Happy Friday!
This week, Amazon did three things. We watched. We took notes. We are going to walk you through them now, calmly, like adults.
But first, a story.
The Main Event: Amazon Names a Customer Experience Workflow After a Greek War.
In September, Amazon settled with the FTC for $2.5 billion.
The case was about dark patterns. Specifically: Amazon's Prime cancellation process. Specifically specifically: Amazon's Prime cancellation process was deliberately confusing, in a manner that allegedly caused tens of millions of people to remain enrolled in Prime against their will.
Refunds began going out in November. Claim notices started landing in inboxes in January. They are, as we speak, still arriving. If you have a Prime account, you may have already received yours, or you may receive one in the coming months. Up to $51 per affected customer.
Fine. That's the news. Boring. We've all read this story.
Here is the part of the story that we cannot stop thinking about.
Amazon's internal name for the Prime cancellation flow was "the Iliad Flow."
The Iliad. Homer. The 10-year siege of Troy. The poem that opens with the rage of Achilles and ends with the funeral of Hector. Roughly 15,000 lines of dactylic hexameter about heroes, gods, and the slow, grinding consequence of human pride.
Amazon's product designers — sitting in a conference room in Seattle, presumably with snacks — looked at a four-page, six-click, fifteen-option cancellation gauntlet they had just built, and thought:
"This reminds me of the war that destroyed Troy. We should call it that."
Other things we now know from the trial documents:
Internal emails referred to executives in charge of Prime as the "chief dark arts officer." This was not a nickname. This was a working internal phrase. Used in writing. By multiple people. About multiple people.
Employees called unwanted Prime enrollments "an unspoken cancer." A different employee called the design "a bit of a shady world." These quotes were entered into evidence.
Amazon initially withheld 70,000 documents from discovery by claiming attorney-client privilege. When forced to review the claims, Amazon withdrew 92% of them. The judge sanctioned Amazon for "bad faith." This is not us editorializing. The judge wrote it down.
The button on the mobile checkout said "No, I do not want fast, FREE delivery." Capital letters. As shown. Nine words designed to make you feel guilty for declining a thing you did not ask for.
We are not saying any of this is ironic. We are simply noting it.
We will say this, however: every flow Amazon shows you is a designed flow. The same teams that built the Iliad built your Seller Central dashboard. The default views, the metrics they choose to surface, the placement of the buttons, the wording of the prompts — all of it is a choice. A choice that benefits someone.
It does not always benefit you.
This Week In Amazon: A Summary For People Who Have Other Things To Do.
Claim notices are still going out. From the FTC settlement. To 35 million people. Some of them are your customers. They are receiving up to $51 each. They will spend most of it on Amazon. Amazon, the company that lost the suit, will recapture the money it just lost the suit over. We are not saying this is a closed loop. We are simply noting it.
Amazon released a new Echo lineup this week, built specifically for Alexa+. Alexa+ is the AI version of Alexa. The previous Alexa was, allegedly, also AI. The new Alexa+ is more AI. There will be a future Alexa++ that is even more AI. We will all keep buying them. This is fine.
Partial refunds without returns is now live in six countries. Amazon will let you refund a customer some of their money without making them ship the product back. This is genuinely good for sellers. It is also a feature Amazon could have built any time in the last 15 years. We accept the gift. We do not ask questions.
Overmax Handling Fee took effect in January. If your product is over 96 inches on its longest side, or 130 inches in length plus girth, you now pay an additional $17–$25 per unit on top of standard fees. The list of products affected includes kayaks, surfboards, ladders, mattresses, and the long folding table you bought your aunt for Thanksgiving. Surfers and aunts are now part of the same fee tier.
The Analogy of the Week:
One Quick Win Before You Close The Laptop:
Open Seller Central. Go to your business reports. Look at the default date range. Look at the default view. Look at which metrics are surfaced and which ones are buried two clicks deep.
Now ask yourself: who designed this view?
Then customize it. Set your default to the metrics you care about — gross margin after fees, sessions to unit ratio, ad attributed sales as a percent of total. Save the view. Make it your homepage.
Takes ten minutes. You have just exited the flow.
Any questions? Book a meeting with me here.
Have a great weekend.
Dan Head
Founder, AMZ Elite
