Amazon marketing email has gone berserk?

[BrianKittrell]

I just got an email trying to sell me cord stops. I don't even know what a cord stop is used for (well, before they sent this email I didn't). Apparently, they hold sunglasses or goggles tight to one's head, bags or sacks closed, and really anything with a cord that is drawn tight or loosened can benefit from one.

I thought it was rather bizarre; the last thing I bought from Amazon was a laptop charger/adapter. I usually get advertisements for books or electronics. lol

I'm beginning to wonder, at this late hour, if some gremlins got loose in the machinery. Hopefully, they don't delete my book or something.

[Guardian]

You have luck. At least you got an email about you do know nothing. I just got an email offer for the story of the sparkling vampire, Twilight Complete... I believe this is much more bizarre.

[Sybil Nelson]

I live in South Carolina, which means I keep getting emails from them about state taxes I have to pay on any merchandise I bought and had delivered to SC. I wish I knew nothing about this.

[EllenFisher]

Are you sure you weren't in the store, and happened to inadvertently click on sunglasses or something similar? A week or two I looked up tea strainers for something I was writing, and Google led me to Amazon. Then a few days ago I got a helpful email from Amazon asking if I wanted something in their coffee, tea and espresso store, and listing lots of tea strainers and similar accoutrements.   You don't have to buy something to get a marketing email; just surfing around the store will apparently do it.

[BrianKittrell]

Well, I tend to stay in the book store on there. I never remember going to anything about sunglasses lately, but I've probably--like a year or more ago--looked at sunglasses on there, but I don't buy sunglasses online. I usually wait until my cheap-o pair breaks, then I stop at the next gas station for a new set. lol

[Dan C. Rinnert]

I just got an email trying to sell me cord stops. I don't even know what a cord stop is used for (well, before they sent this email I didn't). Apparently, they hold sunglasses or goggles tight to one's head, bags or sacks closed, and really anything with a cord that is drawn tight or loosened can benefit from one.

I thought it was rather bizarre; the last thing I bought from Amazon was a laptop charger/adapter. I usually get advertisements for books or electronics. lol

That's an easy one.  The laptop charger/adapter had a cord, right?

Also, laptop kind of rhymes with stop.

Laptop charger with cord -> laptop cord -> stop cord -> cord stop

[George Berger]

I've noticed that they generally tend to hit my inbox with marketing bumpf about three weeks after I've looked at whatever it was on there. Sometimes they're much quicker, though - like a day or two after looking at something, Big Brother Amazon is urging me to buy it.

My mostly uneducated guess is that the interval has to do with your purchase history. I've never bought any kitchen appliances from Amazon, so when I was looking at vacuum coffee pots, they waited almost a month before urging me to buy one. I do buy a lot of notebooks and writing pads and so on, so when I happened to check their prices on Iroshizuku ink, I got an email advertising Amazon's best-selling bottled fountain-pen inks about forty-eight hours later.

The nice thing is it only seems to happen once - if I never look at a coffee pot again, I'll never get another email urging me to buy the Northwest Glass Yama SY-8 40-ounce stovetop coffee siphon, ever.

[Atunah]

Are you sure you weren't in the store, and happened to inadvertently click on sunglasses or something similar? A week or two I looked up tea strainers for something I was writing, and Google led me to Amazon. Then a few days ago I got a helpful email from Amazon asking if I wanted something in their coffee, tea and espresso store, and listing lots of tea strainers and similar accoutrements.   You don't have to buy something to get a marketing email; just surfing around the store will apparently do it.

Yep, that is how it works. In addition to the purchases. I think it even said something like "People who looked at...." Or maybe it was "You looked at, you might like....". One of those.

For the longest time I didn't get any emails from them, even though I signed up for specific stuff. Now I am getting them. I even get now an email when a new book comes out by an author I might have looked at, or one similar to those I buy, or whatever magic potion they use 

[Grace Elliot]

I had my weekly "Artisan Bread Making" email from Amazon today - happy days 

[CoraBuhlert]

Sometimes, Amazon's algorithms are just weird. For example, two months ago I checked the price for a particular coffeemaker my parents wanted to buy to see, if it was available cheaper at Amazon than at the local electronics store. It wasn't, so my parents eventually bought the coffeemaker elsewhere. But Amazon is still bombarding me with mails about coffeemakers two months later.

Plus, a while back ordering vacuum cleaner bags on Amazon for the ancient vacuum cleaner of my 84-year-old neighbour resulted in plenty of e-mails about breadmaking machines. Because vacuuming your floors obviously means that you must want to bake bread right now.

And then there was the time they offered me books about Hungarian grammar. Now I did buy some linguistics books at Amazon, but those were for English linguistics, never for Hungarian. I don't even speak Hungarian. 

[Steve Silkin]

That's so funny. I was just about to post this:

Last week, I was in KB's book corner and a few of us were chatting about Don Delillo. So I checked which of his books were available for Kindle and which weren't. I recommended Great Jones Street and Americana. I don't remember clicking on them, but I must've at least done something, maybe even just searched for them.

