Sent Items #143: Monday, September 4, 2023

Happy Labor Day Monday!

I’ve been laboring all day trying to get my LG 49” UltraGear monitor fixed. I purchased it on Amazon 2 months ago and this morning it decided to stop working. I’ve learned when there’s a problem with an Amazon purchase such as when the product has a defect and it’s outside the return window, or when a delivery is damaged, among other common instances, their customer service is pretty bad. After talking to an agent for 20 minutes they offered no solution.

LG on the other hand - despite the defect - is making this fairly painless. Submitted a Customer Service inquiry online - never thought I’d hear back - and within 2 hours I got a response, some brief troubleshooting tips (didn’t work), and now I have a UPS label to return to a repair facility. Not ideal, but a fair process.

The other hack of course is to order this monitor again via Amazon, initiate a return once delivered, essentially replacing the new one with the defective one. Sneaky, I know. My eComm Consumer Score (if such a thing existed) would not be nearly as high as my Uber score of 4.95. I’ve also been reading a lot about ‘What Happens to all the Stuff We Return’ and it’s quite astonishing. Trying to be a better consumer as I get slightly longer in the tooth.

One more piece of housekeeping - I’ll be joining my dear friends Nima Elyassi-Rad, Kyle Bertin and Aaron Schwartz to discuss peak season shipping on Wednesday at 10am PST/1pm EST. Sign up for the chat here (link).

But let’s get right into the biggest story in some time.

1. The news of Shopify enabling Buy With Prime directly in their checkout (link).

   Soon, Shopify merchants who also use Amazon’s fulfillment network will have the option to offer Prime members fast, free delivery, and easy returns outside of Amazon for the first time ever. This gives customers more flexibility in how they make their purchases from independent brands.

   Merchants will need to add the Buy with Prime app from Shopify’s app store and customers will be able to “Buy with Prime”, staying on the Shopify Checkout page, with payments processed by Shopify Payments. I for one have abandoned my cart via Shopify for Amazon when I saw fast, free shipping on Amazon, versus $7.95 3-7 Day Ground Shipping on Shopify, plus unknown returns policy. No need to any longer (so long as it’s enabled by merchant!)

   A huge win for Shopify as it provides that same trust and reliability that Prime is famous for, while allowing merchants to largely maintain control of the experience, payment, and customer data. For Amazon it creates more stickiness within their fulfillment network (another reason for a brand to enable Multi Channel Fulfillment) which leads to increased scale, which leads to lower cost. It’s not so unimaginable to see a world where a single box has an Amazon order as well as one from your favorite Shopify merchant. I bet it happens soon.

   Maybe soon we’ll stop calling Amazon evil (I realize my opening commentary wasn’t favorable). It is somewhat ironic that for years Shopify’s mantra was “arming the rebels” (against Amazon), now they are embracing the powerful. Totally makes sense.

2. The other day I used DoorDash’s eCommerce returns pickup service for the second time. I received a push notification for a free pickup as part of being a DashPass member (it’s $3 otherwise). I must say, a good experience (not great) but this ain’t gonna live long. Or maybe I’m overly curmudgeonly with my Shyp PTSD. When this service first launched I tweeted about it and got the attention of the GM of this Product. We spoke on the phone and it was a lovely, but frank, conversation. My TL;DR: This doesn’t make sense. Almost a year later I tried the service again.

   Here’s what happened:

   I scheduled my 1 UPS pre-packaged/pre-labeled Amazon Return at 8 AM for 9:20 AM. Perfect.

   The driver was dispatched near the drop-off location - possibly a coincidence, but odd that given the UPS store dropoff location was not the one 0.5 miles from my house, or 2 others that would have been much closer. Instead, about 5 miles in morning rush hour. But that’s less important to me given the return is out of my hands at that point.

   What was frustrating was that the driver pulled up at 9:50 AM - 30 minutes later than scheduled - and the driver was extremely confused. He said it was his first time doing this, he was frustrated that he had to drive 30 minutes in the morning rush, and another 20 minutes to get back to the dropoff store. I can only imagine his reaction when he realized he had to wait in line at the UPS store to get the package scanned in to close out the delivery.

   For a flat $3 fee (up to 5 packages for a single carrier) this is a terrific deal for consumers. Don’t know how DoorDash is making money, and therefore can’t imagine what the driver is compensated. Will it lead to retention of DashPass membership - absolutely not. Consumers just don’t ship frequently enough – we spent $65 MM learning this at Shyp. But heck, I’ll spend others’ capital as long as they allow it. I’m going to drop-off as I schedule my 49” Monitor return via DoorDash…

Have a great week!

- Matt

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