Corporations offering expensive products but saving dimes
12I finally exhausted my stash of Harry and David decadent chocolate mint cookies purchased from Sams Club. I wanted more. But samsclub decided to replace the brand name with their own (inferior) product, as they have done with many other items, though they maintain the same or higher prices on the new items. My one or two year old ones tasted better than their new ones (read the reviews on https://www.samsclub.com/p/fudge-grahams-caramel-shortbread-cookies/prod23250164?xid=plp_product_2).
I tried doing an item search on the Harry and David web site, but no luck, so decided to try customer service. My results from about 15 minutes doing that are shown below. Do they think my experience is going to make me eager to go back to them?
[I put $$ in front of my entries, and there was generally a wait of between 1 minute and 3 minutes before each response from the agent.]
======== transcript: ====================
Hi! I am Harry & David® Virtual Gifting Assistant.
How may I help you today?
$$ Your site search function is not very helpful. I’m looking for “Decadent Fudge Mint Cookies”. When I enter that, it returns THOUSANDS of results, anything having any one of those terms somewhere in the description. Can you give me the specific link?
In order to better assist you, can I please have your full name?
$$ no
Can I please have your full name?
$$ call me ishmael
I’m sorry to hear that there is an issue with your order.
Would you like to chat with the next available agent who can further assist you?
$$ anybody with some real intelligence would do
You are now being transferred to the next available agent. Your estimated wait time is 0 minutes and 31 seconds
Agent has joined the conversation.
$$ hello?
$$ any 1 there?
Hello. Thank you for choosing Harry & David. My name is James. I will be helping you today.
$$ did you read my first entry to your stupid chat bot?
I am sorry, I did not. One moment and I will.
$$ Here’s the product page for it on Amazon, who does not have it now.
$$ https://www.amazon.com/Harry-David-Decadent-Fudge-Cookies/dp/B075MFZW9K
One moment please while I research this for you.
$$ I had previously bought it at sams club. They do not have it now, either.
Thanks for your patience. I apologize but it seems that item is not currently available. It may be possible that Amazon has some in stock. Unfortunately, I have no way to verify that.
$$ Any idea if H&D will offer it again for the holidays?
We do not currently have that information. Our website shows inventory. So, if you see it on the website it is available, and the same when it is not there. I do apologize for the inconvenience.
$$ OK. Thank you. Bye.
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to start another chat or email us at service@harryanddavid.com. Thank you, and have a nice day!
How did we do?
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Thanks for contacting Harry & David®.
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NB: I am not complaining that the item is not in stock. That is still happening in a lot of commodities. I am complaining about how hard it was for me to find that out. [And about brain-dead search engines employed by companies that should be able to do better, e.g., Amazon, Walmart, HomeDepot, etc., etc. Apparently they are more intent on selling me ANY product than they are on helping me find the one I want. For instance, search on “replacement vacuum cleaner cord” or “clothes dryer lint filter” and see the drivel that pops up. And, speaking of pop ups, do these companies not realize how annoying it is to be in the middle of a search and have popups for “would you mind taking a survey” or “20% off cardboard work shoes, today only” insert themselves into your customer experience?
- 7 comments, 27 replies
- Comment
What, in general, are your experiences with retail search engines and/or chat bots? Any notable good ones?
IMLE, there are no useful chatbots, and damned few excusable ones. eBay has a better search engine because it permits term exclusions; prefix a dash to any term, and it will exclude any item whose title includes that word. If Amazon did nothing except allow exclusions of both in-title-terms and brand names, their results would improve drastically. Instead, their “search” engine is a spambot.
@werehatrack
Ya gotta love it when they use Boolean search terms!!
@werehatrack IME the same search term exclusion technique works with Google, as well.
@PooltoyWolf @werehatrack
I believe amazon search design is deliberately infuriating.
They seem to want you to just give up and pick something high on the results list.
I usually don’t.“just buy whatever”
Unless I think some generic product will do fine.
eBay alone has good search, within my experience.
@f00l @werehatrack I agree, eBay’s search engine seems to be among the best out there, though I think it necessarily has to be, due to people routinely searching for things one doesn’t usually find on other sales websites.
@PooltoyWolf @werehatrack you can use google site seach to seach amazon. site:amazon.com, then your search terms, pluses or minuses, ands and nots.
I have spoken to Amazon customer service and they actually use google site search to seach on behalf of customers who call because they can’t find what they need on Amazon.
Interestingly, I have sometimes found branded items on Amazon via Google site search that Amazon search pretends not to have at all.
Clearly, their algorithm tells them that gaming search results is more profitable than actually helping their customers because their own agents complain bitterly about the current system.
Like you, I buy elsewhere if I can’t find what I want on Amazon but I guess many folks don’t. I think Amazon is still benefitting from a false perception of competitive pricing.
I often find the exact same items markedly cheaper elsewhere – savings considerably enough to easily offset $6 to $10 extra for shipping.
