Upon your very first (or any subsequent) receipt of the second item you accidentally subscribe to, Amazon will accept your returned item and refund you the money. You will get the first item at the lower price too. So, this looses Amazon money. Why would I suspect Amazon is trying to make extra profit by loosing money in returns and all the costs associated with that?
3 Likes
I’ve done plenty of usability studies and people miss these things all the time. I’d say 2-3 of 10 will actually read everything on a page. As a UX designer I would make sure these two states are different as they do different things. People do not read and will click the familiar without thought, the brain sees “I’ve done this before and it looks familiar”.
If I were on this project I would point this out and ask for it to be changed.
4 Likes
I’m leaving a bad review right now.
6 Likes
It may be another dark pattern (or maybe I’m just not paying enough attention), but I’ve found myself making accidental 3rd party Amazon purchases way too often lately. This was one of those cases. The only “Prime” offering was through the shady seller, shipping from Amazon’s warehouse. Maybe I should have protected myself better, but I’m not sure how I’d go about it.
There are some products (name-brand CR2032 batteries are one) that are damn near impossible to buy online without risk of getting a counterfeit. Amazon doesn’t make it easy to avoid, but I’m not sure they’re doing it on purpose.
1 Like
Which is probably a good idea since all the extra returns are costing Amazon money.
Amazon is rejecting your review because it mentions a specific seller. That is not allowed on the product review page. Likewise, Amazon will reject feedback you leave for a seller that is entirely a product review.
Just a few minutes ago I was thinking how terrible the feedback culture is.
4 Likes
And I’m sure Amazon, being the multi-billion dollar company it is, has calculated exactly what the profit/loss of each UI is.
A. In the non-deceptive case, the cost is that the user only buys one item. The “loss” are all the items they do not buy on subscription.
B. In the deceptive case, the cost is refunds they have to make due to the customer 1) noticing the mistake, and 2) postage for the returned, unwanted items.
There are plenty of reasons for people to retain a subscription to an item they didn’t originally intend to subscribe to. A large household might regularly receive a lot of packages/subscriptions and not even know or notice that there is a new subscription. The person might like the product and be satisfied with an ongoing subscription. I’d be willing to wager if (B) were actually less profitable than (A) they would not have changed it in the first place.
This UI is intentional. It is deceptive. And it is an evil straight from the pit of Hell.
1 Like
When i browse to an amazon item that has a subscription option, it defaults to the One-Time Purchase option, NOT the subscribe option. that’s both mobile and desktop. Not what you are saying.
1 Like
Clearly they have different UI algorithms for different products. (For all we know, it might even be different algorithms for different products for different customer profiles.) When I click on this item I always get a Subscription as the default.
NB: This bbs platform changes my original link from https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009EILKS/ to https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009EILKS/?tag=boing05-20 This doesn’t seem to affect the Subscribe/No-Subscribe UI status though; I think it’s just boing-boing trying to reap some Amazon residuals.
1 Like
Amazon pays the shipping on the return. You may be right. It may be intentional. But honestly, I’ve always come out ahead when I’ve made shopping mistakes with Amazon.
When we go to spend our hard earned money, some people are careful. They read sellers reviews, shipping reviews, and product reviews. These people shop around for a good product at a good price. Another kind of shopper is the hurried shopper. They tend to spend less time on reviews and do more impulse buying. Whether online with Amazon or in the brick and morter world, the first type of shopper tends to find and avail themselves to the best possible deal. The latter kind of shopper tends to screw themselves over. Your position seems to be that the hurried shopper, the one that impulse clicks and is less careful when spending their money, should be blaming Amazon for being tricksey and false hobbitses instead of learning to be more careful. Basically, you are saying it’s Amazon who is to blame for people being careless rather than it being our responsibility to be careful with our money.
Maybe you are right. But from my point of view, it just seems like someone looking to shift responsibility from themselves.
That sure looks like an item that would be something one would want on a recurring basis more often than they might want a single purchase. I’d say that’s a nice touch by the site by presenting this item in the most useful manner.
If you search for that item by name you will see that the first links all say “subscribe and save” and “more purchase options”
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dbeauty&field-keywords=Bioré+Deep+Cleansing+Pore+Strips+(14+Count)
yep, looks like it’s based on the item. I would also point out that when you click the subscribe button, you are taken to a page that makes it very obvious that you are about to subscribe to regular deliveries. Very obviously not tricking anyone.
3 Likes
I suspect this is part of Amazon’s strategy to move towards being a service for 3rd parties.
2 Likes
I’m quoting this in full because it’s so pathological.
You basically don’t understand UI. You dont understand that if an unintentional click is possible, an unintentional click will occur. And no, friend, its not the fault of the “hurried” shopper. It’s the fault (or intention) of the UI designer.
I dont want to take this personal, but your argument is the same argument that every Libertarian uses when they (but usually its Someone Else) are screwed by a company or the government. The deceived individual is to blame because of a lack of responsibility or character.
The path to a purchase should be a straight line, not a maze.
1 Like
They don’t
There is
And a good day to you too.
here’s what it looks like when you click subscribe and save. If you still keep going, that’s on you. This is no trickery.
4 Likes
Is it more pathological to blame others for when you make a mistake that involves multiple steps and warnings about the forthcoming mistake or is it more pathological to say there are multiple steps and warnings about the forthcoming mistake one should have paid attention to? I’m going with the former being more pathological.
I like to think I understand a bit about UI. I’ve been working on the same UI for 10 years now at this job. It has been tweaked and massaged to conform to the working habits of our internal staff and they have given lots of good feedback about it.
That Libertarians make the argument that one should take responsibilities for their actions does not absolve people from taking responsibility for their actions just because they don’t like Libertarians or Amazon for that matter. You want to paint this as Amazon screwing people over but I just don’t see any evidence of that. There are multiple steps in to subscribing to an item that are far outside the normal shopping experience. One would have to be very careless to miss them.
This is a problem with the way Amazon list’s products and reviews. I’ve seen some scathing reviews like yours, only the reviewer didn’t clearly specify their experience was with a particular seller. So the entire product got dissed rather than the retailer. It’s an issue Amazon needs to resolve in the way they co-mingle retailers.
I dunno I skim an awful lot of stuff all the time. Regardless the subscribe and save vs buy now distinction has always been immediately obvious to me.
I find the one star reviews left on sex toys hilarious. People get mad, and in their rage overshare without thinking they are posting under their real name.
1 Like
Topic for next Amazon executive staff meeting: How can we get rid of this feeling that compels us to think we need a “review” system?
