Talk:Amazon (company)/Archive 1
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Audio Samples
I hadn't been on amazon for a while and when I went there today I noticed that they no longer have their own Amazon audio player for sampling albums. Anyone know why this happened? That audio player was good, it loaded much faster than Real or WMP. Was the amazon audio player removed because of a legal issue or something? e- Furthermore, I just realized I can't get either the WMP or Real audio samples to work in their respective players, grrrrrrrr. What the heck?
Recommendations and Collaborative Filtering
Amazon was one of the pioneers in using collaborative filtering to create links on its site. The article probably should mention these. The features I'm thinking of show up on product pages as "customers who purchased" and "customers who shopped for". The former was invented for Amazon by Greg Linden of Findory, and the latter was invented by me. Both are on USPTO, and I think Greg and co-worker Brent Smith wrote up the former for the IEEE. --Zippy 08:12, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Miscellaneous old discussions =
I'm not sure what happened here, but the page for Amazon.com can no longer be accessed!
Works for me. The Anome 17:34 Sep 24, 2002 (UTC)
Is the inclusion of the "Boycott Amazon!" link appropriate? Lukobe 2/18/04
- Probably, but if there are other stated opinions out there (or even a rebuttal by the company), it should be added as well. I have moved the link to the bottom, as in an encyclopedic article about Amazon.com, it's simply not the most important link. Eike 04:28, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)
The boycott has ended, in fact it ended almost two years ago. The link should be preserved, in my opinion. I'd update the description, but it says the page will be locked in a few minutes (presumably to prevent the link to amazon.com from being replaced with "affilate" links). --TexasDex 19:46, May 1, 2004 (UTC)
Merge in info from Jeff Bezos?
The article Jeff Bezos contains information about Amazon.com history that's not here. I think that info should be moved from that article to this one. — TreyHarris 21:25, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Agreed. The information under the heading "Rise of Amazon.com" in Jeff Bezos would be more appropriate in Amazon.com. Don't forget to add a see also link to Amazon.com. --Jeff 22:08, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)
Beacon Hill?
Recently, the intro changed from:
- Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) is an American electronic commerce company based in Seattle, Washington.
to:
- Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) is an American electronic commerce company based on Seattle, Washington's Beacon Hill.
This edit is odd to me. First off, I don't think I've ever seen a company be identified with its neighborhood before. (Except for Wall Street, but that isn't a neighborhood, and most of the companies "on Wall Street" are actually somewhere else in Manhattan, or even in Jersey City.) Secondly, why Beacon Hill? That Amazon.com is based in Seattle I don't dispute, but more workers work in the International District than in Beacon Hill. What controls? Jeff Bezos's office? I'd like to see it go back to just Seattle. --TreyHarris 03:07, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- The location of the corporate headquarters appears in some other articles, e.g., Safeco Corporation, Todd Pacific Shipyards. It could certainly be moved out of the introductory sentence, though (which I'll do). As for why Beacon Hill, doesn't CEO's office location control? I know Bezos and his lieutenants work up there--many other important departments as well--and I'm not so sure there are more people down in Union Station than up in PacMed, actually... --Lukobe 05:24, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- OK, I moved location info to a different section and added some more details. By the way, hello to a fellow linguistics student! --Lukobe 06:04, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Headquarters vs. Canada
In the 'headquarters' section, there was a long commentary on Amazon's Canadian operations. This didn't seem to have anything to do with Amazon's headquarters, so I removed it. I'm not sure where it should go (perhaps "controversies"), and it is arguably not relevant enough to keep at all, so I'm putting it here. 67.170.85.168 19:28, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
- Amazon has a Canadian site in both English and French, but is prevented from operating any headquarters, servers, fulfillment centers or call centers in Canada due to that country's legal restrictions on foreign-owned booksellers. Instead, Amazon's Canadian site originates in the United States, and Amazon has an agreement with Canada Post to handle distribution within Canada and for the use of the Crown corporation's Mississauga, Ontario shipping facility.[1] In 2002, the Canadian Booksellers Association and Indigo Books and Music sought a court ruling that Amazon's partnership with Canada Post represented an attempt to circumvent Canadian law,[2] but the litigation was dropped in 2004.[3]
Different stores
If i'm located in denmark and order item foo from the .com, .co.uk .de and .jp store, will i get different prices? What is the difference in shipping costs if any? -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 00:09, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)
- You want http://www.amazon.com/help, http://www.amazon.co.uk/help, http://www.amazon.de/hilfe, and http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/1039576. --Lukobe 00:50, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
- There is a site that does exactly this comparison (price at every one of the 6 amazon international stores), it even add shipping costs and calculates the currency depending on the user country, and that's a useful site for international amazon users, really. It's called Pricenoia.com. I updated it on the wiki page but was removed with a link spam comment, so up to you. Alarmen 13:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Old Amazon (feminist) bookstore?
I typed in "Amazon bookstore" in the search box, looking for that famous original feminist bookstore, and was redirected to the Amazon.com page. I understand that in spite of the use of the same tradmark in the same industry, that they are totally different entities. Any chance there can be another article on the feminist bookstore and maybe a disambiguation page and some cross links? How about at least a nod to the original on the Amazon.com page?
- There's something at Amazon Bookstore now. --Lukobe 23:20, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)
I was also looking for the Amazon Bookstore (the feminist one) and noticed that the page Amazon bookstore redirects to the Amazon.com page but Amazon Bookstore (notice the difference in capitalization difference) contains the disambiguation page. I'm going to move the disambiguation page from the double capitalized page to the other one so it better fits the Naming Conventions. David 18:16, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
I was surprised that this page never mentioned the lawsuit from the older bookstore, so I've added that. --mvc 15:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
- amazon.com sued the feminist bookstore by that name so they could not use the name. this was in spite of the fact that they had used it first. they got their really nasty lawyers out there and crushed the women's bookstore
Amazon prime
Deserves a mention. --ZephyrAnycon 19:13, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Mechanical Turk
Anyone want to have a go at Mechanical Turk?
