Wishing for a better future

Amazon is well considered amongst every web industry as one of the top, if not the top example of how to deal with your customers. Through the many years I’ve used Amazon there has never been a reason to dispute that status. Any complaint has been dealt with efficiently and effectively. Refunds have been offered without a second’s questioning and customer service has been superb.

So it came as a surprise recently to find that even Amazon can make ‘mistakes’. In this case, with their Wish List feature.

The Amazon Wishlist is very simple – you, as a registered user of Amazon, can record items you’d like to purchase, or more accurately , that you’d like other people to buy for you at the usual gitfting times (Christmas, Hanukah, KaKwanzaa, Ramadan, your birthday, your dog’s birthday, secretary day, and so on). In this case it was my birthday – I was 27 again if you want to know – and being an absent minded 27 year old I’d forgotten to tell my sister what I wanted.

My sister has always been more organised than me – so it came as little surprise to find that she had discovered my wish list and ordered me some things from it. The surprise came when I found out that my mailing address was set as somewhere the UK for some reason.. I guess I’d set it to that during one of my times back in the UK, but of course I’ve been back in the US for two years now and ordering from Amazon for all that time.

Now this may be presumptuous of me, but it seemed reasonable to expect that Amazon would notice this and question me on my choice of wishlist address when I’d updated my default address to be in the US. Unfortunately this was not the case. So now my sister has paid for shipping to the UK, and, at some point, will likely pay for shipping back to the US so I actually get the presents.

So the concept of a wishlist is strong – but the question of how to update the information it holds becomes highly relevant. In this case not only was my address out of date, but also the wished gifts – some of those gifts had been on there for four years since Wishlist was first launched. Do I still want them? Not all of them that’s for sure!

Perhaps it would be useful for Amazon to alert users, either before the fact or when someone tries to order something, that their wishlist has been accessed and was their information all up to date? Admittedly this would ruin any surprises but better an expected unexpected gift than making your friends & family pay out for something you don’t want, or sending it to somewhere where you’re not.

By the way; if anyone really wants to buy me a surprisse present then Amazon.com vouchers are always welcome.