Mark Kolier’s Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Amazon Prime’

When I travel with my original Amazon Kindle I am content to know that I have more ‘content’ than I could ever read if I did nothing but read for two weeks straight. It’s still a bit aggravating that during takeoff and landing (or below 10,000 feet altitude) Kindles have to be put in the ‘off’ position. That’s when non-digital magazines/newspapers and non-digital books elbow their way back into play. There can only be a problem if the Kindle (or any e-reader or tablet) doesn’t work for whatever reason.

So there I was on my way to Asia, fully loaded up with books on my Kindle that I wanted to read on the 15+ hour flight. I opened the cover only to see an unwelcome image – the Kindle works no more. The current Kindle I have is my third one as the first two I had shortly after the launch in November 2007 (oh yes – Happy Birthday Amazon Kindle) did not work and the third time was the charm. Until now that is.

I haven’t tried as yet but it’s hard for me to believe Amazon is going to replace the now nearly four-year old Kindle with one that works. In fact I have posited that Amazon missed opportunities to re-market to me when ‘newer’ versions of the Kindle arrived. Perhaps a discount for a newer model might have motivated me to upgrade to a newer and supposedly better model.

I was already going to order a new Amazon Kindle Fire; I just did not think that it would be requirement for me to read the books I had already purchased on the Amazon platform. Amazon has done a good job of vertically integrating the new offerings with a Kindle tablet at as little as $80. Apparently Amazon loses money on each Kindle it sells as well as it loses $ 11/subscriber to the Amazon Prime $79 shipping service. It’s mildly interesting that Amazon has been able to leverage the idea of ‘Lose money but make it up in volume’ idea.

David Pogue of the New York Times writes in Monday November 14th’s paper http://nyti.ms/tuhYMT about the benefits of the Kindle platform. I agree with much of Mr. Pogue’s feeling on the entire Kindle platform – but he neglects to mention what happens when one’s Kindle or Kindle Fire is extinguished.

Kindle’s breaking down has to happen to other people doesn’t it? Can I be the only unlucky one – three times?

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos presented the new Amazon Kindle – called ‘Fire’ this past Wednesday in New York. I’ve written much about the Kindle in general and had not planned to write about it particularly since yesterday’s unveiling offered few if any surprises. We knew there would be a 7 inch color screen, a touch screen, Wi-Fi internet access and a 30 day free trial for Amazon Prime (which includes unlimited, instant streaming of over 10,000 movies and TV shows and free two day shipping on millions of items) which if consumers do not opt out it will be an additional $ 79 renewable ‘gift’ to Amazon that would keep on giving year after year – Mr. Bezos is a smart guy indeed.

Besides access to Amazon Appstore, the Kindle Fire will include a cloud-accelerated “split browser” called Amazon Silk, free storage for all of the user’s Amazon digital content in the Amazon Cloud, built-in email app that gets webmail (Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL etc.) into a single inbox.

We also knew there would be no cameras (unlike the iPad), and no 3G or 4G network access (iPad’s have 3G and Apple is planning 4G access). The Kindle Fire 1.0 does not seem to me to be the iPad killer. The sale price was a bit of a mystery although most experts predicted $ 249 or less and it came out at $ 199. Amazon also released pricing plans for its entry-level black and white Kindle at $ 79 which makes it the least expensive e-reader on the market.

In releasing the Kindle Fire in front of the 2011 Christmas season at what appears to be close to its manufacturing cost, clearly Amazon is banking on increased sales of digital music, videos and books as well as other content if it is to make the new Kindle platform a winning one. The iPad (at more than twice the price) will continue to appeal to those that have the ability to afford it, and are desirous of the larger screen (a pain in the neck to carry around as far as I am concerned) and Apple App Store.

Other tablet makers as well as the Barnes & Noble Nook have great reasons to be concerned. The RIM (Blackberry) Playbook tablet is already gasping for air and the Kindle Fire will likely snuff it out completely. I believe sales of other popular Android based tablets (Galaxy, Xoom etc) will be impacted since there truly is another non-Apple alternative. If the Kindle Fire is not the iPad killer it may turn out to be the killer of many other tablets.

It’s also possible that the market for tablets could be split into two – a premium market headed by the Apple iPad and the everyday (lower end) tablet that is affordable to so many more people. It makes me wonder how many people will decide to own both devices. After all – does owning an iPad preclude one from buying and using an Amazon Kindle Fire?

As a serial early adopter I likely will pick up an Amazon Kindle Fire – 1.0. I still don’t have an iPad although I’ve used one several times and it is a great and cool piece of technology. I have and actually use my original Kindle and it still works fine. But many times since I bought the original Kindle I have wished that I waited for the 2.0 version which has been out for quite some time now.

Amazon would never tell but my burning question is how long will it be until the improved version of the Kindle Fire comes out? I can hardly wait. And that’s the problem.

Since I am a busy person and am not much of a shopper (more the type of buyer that walks into a store to buy what he came for and then walks out), shopping on the web is a great option for me. During the holidays I, like so many people, relish every opportunity to not have to fight the store crowd to purchase gifts.

My estimation is that more than 75% of the time I shop online. I have fairly high confidence that my credit card info will not be stolen (it used to be higher), and that the right goods will be shipped to me in a reasonable amount of time if I’ve not specified a special delivery.

So when I noticed that I was running low on after shave/cologne and realized that I had no time to go to the store I decided to try shopping for it online. It seems to me that very few men would go out of their way go to the store specifically to buy men’s cologne as it is the kind of thing you pick up when you are at the mall or department store shopping for other things and you remember to buy some so you won’t have to make a special trip.