Turking is still relatively low-profile, but I think enough interest has been generated in it, and I know I have seen enough independent media coverage of it, to cover it here with references. However, considering that Amazon Mechanical Turk is a relatively sizable and thorough article, I believe a link to the full article would be sufficient for inclusion in the Amazon.com article. It's a relatively small facet of the overall Amazon empire and we run the risk of the page getting too lengthy. I'll at least make a section header and direct readers to the full article. Any input, please? LeSaint 19:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Anonymity
- A 2002 glitch in Amazon.com'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.
"Or made anonymous"? ... umm... weren't they already anonymous? You can't make an anonymous comment anonymous. It already is. - furrykef (Talk at me) 20:42, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I think that is not true that sounds really suspect i am going to delete that if someone dosent prove me wrong soon.
Affiliates
hmv.com does redirect to Amazon.ca page - but HMV has its own web site in the UK - hmv.co.uk Secretlondon 14:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Site features
Might be worth adding user-created lists as an interesting form of community interaction - this goes beyond rating and reviewing the products. --Contento 17:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Customer service phone number
As of January 2006, every help page on Amazon.com has a button that initiates a call from Amazon's customer service back to the customer. This represents a reversal of the earlier policy to not provide easy access to the customer service number.
This new feature is mentioned in the article, but in light of the fact that this feature is now available, perhaps the section about this "controversy" should be toned down or removed entirely. Would you agree, and does anyone want to take a shot at it? --Chipmunk 08:51, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, it's bad customer service in the first place not to have the number listed. However, the few times I've needed customer service, the line attendants were friendly and prompt.
--ScaredCrow 00:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
This section seems very NPOV. 130.126.210.122 07:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Article removed from Wikipedia:Good articles
This article was formerly listed as a good article, but was removed from the listing because some of the writing is in need of work; for example the word 'over' occurs 10 times in one sentence, and there are some one sentence paragraphs such as 'Amazon added a wiki feature to their product database' - when? Why? Significance needs explaining. Also I think the information in the trivia section should be in the main flow of the article rather than bullet pointed at the end. Worldtraveller 00:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Amazon S3
I found mention of [http://aws.amazon.com/s3 Amazon S3] at TechCrunch: Amazon: Grid Storage Web Service Launches. I'm not sure yet how to start it, but if anybody else wants to start it and work it in to Amazon.com, here's a link: Amazon S3. --Christopherlin 21:36, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Wiki feature
From the article: "In November 2005, Amazon added a wiki feature to their product database, allowing any customer who had purchased at least one item from the company to edit a section of each product page. In early March 2006, the company removed the wiki feature, replacing it with a more conventional discussion board."
The wiki feature may or may not be back... I saw wiki links on stuff there today. No idea how to source that though, as personal observation is not verifiable. ++Lar: t/c 22:31, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Tel. number
We currently have two sections on Amazon's lack of telephone numbers. Pcb21 Pete 15:42, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Cumulative Customer Accounts
I would like to know what Amazon.com's cumulative customer account quantity. I have found it as about 1.5 million in 1999, and 20 million in 2001 and 35 million in 2003, but that's the last number I have found on the web. Even on documents dated as 2006 they still list 35 million cumulative customer accounts. Has their ccustomer base stopped growing? Also, I'm curious about their active customer base. It would be very interesting to have some idea of how many people have remained active buyers on Amazon and how many accounts haven't been used in, say the last two years.
David Risher?
Should we say anything about the david risher easter egg? If not, here it is.
1. Go to the "Directory Of All Stores" page.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page.
3. Underneath the copyright date, paticularly under the "95" in "1995-2006", there is a small clickable area. You may have to use tab.
4. Click it. There is a "perpetual" easter egg, dedicated to someone named "David Risher". It's in all it's glory!
This was brought to you by www.eeggs.com. --Homftogtalk 22:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Anyways, I'll give you a link. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/104-3326880-8617530?ie=UTF8&docId=447307 Easter Egg with David Risher] --Homftogtalk 21:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
- Wonder if pages like this will be part of the Gurupa migration... --207.171.180.101 21:47, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
>> The 'Dave Risher' page continues to be available, post deprecation of Obidos (8 April 2007)
link is dead!
An invisible link at the very bottom of the "Directory of All Stores" page leads to a February 2002 tribute to David Risher, "Amazon.com's favorite site surfer". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.241.172.55 (talk) 23:52, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Fulfillment centre in Cork?
I know that recently a fulfillment centre for amazon.co.uk was added in Ireland, but I'm not so sure its Cork. I realise the new call centre is in Cork, but I believe the new fulfillment centre is in Dublin. The reason I think so, is that I have ordered a few things off amazon.co.uk recently, which had the "Postage Paid" thing with a Dublin mark (an indication it was delivered to a post office in Dublin by amazon). Also, on ones which bear the Dublin postage paid mark, it also has the return address if undelivered, as:
If undelivered please return to: Amazon PO Box 10361 Dublin 17
Could someone verify where it is? - Рэдхот 21:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
There is a customer service centre in cork but no Warehouse in Dublin, all the warehouses they have are in Scotland or the main one in Marston Gate!
Amazon has an operations and sw dev center in dublin, but no fulfillment center.
Merging Statistically Improbable Phrases
Bad idea. SIP seems to be an invention seperate from amazon.com. The may be future use of the same concept by different people. Either way, it's distinct from amazon.com, in that they are seperate things. --CalPaterson 14:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
- decline -- per cal MPS 01:17, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Expansion of product lines and site features
This section is a complete mess. Would anyone be against bolding the various terms in each "paragraph" to sort of give the reader a cue of what each grouping of sentences is for? For example,
- Amazon Prime is a $79 per year service that allows you to get free two day shipping and upgraded overnight shipping for $3.99 on all eligible items.
