Amazon email for too many returns

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Yes, it is.

It is Amazon's fault for not explaining. Maybe they are 100% correct in sending that e-mail, but the least they could do is tell Josie something like: "We see you have returned 11 of 50 items bought in the last 12 months. 10 of those 11 items were returned for reasons other than 'defective'. This is too much above the average number of returns per customer. Therefore we would like you to be more careful in your shopping."

In that case, Josie could say: "Ah, yes, I *did* return 20% of the items I bought... maybe the average return percentage is 12%, or 15%, so Amazon is right. I must read more reviews so I can make better decisions before buying."

She could also say: "No, I didn't return so many items. Where did you get that number from?" And then, when Amazon shows her, it is discovered that some random internet person has hacked the account and has been fooling with it some way or another. Stranger things have happened on the net.

Until Amazon explains, neither we, nor Josie herself can know who is right. That is what causes all the anxiety: Amazon *might* be right, but Josie can't find out *why*, and thus she can't change her behavior, which endangers her continued existence of her account.

Thank you for defending me but I can change my behaviour at this point and simply not buy from Amazon, unless it's an ebook which is cheaper than Kobo has it, or something than should not require a return, our last two orders were a DVD and a CD. I guess that is what Amazon wants, for us to not buy or at least be more circumspect in our shopping choices.

The issue now is one of trust, I can't trust my accounts indefinite existence so I dare not commit myself any deeper into the Amazon system, so no more Kindle ereaders , no more Fire tablets, we will probably cancel Prime (I don't care about the Fire Sticks, we got them both on promotion) and I will also probably cancel Audible as well.

Because Amazon refuse to engage or explain I have no choice but to try to contain and protect what we have and not buy more. Their intransigence will actually cost far them more than they have lost in hypothetical refunds.

[Cinisajoy]

Popping in to ask, what if it was any other place?
Now I hope Josie gets some answers.
But the thing is, if one wants to blame a store for their policies, why do they still shop there?
Some of you are saying Amazon is at fault because someone got an email just saying your returns are excessive and to please quit returning so much.
She was not threatened with anything more than maybe not being able to shop at Amazon.
They did not say that she would have her livelihood taken away from her.
It is not that big of a deal.
Some of you are acting like Amazon is the Only place to shop. It isn't.
If you really want to change a store policy, go ahead and complain on a forum, but also Do NOT give them any money. That includes their commission if you are selling there.

Amazon and Walmart are not the only stores.



This sounds like the Walmart haters that shop at Walmart.

Vote with your wallets.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

The issue now is one of trust, I can't trust my accounts indefinite existence so I dare not commit myself any deeper into the Amazon system, so no more Kindle ereaders...

I would always advise that you buy in such a way that you are never dependent on the seller for the continued use of a product, removing DRM where possible, and if it's not possible, don't buy the product at all (except if you don't care about losing it somewhere down the line).

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Popping in to ask, what if it was any other place?
It is not that big of a deal.
Some of you are acting like Amazon is the Only place to shop. It isn't.

If it was any other place, the reaction would probably be: "Whatever. I'll shop somewhere else."

However, for ebooks, in the UK and US, it basically *is* the only place to shop if you don't want to pay 10-30% more than the Amazon price. The only reason to go to Kobo or somewhere else is because they sometimes have huge coupons, or if you want epub books without conversion.

And also, Amazon is too big to ignore. They have millions of customers locked into their services and e-reading system; customers who stand to lose a lot of services and/or media if this company turns against them, which erodes the customer's power. Because nobody wants to lose all that stuff they have invested in, the company can basically do whatever it wants.

"We are right because we say so" is one of the first signs of people (or companies) who are becoming too rich, too powerful, and too full of themselves. An entity as big as Amazon (or Google, Microsoft, Apple.... etc) will need to be watched carefully not to abuse the power they wield in the markets in which they operate.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

If it was any other place, the reaction would probably be: "Whatever. I'll shop somewhere else."

However, for ebooks, in the UK and US, it basically *is* the only place to shop if you don't want to pay 10-30% more than the Amazon price. The only reason to go to Kobo or somewhere else is because they sometimes have huge coupons, or if you want epub books without conversion.

And also, Amazon is too big to ignore. They have millions of customers locked into their services and e-reading system; customers who stand to lose a lot of services and/or media if this company turns against them, which erodes the customer's power. Because nobody wants to lose all that stuff they have invested in, the company can basically do whatever it wants.

"We are right because we say so" is one of the first signs of people (or companies) who are becoming too rich, too powerful, and too full of themselves. An entity as big as Amazon (or Google, Microsoft, Apple.... etc) will need to be watched carefully not to abuse the power they wield in the markets in which they operate.

I am not disagreeing with you on pricing. However, I would disagree that one has to shop there for any product. That is anywhere not just Amazon.
Using your 10%, if the book is $17.99 @ Amazon, it would be roughly $19.99 at another place. The customer has to decide which is more important, principles or the money.
Note: this only applies to luxury items including books.
Necessities are another ball game. On those sometimes that even 15 cents on any given product can make a big difference.
I do see your point but I don't think Amazon/Apple/Google/Walmart are as powerful as some people say they are.
Though I do have to admit that Walmart and Amazon have caused other retailers to become more competitive.

