[ilamont]

My view of Amazon's decline comes from being a "partner" in their seller and publisher ecosystems for years.

The seller platforms in particular (Brand Registry, Vendor Central, Seller Central, Transparency, etc.) have crippling levels of technical debt. The situation has only gotten worse with Jassy's reckless directive for the entire organization to push into Generative AI (https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-ceo-and...). So much basic stuff is just breaking down, and seller support is overwhelmed or unable to intervene to fix the mess.

You can see a small sample here involving problems with product attributes (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions?s...). Google "Amazon AWD delays" or "Amazon CSBA problems" or "Amazon remote fulfillment problems" to see examples of programs that are unable to provide even basic levels of the services promised to sellers.

Meanwhile, Amazon has been so greedy with fees since Jassy took over that sellers of all sizes and many small to midsized brands are being squeezed out of existence or driven off Amazon. Its PPC ad platform is completely predatory, loaded with dark patterns and hidden defaults that add billions to top-line revenue while strip-mining the accounts of sellers who often have no choice but to participate in the auctions.

It's clear that Amazon is running scared when it comes to dealing with new competition, including the Chinese shopping sites and the looming prospect of agentic AI and other new AI-powered shopping tools eating its lunch. For the first time ever last month, I saw an Amazon search results (via Rufus) that actually directed shoppers to third-party brand sites. This would have been heresy 5 years ago.

[lavezzi]

Amazon turned me off selling completely. I was subjected to an obvious fraudulent buyer on a high value item ($5k) and they did everything in their power to make it as painful as possible for me to fight:

- An A-Z claim from the buyer was denied by Amazon for fraud (supposed non-delivery of the item), yet their returns department auto-approved a return for the same order just 12 days later.

- The customer returned a completely different item with documented serial number/weight discrepancies and seller-provided video evidence, yet I was left with no recourse.

- The customer then filed a fraudulent credit card chargeback. I won the first round, but Amazon refuses to participate in second-round disputes - so despite overwhelming evidence of five separate fraud attempts, they sent a generic email and docked $5k from my seller account.

- Amazon then refused to answer any further communications, including basic disclosure of which card issuer was involved or what evidence was submitted - making any independent appeal impossible.

- Every dispute stage (A-Z, returns, chargebacks) required rebuilding the fraud case from scratch. Zero continuity, and zero care for an independent seller with a strong track record of sales and feedback.

[Nicook]

Oh god, was working within seller central when brand registry was being spun up. Id rather not relive some of those experiences (or use them).

[bespokedevelopr]

Blaming AI for Amazon’s accelerating downturn is a cop-out. This has been going on long before genAI was allowed there. Even now many teams within the products you called out aren’t using it at all.

[mooreds]

> Its PPC ad platform is completely predatory, loaded with dark patterns and hidden defaults that add billions to top-line revenue while strip-mining the accounts of sellers who often have no choice but to participate in the auctions.

At least they mark ads as 'sponsored', even though it isn't super prominent.

I always scroll until I see organic results, myself.

[malfist]

They mark some of them. Not all of them. Last article I read said 80% of placements on the search results page are paid ads. And they only mark like 4-5 of them as "sponsored"

[mghackerlady]

I think Amazon should cede the cheap chineesium to Temu or SHEIN and focus on its own products and products from companies who actually exist