- In January 2006, Amazon established a partnership with travel meta-search company SideStep and used its service to power searches in Amazon's travel store.
could be
- Amazon Prime is a $79 per year service that allows you to get free two day shipping and upgraded overnight shipping for $3.99 on all eligible items.
- In January 2006, Amazon established a partnership with travel meta-search company SideStep and used its service to power searches in Amazon's travel store.
Just a thought... -- BrandonR 00:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
- Yes please! It's utterly unreadable as-is. Sorely needs some cohesive organisation. LeSaint 19:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Customer Service in India
To whomever is deleting the reference to a call center opened in India servicing North American customer, please stop. This is a widely known and publicized fact (ComputerWorld, India Times). All you have to do is call their 800 # and you'll hear someone with a thick Indian accent. Continuing deletion of this fact would only lead me to suspect that there is POV censorship going on.
Obadiah Shoher vs. Amazon.com
Dear Amazon.com watchers -
Please share your views about Obadiah Shoher. I slaughtered that recently created article with maintenance templates in hope that it will be found important. As an "Israeli politician" he is definitely non-notable, but maybe he is a notable footnote in the history of Amazon.com. If it's non-notable, i'm nominating it for deletion.
Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni 08:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
--Not clear what this has to do with anything. Is there something relevant here?
Amazon's bias or just spam?
I've seen ironically biased rhetoric across a few forums alleging Amazon.com bias and censorship. Aside from the use of language, are any of the claims true or is it just spam? I'm not dismissing this without review because increasingly I've seen large companies have institute leftist or rightist POV policies, be they subtle or not so subtle. Just checking if anyone knows if its got a shred of truth, if so it can be mentioned under controversy, if not then its obviously just a scummy libel. Here's a copy-paste with most of the heated POV cut out.
"On July 4, Amazon spammed its customers with advertisement of Norman Finkelstein's virulently anti-Semitic book, Image and Reality of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict. On May 30, Amazon similarly advertised Beyond Chutzpah: on the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. I have never received any other ad from Amazon.
On April 4, in an unprecedented move, Amazon deleted all reviews of Obadiah Shoher's Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict. A few days later, Amazon forced its subsidiary Booksurge to terminate publishing contract with Shoher whose book is now available for download from a place that won't be linked. Google earlier banned advertising of the Samson Blinded for "unacceptable content."
Maybe I found potential in these randomly discovered forum posts because my latest Amazon order hasn't arrived in over a year. Oops, sorry for POV :) --Exander 06:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
NPOV
The customer service section really needs some work. If we're going to be so critical we at least need references rather than what is (presumably) the opinion of an editor or editors.--John24601 13:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Purchase to review requirement
The article's lacking Amazon's new policy that users must have made at least one purchase from amazon in order to be able to review any item on the site. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.87.64.214 (talk) 09:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC).
NPOV
I chopped out a lot of biased sections about how "Amazon does not explain why it does not market hate-speech books towards other religions", "Amazon has joined the ranks of major web companies through phishing", and other stuff. It still needs cleaning up, but I removed the most obviously offending things. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.177.59.95 (talk) 18:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC).
- Is the area under labor relations neutral? I mean to show only criticisms of Amazon's anti-unionism? It's not universally accepted that unions are good, and I suppose it is factual to say there has been criticism, but then to cite specifics without any counterbalance seems biased.--12.28.101.34 19:40, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Cookies used to increase prices
Or rather no-cookies used to decrease prices. Remember that discussion about Amazon increasing prices to loyal customers? Are they still using this method? We need a section on this thing in the article. Someone knows anything about it?
>> Amazon does not increase price for loyal customers. Amazon maintains a one-price per-product per-market (US, FR, DE, UK, CA, JP).
Shopbop
Amazon does own Shopbop: see [1]. This is significant even though Shopbop doesn't have its own Wikipedia node yet, since Shopbop is a fashion boutique and at the time of acquisition, Amazon didn't have any boutique stores (it now does, in Endless.com). White 720 02:29, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
History / launch history spin-off?
The "new product lines" section is getting really big relative to the rest of the article. How about a History of Amazon.com spin-off page to collect all significant information? White 720 02:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Amazon Kindle E-Book Reader?
Should we add something about this?
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4121
BTW, there is talk it may cost $50. Jaimeastorga2000 18:23, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Page Title
I don't think this page should be called amazon.com because it deals with all of Amazon's sites not just the American one.
- The company's name is Amazon.com, though. At the bottom of amazon.de it says "© 1998-2007, Amazon.com, Inc. und Tochtergesellschaften" White 720 21:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Amazon, Inc vs. Amazon, LLC
I use Amazon a lot, and I think Amazon.com converted to an LLC because I was looking at my orders and I saw "Amazon, LLC" instead of "Amazon, Inc" - what do you guys think? Kapt'n S 20:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Amazon.com, Inc. is a holding company that has many subsidiaries. I wouldn't read too much into it.--67.170.85.168 19:27, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Address for amazon.com? Dallas/Fort Worth
Does anyone know the address of the "fulfillment center" / warehouse for Amazon.com in Dallas/Fortworth Irving, Texas. I can't find the address anywhere. All I know is that it was built in 2005 and it is near the Fort Worth International airport. Divestment 22:06, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I found it!:
Amazon.com
Trade Center I
2700 Regent Boulevard
Irving, Texas 75063[2][3][4][5]
Divestment 21:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Bias / NPOV issues?
I just read this page and parts of it seemed biased to me.
One example is the entry at teh end of the customer service controversy: " Despite the perceived difficulty in reaching customer service by phone, "[n]o retailer or service provider in ACSI has higher customer satisfaction than Amazon."[20][21] " - The references cite references 1 and 2, which are no longer valid but which do validate the comment and quote. References citing references seems like a bad thing to me, but what do I know as an academic? - Amazon.com does not rank #1 anymore, nor has it since 2004.
Another example is the beginning of the Website section: "A popular feature of Amazon is the ability for users to submit reviews to the web page of each product." I take issue with the word popular - it is vague and not supported by even a weak citation. If left in the article, maybe it should be moved to 'web innovations' section.
