Wednesday, September 30, 2009
How to lose customers, the Amazon way - my farewell letter to Jeff Bezos
Bye bye, Jeff@Amazon. After more than a decade as a loyal customer, I'm outta here. Ciao. Goodbye. Close the door after me, Jeff, because I'm not coming back.
So my quitting as a long-time customer over a petty dispute might not be much more than a teardrop in the ocean for you, Jeff old chap ... but is it?
Let's drill down ...
* You're losing a solid Amazon customer of more than a decade. Go look up my customer file and look at some of the stuff you've sold me... although your useless recommendation engine still doesn't have a clue
* This customer has spent more with Amazon than *any* other e-com site. Period.
* That customer withdrew more than 30-plus Amazon reseller book offers - this has cost you at least $150 in commission
I know you light your Cuban stogies with $100 notes Jeff, so this probably doesn't bother you ... but ... if just 1,000 people follow my lead (tsk! a mere 1000!) then you're $150k down ... would that make a difference?
The actual reason why I am leaving Amazon and shall not return is simple: breach of trust. We're getting divorced, Jeff. We will not be walking down the aisle again, geddit?
In the end it came down to a petty matter of a postage stamp. I'll spend more on printing and mailing you a hard copy of this piece, Jeff B (and the B does not stand for Baby, baby) ... but it's about principles now. If you want to run a long-term business, you LOOK AFTER your long-term customers.
To spell it out, that means: When long-time buyers agree to sell on their near-pristine books at half what they gave you in the first place, AND give you a commission payment, you nurture those customers.
So when one of them ships a book in good faith to an address provided by Amazon (no doubt also in good faith, dear lawyers), then the book comes back as undeliberable, because the owner of the PO box didn't pick up in time, then you'd be sensible to ask the BUYER, not the seller, to cover the postage charge.
Yup, it's something as fundamentally simple as that has brought down a great, decade-long relationship. From now, I'll be actively seeking opportunities to use alternative services. And I'll be telling all my friends why I switched.
Oh, and I'll be in Seattle sometime next year. Maybe I can bring "my" Kindle round (I say "my" because I live outside the US of A and so it's probably Against Amazon's Rules for me to "own" it ... I certainly cannot even try to buy and transfer any content to it) and hand it over to your custody. I'll be asking you to bend over first, so that when you receive the Kindle, you gain a valuable C-level first-hand experience of how I feel about the irrevocable breakdown of relations with my former old friend Amazon.
CEOs are always trying to get closer to the customer, right? I'm offering you the chance. Let's see if you really care about the customer, Jeff.
No Regards, Simon
So my quitting as a long-time customer over a petty dispute might not be much more than a teardrop in the ocean for you, Jeff old chap ... but is it?
Let's drill down ...
* You're losing a solid Amazon customer of more than a decade. Go look up my customer file and look at some of the stuff you've sold me... although your useless recommendation engine still doesn't have a clue
* This customer has spent more with Amazon than *any* other e-com site. Period.
* That customer withdrew more than 30-plus Amazon reseller book offers - this has cost you at least $150 in commission
I know you light your Cuban stogies with $100 notes Jeff, so this probably doesn't bother you ... but ... if just 1,000 people follow my lead (tsk! a mere 1000!) then you're $150k down ... would that make a difference?
The actual reason why I am leaving Amazon and shall not return is simple: breach of trust. We're getting divorced, Jeff. We will not be walking down the aisle again, geddit?
In the end it came down to a petty matter of a postage stamp. I'll spend more on printing and mailing you a hard copy of this piece, Jeff B (and the B does not stand for Baby, baby) ... but it's about principles now. If you want to run a long-term business, you LOOK AFTER your long-term customers.
To spell it out, that means: When long-time buyers agree to sell on their near-pristine books at half what they gave you in the first place, AND give you a commission payment, you nurture those customers.
