Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with amazon

Why does Amazon want me to go to Burma to get a Kindle?

blue mustard — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:27:34 -0800

How does Amazon decide where to sell the Kindle? I live in Singapore, so Amazon won't let me purchase a Kindle. But if I lived in Myanmar, then they'd be happy to sell me one.

Why is this? It can't be the size of the market: Singapore is full of rich gadget buyers, while Myanmar is not.

I thought maybe it's because Singapore regulates the media. But then again, Myanmar isn't exactly laissez-faire when it comes to press freedom. Neither are Vietnam or Laos, two other Kindle-friendly countries.

Looking across 10 Southeast Asian countires, Amazon will sell Kindles in 60% of them:
Singapore: No
Myanmar: Yes
Laos: Yes
Indonesia: No
Cambodia: Yes
Vietnam: Yes
Malaysia: No
Philippines: Yes
Thailand: No
Timor-Leste: Yes

There's got to be a pattern here, but I don't see it. If anything, they're selling in the countries with lower per capita incomes, but that doesn't really make sense.

So how does Amazon decide where to distribute these things?

Secret Santa Anonymous Shipping

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:17:57 -0800

I would like to ship a gift to my family secret santa from amazon.com, but I can't figure out how to do it anonymously. I looked at their help files and it says you can't ship anonymously to prisons which implies you can do it to other addresses. Does anyone have experience with this?

Note, we don't do a reveal until later, so just having my name on the order would suck. Also, I really want to use Amazon.com because I get free shipping and therefore there would be more bang for my buck in terms of the spending limit.

How to fix

NorthCoastCafe — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:36:24 -0800

How can I to Amazon to ship to my door? Amazon always used to ship UPS which delivered right to my door. I'm in a rural area, 7 miles from the post office. Lately, they ship via USPS which does not deliver to my door but to a roadside box half a mile from my door. With these deliveries the post office leaves a slip of paper telling me they have a package and I have to drive to the post office when I have a day off to fetch my package: 45-minutes round trip, 20-minute queue time, gas money, etc. Amazon just changed from UPS to USPS. They say they cannot inform me in advance of which method of shipping an item will be delivered unless I select and pay extra for 2-day shipping. I'm about to say goodbye to Amazon unless I can get the to resume the delivery service I used to enjoy and depend on. I'm a heavy user of Amazon because it was so convenient. But if I have to drive to town to pickup my packages I might as well shop in town in the first place. My emails to Amazon customer service get only canned, bloated corporate scripted replies in return thanking me for using Amazon. I don't think they get it.

How do I create a RSS feed for my Amazon Web Store?

Aegean — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:44:56 -0800

I'm trying to figure out how to create a XML / RSS feed of my Amazon web store products so I can update to Google Merchant. There doesn't seem to be many functions / plug-ins offered by AWS and their help isn't very helpful. I've done a fair amount of searching and have come up empty handed. Would anyone have an idea how I might go about creating this feed?

Looking for Amazon.com discount websites

Sufi — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:46:23 -0800

Amazon.com discount search? JungleCrazy, a site that shows Amazon items with at least a 70% discount, has gone offline. Are there any other sites that let me search by discounts?

Amazon S3 for log backups?

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:04:16 -0800

I'm looking for a step by step recipe for log rotation from a web server to Amazon S3. Caveat: I am an utter newbie to Amazon S3 and EC2.

I currently have a backup process that works well. It's a cronjob that copies server logs on a nightly basis from an external machine that I do not control to a linux VPS I do control via scp.

The cost of storage is killing me (I keep > 1 years worth of logs) so I'd like to use Amazon S3 as the destination for the logs, while keeping this as unixy as possible.

What are the steps I need to take to do this? Baby steps, please. I'm new to Amazon's S3 and EC2.

I would prefer something like a nightly job where I run:

scp user@example.com:logfile user2@amazons3domain.com:destination

or the rsync equivalent.

I do not need more than 99% reliability. Simple is best. Installing new software on the outside machine is difficult, so a standard scp or rsync method preferred.

I can install software on one of my servers, but I presume it would not be involved in the transfer as I'd take a 3x bandwidth hit (outside machine to mine, mine to s3 x 2: upload from my side, download from theirs)

Over time, I will have more than one outside machine to back up. For now, it's just one.

Is Amazon WebPay truly a free money transfer solution?

drkrdglo — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:00:31 -0800

Is Amazon WebPay truly a free money transfer solution, or are there hidden costs I'm not seeing? In looking at the FAQ for Amazon WebPay (can be found here), it essentially says that there is no fee to send/receive money and transfer it to your bank account. It seems too good to be true, especially with Paypal ruling the online payment world.

What's your experience?

