[wapz]

Why are you tying customer service to quality of goods? If you don't like their quality of goods that is a fine reason to not buy from them, but I don't see anything in your argument disputing their customer service (the only part you quoted). If you receive a counterfeit item from Amazon (in my experience), they will 100% refund you the money instantly with almost no questions asked. They have also been refunding nexus 5x phones that die out of warranty (bootloop problem).

> Their one and only goal for the last 23 years has been to increase revenue, no matter the cost.

How can that be remotely true? Amazon has spent millions on R&D for the future, not for the current.

[PhantomGremlin]

What I quoted from you began with "As for reputation". Amazon's reputation cannot be reduced to only customer service, which is what you are highlighting. It's a straw man you have created.

A company can have a good reputation for customer service, while having a bad reputation for other things.

In your example, the way Amazon achieves their customer service reputation is reactionary. If you catch them selling you crap, then they will replace it or refund your money. It's a fool's errand to allow them to play that game with you.

The logical endgame to that business approach is the melamine poisoning in China about a decade ago. "Oops, sorry we sold you milk and infant formula adulterated with melamine. Sorry it killed your child. Here's your instant 100% refund with almost no questions asked".

As for revenue, once again you're creating a straw man. Of course R&D is "for the future" and "not for the current". That's the literal definition. I said revenue, not R&D.

As for my comment about "no matter the cost", let me try to restate it in more detail, perhaps I didn't phrase it well:

Since its inception, Amazon's number one goal has been to grow revenue, from year to year, as quickly as possible. That's their #1 business goal. They have optimized for that revenue goal over other business goals. Revenue over profit. Revenue over quality.

If selling a larger quantity of crap means their overall revenue increases, then that's what they will do. That's what I meant by "no matter the cost". A different way to say that would have been "Amazon Marketplace optimizes for increased revenue at the cost of quality".

Marketplace is an easy way to increase revenue. No need for R&D. Just allow all sorts of counterfeit crap to commingle in existing warehouse, and generate revenue on fulfillment. The more crap you sell, the more you increase your revenue.

The more Amazon increases its revenue, the more the stock market rewards it. Wall Street values Amazon almost exclusively on revenue growth. Bezos has made clear that his #1 goal is revenue, and Wall Street has embraced that metric.

Not coincidentally, supermarkets are very high revenue operations with very low profit margins.