Marketing & SEO Discussion List - LED Digest

Home arrow Full Issues arrow 2006 archives arrow LED Digest 2193: Amazon's Dark Side
LED Digest 2193: Amazon's Dark Side Print E-mail
==================================================
                 The LED Digest
             Moderated Discussion List
     "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997"

      Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom

         pair Networks: The LED's Web Host
   Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader
  pair.com for Hosting  |  pairNIC.com for Domains

==================================================
List Moderator:                     Published by:
Adam Audette                          LED Digest
adam, led-digest.com     http://www.led-digest.com
..............................................
June 29, 2006                       Issue no. 2193
..............................................



            .....IN THIS DIGEST.....


====== NEW ======================

        --== AdSense PPA Beta Program ==--

                ~ Mary Lee
"I thought I would give people a heads up on
a new beta program which Google is testing."


==== CONTINUING =================

        --== Selling on Amazon ==--

                ~ R. Black
"Amazon is by far the poorest managed sales
place we have ever encountered."

                ~ Tom Anson
"...when I do a search, Amazon pages come
up near the top of the results pages..."

        --== The Case of the Missing Web Site ==--

                ~ Michael Linehan
"...try your registrar. Point out the invalid admin
information..."


=========== NEW ==================================

From: Mary Lee
Subject: Google Pay-per-Click Moving to Pay-per-Action?

I thought I would give people a heads up on a new beta program which
Google is now testing. It is a pay for performance model. Much like
an affiliate program.

Personally I would feel more secure with that model as it would get
rid of the click fraud issue, which is most likely why Google is
looking at this. Considering that click fraud is becoming such a
problem for PPC programs I predict that this is a direction that
others will be moving also.

Mary Lee

Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games
http://www.dinnerandamurder.com

<Moderator Comment>

Here's a link to a blog posting about this:
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-06-21-n17.html


======== CONTINUING ===============================

From: R. Black
Subject: Amazon Selling

> I know that if I am buying from a 3rd party vendor at Amazon,
> I read the feedback... it has saved me from using an unscrupulous
> vendor in the past. Your customers will also have the security of
> the Amazon safe buying guarantee.
        - Steve Ball, LED 2192

I'm not going to use my real email address as we all know what
happens to sellers who speak the "truth" about Amazon selling. They
get canned.

Our company has sold on the web for over 10 years, Amazon is by far
the poorest managed sales place we have ever encountered. The
feedback system is completely bogus and often used to blackmail the
seller. There is no buyer feedback in public view, so that is
worthless. Amazon has an A-Z claim system by which any consumer can
file a dispute, claim anything they please and more often than not
go in the consumers favor.

Amazon is completely unresponsive to numerous issues at the site
including:

1. Buyers manipulating the site to rip off sellers.

2. Site stability (it's broken constantly)

3. Cycling (you pay a fee to have product listed, Amazon cycles your
listings so today maybe your stuff is saw in California and Florida,
no place else). Amazon has admitted this, they call it "surfacing".

4. Consumers at the site are well aware of how to steal from sellers
and get away with it, Amazon does not care, its not their money or
merchandise.

5. Amazon cares about 1 thing, Amazon. This can be witnessed time
and time again in Amazons own forums.

6. Amazon is constantly saying they are working at improving the
site. The only changes that take place are completely cosmetic
(unlike eBay). These cosmetic changes usually destroy third party
sales. For example, the recent changes in looks of listings have cut
our sales by 50%. We have 1100+ products listed at Amazon, it makes
a bit over $100 a day. Yet at eBay the same 1100+ items make over
$800 a day.

7. Amazon has literally no automation. Its always promised but never
happens.

8. Recently Amazon has worked to remove email addresses of buyers,
getting rid of the ability to communicate effectively.

9. Amazon has different selling platforms that are not an equal
level playing field. For example, a seller who is featured will see
more sales than they ever thought they could see. I know a featured
seller who gets sales every 4-5 minutes. Being featured however is
only given to those Amazon see's worth giving it to.

10. Read why Toys R Us has such issues with Amazon. They are valid
grievances and why Toys R Us won the lawsuit.

11. Some sellers are allowed to manipulate the place. I have
personally complained countless times about one seller who uses two
accounts, one a business account, one a marketplace account. It
allows the seller to completely control sales of the listings.
Amazon does nothing. Said seller will use a business account and put
things up at .01 and charge $6 per item shipped. Then use the
marketplace account to sell items with Amazons standard shipping
rate at a higher base price.