Oops! Misspoke. The SamsClub link I gave is not for their brand product (that I know). But I don’t retract my opinion about a lot of their “Members Mark” replacement products.
I tossed Amazon a lengthy rant about their search engine a while back, noting that the only way to get a useful Amazon search for an item was to use Google instead, with both Walmart and eBay offering vastly superior results than Amazon on their internal searches.
@werehatrack I’m sure they immediately made improvements. </sarcasm>
Amazon lost a lot of value to me when they removed comments on reviews. That was where I got my most honest assessment of a product’s worth, from an actual give&take discussion.
Since then, I do not throw nearly as much money in Bezosbulb’s direction.
@phendrick @werehatrack The removal of “not helpful” button too, for all those 1 star reviews because “Item came a day late.” or “I bought the wrong part and it doesn’t fit.” Likewise to the 5 star reviews because “I haven’t opened it but it looks good.”
@narfcake @phendrick
And then there are the five-star “reviews” that are obviously from a shillbuyer…
It’s not like asking a human worker in a brick and mortar will give any better results. Also, you can’t win against the house. As long as you keep visiting, they’ll get your money sooner or later, anyway.
@walarney
Not necessarily.
@walarney
Particularly at
BestBuy, where the level of sales floor snap is reminiscent of Chef Boyardee spaghetti.I love Amazon’s search engine. I type in that I am searching for a 256 gb micro sd card and in the results it gives me the option to filter by capacity. Like do I want an 8 gb 256 gb micro sd card or do I want a 32 gb 256 gb micro sd card.
@yakkoTDI Yeah. You can also do silly searches and get dozens of hits. I just typed in: “microsd card with mushroom sauce” and the ZonBot came back with: “did you mean micro sd card with mushroom sauce?” along with 26 items that fit the search.
@yakkoTDI Newegg’s search filters are good, Amazon’s are crap. They’re biased towards selling you something, anything, and who cares if was what you were actually searching for.
They used to be good, but showing pages of unrelated crap when they don’t have what I’m after is annoying.
@blaineg @yakkoTDI Damn, it’s been 5-1/2 years already …
@blaineg That’s another thing I love.
Also fun is the alternate options. I did a search for a Medico dead bolt, which is about a $200 lock, and they came back with “Other people consider this as well” which was their $12 Amazon Basics dead bolt. That’s like saying the guy considering an Audi R8 Spyder is also looking at a Geo Metro convertible.
@blaineg @yakkoTDI
Try searching for “Rule 34” and see what Bezos wants to sell you.
@yakkoTDI Part of the issue is all the marketplace listings, where the seller miscategorizes the item and whatever else the can do to get more views. We were getting campbells homestyle chicken noodle soup on amazon with subscribe and save, since it’s one of the few things my niece would eat, and that was a cost effective way to get it at under $20 for the case of 12. It went unavailable direct from amazon, 3rd party sellers are selling it at prices ranging from $43.50 to $70, and there are at least 3 listings for the identical case, but you’ve got to scroll a while to find them all, even when you search for it exactly.
Not healthy request, not lower sodium, not reduced fat, not regular chicken noodle, not “homestyle soup, chicken noodle” not the bigger cans(which are $29.76 for a case of 12?) not all the other brands and flavors they sprinkle in the results.
I guess the multiple listings isn’t as bad as if I was searching for the non-homestyle, I see 5 apparently identical listings for 10.75 Ounce (Pack of 12) in just 3 lines of the results, 3 of them use the same photo of the case.
@yakkoTDI Sounds about right. The R8 has a DougScore of 69; the Metro, 33.
FWIW, the security looks to be atrocious on that Amazon Basics dead bolt. Apparently it’s easily picked and susceptible to raking attacks due to poor tolerances.
@narfcake @yakkoTDI
I heard The Lockpicking Lawyer looked at the packaging of an Amazon Basics lock and it popped open.
@blaineg @narfcake @yakkoTDI
Thanks again for writing, Nar Feh Caca!
This is probably what I miss most about Irk. “Thy Smy Username” comes to mind. For some reason, hilarious.
We’re still waiting on the stainless steal spatula, right? Or did I miss it?
@yakkoTDI The best Amazon search result is: “If you like MacKenzie, you may also be interested in Lauren.”
(Bezos’ ex-wife and his new girlfriend were friends.)
@blaineg @mike808 @yakkoTDI
@blaineg @earlyre @yakkoTDI
@blaineg @mike808 @yakkoTDI
The first thing that comes up is Charlie Stross’ novel, “Rule 34”, and after that it’s all books.
@narfcake @yakkoTDI “Narf-a-kakka”.
If you don’t use some type of adblock add-on for your browser, then you deserve pop-ups. Anyway, TL;DR
No cookies for you unti after you learn how to search for products on the Internet.
@806D2701
And after you learn how to search for products on the Internet, you’ll get multitudes of cookies whether you want them or not, and not a single one of them will be chocolate chip.
@806D2701 @werehatrack
