Amazon.com Review

When I first subscribed to an Internet account back in the late summer of 1999 - has it really been almost a decade? - to be able to surf the net and maybe meet people on the increasingly popular World Wide Web, I never really imagined how earthshakingly huge that decision would be.

Not only did I get hooked on being online (in every sense of the term), and not only did I sally forth into online romantic relationships (some good, most of them not), but so many of my day-to-day activities were irrevocably altered by my becoming an Internet junkie.

Take shopping, for instance.  Before the year 2001, I used to go to such nearby shopping centers as the Miami International Mall and the Mall of the Americas (formerly known as Midway Mall) every so often to buy new books, CDs, clothes, shoes, computer games and accessories, Star Wars figures, and - after 1999 - my favorite movies on the then-revolutionary DVD home video format.

Because I am not a shop-a-holic and I don't drive a car, I didn't go to malls more than six or seven times a year.  I don't like to window-shop or have to ask people for rides from Point A to Point B unless it is necessary, and in any case struggling writers hardly make enough money to be shop-a-holics, so I'd either walk (in the cool dry season) or ride the laughably irregular Metrobus (in the hot, wet season) to the mall.  On occasion I'd meet my late best friend Richard (who was a shop-till-you-drop type of guy) or go on Star Wars figure "runs" with my friend Rogers, but by and large I went alone and often for a very specific item.

This modus operandi had worked out all right for about 20 years: I started going to malls on my own when I was a teenager and it was even a good way to get exercise; the International Mall is about 15 blocks away from my house and if I walked there in the December-to-May dry season it was only a 20-minute walk in off-peak traffic hours.  And sometimes it was a fun and relatively harmless form of killing time either solo or with my best friend.

However, as I got older and the Miami traffic situation got worse (we have some of the rudest and most reckless drivers in the nation), i started losing my enthusiasm for shopping the "old fashioned" way after 2000, which was the year in which I made my first Amazon purchase.

Oddly, I first went to Amazon because my Mom had received an Amazon $25 gift certificate from BellSouth (now AT&T) for applying for its long-distance service and not, as you might expect, a conscious decision on my part to try it out.

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I knew Amazon existed, of course, after Jeff Bezos became TIME magazine's Man of the Year a few years ago, but before Amazon, I had made very few online purchases

I was scared about giving out my credit card information and/or being stiffed by an online merchant (a fear that was, sadly, not unfounded), but I did buy a few items from CD Now (which merged with Amazon several years ago) and Critics' Choice Video. I only made my first purchase when we received that $25 Gift Certificate from Amazon, but from that moment I was hooked.

Amazon, of course, got its start in the early 1990s purely as an online bookstore; books and magazines are still the store's bread-and-butter and currently it is the dominant online bookseller in the nation, with a 43% share of the market.  Its self-publishing arm and the new Kindle electronic book reader product line (introduced in 2008) seem to point to Amazon's aim to grab a strong strategic position in the literary business wars as the Digital Revolution continues to change the way we read, listen to music or watch movies.

Amazon: Department Listing (Basic Categories Only)

Books

Kindle

Home & Garden

Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry

Movies, Music & Games

Computers & Office

Groceries, Health & Beauty

Sports & Outdoors

Digital Downloads

Electronics

Toys, Kids & Baby

Tools, Auto & Industrial

I don't know how much of everything is sold at Ammy (a term of endearment used by members of the Customer Reviews discussion boards); in a rather tongue-in-cheek review I wrote there, I said that Amazon sold everything possible EXCEPT maybe a real M1-A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank, but that hobbyists and toy collectors could probably find die-cast metal replicas of the Army's finest armored fighting vehicle in the Toys and Games section.

 I can tell you, though, that the product selection list is quite extensive, ranging from books and DVDs to, um, adult "toys" that enhance intimacy.

In any case, if you see a product review that's not in the Food & Drink or Local Places categories here in Viewpoints, chances are very good that I bought the item in question at Amazon, including a Blu-ray player and a 26-in LCD TV. 

Order accuracy: I have ordered over 200 items during an eight-year span, and I have never received a wrong item or been billed for the wrong item. (I did get, however, a copy of The Green Mile which had two Discs One - one with a Disc Two label on it, but that was Warner Home Video's fault, not the store's),  I check my account history on a regular basis, and when I send the occasional gift or even order something for myself, I can track it either through Amazon itself or the various shippers it uses.

Delivery time: Usually very quickly, unless you opt for Super Saver free shipping (an option available for orders of over $25 or, sometimes, special promotions). If you want an item fast, you have to pay more for overnight shipping. I rarely am in that much of a hurry, and when I know I have to send something out for a birthday, I usually order a week or so in advance.

Customer Reviews: This is the feature that used to involve me the most, since I wrote most of my early online reviews there. Amazon does try to give reviewers a lot of leeway within a 1,000 word limit, but the helpful/not helpful voting feature does lend itself to misuse and abuse by various parties. Either ranking-greedy reviewers will ask people to vote for their reviews or malicious individuals will give reviews an electronic "thumbs down" to affect not only ranking but a writer's morale.

Customer Service:  Now, although I could have made an issue about the defective The Green Mile DVD, I chose not to; it was getting close to the December holiday season and I didn't want to go through the hassle of returning the DVD (which would have involved re-packing it and going to the post office...ugh).  

One reason? Other reviewers here have mentioned how difficult to find the Customer Service phone numbers are, and they're right.  You have to go to "Your Account" and patiently look for options regarding your order, especially if you need to make a return.  It took me about two minutes (an eternity in online terms) to find the number; it's 1-866-216-1072 for their automated customer service system.  Amazon has a new (to me, anyway) Call Me option in which the site calls you back with a live operator if you click on the button labeled, well, "Call Me."

Another reason I didn't go through the return process is that Amazon sometimes does make mistakes, or at least its computers do.  I have read comments in the discussion boards from members whose accounts have been suspended because of "too many returns" - and they allegedly haven't done that many.  (I say "allegedly" because sometimes people aren't always - gasp! - honest online, especially people with an ax to grind. Or they'll tend to exaggerate when angry.)  I didn't want that to happen to me even though it would have been my first return.