Since I am an Amazon Prime member I checked it out there first. The annual membership to Amazon Prime offers ‘free shipping’ which is actually not free since you pay $79 a year for the membership. I checked out the offerings for men’s cologne on Amazon and they had a fair amount but it was not all that well organized and a bit clunky.

I then decided to try Perfumania.com (Sephora.com was next on my list). The Perfumania.com site was well organized and easy to navigate. They were having a June special which was clearly marked on the home page. Sephora.com also looked intuitive and easy to use but there were no specials listed on the home page. I bet you can guess where I decided to shop.

The prices on Perfumania.com were lower than Amazon.com – not substantially but lower. And free shipping was offered for orders over $60. Yes I was having some second thoughts about my Amazon Prime membership. A free gift was offered as well as samples and they were having a buy one get one for half price special also (something they term BOGO which is not the greatest name I thought as its only one letter away from BOZO).

Off I went placing my order by choosing the cologne I wanted. And then I hit the wall. The site was interminably slow and when I tried to load 2 items into my shopping cart the sands of internet time just kept on spilling. When I hit refresh it took me back a page and I had to enter in all my information a second, (and then third) time! And while I did not want to pay half price for another item of the same sort,( I did like the option however), the instructions were that I would be able to do it at time of order. But I never saw the option once I FINALLY got into the shopping cart.

At last I was able to make my purchase and check out. Yet the experience which had the potential to be a very good one was undermined because of the slow and frustrating performance of the site interface.
It’s something to keep in mind – you can get everything right, but then if you drive the customer crazy by making the navigation or site process difficult you will have more than lost what you gained.

Do you have any good stories to share that illustrate what I am writing about?

I will readily admit that I am not much of a shopper. If anything I am a buyer which means when I go into a retail establishment my mission is to go directly to what I came for, go directly to the checkout line and get out as quickly as possible.

That plan does not work out so well during the holidays. Yesterday I went into Macy’s in the Stamford Town Center Mall. It was around lunchtime. (Yes I know I have to be nuts). Once in the parking garage it took nearly fifteen minutes to park the car and then only because we saw someone getting into their car to leave and I backed up almost touching the front bumper of the very disappointed driver behind me who thought she had struck gold.

Once inside the mall my wife and I walked directly to Macy’s and directly to the area that had the items what we were looking. We noticed the long line at the cash register and strategized that once we had an idea of what we were buying the other would stand on line. I also noticed that the whole area was surprisingly messy and unkempt. Items were strewn all over the place, mismatched as well. There were a few employees rearranging the items that had been ‘dislodged’.

Everything appeared to be on sale – although it was difficult to tell exactly how much things were being marked down at times. And there was something called a ‘morning special’ which apparently was still in effect even though it was nearly 1 P.M. The one clerk at the register was a very pleasant young guy who handled customers one at a time with particular sense of urgency even though there were no less than six people in line to buy something at any moment. He did connect well with the customers in that he did not rush anyone off and took his time to be sure that each customer had as much time as they felt they needed. After all they had waited fifteen minutes in line.

I’ve shopped a couple of times in retail stores this holiday season and all in all they were experiences that were fine but I have no real need to repeat them. I signed up for Amazon Prime this year and it was a good idea since ‘free shipping’ is offered for $ 79.00 for the entire year and I’ve bought enough items to avoid more shipping charges than $ 79.00. I am certain that some of my retail reticence is gender-related and I am far from being agoraphobic, but when it comes to holiday shopping I think I will just stick with clicking.

Have a great holiday and thanks for reading!

When Amazon.com came out with their recommendation system a number of years ago (strangely this was difficult to find out for certain) I along with many people thought that it was a very cool thing.  Often imitated and seldom duplicated it remains one of the hallmarks of the entire Amazon platform. 

Netflix had a ‘contest’ begun in 2008 with a prize of $ 1,000,000 to replace their movie recommendation system – it was so successful that they are repeating again this year and the money paid out is far less than they would have spend to develop an internal replacement.   For what it is worth I feel that Netflix exhibited crowdsourcing as well as it can be done.  (You can read Jeff Howe’s book if you want to learn more).

Any recommendation system is based on the ‘wisdom’ of the crowd.  But Amazon’s system is getting a little long in the tooth.  I realize that any recommendation system is only as effective as the data it has to leverage.   I don’t give Amazon all that much but every search, every purchase everything I do on their site is tracked and segmented – or at least I expect that it is. 

So why (you might ask) I am questioning Amazon’s recommendation system now?  Well for one thing I searched on an SAT course for my then high school aged son in 2005.  For some reason Amazon continually recommends that I might be interested in purchasing the 2010 version (they also asked that about 2006/7/8 and 9). Since I will assume Amazon is not implying that my son is still trying to excel on the SAT (or that he is an idiot), I postulated that maybe they know at present I have a daughter who is a high school junior.  I checked my profile and nowhere do I mention my daughter (or anyone else family or friends).   Amazon may be good but they’re not that good. 

I also get recommendation for Japanese anime which I bought a book or two more than five years ago but have never purchased a like product since.   Also included in my current recommendations – a Slinky (?), Jimi Hendrix – Valleys of Neptune, (ok I get that since I have bought music like that over the years), and a bunch of books on Direct Marketing – which is totally appropriate even if I have no personal interest in those recommendations. 

What Amazon has failed to ask me is to fill out (I never have) my profile.  If I were them I would even incent me to do so – think of all the MUCH more relevant recommendations they could make if that had some better intelligence.   I would not have to be offered all that much – maybe free shipping on my next order?  I’m not an Amazon Prime member and don’t buy enough to be one.   But with more relevant recommendations I can almost guarantee that I’d buy more and so would other people. 

I have always been a fan of Amazon.com and remain so but they are missing a big opportunity.  If you have had similar or different experiences please share them as I’d love to read them.