Who Repositioned My Brand?
from the Everything must go! dept.
November 7, 2000

Not to brag, but I recently visited Amazon.com, and in yet another daring deployment of journalistic subterfuge, I checked the sales ranking of the incredibly terrible book Who Moved My Cheese? for an article I was working on. I'm confident I'm not the only one who uses Amazon purely as a research tool, in much the same way that cdnow.com undoubtedly saw its hits increase dramatically but sales remain static after the release of Napster.

Clearly it has been quite some time since I'd visited Amazon, because I hardly recognized the place. I will apologize in advance if I'm the last person on earth to have discovered that the Earth's Biggest Book Store no longer seems interested in selling those things with the covers and all the pages inside them. When I visited the site in very late October, I couldn't help but notice that the links on the left-hand of the page were in the following order:

• Electronics
• Kitchen
• Books

That's right, books were third, the supposed mortar of this particular "clicks-and-mortar" site. (Yesterday, when I checked the site, books were back at #1, but my sense is that the list order fluctuates). Now I realize that Amazon has been expanding its consumer repertoire as of late, since they haven't actually been making any money selling books. Over the last year or so, I have watched CDs and DVDs and other items slowly creep onto the site, as Amazon tried to diversify the types of items they lose money selling online.

As I looked more closely, I noticed a few other interesting changes. Amazon.com now features a new logo - there's an arrow underneath the "a" that points to the "z." Get it? They sell everything from "a" to "z." And the tagline is now "Earth's Biggest Selection." As I glanced at the main part of the website, I couldn't help but notice how right they were.

Top Sellers in Lawn & Patio:
Lawnware 363 Pink Flamingo Lawn Figure (2)

More Top Sellers:
Night Vision Goggles by Wild Planet
Linksys BEFSR41 4-Port Etherfast Cable/DSL Router by Linksys
Gladiator DVD ~ Russell Crowe
Braun MR430HC-VAN Multiquick Deluxe Hand Blender & Chopper

New Releases in Books:
Drowning Ruth

By the time I reached Drowning Ruth (invariably, a Oprah Book ClubÆ Selection) I shrugged my shoulders and wondered, What's the point? It smacked of tokenism, and while I'm no brand guru, it appears that Amazon is pushing and pulling the brand like toffee. In their pell-mell attempt to make money, they seem quite happy to ignore that which brought them to public and media prominence. Or perhaps it's just the opposite - the Amazon brand is so strongly associated with books that it can afford to experiment with other items that might augment or complement literature, although it stands to reason that the sort of person who has just purchased The Flamingo Rising by Larry Baker will not be terribly interested in adding two Pink Flamingos to their shopping cart.

But for those who know me well, the thought of the Amazon brand being damaged or mismanaged brings nothing but joyful release. My real concern is that they have wisely (or unwisely) decided to use the same format for books as for bikes. So what? Well, take the Norpro Stainless Steel Egg/Mushroom Slicer page. The first thing you're confronted with is the cost:

List Price: $5.99
Our Price: $4.19
You Save: $1.80 (30%)

Now, I'm not here to cast dispersions on the honesty of Amazon, but the whole "List Price" schtick works much better when you're selling books, since you can tell immediately if they're lying. But it gets a little dicey when you're dealing with a Norpro Stainless Steel Egg/Mushroom Slicer, whose list price is far more difficult to obtain -- suddenly you're uncomfortably close to Ron "You're not going to spend $200, not even $150, but only $99" Popeil territory.

As you scroll further down the page, you are treated to their well known phrase "Editorial Reviews" before seeing:

This is a charming model, not just because it's shiny enough to be raccoon bait, but because it seats well -- the whole of the unit is neat and compact with an exceptionally sturdy base. The top of the hinged cutter raises and lowers smoothly, chopping mushrooms for omelets or slicing eggs for salads, garnishes, and hors d'oeuvres with an economy of motion that requires minimal hand strength. Eggs rest securely in the oval-shaped nest and don't squirm about as you slice through. As a bonus, parents of youngsters may appreciate that the stainless-steel cutting wires make "music" when picked or strummed. By adjusting the Phillips-head screw, you can tighten the wires for more cutting control -- or to change pitch. Yolk or mushroom particles may deposit in the wires, so rinse or hand wash immediately after use. --Carol Gnojewski

I am devoid of comment, because self-parody is difficult to outdo. And yet it manages to get better, because of course, Amazon solicits reviews from customers. So you get to read stuff like this:

Good things in small packages, September 29, 2000
Reviewer: ddolores (see more about me) from NYC

Compact, sleek, incredibly easy to use. Fits nicely into a compartment in my silverware drawer. Turns out wonderfully uniform slices in seconds, and is quite sturdy. Price is low and this is definitely NOT a case of "you get what you pay for" - I had originally bought a slightly more expensive unit (another brand) that broke immediately after trying to slice one ordinary mushroom. This is really a bargain and I would gladly have paid more for this. The added bonus is that I didn't have to!

And as the apÈritif, you get the infamous "Customers who bought this item also bought these items: Harold's Kitchen Cheesecloth."

I am somewhat irritated that Amazon has circumvented the satiric potential of selling slicers by keeping their info format consistent. Or perhaps I exaggerate the difficulty of making fun of this latest development. Reviewing the Norpro Stainless Steel Egg/Mushroom Slicer as if it were a great work of fiction would certainly be enjoyable, and vice-versa (describing a book's physical properties - keeping kitchen tables level, using it as a projectile, etc - might be equally fun). But some of the bite has definitely been dulled.

I would like to think that this is intentional, on some level, and that somewhere, somehow, Amazon is at least partially in on the joke, and are being at least a little self-depreciating. It is difficult to be entirely serious about the kitchen accessory business. And since Amazon has unintentionally provided some interesting opportunities for monkeywrenchers over the years, this nod to the inevitable might be a preemptive strike. To wit:

David Eggers encouraged people to review A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius using the following criteria: "The review rates the book with five stars. The review betrays the fact that the reviewer has not read the book. The reviewer has other things on his or her mind, or is confused."

A mcsweeneys.net contributor exacted a similar toll on other books. And in March of 1999, Amazon removed fake reviews of Family Circus books.

But the attention paid to Amazon, this column included, also shows how thoroughly it has entered the cultural pantheon. On November 1, modernhumorist.com (a consistently excellent site) had a Net Nuggets sidebar that featured the following:

From the Amazon.com listing for "101 Uses for a Dead Cat"
"Customers who bought this book also bought: Martha Stewart's Hors D'Oeuvres Handbook"

And a few years previous there was an excellent article on how Amazon's sales ranking tool affects authors.

I guess the lesson is that no matter what happens, Amazon wins. It inhabits such a large amount of cultural space that it can absorb complaint or mockery, because nothing can lesson the fact that it has changed how we think about buying books. But it faces a formidable challenge doing the same for a Braun MR430HC-VAN Multiquick Deluxe Hand Blender & Chopper; a Sanyo SR-172X Compact Refrigerator, Woodgrain; or a DK-234 Duck Family Lawn Decoration.