A very Amazon Christmas
And now begins the Amazon ritual. Honestly, I’m grateful — if it weren’t for mail order in general and Amazon in particular, I’d be stuck for shopping. We have Prime this year, even better.
But holy shit do I hate Amazon reviews. Everything is one or five. Why is nothing ever “three stars. Did the job, but not very exciting”?
Naturally, I check out the one stars first and it’s always, like, “do not buy! Very cheap! The lid broke first time I used it, and the replacement lid was broken in the mail. I complained to the manufacturer who told me I was fat and stupid and my baby was ugly.” Followed by fifty people who think it was the awesomest thing in the history of awesome.
What am I supposed to do with this information? Buy some sucky no-name Chinese knockoff that nobody has reviewed, that’s what!
I’m still working on the bits and pieces. Are you done?
Posted: December 12th, 2017 under personal.
Comments: 17
Comments
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: December 12, 2017, 10:46 pm
I realize my sample review is more evenly distributed than most. Please not to be discrediting my point.
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: December 12, 2017, 11:10 pm
It’s all so pointless. I have explained to Her Stoatliness the precise location of the Bentley showroom, after all…
Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: December 12, 2017, 11:24 pm
Oh! Amazon … reviews.
Ummm. ’tis a minefield. Do not go there.
Comment from drew458
Time: December 12, 2017, 11:33 pm
Every review that isn’t labeled “verified purchase” is trash. There is a large fool pool out there, eager to complain about anything all the time, and usually all they do is show off their own stupidity. I see the same thing on the recipe sites. “This recipe is awful. I followed it exactly, except I used lemon juice instead of sugar, organic yak hair powder instead of flour, Tabasco instead of vanilla and then added some leftover pork chops from 3 weeks ago. Everyone hated it!!” And her baby probably is ugly too.
Comment from QuasiModo
Time: December 12, 2017, 11:33 pm
I still have to get something for my brother, he’s impossible to buy for because he has no hobbies or interests.
I’ve been using Amazon a lot, ya…I usually go by what percentage of reviewers gave it 5 stars, 4 stars etc…if only 1% gave it 1 star, I ignore them.
Comment from Anonymous
Time: December 12, 2017, 11:41 pm
Just do this instead:
http://www.theospark.net/2008/05/story-of-our-times.html
}:-]
Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: December 13, 2017, 12:00 am
I use a sort of weird algorithm of
Gotta have at least 80 percent 5’s
Can’t have very many 3’s
Less than 10 percent 1’s.
And I read all the 1’s. Yeah most of the 1’s are stupid stuff like “Box arrived upside down” but if there’s a consistent theme, that’s worth paying attention to.
I will read a few of the 5’s but they’re much less useful than the 1’s.
I will say that we have have really really good experiences returning things to Amazon but they have that goin’ for them.
Comment from Niña
Time: December 13, 2017, 1:57 am
Out of money, anyway. I love gift giving, but from now on I’m going to have to be frugal. Sucks.
Regarding Amazon, it helps to see if they really bought the thing. If it says “verified purchase,” you have a better chance of getting a real review. Not always. But better!
Edit: I see Drew beat me to the verified purchase hint. Carry on. 😜
Comment from AliceH
Time: December 13, 2017, 2:09 am
I gave up the gift part (both giving and receiving) of Christmas years ago. (Except for my Mom. She’s set on sending me a box of fruit every year, so I send her a box of candy or some books.) It makes for a much more joyful holiday, if you ask me. Which you didn’t.
Comment from Armybrat
Time: December 13, 2017, 3:03 am
Thank heaven for Amazon, otherwise I would be forced to go out there. I love to shop. For many years, I loved to go and touch and smell. But over the years, the rudeness of the assholes has diminished any of the joy of any touching or smelling. Now I sit in the comfort of my own home, generally in pajamas and usually with an adult beverage…it’s the only way to shop.
Comment from p2
Time: December 13, 2017, 3:03 am
ive sprung for the whole amazon prime thing…. and it seems all i can get shipped to the frozen freakin north are ebooks. there have been more than a few times i haven’t been able to download even those. doesn’t do a lot of good shipping my family’s gifts to their house in july….. so as far as amazon goes, it’s a solid 1 star. shopping was easy this year… i’m just shipping most of the salmon and halibut i caught to my landlocked relations.
Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: December 13, 2017, 11:24 am
Salmon would be a GREAT gift!
What always gets me is when something requires assembly and multiple reviews say it’s sooo hard to put together…and when I take a chance, it’s *never* hard to assemble. Even the elliptical wasn’t hard to put together.
Granted, my husband and I are both engineers…
Comment from Deborah HH
Time: December 13, 2017, 11:30 am
Except for *stocking stuffers—I am done. And for the first time in 17 years, Son and His Family are coming to my house for Christmas; they live over the hills and through the woods in Missouri, so we usually meet at a more centrally located relative’s house.
This year I Christmas-shopped from JCPenney, Macy’s, and Amazon. JCP took forever to deliver, which may explain why the company is in so much financial trouble. We’ve had Amazon Prime—I think—since the first year it started. We order from Amazon all the time, and get our beloved Kona coffee beans via Amazon auto-delivery.
I DO read the reviews, with a jaundiced eye, and as others have noted, I only read “verified purchases.”
*Stocking stuffers in my family are unchanged since my mother was a child in the 1920s: an orange, a handful of nuts (still in the shell), chocolate candy, nail clippers for boys, a nail file for girls, and a magazine or comic book as appropriate.
Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: December 13, 2017, 12:16 pm
I don’t want to talk about it. The @$:#!!!@$!####### Windows Fall Creator thingie ate my PC yesterday and created a fall fail that ate my browser, all my games and even the device drivers for my net connects.
Now I’ll probably be swindled by tech son 2 into using that as an excuse to do what you’re doing Mdm Sweas. It’s like he works for the military industrial complex wanting to spend my hard earned taxed dollars on new tech toys (Oh wait…he really does)
Damn Microsoft kids tore up my lawn! Get off my lawn!
Now how am I supposed to finish making Europe safe for Stalin?
Comment from Carl
Time: December 13, 2017, 8:58 pm
New Dead Pool on Friday?
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: December 13, 2017, 9:11 pm
Oh, Durnedyankee, I feel ya! I got it yesterday, too. For some fool reason, it ate my scanner driver.
Who died, Carl?
Comment from LesterIII
Time: December 13, 2017, 10:23 pm
Max Clifford, imprisoned scumbag publicist. Yewtree put ’em in the clink.
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