Clever Publicity Stunt

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Arpeggio

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Now THIS is a clever pre-christmas marketing ploy. Basically Amazon have “accidentally” sent a student £3600 worth of goods and said he can keep them.

Clever how Amazon made it so the goods were all being "returned" to make people think the "original customers" were getting their "money back" for "stuff they didn't want". All the items apart from the Cosatto Supa Baby Buggy, Draper leaf blower and Brabantia ironing board (actually perhaps not the ironing board) smack of: "Let's make sure all the stuff we "accidentally" send is what a student would want."

£3600 for newspaper space, now that is an absolute steal of a bargain, much cheaper than paying for advertising. Amazon have even managed to get a list of the particular products on a newspaper article I saw, many of which are currently discounted. Wow, just wow, that is just genius cheeky.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...s-from-Amazon-because-of-computer-glitch.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...including-TV-tablet-sent-computer-glitch.html

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/6142803/Student-gets-3k-gifts-free-in-Amazon-glitch.html

http://money.aol.co.uk/2014/12/02/student-bags-3-000-in-freebies-due-to-amazon-glitch/

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...n-goods-sent-to-him-by-mistake_n_6260914.html

http://thenextweb.com/uk/2014/03/31...ed-deliveries-six-months-50-prime-thereafter/

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/amazon-order-mix-christmas-bonanza-briton-140323156.html#aBdgXL4

http://consumerist.com/2014/12/03/a...with-return-depot-gives-him-5k-in-free-stuff/

http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/technology/news/3rd-day-of-christmas-amazon-sent-to-me-1.1789927

The newspapers don’t seem to realize they’ve been suckered!
 
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Osulagh

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I don't think this is some kind of publicity stunt. Amazon doesn't need such small stunts when it's advertising like crazy and has a massive loyal fan-base already.

And, one of those articles and many have probably said, a glitch isn't new. If you cruise around Reddit, you'll find people get sent all kinds of things because of computer glitches. Amazon sends out millions of orders, and I would not be surprised if this has happened hundreds if not thousands of times before.

Oh, and if you think the newspapers have been suckered, then you would be worse off. Now you're giving Amazon publicity, and routing people to those newspapers who are only putting that out there for publicity.
 
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gothicangel

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I don't think this is some kind of publicity stunt. Amazon doesn't need such small stunts when it's advertising like crazy and has a massive loyal fan-base already.

Maybe. Or maybe it's a damage limitation exercise to disperse a lot of the bad PR it has been receiving from the Hachette stand-off? Tax dodging?
 

Arpeggio

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I don't think this is some kind of publicity stunt. Amazon doesn't need such small stunts when it's advertising like crazy and has a massive loyal fan-base already.

As soon as Amazon is not the cheapest do you think they will stay?

Oh, and if you think the newspapers have been suckered, then you would be worse off. Now you're giving Amazon publicity, and routing people to those newspapers who are only putting that out there for publicity.

I know, and I don't think here will make much a of a difference.
 

jjdebenedictis

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I once got the most amazing set of books from Amazon thanks to an error. They screwed up someone's order, and got an element from a previous purchase of mine muddled with it, and as a result, they sent me about seven books I didn't order.

I told them about it, but they never figured out the issue, so they let me keep the books.

I don't know whose order I stole -- I hope they got their novels too, in the end -- but damn, they had great taste in books. I got The God of Small Things, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Life of Pi...
 

Arpeggio

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As an unintended consequence this thread has got me thinking about unreported sales. I'm glad my attitude to that is more casual now.
 

Carrie in PA

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As soon as Amazon is not the cheapest do you think they will stay?

Absolutely. They're NOT the cheapest on many, many, many things, yet they've made their selection so all-encompassing and their ordering process so convenient that nobody cares.
 

Locke

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Oh, sure, they can accidentally an ironing board but they can't manage to ship the stuff I bought four days ago.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Absolutely. They're NOT the cheapest on many, many, many things, yet they've made their selection so all-encompassing and their ordering process so convenient that nobody cares.

Everyone cares who has to stretch a dollar until Washington screams.
 

JustSarah

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Has anyone else noticed a lot of these publicity stunts seem to be amazon?
 

Arpeggio

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Amazon accidentally send a piece of conveyor belt to a customer, then ask them to pay $19 to return it in order to receive what they originally ordered.

http://gizmodo.com/amazon-sent-this-customer-a-piece-of-its-conveyor-belt-1666960149

In the end they did offer to pay for returning the part they accidentally sent. Not as much media worthy "Pizazz" as letting a student keep £3600 worth of high-tech gadgets before christmas I know.
 

Lena Hillbrand

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Absolutely. They're NOT the cheapest on many, many, many things, yet they've made their selection so all-encompassing and their ordering process so convenient that nobody cares.

So they are the WalMart of online shopping.