24.37.22.29 21:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Humane Society Controversy?
Is this true? I've heard rumours about it, but I'm skeptical, and the person who added it in did a messy job :|. 206.248.129.42 23:57, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Interviews and features
Didn't Amazon.com once have pages with author interviews and features about books on particular subjects? (I remember an excellent survey of all the one-volume collected works of Shakespeare, with a discussion of textual quality, notes, physical quality, and price.) These pages seem to have vanished (or at least have become much less accessible). Perhaps Amazon.com became more focused on sales. If this could be confirmed, perhaps a sentence or two could be added to the history section.
External links
I've just linked Booksurge and CreateSpace to their respective web sites, as they were linking back to the containing article. A number of the other acquisitions have their own Wikipedia entries, with links to the official sites. It seemed silly these should link back to Amazon.com. -FeralDruid 21:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
More content needed regarding book reviews
I was surprised by the rather short reference to book reviews in this article. It reads:
A popular feature of Amazon is the ability for users to submit reviews to the web page of each product. As part of their review, users must rate the product on a rating scale from one to five stars. Such rating scales provide a basic idea of the popularity and dependability of a product.
This is an extremely important aspect of amazon.com - perhaps one of the main reasons the site has been successful - and deserves more details about how it has worked historically and how reviews are different on different sites (e.g. .com vs. .uk). A few years ago, the sources of all book reviews were accidently made visible on the Canadian site, amazon.ca. As anyone would suspect, many positive reviews came from the authors, and many critical reviews came from people who had something to gain from making the criticisms such as personal enemies or professional competitors. Amazon has since attempted to make the identities of reviewers more transparent, but I don't know to what degree things have improved.
Anyone out there care to add to the article? Marc.riese 13:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Could use a section on Amazon's internal technology
Amazon is a world leader and pioneer in e-commerce. We could use a section their internal systems and technology. I don't know enough to write it myself, but this link contains the info to make a good start. Guanxi 22:29, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/10/amazons_dynamo.html
http://s3.amazonaws.com/AllThingsDistributed/sosp/amazon-dynamo-sosp2007.pdf (alternate location)
Pinzon
I just added brief details about Pinzon, the company's private label product line. Here are some additional resources for fleshing out the subject:
- http://www.amazon.com/pinzon (includes the following marketing pitch about the label):
- Invite Pinzon products into your kitchen and home for both their form and their function. Amazon.com has hand selected each and every Pinzon product for its craftsmanship and value, seeking out knife sets, wine glasses, tool sets, and more of the products you'll use every day. Pair the wine glasses with your best china for an elegant dinner party, or serve a casual pasta dinner with festive earthenware. Pinzon provides the style you need for all occasions and the value Amazon.com strives to offer. You'll make Pinzon products a part of your life without thinking and be glad for their ease and proud of their style.
- http://tess2.uspto.gov/ImageAgent/ImageAgentProxy?getImage=77139346 (for the current logo, which should probably make it into the article at some point)
I wonder if there's a source that could confirm the likely association between Pinzon and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, an early explorer of the Amazon River?
66.167.48.37 02:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC).
Amazon.com Article Editing
Folks:
I have edited the Amazon article rather extensively, by way of adding many CR-LF. This article was written more like a river of words than an edited article.
As do many authors, this author made the article virtually unreadable by going on and on and on without starting a new paragraph.
I hope no one objects. Authors...please make your articles readable.
Donnernv209.244.31.93 03:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Date Founded?
The second paragraph of the introduction states: "Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, and launched in 1995, ...". Also he third paragraph of the 'History and business model' section states: "The company was incorporated in 1994, in the state of Washington, began service in July 1995, and was reincorporated in 1996 in Delaware. ..."
However, the 'History and business model' section opens with the statement that: "Amazon was founded in 1997". This appears to be an error. Can someone more sure of these facts than I make these statements consistent? Or, better yet, rewrite the History section to contain just one statement about the founding of the company.
Chris Loosley 19:44, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I will update those details.
151.199.255.38 16:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
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)
customer service
The article says that amazon.com did not 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 rewarded 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. --Kushalt 22:15, 10 November 2007 (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)
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)
- There is no mention of BookSurge in this article, even though the redirect goes here. I am going to change the redirect to the Amazon.com controversies article, where BookSurge is mentioned.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:58, 7 January 2011 (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)
- No, they haven't. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.101.221 (talk) 04:28, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
- Since covered at Amazon.com_controversies#Amazon_Reviews. -- Beland (talk) 05:33, 22 April 2012 (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)
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)
"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? MythSearchertalk 17:03, 27 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)
I have to agree with this, I read the article straight through and the thought which came to my mind is "wow, somebody doesn't like Amazon." To me the article seems biased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wicketywick (talk • contribs) 11:41, 30 October 2009 (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)
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)
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)
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)
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: [http://www.amazon.com/tag/canon/forum?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1CTYDGLCHMOX2&cdThread=TxX4IEZJI3CWK0 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)
I think someone needs to spiffy up this wiki page
Hey I dunno, but the "Runescape" computer game wikipedia page looks awesome. Why not have the same for the amazon wikipedia page? I'm kind of at a loss as to where to begin. Did I put this in the wrong place? I'm still rather new to wikipedia. Nerd10101010 (talk) 05:17, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Requested Move
- The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the proposal was no move. Closed per WP:SNOW. 199.125.109.102 (talk) 15:59, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Amazon.com → Amazon (website) — ".com" should not be included in a title, unless it is explicitly included with .com in the title. Amazon.com is frequently referred to as simply Amazon, thus, the tag (website) should replace .com --ҚЯĀŽΨÇÉV13 other crap 20:34, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose. This article isn't only about the website, but about the public company legally called Amazon.com, Inc. Don Cuan (talk) 22:05, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose As the above user says, the company itself is named "Amazon.com" and that is how it is almost always referred to as. So the proposed move would not only be the wrong name of the company, it would also not be the common name, and it would add an unneeded disambiguation. Any of those 3 reasons are enough to stop this move, but all 3 combined eliminate any possible move. TJ Spyke 23:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose Amazon.com is the most recognizable name and the legal name of the company. -SpacemanSpiff 23:28, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose it is frequently called "Amazon.com" 76.66.197.2 (talk) 05:08, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose Other than it being "Amazon.com", it is far more than a website. This is a major entity and I would think the most likely way a user might distinguish it from the river, basin, female warriors, etc. is ".com". Novangelis (talk) 05:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
"Locations" section should be sharply shortened
Per WP:NPOV, neutrality includes appropriate space and weight. About 15% of the article's space is used (mostly) list where Amazon has facilities; that's way too much. Per WP:NOT, Wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collection of information; articles are intended to be overviews. So I'd strongly support (if others agree) reducing the length of this section by at least two-thirds. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:16, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
So grow a pair and edit it. It's the site anyone can edit.
