it's spelled out, and it's correctly spelled for you as well. This has made searching for products incredibly easy for me. Many times I have went to a FYE or a Virgin Records, and the name of something would completely escape me by the time I made it home. But I would remember the first few letters of it, and the search engine would do the rest. Then I immediately click on what I thought it was, and many titles would pop up. Almost always, I would find exactly what I was looking for. Therefore, amazon.com's search engine is awesome, and the site is very easy to navigate. When I'm looking for anime titles for example; I would type up the word "anime", and thousands of titles would appear.
I also really like their selections. I have found many products that I believed to be long lost. Products such as movies, TV series, comic books, video games and CD's. Many times I have found exactly what I was looking for with either great low prices, or incredibly high prices, courtesy of the third party sellers. More on them later.
Amazon also has good delivery options. When buying from them directly, a costumer would be given several options. You can choose between their One Day shipping($3.99), Two Day Shipping(Free), Standard shipping(Free, 3-5 business days), and Local Express Delivery($5.99). I only have experience with the Two day and Standard, and my deliveries were always on time. If there was an issue on a pre-ordered item, due to some type of change with the release date. I always received some type of notice with the option of canceling. I have canceled products before and it was actually quick and easy.
The products were always delivered by UPS, and the packaging has always been excellent for me. The boxes would be very strong, and if it was a book I ordered, then it would be nicely protected with a sturdy piece of cardboard on the back of it, with a piece of plastic tightly wrapped around it. The packages are also easy to open. I have never received anything from them in bad condition. Therefore, I don't know how they handle defective or damaged merchandise issues.
Amazon also has a new release selection that keeps very accurate dates on new releases many months out, and it's always updated from what I see. I'm not sure if it's weekly or daily, but I always found answers to my questions. They would also send me notifications on products based on my order and rate history.
When opening your account, they give you a few categories to rate things you're interested in. This is EXTREMELY helpful. Based on the things you rate and would later buy, they will flood your recommendations section with many products you can choose from. I have found many things to my liking that either I never heard of, or I completely forgot about. One thing is for sure, if you deal with amazon long enough you're going to be so broke.
Checking out is simple and easy. You will receive a confirmation email, along with a receipt seconds after you complete your order. I can't exactly give details on the simplicity of canceling an order should you change your mind, because I have never done it.
Amazon also has a seller feedback option to leave a rating on theirs, and third party sellers service. After a certain amount of time, they will send you a request asking for your feedback. But they were never a pain about it though.
Amazon also has an option where you can sell your items. I haven't done that in a very long time, so I don't remember all of the details, and I don't know of any improvements they may have made. But I do remember receiving notification on my money pretty quick, and it was always in my bank account when I checked. You also have the option of canceling the order yourself should you change your mind, or just don't have it. But I remember only being able to do this after a person made a purchase.
I've canceled orders many times once I saw that the item became rare just so I could raise the price, and sell it to someone else for more, then give the original buyer a refund with a lame excuse. Hey, at least I'm being honest right? Last I remember, the item would only be listed for about 90 days, then you would have to re-list it.
After years of experience in this area, the third party sellers are a bit tricky. They're all rated in percentages, which of course, 100% being the best. At one point, I use to buy from many different sellers with intentions on giving that "new guy" a break, because after all I was there once too. Many times, things worked out well and others it didn't. For the most part, I stick to the sellers who are rated at least 96%, or if I been doing business with them for years. My favorite sellers are gohastings, caiman, pbshop, secondspin, and shawnek. Those are just off the top of my head. The only one I had problems with was gohastings, but they're still among my favorites, because every problem I ever had with them was taken care of easily.
Now this is something I learned on my own. Amazon does have a feature were they handle your problems for you. If a third party seller happens to ignore you and don't issue you a refund. Then amazon will issue the refund for you. However, there's a limit on this, and I don't recall it ever being written. Amazon will eventually stop refunding you, and you'll just be screwed with your money gone. This happened to me. My advice is this, if you paid for something dirt cheap, don't bother complaining about it, and just rate the seller with horrible service. Wait until it's something expensive, then go for your refund.
Overall, I enjoy amazon when it comes down to buying things. In fact, it's my number one site for spending money. Now reviewing and searching for good reviews, that's another story.
When searching for good reviews in my primary interest field, which happens to be anime. I avoid a majority of those reviews like the AIDS virus. They seem to let everything slide, there is almost no boundaries when it comes down to the atrocious content being posted on that site. You will see everything from "dis rawks and its da gr8test ting evar!" to "if u dont like dis your stoopid!" You will also see reviews on products that haven't been released. I have seen WWE ppvs a year out with prediction and fantasy reviews containing stuff like Batman vs. Samoa Joe vs. Elton John, and amazon lets them all fly. But when I use to review there, I actually had informative reviews kicked back for no reasons at all.
