Business, Technology and Society, Weird

Amazon Advantage

7 Comments

So, I’ve been trying to set up a page for my book at Amazon. So far, color me very unimpressed.

The Advantage site has a form to fill out with book description, author bio, and three reviews. It very clearly states:

You don’t need to use HTML to fill out the edit boxes below – just type normally. However, if you’d like to use advanced formatting, you may use HTML to indicate breaks, boldface or italics.
<P> = a paragraph break <BR> = a line break
<b> </b> = boldface <i> </i> = italics.
Example: The <b>quick</b> brown fox <i>jumped over</i> the lazy dog.<BR>

Well, I kind of like paragraphs. Call me crazy, but that’s just how I roll. So I put in some <p>s, and bolded the names of the reviewers.

When I saved my work, it didn’t display the HTML properly, instead showing the code. Moreover, it had removed the second two reviews, and attributed the first one to the second reviewer.

I scratched my head, and went back int to edit, reinserting the other two reviews, and straightening out the reviewer names. I hit “View” and got exactly the same thing. HTML still in the code, no graf breaks, and the second two reviews disappeared, with the wrong reviewer name on the first.

I send a complaint to Amazon (via a web form, so I have no record of it, unless I had the foresight to copy it somewhere, which I didn’t). Here is the response:

Dear Vendor,

I apologize for the inconvenience caused.

Please be informed that when you update any information using update item content and then click submit button, everything will get disappear. However please be informed that the same will appear on the website in 5-7 days.

I request you to update the information without using HTML tags.

As you have the limit to add only 3 reviews, I request you to write back to us with the reviews that you wish to add and we will do the needful.

Thank you for selling with Amazon,

Sowjanya Reddy T.
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

So, they can’t show me what the page is actually going to look like until it goes live, and despite the fact that they clearly invite me to use HTML, they then request that I not do so. Which means that I can’t do so much as break paragraphs.

I’m kind of gobsmacked. I mean, this is fricking’ Amazon.

7 thoughts on “Amazon Advantage”

  1. I’m going to have to have a talk with Amazon about the meaning of the word “advantage.”

  2. The response you got looks like it was put through a Non-English -> English translator. “everything will get disappear”? “we will do the needful”?

    Is there a website or phone number you can use that gets you customer support within the United States, from a native English-speaker?

    I’m actually quite shocked, as you say, that this comes from fricking Amazon…

  3. And, to respond to my own comment, no, I’m not xenophobic, I’m commenting on the fact that the response is not only contrary to the directions provided on the site, but also contains the sort of grammar errors that would lead one to believe that the original message wasn’t understood.

    I should also note that, when I’m feeling squirrely, I will use the same sort of bad grammar listed in that response, if not worse, when responding to spammers: “I am to be having want of money for which to be helping my mother sickness in it the hospital”, for instance. 🙂

  4. Johnny: I work with some Indians, myself, and it’s my experience that that sort of reply does not indicate that the original request was not understood. They typically understand English far better than the finer parts of the grammar when writing it.

    He’s basically just telling Rand “our form is broken and we know”. Support is usually more up-to-date than directions on the site.

    1. Well, how long would it take to remove the words about being able to use HTML? For that matter, how long should it take to fix this? CGI scripting isn’t rocket science. I wonder how long it’s been this way.

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