Talk:Amazon (company)

Hack sentence

"Amazon was founded in 1994, spurred by what Bezos refers to as his "regret minimization framework," i.e." would someone like to try to fix this?--LAgurl (talk) 09:52, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

"Original Research"

White 720 flagged a recent edit from me as needing a citation/original research. How do I provide a citation when *I* am the source of the information. I was the 2nd employee at Amazon.com, and my information does not come from "sources" but from actually being there. What to do?

151.199.255.38 16:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

The thing to do most probably is to remove it from the article. As an encyclopedia we don't publish facts that people know or have experienced, only ones that have already been published in a reliable source. If you've provided the information to an author or a newspaper reporter and they've included it it in something they've published then you can probably use what they've published as the citation. But the simple, unsupported, personal experience of authors isn't suitable material for Wikipedia. This is often a bit shock to new editors - wikis seem like a great way to be able to add to the record and let people know what you know - and some wikis are designed to let you do just that. But Wikipedia isn't one of them. As one of our core policies states The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- SiobhanHansa 17:47, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean any disrespect by flagging your edit as original research. As a current Amazonian I certainly like knowing more about the company's history. There have been a few books published about Amazon's history. Or, you could publish a site about the company in a credible, verifiable way, and cite that. White 720 17:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I thoroughly understand the point. The problem here is that verifiability is moot if I am the source of the claim in the cited work (e.g Get Big Fast, Spector, 2002). We can add that citation, but its no more verifiable by doing that, because I am the only source Spector cites in the book. The problem is that if you don't want to include the comment I added, you should probably remove the entire claim about the business plan, because it too is unverifiable. If you dig into its history, it emerged in a hack journalist story on Amazon.com early on in the company's life, and ended up becoming part of the company legend. There is no actual evidence anywhere (and probably there could not be until Bezos' death, if then) for the claim that the plan was written on the road. Even the original (print) article in which this claim first surfaced publically did not attribute the claim to Bezos or his wife. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.199.255.38 (talk) 22:12, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the Spector book is a better source to cite. If you can remove information of dubious origin that would greatly improve the article. Several editors have recently trimmed some of the fat from this admittedly long article, and some expert opinion would be greatly appreciated on this anti-elitist site of ours. White 720 06:37, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

customer service

The article says that amazon.com did not used to publish its phone number. There is no source given for the statement. It's certainly not true that it wasn't published since the beginning. It was on their website back then. I found a receipt from 1997, and it had a phone number too, so it was definitely published. It later became more obscure, and by that time, amazon.com's answer to the question of why it's unpublished is that it was published. It was not in an obvious location and was difficult to find, but I have never seen a verifiable source showing that there was ever a time when they did not have it on their website somewhere. I'm not sure what the point is supposed to be, except that they adopted a different customer service strategy, and changed it due to complaints. Since the same section acknowledges high customer satisfaction during that period, perhaps this should either be moved to the controversy section, or reworded more accurately to reflect its significance as a support strategy. Hagrinas (talk) 20:06, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Please clarify

The article lead paragraph says

but it made its first annual profit in 2003

Did it never make a profit before that? Or is it the first profit after the bubble burst. --Kushal^t 22:15, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

2003 was the first annual profit for Amazon. It had previously made a quarterly profit in 2002 2001, but 2003 was the first full year in which Amazon was profitable overall. Before the bubble burst Amazon had never been profitable. White 720 01:00, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Split off products and services?

I think we need to split the list of products and services into another article at this point. The main article is 42 KB and a large amount of space (at least vertical space) is in the products and services section of this article.