SoundUnwound.com — why not here?
It clearly says at the bottom of every page "An Amazon.com company". So why not anywhere on wikipedia (I searched, but got nothing apart from links to the site on other wiki pages)?
Says on bottom of pages it's been around since 2008 —and looks remarkably like a rip-off of Discogs.com— yet I have strangely never heard of the place until recently...
Until improvement I have set-up redirects for Soundunwound, SoundUnwound, Soundunwound.com, SoundUnwound.com, Sound unwound, Sound Unwound. Jimthing (talk) 17:42, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Sale of Wikipedia's material as expensive books
This paragraph is adapted from German Wikipedia: de:Amazon.com#Kontroversen. See also: VDM Publishing. Playmobilonhishorse (talk) 22:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
So you have two blogs that are complaining. There is no reliable source coverage shown. Why should this material stay in this article? This is an encyclopedia, not a consumer gripe forum. Have any WP:RS covered this issue? Whether it's on the german WP or not is irrelevant. Cookiehead (talk) 03:09, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
- Preisgenau.de isn't a blog, it's an information portal for consumers (IT-News für Verbraucher = IT-News for consumers) and a reliable source. Its article is centered on Amazon.com and the names of the publishing houses (Alphascript Publishing, Betascript Publishing or Fastbook Publishing) do not appear. That's why I've cited the primary reference which will help the reader to understand the link with the VDM Publishing page in WP. Whether it's on the German WP or not is relevant to thank this WP for the information provided. Playmobilonhishorse (talk) 08:49, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Why do you feel that Preisgenau is a reliable source? This is the first time that word has even appeared on WP English site. A google search reveals it to be no more than a blog. Does it have an editorial staff? Who runs it? Do you work for them by any chance? It does not meet WP:RS criteria. This issue will need actual press coverage by sources to meet WP:RS criteria, which it might. I don't dispute that this issue is occurring. But this is an encylcopedia, not a mirror of the blogosphere and one blog that self-styles itself as a news portal. Cookiehead (talk) 17:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
- See: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Preisgenau.de. Archived here. Playmobilonhishorse (talk) 20:47, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
- Since covered by Amazon.com controversies. -- Beland (talk) 05:33, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Reference #3
Reference #3 only leads to the Amazon.com retail service website and is thus useless as a reference source. Unless the author of the claim knows where to retrieve the appropriate information, I will consider deleting the reference and add a "Reference needed" note. Snoopy18 (talk) 16:35, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
Inappropriate redirect
"Phillip R. Greaves" redirects to this page but is not mentioned anywhere in the article. Any idea what this is about? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.49.215.45 (talk) 06:01, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Pedophile Guide
Shouldn't this at least be referenced somewhere? - .:. Jigsy .:. (talk) 18:02, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Since added to Amazon.com controversies. -- Beland (talk) 05:33, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Top Reviewers
I understand that a #1 reviewer recently suggested to a suicidal Vine member that he jump from a taller building, albeit adding that it was perhaps not a good idea to jump at all. He is now involved in a character assassination of a reviewer who calls himself "RJS". Should reviews from such imbalanced individuals be taken seriously? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.6.239 (talk) 13:28, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
country websites
There are different versions of the website for different countries, such as amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.de, amazon.jp, amazon.ca. These sites vary in assortment and prxices. Are there more sites? Knopffabrik (talk) 14:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Cloud Player
Interested parties, please see Talk:Amazon MP3#Cloud Player. - dcljr (talk) 05:40, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
CDNow
Was not hosted by Amazon. It was an entirely separate company purchased by or merged with Amazon. CDNow had the most extensive database of music industry professionals and credits all searchable and connected to specific releases. When Amazon.com took them over, they not only failed to continue and update this database, but dismantled it. Amazon insignificant CD sales prior to CDNow and in order to lure the CDNow customer base over to Amazon.com (which CDNow.com routed to), Amazon began offering massive discounts, free shipping, free disk rewards, etc. It was these constant, particularly shipping promotions, that eventually led to the Free Shipping with over $25 and now the Amazon Prime program. This aquisition of CDnow, while it resulted in some bad things, is precisely what aligned Amazon to get a massive market share of books, CDs, and DVDs. It's a major transition of the internet and is directly related to Microsoft's dismantling of Firefly.com that occured at the same time. Most of those Agents Inc/Firefly members who'd been reviewing movies and music, and buying many of them through CDNow and other portals connected to that metamediary & FIRST social network, eventually ended up as reviewers and regular customers of Amazon.com. Not without annoyances and bribes along the way, but this is an important chapter in the internet that people seem to have forgot. The internet has such a short-term memory. One day you think something will last forever, the next moment it's vapor. -Reticuli 64.93.132.79 (talk) 08:32, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Profits
Why is the summary box missing the profit numbers? Any reason this is left out?
Brazilian Portuguese ?
