Every time I sign on Amazon, I see the same recommendations for me. And they’re all for books I want. And how does Amazon know I want them? Because they’re all on my “wish list”. And why are they on my wish list when I want them? Because they haven’t been released yet.
So, Amazon, here’s a clue. I’m already aware of these books - I’m the one who put them in my wish list. And if I wanted to pre-order them before they were released, I would have done that in the first place (or second place or third place or fourth place etc). So there’s really not much point in asking me every time I sign on if I want to buy the same books I haven’t bought every other time I signed on in the last two months. You’d be better off telling me about other books that I haven’t already made a decision on in the hopes that one of them might be a book I’m unfamiliar with but would be interested in.
Amazon recs are annoying to me. I look at ONE BOOK about Toronto and suddenly I’m flooded with every single book that’s ever been written on the freakin’ city. Gah. I also wish it would assume that if I buy a book that comes in the middle of a series, I already have the previous books and stop shoving books at me that I already have.
I’ve just stopped paying attention to the recommedations now. They are of no help at all.
I’m just thankful that they have made it possible for you to eliminate gifts from your suggestions. I made the mistake of ordering Pokemon stuff for my nephew from Amazon. Every. Stinkin. Suggestion. was for Pokemon stuff until I had bought enough stuff for it to drop off the major radar. Horror movies for my husband? Same thing.
My beef with them now is all the companies they are partnered with, if you get a gift card for them (say Borders) you happily add stuff to your cart only to find out at check out that X number of them aren’t eligible to be used with that Gift Card. Even if you go to borders.com it still seamlessly tosses you into the Amazon mix. I’ve stopped asking for gift cards from any company that isn’t Amazon, but may be affiliated with them.
But hey, thanks guys for my wishlist never expiring. I appreciate that.
HazelNutCoffee - Go into your recommendations list and find one of the books about Toronto. Under it is a line “Recommended because you…” and then the link “Fix this”. YOu can uncheck a box, and Amazon’s system won’t use that item any more, when making recommendations.
Hazel Nut, on an issue completely unrelated to this thread, I just noticed that your location is “Hyde Park, Chicago”. Is there a Hyde Park neighbourhood in Chicago or do you mean you it as a split location? The reason I ask is because I live near Hyde Park, New York (the FDR one) and my first thought was “Mid-Hudson Dopefest!”
My beef with Amazon is that there was a sticker on the box that said “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” I know everyone and his mother ordered a copy last week, but do they need to advertise that?
Does anyone else wind up getting recommended the hardcover of a book because you bought the paperback? This has happened a couple times and drives me nuts.
Hyde Park is a neighborhood in Chicago surrounding UChicago, where I went to grad school. I’ve had people ask me if I mean the one in London. Too bad - I’m all for Dopefests.
Hey, my rant is that they recently (when, when postage went up by TWO CENTS?) raised the standard shipping rate for their Z-sellers/Z-shops to $3.99! It was $3.49 until recently, and that was already too high, considering I’ve never had a book arrive with more than $1 of postage on it. :rolleyes:
Well, as a broke-ass who reads about 150 books a year, I really like buying used books and will only buy a new book as a last resort. I think it’s beautifully integrated into their system - “14.99, or buy used from .99.” But the whole “mandating a standard shipping price across the board” is some bullshit, especially when it’s so high. I don’t think I’ve ever ordered a used book on there and not had it come via media mail, which is incredibly cheap, and wrapped in anything more significant than .10 worth of brown paper or one of those .50 padded envelopes. Getting rid of that standard shipping price would allow the Z-sellers to be even more competitive - “I’ll get it to you for only $1 shipping on top of the price!” - while still making a profit.
Actually it seems to be set up to help the pros make money unloading crappy old worthless books. It is worthless to the Amazon customer who wants to resell his purchase.
Urh? Does not compute. I’ve sold over a hundred and thirty used books, one or maybe two at a time, on Amazon over the last two years and I’ve never had a problem. The layout’s been alright and moderately helpful all the time, though the postage thing is a bit of a bother, but I’m in Norway so postage was always going to be at the buyer’s expense anyway.
I don’t like it either, but I can kinda see the reason for it.
To be fair, that “shipping” charge has to cover, not only actual postage, but packing materials and the fees the seller pays to Amazon.
A while back, someone started a thread asking about the used items on Amazon that were priced ridiculously low (e.g. $0.01)—why take the trouble to sell something if you only get one penny for your trouble? Part of the answer is that, with that standard shipping fee, the seller usually ends up earning a little more than the actual selling price, though still not enough to make serious money selling unless you do a lot of it.
I suspect that if the shipping charges were lowered, the sale prices would be slightly higher to make up for it.
My only beef with Amazon is that they don’t remove items from Wish Lists after they’ve been purchased. It’s not a problem if I’m buying for myself, because I’ll remember buying it. But for other wish lists, it’s a pisser.
I wonder if Amazon would let me list an item on their marketplace for a negative amount. Suppose I have a book I know I can ship for only a dollar and a half and I figure I’ll accept fifty cents for its sale. Could I list if for a price of -1.99? Add it the 3.99 shipping and handling charge and the total cost is $2.00.
When I order from my own wish list (and others) the item is removed. Do you have your wishlists set to show only unpurchased items? If you’re ordering through the wishlist link and the item is not being moved to ‘purchased’ you should contact Amazon and find out what’s happening.
I have noticed that this doesn’t work for Marketplace purchases though. I have to remove those ones manually.
Too bad - I’m all for Dopefests.