So when one of them ships a book in good faith to an address provided by Amazon (no doubt also in good faith, dear lawyers), then the book comes back as undeliberable, because the owner of the PO box didn't pick up in time, then you'd be sensible to ask the BUYER, not the seller, to cover the postage charge.
Yup, it's something as fundamentally simple as that has brought down a great, decade-long relationship. From now, I'll be actively seeking opportunities to use alternative services. And I'll be telling all my friends why I switched.
Oh, and I'll be in Seattle sometime next year. Maybe I can bring "my" Kindle round (I say "my" because I live outside the US of A and so it's probably Against Amazon's Rules for me to "own" it ... I certainly cannot even try to buy and transfer any content to it) and hand it over to your custody. I'll be asking you to bend over first, so that when you receive the Kindle, you gain a valuable C-level first-hand experience of how I feel about the irrevocable breakdown of relations with my former old friend Amazon.
CEOs are always trying to get closer to the customer, right? I'm offering you the chance. Let's see if you really care about the customer, Jeff.
No Regards, Simon
Labels: rant
Friday, September 25, 2009
Amazon's crazy Windows 7 pricing
Thinking of upgrading to Windows 7? Then take a look at Amazon.de's crazy Windows 7 pricing.
The idea of upgrading from XP or the wretched Vista certainly has my stamp of approval - but if you're thinking about going to Amazon's website to choose your upgrade package, choose carefully, or you'll end up spending a lot more than necessary.
According to amazon.de this morning, they're offering all 16 of the standard packages.
First come the lowly Home Premium editions - choose from a 32/64-bit combi, a 32/64 upgrade, or individual 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Next come the more useful Pro editions - and the same choice of versions.
After that, the Ultimate editions ...
And finally, the version upgrades, from Starter to Home Premium, from HP to Pro, and from Pro to Ultimate.
Now look at Amazon.de's pricing and you'll see that they will probably have a hard time shifting those version upgrades. Who in their right mind would pay EUR167.99 to upgrade from HP to Pro when they could buy a stand-alone Pro license for EUR50 less?
The combined 32- and 64-bit versions are also much more expensive. Who the heck would lay out EUR298.95 for the Windows 7 Pro 32 and 64-bit version when they could buy individual licenses for both a 32-bit version AND a 64-bit version and still save EUR66? It just doesn't add up!
The most ludicrous deal of all has to be the upgrade paths. Anyone who is unfortunate enough to buy a new Windows 7-enabled PC or notebook that comes with the Starter edition, and wants to upgrade, is probably better off either choosing a different model in the first place, or wiping the pre-installed software and doing a clean install. Why? Because anyone who pays EUR72.99 for the Starter to HP upgrade, then lays out a further EUR167.99 for the HP to Pro uplift, just has to be cuckoo crazy.
If you do choose Amazon.de as your provider of the shiny new Windows7 software, select your version carefully.
The idea of upgrading from XP or the wretched Vista certainly has my stamp of approval - but if you're thinking about going to Amazon's website to choose your upgrade package, choose carefully, or you'll end up spending a lot more than necessary.
According to amazon.de this morning, they're offering all 16 of the standard packages.
First come the lowly Home Premium editions - choose from a 32/64-bit combi, a 32/64 upgrade, or individual 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Next come the more useful Pro editions - and the same choice of versions.
After that, the Ultimate editions ...
And finally, the version upgrades, from Starter to Home Premium, from HP to Pro, and from Pro to Ultimate.
Now look at Amazon.de's pricing and you'll see that they will probably have a hard time shifting those version upgrades. Who in their right mind would pay EUR167.99 to upgrade from HP to Pro when they could buy a stand-alone Pro license for EUR50 less?
The combined 32- and 64-bit versions are also much more expensive. Who the heck would lay out EUR298.95 for the Windows 7 Pro 32 and 64-bit version when they could buy individual licenses for both a 32-bit version AND a 64-bit version and still save EUR66? It just doesn't add up!
