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 Amazon Should Offer Discounts on Upgrades
Posted Wed February 11, 2009 12:00 pm, by Miriam W. written to Amazon.com, Inc.
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On October 24, 2008, after watching Amazon CEO on Oprah discussing the Kindle, I ordered one. It arrived a week or so later and I have been thrilled with it (for the most part...there are some ergonomic and glare problems).
On January 2, 2009, I ordered a second Kindle for my daughter as a gift.
The Kindle 2 has now hit the market and my daughter's gift has been upgraded and I am thrilled. However, what can I do to upgrade my own Kindle to the more ergonomic friendly version? I called Amazon to ask that question and was relayed through THREE different people until I reached a really rude woman who talked to me as if I were a petulant child not satisfied with a gift given for my birthday. I wanted to know if there was a method in place whereby I could turn in my Kindle 1 (it is less than 4 months old), pay a fee and upgrade to a Kindle 2. She suggested that if I didn't want my current Kindle, to sell lit on the internet and buy a new one! That would be my THIRD purchase!!!
I do not think that it was fair to encourage people to buy this product that the CEO knew was going to be downgraded in such a short period of time. Even so, discount arrangements should be in place for persons wishing to upgrade. That is how you foster customer loyalty.
Product development and design takes time. Therefore, Amazon did not come up with these improvements overnight, so it was KNOWN in advance that my purchase would be downgraded within a few months.
If my daughter were not so excited about this gift, I would cancel my order.
Provide an opportunity for new owners to upgrade (even up to half price) to the newer version.
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Sorry but this is not the way it works with electronics. Upgrades
happen all the time and you cannot expect to get the upgraded model at
a fraction of the cost.
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by SueNY Posted Wed February 11, 2009 @ 8:23 PM
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I'm sorry but you are being completely unreasonable. I have a Kindle.
I got it in November and I love it. It would never even occur to me to
demand Amazon give me a discount to upgrade. I don't know of any
companies that do that. I bought an Acer Aspire One netbook last
month. Last week they announced they were releasing an new model.
Again it would never even occur to me to demand a discount. Electronic
gadgets are always being improved on and new versions are always being
released.That's just how it is.The Amazon rep had it right. If you
want Kindle 2, sell your Kindle 1 and then buy one. Trust me, you will
get close to what you paid for it as there are actually a lot of
people out there who don't like K2 at all and are irate that their
back orders got automatically changed to Kindle2. Good luck!
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It's a great idea when a company has a way to upgrade an electronics
product.
But it's rare. Sony won't give me a discount on a new TV because I
bought one in the past. Even the recent past.
However, Sony used to have an upgrade program for their Clie line of
PDAs. But, the offer was terrible. They'd buy-back an old model at a
fraction of what I could see it for on eBay. And, in exchange, I'd
have to pay Sony's list price for a new model. In the end, I was
better off giving my old one away and buying a new one, on-sale.
That said, they shouldn't treat you like a child. It's understandable
that the first person you reached didn't know, but they should have
been courteous and attempted to find you the answer.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but your letter shows that
you're trying to make an argument that they somehow deceived you and
cheated you by allowing you to buy a model which would be replaced in
a few months. While you clearly didn't mean it that way, it can come
off as you being, well, a petulant child.
Upgrade program? Wonderful idea!
Intentional deception to steal your money on a product they knew was
terrible? I don't think so.
Believe me, I've purchased plenty of electronics in my life. There is
always a better version around the corner. And rarely will I get a
discount simply because I purchased a prior product. And where there
are discounts, they are never 50%.
My suggestion is to buy a product based on whether or not it's worth
what you paid. If the old model was terrible, then you should have
returned it immediately. If it was good enough, then why should you
feeling of "good enough" be any different now?
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