On another note, they sent my sister a GPS device for her car, which she hadn't ordered. They told her to keep it, and she sold it on Ebay.
 

gothicangel

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Amazon accidentally send a piece of conveyor belt to a customer, then ask them to pay $19 to return it in order to receive what they originally ordered.

http://gizmodo.com/amazon-sent-this-customer-a-piece-of-its-conveyor-belt-1666960149

In the end they did offer to pay for returning the part they accidentally sent. Not as much media worthy "Pizazz" as letting a student keep £3600 worth of high-tech gadgets before christmas I know.

Last year I bought a copy of The Luminaries (hardback), when I got around to reading it I discovered it had been badly cut and huge sections where unreadable (still joined.) I managed to get a refund my shouting faulty product, but they refused to do an exchange, if I wanted another copy I would have to get a refund and then buy it again (at a much higher price.) I ended up loaning the book from a local library.
 

Arpeggio

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Last year I bought a copy of The Luminaries (hardback), when I got around to reading it I discovered it had been badly cut and huge sections where unreadable (still joined.) I managed to get a refund my shouting faulty product, but they refused to do an exchange, if I wanted another copy I would have to get a refund and then buy it again (at a much higher price.) I ended up loaning the book from a local library.

That is pretty poor considering that pages still joined are something you couldn't fake, or be the result of knocking the book around.


So they are the WalMart of online shopping.

On another note, they sent my sister a GPS device for her car, which she hadn't ordered. They told her to keep it, and she sold it on Ebay.

Amazon differs to Walmart in that Amazon hasn’t made an overall profit since it started 20 years ago. I’m guessing the GPS incident was over a year ago? (due to the below).

Amazon has been a no go area, nobody wants to take on a competitor that constantly cuts its own throat. Before recently Amazons main tactic was to loss lead behind the protection of unfair tax advantages in order to put others out of business. They can no longer do this and places like Walmart and Target are making their move. However from Amazons perspective this might not be so bad if it’s really an investor ponzi scheme.
 

skylark

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I've had a few things sent accidentally to me by Amazon (over a period of years). They've never asked for any of them back, though we've always told them about them.

None of them massively valuable, sadly :)
 

KTC

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Does God send out a miracle to get new customers? No. Amazon is God. Nuff said.
 

Arpeggio

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Does God send out a miracle to get new customers? No. Amazon is God. Nuff said.

Amazon is like a giant baby Jesus, getting punished for our material loving sins by constantly losing money on its bargains. Will it die (go into liquidation) then rise again?
 

cornflake

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That is pretty poor considering that pages still joined are something you couldn't fake, or be the result of knocking the book around.




Amazon differs to Walmart in that Amazon hasn’t made an overall profit since it started 20 years ago. I’m guessing the GPS incident was over a year ago? (due to the below).

Amazon has been a no go area, nobody wants to take on a competitor that constantly cuts its own throat. Before recently Amazons main tactic was to loss lead behind the protection of unfair tax advantages in order to put others out of business. They can no longer do this and places like Walmart and Target are making their move. However from Amazons perspective this might not be so bad if it’s really an investor ponzi scheme.

Loss leaders are things sold at less than acquisition cost to get buyers to shop at your establishment (come in for the super cheap X, you'll buy the Y while cruising around before you check out).

Sending people random things they didn't order is just errors made by a merchant sending massive amounts of random goods to massive numbers of people at once.

If a business sends you something you didn't request, it's yours. They're not being generous saying it's fine to keep it; they know you can keep it. If you offer to send it back and they want it, they may take you up on it, but it's usually easier to just stick to the rules.
 

Myrealana

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Several years ago, when I wasn't as comfortable with online purchases, I once ordered a DVD from Amazon and they sent me the wrong thing FOUR TIMES.

Hardback copy of Steven King's "Salem's Lot"
Four pairs of cheap earbuds
A pair of novelty striped socks
A Crash Bandicoot game for a Playstation we didn't own

Each time they advised me to keep the mistaken item. But it took five weeks to get me the DVD I really wanted.
 

Myrealana

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Amazon differs to Walmart in that Amazon hasn’t made an overall profit since it started 20 years ago.
Amazon also differs from WalMart in that it doesn't malke me feel like I need to scream and take a shower every time I shop there.
 

cornflake

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Several years ago, when I wasn't as comfortable with online purchases, I once ordered a DVD from Amazon and they sent me the wrong thing FOUR TIMES.

Hardback copy of Steven King's "Salem's Lot"
Four pairs of cheap earbuds
A pair of novelty striped socks
A Crash Bandicoot game for a Playstation we didn't own

Each time they advised me to keep the mistaken item. But it took five weeks to get me the DVD I really wanted.

Heh I once ordered a book, and got a book, but the wrong book. I called and the woman was like 'what'd you get, was it similar?' Like did I order one Stephen King and get another. I told her what it was - I'd ordered some totally generic bestseller-type thing I don't recall and gotten a really obscure-seeming book of holocaust poetry translated from another language. She was like, 'well, that's different. Someone is probably looking for that one.' I did offer to return it if they wanted it, like only had one, and would send a label and all but she was all, 'nah, they exist.'
 
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