Does the Brazilian Portuguese website of Amazon exist? I'm not aware of it, and cannot find any refernce to it on the official website. Please verify. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Typoboot (talk • contribs) 14:02, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Controversy RE deranking of GLBT books / #amazonfail
- http://jezebel.com/5209088/why-is-amazon-removing-the-sales-rankings-from-gay-lesbian-books
- http://blog.seattlepi.com/amazon/archives/166259.asp
- www.examiner.com/x-3569-Denver-Internet-Examiner~y2009m4d12-Online-censorship-Amazon-strips-ranking-of-Gay-and-Lesbian-books
- http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html -- amazon's response to an author
- http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html -- a list of books so far that have been removed
- http://booksquare.com/open-letter-to-amazon-regarding-recent-policy-changes/ -- an open letter to amazon
- 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. GoneAwayNowAndRetired (C)(T) 02:19, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Lots more reliable sources here now and growing. GoneAwayNowAndRetired (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"?~ZytheTalk 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. [6] --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:55, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Which Amazon since denied, right? It was simply somewhere in the Amazon management, someone had heterosexist definitions of "acceptable", "normal" and "adult" which led to the deranking of anything gay or gay positive. Clearly the topic is not the issue: a book on gays in the military won't come up on searches, but disgusting One Star-rating discredited homophobic drivel about "curing homosexuality" and "the gay agenda" etc. come up as top results. A proper accumulation of credible sources should hopefully reflect this; it already reflects Amazon's acceptance of responsibility for the blunder. The nature of the blunder makes this incident of of subtly homophobic website administration makes this incident -- whether a 24-hour farce or a month-long fiasco -- an indefinitely notable, encyclopaedic event in the company's history.~ZytheTalk to me! 22:48, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Your statements ("subtly homophobic website administration") seems to presuppose this was a purposeful, positive action by Amazon, rather than a "glitch" or "accidental human error", which is equally plausible. Amazon has not yet fully explained which is true, but I fear your text above is clouded with some pre-judgement that might prevent a fully NPOV approach to editing the article. --ZimZalaBim talk 00:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Well, let it rest as we have the NPOV facts to state -- "ham-fisted human error". Readers can draw their own conclusions if they have all the information.~ZytheTalk to me! 15:05, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Amazonfail would fit better in an article on histrionics, irrational thinking or mob mentaility. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.68.127 (talk) 01:25, 9 May 2011 (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 why are all parents telling their kids that coco puffs are not healthy that is CRAZY!!!!! 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 [http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-com-Get-Fast-Robert-Spector/dp/0066620422/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194905040&sr=1-1 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)
- The author and publisher of the book actually make it more reliable than some random IP address claiming to be an inside source. 8) I added a reference to the book in the paragraph in question, someone with access to the book should verify it and add a page number. -- Beland (talk) 04:32, 22 April 2012 (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)
Amazon Warehouse Deals
Should warehousedeals.com be added to 2008? (Nicolaususry (talk) 19:38, 19 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)
Amazon cant ship to Syria anyway, can it? I thaught US export restrictions forbode it? 86.16.153.191 (talk) 01:20, 2 July 2009 (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.[4]
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.[4]
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.[5]
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?
- They are a Jersey-based entity that ships some of Amazon's UK deliveries (to avoid VAT). They are just a part of Amazon's delivery system though. Hrcolyer (talk) 13:38, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
- Is this still true? You can buy goods directly from IF via their website, which makes no mention of Amazon. It seems that, as they are at least a seperate brand, they should have either a seperate page or a mention on this page. 87.238.84.65 (talk) 09:44, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
- They are a Jersey-based entity that ships some of Amazon's UK deliveries (to avoid VAT). They are just a part of Amazon's delivery system though. Hrcolyer (talk) 13:38, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
"Disables printing"?
How exactly does Amazon.com "disable printing"? They serve an image of a page in the book through an HTTP response, and the mere nature of HTTP indicates that whatever you can access via HTTP can be saved, and thus later printed. Of course, the 99.9999% of computer users who think network communications and Internet Explorer are synonymous don't know this, but for more educated people, it shouldn't be too difficult to fetch out the correct URL and cookie parameters and simply do a wget to fetch the image. JIP | Talk 20:27, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
Amazon vs. Macmillan
There article needs to be updated in light of the Amazon-Macmillan dispute. I will not get involved here as I am a MacmillanUSA author married to an employee of MacmillanUSA. But there are ample reliable sources to cite: The New York Times, The Associated Press, Publishers Weekly, plus a Statement relaeased in Publisher's Lunch by Macmillan CEO John Sargent. --Pleasantville (talk) 15:07, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
- Since added to Amazon.com controversies. -- Beland (talk) 06:09, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Amazon gave in
http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx2MEGQWTNGIMHV&displayType=tagsDetail —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.118.57.142 (talk) 03:48, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
Consumer protection in the EU
I have read in some blogs that as the European operation (Amazon EU S.a.r.l.) is based in Luxembourg, that purchases by EU buyers are covered by the Luxembourg consumer protection laws, not the laws of the country the consumer lives in. So for example, the UK Sale of Goods Act 1979 does not apply to purchases from amazon.co.uk. The subject of consumer protection should be of interest to people reading this article, so a section for that could be added if reliable sources of information can be found. Recent Runes (talk) 17:23, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
How many products for sale?
A basic statistic is missing: how many products are for sale on Amazon? -- Beland (talk) 15:37, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Contradiction: founding date
In the history section:
Amazon was founded in 1995... Amazon was incorporated in 1994
To the extent of my knowledge, a company cannot be incorporated before it is founded. Could somebody who knows the company's history fix this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.44.44.68 (talk) 16:41, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- Also, in the intro: "Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994, and the site went online in 1995.[5]" The source reference is to Ann Byers (2006). Jeff Bezos: the founder of Amazon.com, The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 46-47. However, these pages do not mention anything about the founding date. If they do, please quote it in the reference. --Pgan002 (talk) 02:49, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
(companies incorporate with a business object, then diversify into the final [famed] business branch, usually more specific than the broad incorporation mission and object; like **Characters in Search of an Author**: companies in search for a website). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.249.226.44 (talk) 18:35, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Shopping Enabled Wikipedia Pages
There's a recent item on CNET.com titled: Amazon adds Wikipedia to book-shopping pages. Should something about this go into the article? Not sure if it is notable. Eclipsed (talk) (code of ethics) 02:01, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
- I think this is extremely notable and its already getting more press. It also might be a violation of the wikipedia license since Amazon is using the information for its own profit.