12. Amazon allows some sellers to make and change ad's. This results
in those sellers manipulating the ad's to favor their sales, destroy
others sales and even result in negative feedback since the buyer
expects one thing and the advertisement has been changed by someone
else! Complain to Amazon, they do nothing.

13. The site is in fact so bad that many sellers using Amazons own
forums have banded together to try and form their own sites.

14. At any time for any reason Amazon will suspend your account. You
do not get to defend yourself. The Amazon Alliance group does this,
they have no people you can speak to. They will happily hold your
money for months and months and months on end.

15. The company has been cited numerous times for indescretions from
manipulating buyer accounts to other matters. The out of court
settlements are proof of the companies rather careless attitude as
was Jeff Bezos attitude in the recent Toys R Us case where he
managed to even make the judge completely dislike his cavalier
approach to business.

16. Wall Street and markets are now seeing Amazon for what it is.
Hence stock being downgraded and the plumet of its value.

There's more. But I will stop there. The bottom line is yes you can
make money at Amazon but do not expect Amazon to care one bit about
you. They care about only enormous sellers the rest of the sellers
are just afterthoughts to them.

There are sellers who are brownies. They'll run to Amazon and say,
"See I said this about you and it got published to LED!". Go read
Amazons own forums and you will see many more upset sellers than
happy ones.

R. Black


-------- new post - same topic --------

From: Tom Anson
Subject: Amazon selling

Regarding Nancy Schettler asked a question about marketing a general
merchandise product on Amazon (LED 2191): It seems this question is
really two questions.  First: How do you get good placement in the
search results, or more precisely, how can your product be found
most quickly by searchers; and second: Are shoppers concerned with
brand recognition (with the implied element of trust)?

As for the first question: I know there are a lot of people who
generally start looking for anything on the web by going to Amazon.
It doesn't matter what; that's just their first stop.  My brother is
like that -- and he's a very smart man (which is not a plug for
Amazon).

But it's not just a matter of whether people would start looking in
Amazon, as opposed to Google, Yahoo! or MSN.  I've found that, many
times when I do a search, Amazon pages come up near the top of the
results pages in Google or Yahoo! (I almost never use MSN -- for no
particular reason).  More often than not, the product is being sold
by someone other than Amazon.

And so, it would seem, whether people start their search for
something at Amazon or Google doesn't really matter.  If you offer
your product through Amazon (as well as through you own website),
you chances of being found by a potential customer go up.  On that
basis alone, I would think that Amazon could be a good place to sell
your products.  Of course, that would depend on the terms Amazon
offers you.  (I haven't looked into that.)

As for brand name recognition vs. an unknown company, I'm not sure
that would be much of an issue, as long as the little company's
website presentation was professional and encouraged trust.  I'm
sure there are those who would rather deal with an Amazon than a
well dressed kitchen, but if you just look at how the internet has
grown over the years, you can see that being an unknown little
company is not a huge disadvantage to sales.  I thinks it's more an
issue of where you'll get found and how well you present yourself
from there.

I wouldn't go with Amazon instead of having my own website, but
offering products on Amazon in addition to having your own website
could be a very good thing -- as long as people are looking for what
you have to offer.

Then there's the question of eBay.

Tom Anson

Anson Aromatic Essentials
http://www.therapeutic-grade.com


-------- new post - new topic --------

From: Michael Linehan
Subject: Site disappearance

The problem is you are NOT the account holder.

The whois information for your site is

Admin Name........... na Domain Administration
Admin Address........ Fibranet Services Limited
Admin Email.......... This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Admin Phone.......... 44 208 249 6081
Admin Fax............ 44 208 249 6076

So, as far as the internet is concerned, the Admin is key. And that
says your site is owned by na Domain Administration.  Some
registrars are good about this sort of situation - with a procedure
in place by which you can prove you are the legitimate owner of the
domain. Some others are hopeless.  I had a situation with one client
who was registered through a reseller of OpenSRS. They just
stonewalled us and we eventually had to get him a new domain.

So - try your registrar. Point out the invalid admin information and
see what procedure they have for you to show you are the legitimate
owner of the business.  Obviously this attitude of "we can only give
access to this account to the account holder" is completely
ridiculous.  All these Web businesses know this sort of thing
happens.

Good luck

Michael Linehan

Marketing Alchemy
www.marketing-alchemy.com


-------------------------------------------------------
The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks:
pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains

© Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
- Eugene Ionesco
 
[ Back ]