Also, it truly appears that no one cares about review helpfulness. There's a large number on that site, who base review helpfulness on how much they agree and disagree with you. You will see fantastic critical reviews being mercilessly attacked, with some very vicious and disrespectful comments, along with being buried under those one sentence 5 star reviews, with absolutely no substance at all. I have witnessed a never-ending sea of madness so damn irritating, that I would avoid the site for weeks. I found the best way around that issue is to find folks with your exact taste or close to it, who actually know how to review. This way your time won't be wasted.
When it comes down to reviewing yourself. I found being brutally honest, only leads to being brutally abused. It appears that many of the customers on that site have the mental capacity of twelve year olds, and that's being kind. If you're hoping to find a site to review on comfortably without being stressed out. Then I recommend staying away from there, because you may lose motivation to write, after you seen your best work bashed constantly. And you'll never know who's doing it.
I noticed that amazon revised their friend system, and you can now just add folks as friends, which is pretty similar to epinions web of trust. You also have the option of adding them as interesting people. I still use this quite often because I found a few good to great writers there. You can also create list and "how to" guides, which are separated from your list of reviews.
Your profile page can be set up as you please. You can add your picture or an avatar, to include, you can choose to have your profile information visible to the public, friends, or invisible to everyone. Plus leave a link to your primary web page.
Personally, I don't care for that site the way I use to. Amazon can and they have deleted reviews without warning. At some point due to many flame wars, I've angered several individuals because they refused to respect my opinion. In retaliation, these folks flagged many of my reviews, and I noticed that amazon deleted many of my 1 and 2 star reviews. When I asked them for reasons, they responded that my content was offensive and unprofessional. When I asked them to provide examples of such, I never received a response on the issue. I responded by deleting everything and I no longer review for the site, and I don't think I ever will, even though they still send me request to do so.
Besides making friends, the only other good that comes from reviewing on there is the vine system. After reviewing there for a while, you will have the option to join this program, and they will send you a list of products. These products are all free, all they ask is for you to review them, and that's it.
In closing, I can look back at amazon with fond memories. I have met many great people who have continued to follow my contributions, and I still follow theirs. These individuals still introduce me to great forms of entertainment, and I return the favor. Overall, I still recommend the site to those who are looking to save money. But if you're looking for a place to write reviews. There are much better places for that. And I'll cover those soon....
Pros:
-Tons of inventory
-A million categories
Cons:
-Don't care for most of the reviews
-Community can be very childish
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Post a Comment
FM_ALEX
May 27, 2011
Honestly this may be the best write up ever about a site, very very well done Sir. I agree with ya man but I still drop stuff there, also I am a big fan of GoHastings myself. Never had a problem [thus far], EXCELLENT write up.
Madpenguin
October 04, 2011
Sorry for getting here so late. oh yeah, that's right. i was silenced for that week! Thanks for the compliment man. But I tell you, I can never post there again for various reasons. Haven't bought anything in awhile.
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woopak_the_thrill
May 26, 2011
well said. I bought my new TV from amazon and did buy so many other stuff; and I love the fact that they hardly charge sales tax (save for some items). Amazon is a great site to shop; but as for reviewing, I was in the top 300 and I stopped reviewing there in 2010...why? The more followers you get foor writing reviews, the more they erase your votes...it does not make sense. I need to write bad reviews to advance or only write about things I like. LOL! I occasionally still review there for vine requests, but that is it. In a way I like amazon but the community there sucks. Epinions is a great place though to test your mettle in writing reviews... it can also make you improve.
Madpenguin
October 04, 2011
I don't think I would ever buy something as expensive as a TV from any website. And the whole fan voting thing just got on my nerves. I had an unreal number of fan voters, and then I just watched all my votes on anime reviews just disappear in thin air. My Cowboy Bebop review had over 200 helpful votes, and it when down to around 9, with all the troll votes intact. I could never go back there. I don't know how Alex and Rider can put up with that rotten place. And as for epinions......
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About the reviewer
Madpenguin
Serious gamer and hardcore comic reader.
Currently in my Nintendo Wii U:
Currently … more
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Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is a US-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of the runner up, Staples, Inc., as of January 2010.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994 and launched it online in 1995. The company was originally named Cadabra, Inc., but the name was changed when it was discovered that people sometimes heard the name as "Cadaver." The name Amazon.com was chosen because the Amazon River is the largest river in the world, and so the name suggests large size, and also in part because it starts with 'A' and therefore would show up near the beginning of alphabetical lists. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVDs, CDs, MP3 downloads, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, and toys. Amazon has established separate websites in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and China. It also provides international shipping to certain countries for some of its products.
In 2010, Amazon's decision to remove Wikileaks from their servers resulted in numerous calls to boycott the company, with many people particularly incensed that Amazon then went on to sell copies of the Wikileaks material, despite using this material as its reason for removing WikileaksFirst to Review
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