- And if this is not protected in such a way then I suggest that wikipedia change its license so that companies cannot steal wikipedia content for profit. Zuchinni one (talk) 04:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Lawsuit History
I was trying to remember when I started using Amazon.com. I knew that I discovered it after reading that Barnes and Noble was suing them over being "The world's largest bookstore." It took me 90 minutes or so to find one unsourced article on a business website that mentioned the suit. Although the suit was settled out of court, it was significant because it showed Amazon's competitors taking it seriously. I added a paragraph about that suit and one Wallmart brought. It would be nice if somebody with experience researching law cases found an actual credible source for the material. John Elder (talk) 20:52, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Research on the issue of "sales and use taxes"
So the article speaks about how consumers generally do not take the time to report use tax: sales and use taxes
From the article:
- Amazon collects sales tax from just five states in the US. Amazon is under increasing legal and political pressure from state governments, traditional retailers and other groups because of its refusal to collect sales tax in 40 of the 45 states with a statewide sales tax (as of May, 2011). Those 40 states include at least 12 where Amazon has a clear physical presence[107] via distribution centers and wholly owned subsidiaries. Critics of Amazon argue that its refusal to collect sales taxes has given it an unfair advantage over traditional retailers. While customers are required to remit use tax directly to their state, few customers do so.
Are there specific studies or sources which analyze the situation and show that the use tax collected is less than the amount of retail sales?
I would guess that the data would show fairly clearly that taxpayers are not reporting all of the use tax. Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 22:20, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Manipulated best-of lists
"A novelist was thrilled when her debut made Amazon's mid-year best-of list. Then the new Jeffrey Eugenides arrived" When Amazon took my gold medal away, salon.com, Dec 8, 2011.91.39.91.41 (talk) 03:10, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Shipping company info
Since Amazon is such a huge online retailer, it would be interesting to know more about what carriers they ship with, and any special arrangements they have. Statistics about volume, etc. -- Beland (talk) 06:12, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk redirects here, but this article says very little about Amazon.co.uk or other non-US versions of Amazon.
Given that there are already people saying this article is too long, I think that there should be a stub article for every international Amazon website and that the template for Amazon should be altered to link to every one of them. Big Mac (talk) 21:52, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
"Amazon Technology" section completely out-of-date
Much of the content of that section is from a 2005 online article. Amazon's databases are surely magnitudes larger than they were 8 years ago. And perhaps they used "Netscape Secure Commerce Server" back in, what, 1995?!? Not only did they cease using it ages ago, but they developed their own and resell it quite successfully. http://aws.amazon.com/ecommerce-applications/ 64.105.151.10 (talk) 18:48, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
We will need a more up to date source for the section before we can change it. MIVP - Allow us to be of assistance to you. (Maybe a bit of tea for thought?) 10:43, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
UK warehouses
One location listed in the article is "Rugeley, Bedfordshire" - there is no such place.
Could this really mean Rugeley, Staffordshire, where there is an Amazon warehouse, and a location somewhere in Bedfordshire?
tricky words to understand ?
Revenue : Amazon reported a loss [137] due to its stake in Living Social.
In source 137 : Amazon spent $175m buying an undisclosed stake in LivingSocial
Would s'dy be kind enough to help Frenchies understanding what these words can mean and, if possible, write them in a more simple (clearer) way ?
Many thanks in advance ;-) --Bibliorock (talk) 05:51, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
- Doesn't FR WP have its own version of this? MIVP - Allow us to be of assistance to you. (Maybe a bit of tea for thought?) 10:41, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Merge AmazonWireless to Amazon.com
AmazonWIreless article needs a bit of a cleanup.
- it's not AmazonWIreless.com, it's AmazonWIreless
- It's not {{infobox company}}, it's a trademark of Amazon.com (not a separate company).
- Not enough content to warrant a separate article.
English Version "Controversies" Chapter
In Germany it was reported (by ARD German news) about "working camp"-similar situation for employees controlled by neo-nazi securities, workers without knowledge about their working contracts and wihtout any rights. The situation in the US seems to be different. 62.178.180.186 (talk) 14:41, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Redshift pricing not clear
The Redshift pricing given in the article is not correctly stated. It's available here: http://aws.amazon.com/redshift/pricing/ Snorgway (talk) 02:41, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Opening paragraph
The article starts with: "Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is an American-based multinational electronic commerce company". electronic commerce used to be Amazon's focus for many years, but now it has a second completely unrelated business: cloud computing - Amazon with its S3 and EC2 are actually the biggest player in the cloud storage and computing (respectively) services business. So I think the cloud computing business must be mentioned in the opening paragraph, and also deserves more attention in the rest of the article.
I hesitate about whether Amazon even has a third business: the Kindle. On one hand, it can be seen as a commerce business (of electronic books, rather than printed books), but on the other hand it can be seen as an electronic-device-making business. I guess on this issue only time will tell.
--Nyh (talk) 11:09, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
- Agree. A better first sentence would be: "Amazon.com is an American-based multinational company that deals in e-commerce, cloud computing and consumer electronic devices." The Nasdaq ticker should be omitted completely from the main text because it is already mentioned in the sidebar; it is distracting. Certainly it should not be in the beginning or anywhere in the first sentence. The "Inc." is also distracting and should be omitted. -Pgan002 (talk) 02:35, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Amazon is not the world's largest online retailer, so the second sentence should be removed. Is the external link important, i.e., should it be saved or put somewhere else, instead of deleted along with the sentence? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.11.170.14 (talk) 19:03, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
Logo
There is no mention that the Amazon logo has an arrow from A to Z, indicating that Amazon (are suggesting) that they can supply anything from from A to Z, IE everything. 81.129.111.253 (talk) 02:43, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
He hoped his company would become a river?
