Amazon is how big ?

We all have heard of Amazon.com and Jeff Bezos many million times. I have heard it for the past five years and was really impressed with it.

It is the first online book store in the world.. WOW!
It has many books inside... WOW!
You can put on your pajamas while shopping for books ..WOW!
The biggest WOW to me is the ability to track your book, from its journey out of Amazon's warehouses to SOMEWHERE...

Or so I read and understood.

5 years later... I finally have the guts and intuition to experience for myself being the customer of Amazon.com

I placed an order for a book which I can't find from local bookstore (in Malaysia) on December 12, 2005. According to the system, I was supposedly receiving my order by December 16, 2005.

Today (December 21, 2005), I haven't seen and heard anything.

Since I placed the delivery address as my office address, in case my parents were not at home, I expect to receive some calls or something from the courier company. But it is not happening yet.

Frankly speaking.. I started to laugh a little at the legend which I stood-up for the last 5 years. Yes, I said a little. Becoz when you believe in a legend as a symbol of enterpreneurship excellency for 5 years, your expectation is high.

Something could have gone wrong
It is acceptable that something could have gone wrong..

Perhaps the person who delievered the packaged decided to strike and took the book with it.. but yet the fact is that I am still waiting for my order in the dark which I need it urgently.

Maybe there is something wrong.. so many maybe(s), but it is not consumer's fault.

I can't find a good help
The problem is that I can't seem to find a place where for the panic button, in fact, there is no panic button.




I checked with my friend, not many have purchased any book from Amazon too; perhaps only the Americans do that often. They gave the same answers;

1. Email them
2. Call them up.

Okay, fine.. IDD charge to USA is not expensive, I can afford, but where is the number man ?




There should be..
There should be a "panic button" which captioned "Haven't received your order ?" . Of course, maybe this is bad for their branding and PR, then what should be the right thing to do ?

Tracker ?
And where is the supposedly-legend tracking function ?

I can't find any also. It makes me feel like an idiot now.

Well, perhaps it is probably history. Amazon might have removed it for some technical or business reason. Or just pure hype by marketeers being influenced by Amazon to promote the site during the early days.

The only tracker I can find is..



Conclusion:
It is silly to think that Amazon.com would like to cheat my money. But I think it would be of great value-add if they read this blog. For good and for bad.

Afterall, another soon-to-be legend Google Print makes sense now.

With this type of settings, Amazon.com is not working for the generic Malaysian per se. I am an IT person, I can understand the enormous headache behind this business, but would others ?

I might be talking about this for the next 10 years.... Okay lar, this could be an isolated case, but please come soon.

By the way, there is hope for budding Malaysian netpreneur looking to setup an online bookstore by highlighting in BIG font; customer service number and contacts.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I've bought with Amazon a couple of time years back. There is this thing that you have to take note of when buying something online,... you have to "wait" as oppose to buying from a book store you get the item as soon as you pay the money.

Btw have you recive your item?
Brandon Teoh said…
I haven't received it yet as at today.
Brandon Teoh said…
I would like to clarify that eventually, Amazon refunded all the costs and also provide extra compensation (without my conscience) with a free book of similar title.

up to date, I haven't seen my credit card being charged for it.

I received my book order on 22nd Feb 2006 (almost 3 months after the first request)I am still thinking should I pay them back.

Amazon, thanks for the book and compensation mechanism.
Anonymous said…
best regards, nice info »