Alternatively, since so many products and services are already covered by their own articles, would it hurt to collapse them from subsections down to a bulleted list or something else smaller? White 720 (talk) 01:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

As you noted, the main problem is vertical space, not actual bits. A possible solution to this issue is to make the timeline into prose. Superm401 - Talk 08:13, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, there is a products line section, and a products and services section, with repetition between both. Neuroelectronic (talk) 20:01, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Gift cards for downloads

Re: "As of December 28, 2007 it is not possible to use gift cards to purchase MP3s even though the gift card FAQ claims "Yes, Amazon.com gift cards can be used to buy Amazon MP3 and Unbox downloads" " - strictly speaking, this is a false statement as it was possible to pay for orders with a gift card at that time (and now). One person already removed that line but it was reverted. Is there a good way to go about providing verification? LwoodY2K (talk) 01:42, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I bought an mp3 with a giftcard on December 24th. I had some remaining giftcard value in my account from a previous purchase and the cost was subtracted directly from that balance. 168.7.228.22 (talk) 10:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Amazon MP3

Does anyone else think there should be a separate article for Amazon MP3? I think it is sufficiently verifiable and notable. Superm401 - Talk 08:15, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Just started one; help out if you can. Amazon MP3 White 720 (talk) 19:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Controversies section

The Controversies section has a number of problems, including several items which pose verifiability and reliable sourcing issues, and several which do not really constitute a notable controversy, or are given undue weight. This includes:

• Patent infringement: completely unsourced.
• Shipping destinations: not a controversy, just an unremarkable local compliance issue.
• Labor relations: UFCW and CWA organizing attempts and results unsourced, and not particularly controversial.
• Treatment of third-party sellers: completely unsourced and unverifiable; only reference is made to an unidentified source on a sellers' forum site.
• Chris Benoit DVD: minor incident sourced to an opinion article on a wrestling web site.

Wikipedia is not a soapbox for airing grievances against companies and organizations. Unless these can be edited to satisfy Wikipedia's verifiability and sourcing policies, they will need to be removed from the article. --MCB (talk) 21:49, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

The changes have been made. --MCB (talk) 06:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, it needed change.—DMCer™ 18:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

BookSurge

I've added a brief mention of the current BookSurge controversy. The supplied reference ("Writer's Weekly") also lists 76 further articles on the net on this subject, and 11 ongoing discussions on the subject - so far. I trust that this counts as sufficiently controversial! :) If this story continues to develop, it might accumulate enough information for it to be worthwhile giving BookSurge its own separate page once again. ErkDemon (talk) 10:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of negative book reviews by Amazon

Amazon has repeatedly deleted some of my negative (single-star) book reviews although they conformed to their rules, and I've heard from others with the same experience. I wonder whether there is any published information on this, if so, it would be great if it could be incorporated into this article. Maikel (talk) 22:17, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

There's been some buzz about this happening with Nancy Pelosi's book, right? 128.101.220.119 (talk) 21:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Amazon.at

I just noticed the removal and re-instatement of information stating that Amazon has an Austrian website. This appears to be true, but it does redirect to the German (that is, .de) website. I thought this was worth pointing out. The Baroness of Morden (talk) 19:15, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, amazon.ch also exists and redirects to .de. The difference is that amazon.at actually has a different logo. It's pretty much a cosmetic change, though; Austria doesn't even appear on the "list of international sites" in the footers of most pages. White 720 (talk) 22:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Search Inside feature - disabled?

It seems, as of March 2008, that the Search Inside feature of Amazon.com has been disabled. Previous titles open to the Search Inside feature have been replaced with the Look Inside one. This doesn't seem to have happened, for example, in the British site for Amazon (Amazon.co.uk), but only at the American one (Amazon.com). Bkkm (talk) 01:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

It was probably a temporary change. Things seem to be back to normal now. Bkkm (talk) 23:26, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Amazon vs Walmart

Amazon has a unique problem. Their web site attracts a whopping 615m visitors annually (200 per cent of Walmart). It means their technology bills are gigantic. But the company's total revenues are just over $14 billion (4 per cent of Walmart). It means their invoices are miniscule.Anwar (talk) 18:15, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Does it? You need to compare Walmart's ONLINE sales with Amazon's sales, otherwise you are not comparing like with like. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.13.3 (talk) 11:57, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Amazon Warehouse Deals

Should warehousedeals.com be added to 2008? (Nicolaususry (talk) 19:38, 19 June 2008 (UTC))

"Reader reviews credibility" confusion

A 2004 glitch in Amazon.ca's review system revealed that many well-established authors were anonymously giving themselves glowing reviews, with some revealed to be anonymously giving "rival" authors terrible reviews. The glitch in the system was fixed and those reviews have since been removed or made anonymous.[59][60]