Please help me sell books easily

k8t — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:35:49 -0800

How can I sell books without much effort? I have a lot of good-excellent condition books that I no longer need (fiction, non-fiction, whatever... probably a few hundred). I've been selling them on half.com and Amazon used and I've done pretty well, but I want them out of my life much more quickly and easily. I've priced them competitively, so they do sell, but it is a pain to have to find the book in the storage space, weigh it, wrap it, mail it, etc. - all for a few bucks.

I asked at a used book store and it seemed like they would only take things that are currently selling out but that they don't have a copy of in stock and it wanted to give me store credit rather than cash.

Is there a way to get rid of all my books at once?

I'll be moving this year, so I'd like to get going on this project. I also want to make some money on this project. Any suggestions?

Does anyone know of Greasemonkey script for to add Spotify links to Amazon.co.uk pages?

feelinglistless — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:27:19 -0800

Does anyone know of Greasemonkey script for to add Spotify links to Amazon.co.uk pages? Something with the same functionality as these brilliantly intuitive scripts for last.fm and musicbrainz.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/40229
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/40525

Script/extension to display third-party shipping costs on Amazon?

IndigoRain — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:27:07 -0800

I am looking for a Greasemonkey script or Firefox add-on that will show me the shipping cost for Amazon third-party items in search results. Example: I found a bottle of Aloe Vera gel for $10.37. Thinking there had to be a better deal, I scrolled down the search results page and found a larger bottle for $8.79, making it look like the better deal. Once I clicked into the second link, the price instead was $8.79 + $8.22 shipping, making the first bottle the actual better deal.

I want a script that will get that $8.22 shipping cost (you can see where it is displayed on the page here - just above the shopping cart button) and at least display it on search results pages, if not add it in to the original cost. If this isn't possible I would also welcome a script that simply indicates on the search results page whether a product is a third-party item (indicated at the above link by the text "Ships from and sold by CosmeticMall.com") or shipped directly from Amazon.

Failing the existence of this script, I don't know javascript, so is this something I could do myself using the Platypus extension?

I found the Amazon TotalUsed 2.0 script but it doesn't work. Unfortunately, even if it did work, I'm not sure if it would only display shipping costs for items shipped by Amazon using their standard shipping prices, or also be able to retrieve third-party shipping costs.

Need Instant Good Money, Who Doesn't?

VC Drake — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:39:22 -0800

Is there anything similar to Mechanical Turk on the Internet? When I say similar I am referring to being instant work and not like the freelance sites where you have to bid for work and wait around to see if you got accepted or someone else did.

Also, it would be nice if there was a site with instant work that was better-paying too.

Any other options out there, folks?

How can I prevent Amazon from sending me junk with my purchases?

Solomon — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 12:27:19 -0800

How can I get Amazon UK to quit sending me flyers with my purchases? Anything I purchase directly from Amazon UK (not from a third party seller) seems to arrive with several flyers inside the parcel. Is there any way to prevent Amazon from sending me this junk? An opt-out button I've missed, perhaps? A freepost address I can return them to so that they can be reused?

I realise that I can deal with them when they arrive. What I want is to prevent them from arriving in the first instance. How can I do that?

You have 48 hours to say something nice about me.

marchismo — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:46:41 -0800

An eBay seller is threatening to file a complaint against me for not leaving feedback. What should I do? I recently purchased an Amazon gift redemption code on eBay. The transaction itself went smoothly-- I sent them the payment, they sent the code, and I redeemed it without any problems. I had intended to leave this person positive feedback, but either due to laziness or procrastination I tend to put off leaving feedback until I can do a few of them at once.

Four days later, I get a message from them saying I have until Sunday (tomorrow) to give feedback and if I don't, they will file a buyers complaint with eBay and Paypal as well as send a holding notice to Amazon to prevent me from purchasing anything with the credit. Now, I know for sure the buyer can't use eBay or Paypal against me since there is a record of the payment, but is that holding notice at all plausible?

The seller also said that the "last person who delayed feedback ended up trying to scam me so this is a safety precaution." Even if this is true, I don't believe it's within their rights to try to muscle me into giving them positive feedback.

So, what's the best response here? Should I report them to eBay? Should I leave them neutral or negative feedback (not to be spiteful, but to warn other buyers of the intimidation tactics)? Or should I just cut the seller some slack, leave them positive feedback, and let it go? Again, I had no problem with the transaction itself and had intended to give them a positive before this happened.

I want to love my Kindle as much as you do.

CrazyLemonade — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:27:29 -0800

How do I get the most out of my Kindle? For my recent birthday, my husband got me an Amazon Kindle. I love it, but I'd like to love it more. Can other Kindle users give me some advice, tips, instructions or directions on how to better use my new device?

Some info about me:
-I'm in Mexico, so I can't use the Whisper network, (but I'd like to try it out whenever I'm in the US, so comments on that are appreciated).
-My credit card does work on Amazon.
-I love to read mostly popular fiction books; I've been known to read classics.
-I'm starting to write my thesis for my Master's in Education...(so I'm also probably going to be reading a lot of PDFs and textbooks).