[twowheels]

My order history with my current e-mail address goes back to 1999. I just downloaded my order reports and found that I have:

• Returned 8 item out of 502, or about 1.6% of items purchased.
• I have spent $14,199.12, returning items totaling $426.63 (all marked as Defective, except for one unwanted and one no-reason-given [pants that didn't fit]), for a 3% return rate in absolute dollars, or $89.91 for non defective returns at a rate of 0.6%.
• $12,649.82 of my purchases have been since 2/22/2011 (when I really started using Amazon a lot), for an average of $7.53 per day. If I start with 2012 it's an average of $8.39 per day. 2013 and on is an average of $10.39 per day (do you see a trend here?) [Wait... I give Amazon $10 per day?!? ]

I hope and suspect that I won't be receiving one of those e-mails any time soon.

I know that you find this situation stressful, but to be honest your return rate does feel very high. If I were running a business I would also keep track of which customers were the most profitable and which were the least.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by twowheels

My order history with my current e-mail address goes back to 1999. I just downloaded my order reports and found that I have:

• Returned 8 item out of 502, or about 1.6% of items purchased.
• I have spent $14,199.12, returning items totaling $426.63 (all marked as Defective, except for one unwanted and one no-reason-given [pants that didn't fit]), for a 3% return rate in absolute dollars, or $89.91 for non defective returns at a rate of 0.6%.
• $12,649.82 of my purchases have been since 2/22/2011 (when I really started using Amazon a lot), for an average of $7.53 per day. If I start with 2012 it's an average of $8.39 per day. 2013 and on is an average of $10.39 per day (do you see a trend here?) [Wait... I give Amazon $10 per day?!? ]

I hope and suspect that I won't be receiving one of those e-mails any time soon.

I know that you find this situation stressful, but to be honest your return rate does feel very high. If I were running a business I would also keep track of which customers were the most profitable and which were the least.

Where do you find these reports?
Now are you saying you spend more than you thought you did?

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Where do you find these reports?
Now are you saying you spend more than you thought you did?

Just click on your account on amazon and on the very top, right under the orange YOUR ORDERS button there is a thing called I think order history reports or such thing and do that. Can't recall what its called just right now. Do at your own risk finding out now much you spend though.

I haven't been able to see my total though as I am totally spreadsheet challenged and the file is a cv something and opens in my open office and its just a bit list of everything, but no total. After a while trying to figure out how to get totals I gave up. I have no clue how to do that on that spreadsheet thing.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by twowheels

My order history with my current e-mail address goes back to 1999. I just downloaded my order reports and found that I have:

• Returned 8 item out of 502, or about 1.6% of items purchased.
• I have spent $14,199.12, returning items totaling $426.63 (all marked as Defective, except for one unwanted and one no-reason-given [pants that didn't fit]), for a 3% return rate in absolute dollars, or $89.91 for non defective returns at a rate of 0.6%.
• $12,649.82 of my purchases have been since 2/22/2011 (when I really started using Amazon a lot), for an average of $7.53 per day. If I start with 2012 it's an average of $8.39 per day. 2013 and on is an average of $10.39 per day (do you see a trend here?) [Wait... I give Amazon $10 per day?!? ]

I hope and suspect that I won't be receiving one of those e-mails any time soon.

I know that you find this situation stressful, but to be honest your return rate does feel very high. If I were running a business I would also keep track of which customers were the most profitable and which were the least.

How do you download your entire history of order reports?
That would be interesting to see.

I do see that my orders go back to 2000 but I unless it is downloadable as a spreadsheet or something I have no desire to try and compile the information from individual orders.

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Where do you find these reports?

When you click on your account, the first thing to pop up is Orders. One of the first items listed under that header is "download order reports."

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

When you click on your account, the first thing to pop up is Orders. One of the first items listed under that header is "download order reports."

Ah, so not under orders, but under "Your Account"

got it.... working on it....

[Atunah]

Does anyone have a very simplistic easy way for me to get the totals in the file it opens in open office? There has to be a way to calculate some total for something but I am so clueless about this stuff, I can't even figure out where or how or what that is even called. Otherwise I have to sit here and add up with a calculator orders since like 2000

[Cinisajoy]

Oh wow. That doesn't count digital stuff.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by Atunah

I haven't been able to see my total though as I am totally spreadsheet challenged and the file is a cv something and opens in my open office and its just a bit list of everything, but no total. After a while trying to figure out how to get totals I gave up. I have no clue how to do that on that spreadsheet thing.

I also used LibreOffice [OpenOffice]. It doesn't open the csv file correctly by default and sees the numbers as text, so it doesn't try to sum them. I had to re-paste the values as plan text to force it to see them correctly.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Atunah

Does anyone have a very simplistic easy way for me to get the totals in the file it opens in open office? There has to be a way to calculate some total for something but I am so clueless about this stuff, I can't even figure out where or how or what that is even called. Otherwise I have to sit here and add up with a calculator orders since like 2000

SUM: (cells in that row)
Or I think that is right