I may be stupid, but the distinction escapes me. I guess I am pretty stupid, because the distinction escapes me. qartis (talk) 11:02, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Further readings section

Number 1 (Robert Spector (2001). amazon.com—Get Big Fast: Inside the Revolutionary Business Model That Changed the World. Harper Collins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-662041-4.) and number 4 (Robert Spector (2000). Amazon.com. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-662041-4.) shares the same ISBN but different publishing year, which one is correct? MythSearcher^talk 17:03, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Syria

All Syrian ISPs block the access to amazon —Preceding unsigned comment added by LordxEvil (talk • contribs) 16:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Ridiculous content

Really, does some of this belong on an encyclopedia article about an e-retailer? For example, under the website heading: "Amazon has done little to enforce the rules of these forums, but did recently add an "ignore" button feature to help counteract the spamming. Nonetheless, at least one critic in the top 50 quit writing for Amazon and began contributing to another site due to the spam issues and Amazon's inability to enforce the rules.[16]" This sounds more like a rant of Amazon by a select few rather than something important enough to belong on an encyclopedic entry. -149.166.222.64 (talk) 23:37, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Merge content from AfD

This content was merged from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Online sales tricks. Please assess its suitability for this article and merge where appropriate. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:11, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Best-Seller Blast

The Best-Seller Blast is an orchestrated e-mail campaign applied to the sale of books. The intent is to cause a sales peak, which can raise the book into the list of best-sellers. The Best-Seller Blast technique has a reported cost of between $10,000 and $15,000 USD.

Second-hand sales

Amazon.com counts the sales of used (i.e., second-hand) books the same as new book sales. Therefore, an author can purchase several copies of his/her book at a much lower price, thus inflating the number of sales.

Spoofing

A seller may pose as someone more reputable to promote their product. For example, Amazon.com sued eleven companies that sent marketing e-mails that appeared to come from Amazon.com.

Easter eggs?

Seems to me that the easter egg section is very un-ecnyclopedia-ish and kind of stupid. Would anyone mind if that section is deleted? Psykocyber (talk) 13:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I like having the easter egg section. They are fact-based, and I think they convey the personality of the company. Plus, I've had occasion to reference them when discussing company easter eggs (in video games and on web sites). daveschappell (talk) 15:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

References Glitch

The references stop working at number 29...Can someone please fix this glitch? Thanks.Redandwhitesheets (talk) 11:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. The previous edit had "</rev>" instead of "</ref>". --MCB (talk) 18:01, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Heads up

Be on the lookout for a concerted vandalism effort - Amazon has just deleted every review for its Spore listing (most of which were one-star reviews) and so Amazon users might come over to this article to vent. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Ed, a cafe facade!)} 19:38, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Does Amazon routinely delete reviews for items which do not garner any decent reviews? Softlavender (talk) 01:34, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Deleted reviews controversy

This recent addition seems to be poorly sourced to speculative pieces and blogs. Doesn't really seem to establish a significant controversy to me. There seem to be ongoing attempts to get a section in the article about amazon deleting reviews which makes me wonder if there's something to it, but I have yet to see significant coverage in a really mainstream or rigorous niche source that shows there is real controversy rather than fringe hype and speculation. Other opinions (or better yet - more reliable sources)? -- SiobhanHansa 01:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Scientology

Okay, I added a section under "Controversies" that discusses Amazon discontinuing books that are critical of Scientology, as well as censorship of comments; if you could write it better (while having the same helpful info) please do. However, if it get's deleted for any reason, I promise you, a Scientologist is behind it! Cheers :-)

75.72.92.166 (talk) 07:55, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Far be it from me to defend scientology, but your links do not make the case that "Amazon has consistently removed books deemed critical to the Church of Scientology". One book was removed, and Amazon cited stricter libel laws in the UK as the reason. There is no evidence provided of any sort of larger conspiracy. I don't think the section is appropriate. Matt 66.43.210.80 (talk) 21:38, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I removed the content and links. And, I promise you, I'm no Scientologist. Cheers :-) --ZimZalaBim ^talk 21:57, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Poor Packing