The most ludicrous deal of all has to be the upgrade paths. Anyone who is unfortunate enough to buy a new Windows 7-enabled PC or notebook that comes with the Starter edition, and wants to upgrade, is probably better off either choosing a different model in the first place, or wiping the pre-installed software and doing a clean install. Why? Because anyone who pays EUR72.99 for the Starter to HP upgrade, then lays out a further EUR167.99 for the HP to Pro uplift, just has to be cuckoo crazy.
If you do choose Amazon.de as your provider of the shiny new Windows7 software, select your version carefully.
Labels: amazon, rant, Windows7
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
The Year of the Cloud
2009 is truly shaping up as the Year of the Cloud. For me it's been the year when I've reached the inflection point where putting and accessing my data on someone else's infrastructure has become my primary, rather than a secondary usage scenario.
Although I'd dabbled, like millions of others, with Cloud-based services even before they were called cloud (hello, del.icio.us bookmarks, before the Yahoo! acquisition and more boring renaming as delicious.com; hi Skype, hey Flickr), it's only in 2009 that I've really started depending on these.
Two examples. Firstly, Mozy. After a couple of months of on-off 24x7 operation I've almost finished transferring around 55GB of JPEGs to Mozy Home. Why so long? The slow uplink from our domestic DSL. I've looked for upgrades but there's nothing affordable ... At this upload speed, it's not practical to try uploading the hundreds of GBs of lovingly-ripped and tagged music files, but it's a start in protecting my valuable documents and photos. I'm not planning to access my uploaded data on a regular basis, but knowing it's still there is reassuring.
Secondly, replacing Exchange with hosted email - by Google. This has given me first-hand exposure to how Google is moving into the enterprise as a serious software company. Although the migration has not been totally trouble-free, it's pretty impressive and most of all, the service is fast. My work mail is now powered by Gmail ... although the interface to Google Apps Premier Edition lacks many of the cool experimental Gmail features, I've got all the tools I need.
What next? Well, Roboform offers to sync all my website logins ... not sure this is a good thing. My mobile phone address book was synced via ZYB until Vodafone bought it and took the service offline (boo hiss). I've just checked and it seems to be back ... hey, wouldn't it have been a great idea to actually NOTIFY existing users? However, looking around, they don't support BlackBerry. Oh, forget it. ZYB was a bad example. There are probably a few wannabe copycat services by now, and I'm off to investigate.
Although I'd dabbled, like millions of others, with Cloud-based services even before they were called cloud (hello, del.icio.us bookmarks, before the Yahoo! acquisition and more boring renaming as delicious.com; hi Skype, hey Flickr), it's only in 2009 that I've really started depending on these.
Two examples. Firstly, Mozy. After a couple of months of on-off 24x7 operation I've almost finished transferring around 55GB of JPEGs to Mozy Home. Why so long? The slow uplink from our domestic DSL. I've looked for upgrades but there's nothing affordable ... At this upload speed, it's not practical to try uploading the hundreds of GBs of lovingly-ripped and tagged music files, but it's a start in protecting my valuable documents and photos. I'm not planning to access my uploaded data on a regular basis, but knowing it's still there is reassuring.
Secondly, replacing Exchange with hosted email - by Google. This has given me first-hand exposure to how Google is moving into the enterprise as a serious software company. Although the migration has not been totally trouble-free, it's pretty impressive and most of all, the service is fast. My work mail is now powered by Gmail ... although the interface to Google Apps Premier Edition lacks many of the cool experimental Gmail features, I've got all the tools I need.
What next? Well, Roboform offers to sync all my website logins ... not sure this is a good thing. My mobile phone address book was synced via ZYB until Vodafone bought it and took the service offline (boo hiss). I've just checked and it seems to be back ... hey, wouldn't it have been a great idea to actually NOTIFY existing users? However, looking around, they don't support BlackBerry. Oh, forget it. ZYB was a bad example. There are probably a few wannabe copycat services by now, and I'm off to investigate.
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