He began looking through the dictionary and settled on "Amazon" because it was a place that was "exotic and different" and it was one of the biggest rivers in the world, as he hoped his company would be.[12]
- Need to reword this somehow. He didn't want it to become one of the biggest rivers in the world. Dream Focus 02:17, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
Individual sellers alleged abuse
The article states: "Amazon has faced scrutiny from numerous individual sellers who have claimed that Amazon unexpectedly closed their accounts, and subsequently withheld their funds for indefinite time frames" an continues to suggest that it is so that amazon may collect interest on it. The only citing for it is linking to BBB's amazon page. I spent 10 minutes and couldn't find a single such complaint. Does anyone have an actual complaint number? Because so far that numerous figure is exactly 0. Taltamir (talk) 05:49, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Commercially motivated one-sided Censorship
"Amazon bans self-published porn ebooks but lets conventional ones stay, even if their content's way more extreme ... "
- Amazon’s porn censorship is inconsistent and unfair salon.com Nov 2, 2013.84.152.4.244 (talk) 22:00, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
- What is wrong with the archive function? This text was still in the source, but couldn't be seen.84.152.52.211 (talk) 11:48, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Alibaba
"Alibaba Group is a private Chinese company that is the largest business-to-business and consumer-to-consumer company in the world. Headquartered in Hangzhou, China, it has huge e-commerce revenues. It has a strong presence in retail and payment platforms, and a robust shopping search engine. According to recent reports two of Alibaba’s portals handled gross sales of $170 billion in 2012–that is more than eBay and Amazon’s gross sales combined. (Amazon’s gross trading volume last year was an estimated $95 billion and eBay gross trading volume was an estimated $75 billion.)"
Alibaba "is a privately owned Hangzhou-based group of Internet-based e-commerce businesses including business-to-business online web portals, online retail and payment services, a shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services", not just on-line retailer. Amazon is still the biggest. Please read sources correctly. Murry1975 (talk) 21:49, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
Amazon.com.au
The Australian Amazon sells nothing but books, android apps, & kindle downloads. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:8:B580:80B:809D:50EB:BCDC:F60E (talk) 08:52, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Amazon Prime Air
Does Amazon Prime Air deserve its own article? It may show some expansion potential in the future. Thanks, --Bananasoldier (talk) 02:24, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
I just wrote an article for Amazon Prime Air and published it. (my first article!) Need to put a link under Amazon Prime Air to the main page. user:hendy179 4:47pm, 9 May 2014
Globalize Tag
In relation to the above discussion, what exactly do editors feel is missing from the article? Hot Stop (Edits) 03:30, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
- I think it could benefit from the inclusion of 2 widely reported controversies in the UK (that have also occurred in the U.S.) namely:
1) Working conditions [7] [8] [9] [10]. The article currently covers the U.S and Germany but could be expanded to include the UK (and possibly other countries).
2) Tax avoidence [11] [12] [13] [14]. The Sales and use taxes section is simply a link to the Amazon tax article. That article seems specifically for the issue in the U.S. so any UK information might be best of in this article.
For the record I think these should be included simply because of the coverage they received, not because I have an agenda against Amazon. Zarcadia (talk) 13:01, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
- These are addressed in the article Amazon.com controversies. In this article, the section Amazon.com#Controversies already mentions these at a high level; but the summary of the tax issue is noticeably absent (that section only contains a link to Amazon tax, and that article is entirely USA-centric). --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:26, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
Problem
Hey clicking on the page in the article forwards you to gnaa.press, this needs fixed! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.151.102.153 (talk) 05:17, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
Monopoly
Amazon has been accused by several experts, news organizations and the President of the United States of being a monopoly. I think this is enough scrutiny to warrant a few decent paragraphs in the controversy section of the article. Since the talk about Amazon being a monopoly is so widespread, I implore you to search 'Amazon monopoly' on Google News. --JT2958 (talk) 02:54, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose. Trump's comments are more related to Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post than anything related to monopolies. If an anti-trust case is filed, obviously it will be relevant. Without one, it's merely speculation. Power~enwiki (talk) 05:25, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
Book reviews
Regarding this paragraph:
- Following the listing of Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson, a disparaging biography of Michael Jackson by Randall Sullivan, his fans, organized via social media as "Michael Jackson's Rapid Response Team to Media Attacks", bombarded Amazon with negative reviews and negative ratings of positive reviews.
I believe that it is too trivial to be included in this article. It has a small spot in the more comprehensive Amazon.com_controversies, but I see no reason why it would hold any significance here. The section in question is long enough and already contains a link to the full article. It doesn't need mention of a few negative reviews on a book from 2013. 72.196.125.111 (talk) 00:59, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
- I agree and support the removal from this article; it's not notable enough here. Power~enwiki (talk) 05:28, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
Net income inconsistent
The operating income is listed as $178MM in the red. The net income is listed as -$241MM in the red. I think that if the net income is negative $241MM it should just show $241MM in the red, not -$241MM in the red. ((subst:unsigned2|11:20, 4 January 2016 (UTC)|Timmattison}}
- ^ "Amazon.ca debuts in Canada". CTV.ca. 2002-06-25. Retrieved 2006-12-19.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Book Biz Takes on Amazon.ca". Wired (magazine). 2002-08-08. Retrieved 2006-12-19.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Gowlings IP Report Online: Canadian Booksellers Association Abandons Amazon.ca Case". Gowlings. 2004-09-24. Retrieved 2006-12-19.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b Carl Bialik (March 23, 2007), A Few Sales Tricks Can Launch a Book To Top of Online Lists, Wall Street Journal
- ^ Jon Swartz (8/26/2003), Amazon lawsuits target e-mail 'spoof' tactics, USA Today
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