There are many complains about Amazon's poor packing, but it's mostly in forums and places like epinions (Amazon ... Buyers Beware! - and the comments, Amazon Inadequate Packing Materials). This one seems to be the best, but then it has a wrong title: anyone else having trouble with Canons poor packing when shipping items? (instead of "... Amazon's poor packing ...") so it doesn't make sense to use this title when citing the page as a reference. Any ideas? --V111P (talk) 07:49, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Available in Australia

I'm not sure how quickly this will get answered, and I was unable to find the information specifically or in the companies site. But does Amazon.com sell and deliver books in Australia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.215.130.20 (talk) 11:28, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Indigo Starfish?

Redirects to this page, but then doesn't say anything about it!

Are they a separate entity to amazon? Or are they a subsiduary? What's the deal with this company?

Controversy RE deranking of GLBT books / #amazonfail

1. http://jezebel.com/5209088/why-is-amazon-removing-the-sales-rankings-from-gay-lesbian-books
2. http://blog.seattlepi.com/amazon/archives/166259.asp
3. http://www.examiner.com/x-3569-Denver-Internet-Examiner~y2009m4d12-Online-censorship-Amazon-strips-ranking-of-Gay-and-Lesbian-books
4. http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html -- amazon's response to an author
5. http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html -- a list of books so far that have been removed
6. http://booksquare.com/open-letter-to-amazon-regarding-recent-policy-changes/ -- an open letter to amazon
7. http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23amazonfail -- at least 100 tweets every minute

These are just some of the articles/resources about this thing. I'm not sure how to edit it into the article because I'm not that familiar with amazon terms, but if someone else is willing, here's some good places to start. Morhange (talk) 21:31, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

It may be just a storm in a teacup, but it is a worrying trend. Even so though, I'm afraid that none of the above links would be characterised as reliable sources so couldn't be used to back up this information. On the bright side at least Amazon admit they are doing it, if not trying to gloss over the obvious homophobia with bullshit business-speak. --WebHamster 21:47, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

The Seattle PI is one of the two major news sources for a major metropolitan area, and Andrea James is one of THE lead reporters on Amazon (they're Seattle based). How is the PI not a reliable source? Please don't say the blog URL/formatting, because that never disqualifies a source in and of itself. The PI is now entirely online, having dropped their print publications--almost all their articles are "blog" formatted now. It makes them no less reliable than they were before. rootology (C)(T) 02:19, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Lots more reliable sources here now and growing. rootology (C)(T) 02:19, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the whole #amazonfail thing deserves an article of its own. It's been picked up by the LA Times and the AP. This is a pretty major internet phenomenon. Twitter's been involved in the news before, but I don't think there's been anything quite like this where a major trend on Twitter, on a major holiday no less, demands attention from the mainstream media. The spin-off hashtags (#glitchmyass, #nopants) are also pretty interesting. --24.46.57.222 (talk) 08:15, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Today's "pretty major internet phenomena" is often tomorrow's nothing at all. We're supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a blog. There's nothing there indicating any sort of longterm section worth listing here... and the claims made in the section were very POV based upon bad sources. We cannot give WP:UNDUE weight to a bunch of people jumping to conclusions. DreamGuy (talk) 17:51, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I support this position and the removal of the mention until there is more reliable and longstanding content to report on. Even though there are reliable sources reporting the concern, they are merely reporting the fact that there is a concern out there. Very little substantive and verifiable information is currently available. --ZimZalaBim ^talk 17:59, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Woah, you're saying the LA Times isn't notable enough for a two-line mention under "controversies"?~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 19:04, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Coverage of an event doesn't automatically make that event encyclopedic. And pretty much all that's being related here is coverage of the uproar, and little substance about what (if anything) actually happened). If at the end of the day this turns out to actually be a glitch that Amazon completely rectifies, an encyclopedia doesn't need to make mention of 24 hours of twitter noise and newspaper blog posts about said noise. This isn't Wikinews; let's see what happens first. --ZimZalaBim ^talk 19:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

According to valleywag and gizmodo, this has been revealed to be a 4chan hack. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:55, 13 April 2009 (UTC)