I loved this thread, and also found this one and this one to be useful.

Behind every cloud is another cloud.

nam3d — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:58:20 -0800

How would I go about hosting a website (I have my own .com domain) on Amazon S3 (two files, one html and one css)? Is this even possible?

The card's out there, and it's play or get played?

Fuzzy Dunlop — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:09:36 -0800

Amazon incorrectly charged a little-used credit card $79 and we stupidly missed it for a few months. What's the best way to deal with the credit card company and Amazon? (Apologies for the long story, but I wanted to make sure to include all the details.)

My wife and I are Americans, but live overseas and, as a result, see our American mail not all that often. A couple of months ago Amazon.com randomly charged my wife $79 for an Amazon Prime membership, despite the fact that she never enrolled in Amazon Prime and knew nothing about it. The charges went on a MasterCard that hasn't been used in years, and, since we don't see the bills frequently, we didn't know anything about the charges until months after the fact. When we did find out about this, the bill was months overdue, with late payment and finance charges added and reports sent to the credit ratings agencies.

So my wife called the credit card company (it's a Citizens Bank Mastercard, which I guess is run by RBS) to dispute the charges. The customer service people basically refused to do a chargeback, told her that she had no choice but to pay the bill on the spot (which she did, over the phone), and told her that if she wanted to do a chargeback she would have to call Amazon and collect some proof that she had not made the purchases herself.

Then she called Amazon, who agreed almost immediately that she had not enrolled in Amazon Prime. They also agreed to refund the cost of all charges incurred to the credit card, including all the late fees and finance charges, as long as she first paid the bill and sent documentation of the charges.

After that she called the card company back, told them what Amazon had said, told them that she was disputing the charges and, as a result, wasn't going to pay the bill (payment of which had been post-dated). The card company representative, a manager, after giving her a hard time about not paying the bill, told her they would cancel the charges and late fees, but could do nothing about the finance charges or knock to her credit rating.

We realize that we bear some responsibility for not looking at the bill enough, but the card company's response still sounds pretty weak to me. The one other time I had to do a chargeback (for a fraudulent purchase on my account) the card company (a different one) was incredibly helpful and reasonable. So I wonder if, in fact, we're getting played by the card company here.

So what's the best way to proceed? Should we suck it up, pay the bill, and hope for Amazon to pony up the refund for all the charges? Should we push the card company take care of it, and if so, how do we push them? Is there anything to be done about negative credit reports and should we really worry about them at all when the rest of our credit history is totally clean? On the one hand, this is a small amount of money, on the other hand, on principle, it seem to me that the card company could be treating us better.

Am I just a suspicious person?

Fortnight Bender — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:23:42 -0800

Sold an old textbook on Amazon. Buyer asks for expedited shipping, willing to pay extra. Turns out shipping address is in my town. I offer to meet, or ship. No responses. Suddenly my trick knee is twitching. I’m not a high power seller, sold maybe 6-12 items online total, never an issue. Here is the message I was sent from the buyer…

*****
Hello!
I have just ordered this item from you. Can you send it expedited (2-6 business days) and I will pay the extracosts involved?
Thank you for a quick answer!
[Buyer’s name]
*****

That was Saturday AM.

I replied that yes I would be glad to do as requested, but since the shipping address is about 5 miles from me, I thought we could meet, which I politely offered. Or I would ship. I have messaged 3 times, 2 direct to gmail addy, and once through Amazon. I’m just going to ship “book rate” or whatever (Media?) since I’ve heard nothing. But do you folks see an angle here where this could be a scam? It is an old obscure textbook, and kinda odd that it sold.

Also, I don’t want to seem all stalky and stuff, but the shipping address is the same as this place.

So what do you think?

Thanks!

Hiking around South America - what shoes should I be wearing?

tobtoh — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:04:40 -0800

Travelling in the Amazon rainforest (hot and wet), Patagonia (cold and wet) and everything in between during September to November ... what shoes to wear? I'm backpacking through South America for three months starting in September and am trying to work out what footwear I should bring.

I will be spending time in the Amazon (walking in the rainforest and kayaking on the Amazon) where it will be hot, humid and wet and I've heard that trail shoes are good options here due to plenty of ventilation and drainage. I will also be spending time walking around Patagonia where it will be cold and wet. For cold and wet locations I've read that you want waterproof shoes (ie Goretex), but for warm/hot climates, that Goretex is terrible because it can't breathe enough and you will end up with really sweaty feet.

I won't be doing any heavy duty hiking, but will be doing a lot of walking. So, assuming I don't want to take 2 sets of shoes, what should I do/what options have I got?