Today I got an e-mail from Amazon asking if I wanted to buy them (and other Delillo books, but those were the first two, the ones I had recommended). For a moment, I wondered whether Amazon had heard me chatting about the books here!

[BrianKittrell]

That's an easy one.  The laptop charger/adapter had a cord, right?

Also, laptop kind of rhymes with stop.

Laptop charger with cord -> laptop cord -> stop cord -> cord stop

Ahhh, I think you may have nailed it. I remember searching for some kind of cord recently, maybe an extension cord. Of course, those don't use cord stops (and neither do laptop adapters), but a computer is only so good as the engineer or operator. Of course, of the great Amazon empire, I doubt they see substantial sales from cord stops anyway = little attention.

[Terrence OBrien]

Amazon is usually right on target when they pitch an email. The one I haven't figured out is the email I got recommending oven mitts.

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Of course, of the great Amazon empire, I doubt they see substantial sales from cord stops anyway = little attention.

Are you a Prime member?  Some are Prime eligible.  They know how we like to buy cheap things and be amazed that Amazon will get it to us in two days, knowing it probably cost Amazon more on shipping than what we paid.

Amazon is usually right on target when they pitch an email. The one I haven't figured out is the email I got recommending oven mitts.

Amazon doesn't want you to get burned.

[George Berger]

Amazon is usually right on target when they pitch an email. The one I haven't figured out is the email I got recommending oven mitts.

As a writer, your hands are valuable assets. As a content provider for Amazon, they're merely considering their best interests with their heartfelt desire for your hands to remain uninjured and highly productive.

[CaedemMarquez]

Brian- quite playing! You bought rope, an axe, duct tape, shovel and sleeping pills for  that girl you think is cute ... I mean "book you're working on"so Amaon was just being helpful and asking if you want zipties to complete your orde as that is what any stalker...I mean writer wants!

Caedem

[George Berger]

Amaon was just being helpful and asking if you want zipties to complete your orde as that is what any stalker...I mean writer wants!

Zip-ties are for amateurs. Er, or so I heard...

[BrianKittrell]

Are you a Prime member?  Some are Prime eligible.  They know how we like to buy cheap things and be amazed that Amazon will get it to us in two days, knowing it probably cost Amazon more on shipping than what we paid.

No. I've considered it, but I'm not the kind of customer who would benefit the most from it. Even at Christmas time, I don't run up $79 in shipping. I don't watch videos on their website, I don't buy music, and I read mostly non-fiction. I do have a Kindle, but at least half of the reason is to check my own books' formatting.

Brian- quite playing! You bought rope, an axe, duct tape, shovel and sleeping pills for  that girl you think is cute ... I mean "book you're working on"so Amaon was just being helpful and asking if you want zipties to complete your orde as that is what any stalker...I mean writer wants!

Caedem

lol You speak too highly of me; I'm far too lazy for any of that.

[Christopher Bunn]

Thank goodness it's just emails for now. With the way Amazon is growing and innovating, I fully expect to find an Amazon salesman hiding under my bed one morning, ready to make recommendations on a better brand of toothpaste, towel, oatmeal...

[George Berger]

A nice concrete bit of data for the curious:

At 6:19pm on January 19th, Betsy posted a link to Amazon's page for an Olfa rotary cutter. I clicked that link within ten minutes, as evidenced by the timestamp of my reply; that was the first and only time I've viewed an Olfa on Amazon.

At 4:31am on February 8th (i.e. today), I received an email from Amazon "recommending" that particular rotary cutter.

19 days and 10 hours.

There you go.

[BrianKittrell]

Oh, wow. Actually, I think the problem has been located. Since I login to Amazon on the work computers sometimes, other co-workers may come behind me and search without logging themselves into the system. So, all the tracking goes on my name, and Amazon thinks I want sunglass accessories. lol

[ChristinePope]

I had my weekly "Artisan Bread Making" email from Amazon today - happy days 

I got one of those this morning! And I don't even recall looking up books on bread-making or anything similar. I was shopping for tablecloths at one point, though. Maybe they figured I needed some fancy bread to go with the fancy tablecloths...

[BrianKittrell]

Perhaps Amazon is trying to broaden our horizons. lol

[Emma Daniels]

Hmm

So the Monster High dolls my eight year old daughter was looking at on ebay somehow got Amazon to send me a promo email this morning about THEIR monster high dolls. Amazon sure are smart.

[CoraBuhlert]

I got one of those this morning! And I don't even recall looking up books on bread-making or anything similar. I was shopping for tablecloths at one point, though. Maybe they figured I needed some fancy bread to go with the fancy tablecloths...

Browsing for kitchen or household stuff tends to trigger marketing e-mails for breadmaking books and accessories for some reason. For me it was buying vacuum cleaner bags that did it.