I heart non-fiction ebooks

aheckler — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:17:04 -0800

I'm looking for blogs about new non-fiction books on the Kindle. I love my Kindle 2, but with so many books available, I feel like I'm missing a bunch of new releases. Can you recommend to me some blogs that follow new releases in the Kindle Store, specifically non-fiction releases? Thanks in advance!

Amazonian ants in the mail!

thebazilist — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:23:49 -0800

The book I just received from Amazon is covered in ants, which have now infested my mailbox (and my nightmares). What to do, whom to contact? I ordered a book from Amazon and then went away for a long weekend. When I checked my mailbox this morning, it was full of ants. We live in a woodsy area, and there have been ant infestations in the mailbox before, so I wasn't so surprised, especially with the God's-wrath amounts of rain we've been having in New York. But they were definitely concentrated on the Amazon package, so I figured maybe some kind of food had gotten onto it or something.

I went down to the mailbox this evening with a can of Raid and rubber gloves, sprayed all inside and around the mailbox, pulled out the Amazon package and sprayed it all over, too. I brought the package inside, put it in the kitchen sink, and snipped it open with scissors. Ants POURED out like I hope you can never imagine. I sprayed Raid all over the sink, books, and gloves, closed the kitchen door, and ran upstairs to hide.

WTF?? Has anyone ever heard of anything like this? Whom should I contact at Amazon to complain and possibly ask for another copy of the book, and how do I get in touch with them (I remember hearing that Amazon phone numbers are carefully guarded)? Should I ask for another book or am I being a huge baby? How do I make the book safe after having doused it with poison?

Returning an identical item to Amazon

Garak — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:38:42 -0800

Instead of retroactively applying a promotion, Amazon had me repurchase a wristwatch and wants me to return the old one. Should I just return the new one? Similar to this question, but I'm looking for a bit more info on Amazon policy in particular.

I purchased a new watch for my wife about a week or so ago from Amazon. Two days later, Amazon started offering a $50 promotional certificate with purchases of that brand. I emailed customer service on a lark to see if they'd apply the promotion retroactively, and they instead suggested I repurchase the watch and return the old one. Of course, in those two days I managed to remove the UPC from the box, take a few links off the band, and throw out half of the little tags and whatnot. I've been planning all kinds of elaborate surgery to return it to its default configuration, using the tags and such from the new watch, but is that necessary?

There are no outward indications of the watch's serial number, so I could just return the new one they send me with the old receipt. I don't have to futz with tags and stickers, and Amazon (or Seiko) doesn't have to needlessly absorb the cost of refurbishing the old one. Win-win. (There's also the chance that some overzealous Returns Nazi would decide that my surgery job is inadequate and thus that I'm trying to defraud them.)

What's the path of least resistance here? And what are the consequences of a failed return to Amazon?

Is there a simple way to integrate Salesforce and Mechanical Turk?

brokekid — Mon, 11 May 2009 08:46:38 -0800

Is there a simple way to integrate Salesforce and Mechanical Turk? Any tips on using Mechanical Turk and Salesforce at work?

Use for M Turk

Xhris — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:22:37 -0800

Help me spend my $100 Mechanical Turk credit !?! I have about $100 credit with Amazon's MT system and I haven't used the service for about a year. I just don't need it for anything. If you know what Mechanical Turk is (see here or here if not) please tell me how you would blow through $100 just for fun (or good use or charity or save-the-planet, etc.)

Need Googlepages replacement: free, no ads, javascript. Amazon S3?

nolnar — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:40:26 -0800

Googlepages webhosting shuts down in June. Help me find a replacement. Requirements: free/almost free, no ads, javascript, css, custom html upload, at least 50Mb storage. Would Amazon S3 work? Not needed features: mysql, php or similar server side scripting.

There are of course many commercial webhosts. But are there any reliable free (or almost free) services around similar to Googlepages (Google Page Creator)?

I've glanced at Amazon's S3. If I understand their prices then hosting a small site with very modest monthly data transfer would be very inexpensive. But I've also read claims on blogs that S3 can't autoload index.html and various other skeptical posts. However I find no clear info on the official S3 site regarding the index.html issue. So maybe it does work now. Or there might be some smart way around it. So I ask:

question 1: can S3 satisfy the requirements above?

I here hope for feedback from people with experience of S3, maybe even as a html web hosting solution.

question 2: if S3 doesn't satisfy the requirements above then suggest some other interesting free/almost free alternative that does.

A drop in the river

Toekneesan — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:08:23 -0800

How many books (titles, not editions or book pages) are available on Amazon? I'm looking for the number of titles Amazon currently lists. I'm not interested in how many they've sold or how many total products the site has. I don't care if they're in or out of print, new or used (though a breakdown of those categories would be awesome), I'm just looking for how many titles are listed on their US site. Google produced bupkis, Amazon's Media Center, even their annual report does not seem to mention the number of titles listed. Anyone got an educated guess or better yet, a cited figure?