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Confirmed: Amazon to Close its Support Forums on Friday

This blogger is still awaiting official confirmation, but it appears that Amazon is shutting down its customer forums.

There are multiple reports on Amazon’s forums that Amazon has posted a banner which read:

The Amazon forums are retiring October 6, 2017. Amazon would like to thank the members of this community for contributing to the discussion forums. As we grow and evolve, we encourage you to explore Goodreads Groups for books and Spark for other ways to engage with your interests.

I have not seen that banner myself, and Amazon PR has not yet confirmed the news, so at this point we don’t really know what is going on.

Update: It’s official. Amazon is closing the forums on 13 October, next Friday.

Second Update: Or not. What Amazon didn’t tell us was that they recently opened a new support forum which is going to replace the old.

If Amazon does follow through and kill its forums, it will b a loss to the local community but not a huge surprise.

The real question isn’t why Amazon would do that but why not. The forums were never closely integrated with Amazon’s site (I always had to Google for Amazon support forums in order to find them). Also, Amazon may have provided a space for its customers to congregate, but I can’t recall the last time I saw one of its customer service reps answer questions there.

Since the forums serve no clear purpose, why would Amazon keep them open?

image by dclay

 

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Comments


David H. Rothman October 3, 2017 um 4:49 am

Nate, I hope you’re in your devil’s advocate mode. Killing the forums would hurt users. I hope people will write [email protected]. Check out the TeleRead post below.

Thanks,
David

https://teleread.org/2017/10/03/alert-amazon-forums-to-shut-downbig-mistake-if-true-write-jeff/


tired October 3, 2017 um 6:42 am

"Since the forums serve no clear purpose, why would Amazon keep them open?"

What are you talking about? Just because you don’t use it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t serve any "clear purpose." It gives users a chance to help each other.

I’ve found Amazon forums much more useful than any other forum online excepting perhaps Reddit. I’ve round solutions to a wide variety of problems, and not just related to Kindle.

It was always meant as a place for customer discussion not for CS. A forum is not worthless just because CS has little presence there.


Michael W. Perry October 3, 2017 um 10:06 am

Quote: "If Amazon does follow through and kill its forums, it will b a loss to the local community but not a huge surprise."

The local community? And pray tell us what community is that? Cleveland perhaps or maybe Atlanta? That remark strikes me as nonsense. I don’t use those forums myself, but those who do are from all over the world. That’s hardly local.

If your want to excuse Amazon’s behavior, you need to come up with better reasons than that.


Coral October 3, 2017 um 10:15 am

I think this is the same place you’re talking about but I’ve gone to the customer forums when something has broke and want to find out if it is a known issue. I’ve used that information to get a rebate or to fix an issue. Yeah the only reason to close it is to make customers search elsewhere for information on products.


BDR October 3, 2017 um 11:52 am

Gee … if only there were some other place on the internet where users could share information and that’s kinda the point, I’m thinking.

If you’re concerned about this, you’ve got waaay too much time on your hands. Go do something productive rather than worrying about one less social media site in the world.

Whew.


Anne October 3, 2017 um 12:14 pm

I use the forums daily. Well, I guess only two forums so I’m not happy with this decision by Amazon. I leave a tab for the "discounted/price dropped" thread tab open all day and contribute to it when I can. Also, the "what are you reading" thread.

I follow other threads as well but I will miss those two in particular. They’re responsible for probably 90% of my purchases. I think Amazon is going to see a drop in ebook sales by closing the forums because I know I’m not the only one who does that.

They’re also good for educating yourself about using the kindles/tablets. I’ve learned a lot from a number of posts over the years.

They most definitely served a clear purpose for me.


Janita October 3, 2017 um 3:09 pm

There are book discussion forums that are heavily used and because of the "chatting" are directly responsible for hundreds, probably thousands of book sales per year.

Maria (BearMountainBooks) October 4, 2017 um 5:38 pm

I doubt the forums are responsible for huge sales numbers anymore. If Amazon was making money off those forums, they would leave them open. More and more people probably get the books from the library or simply aren’t buying as much as they used to. Amazon definitely tracks direct sales from their forums, and traffic on those forums is nowhere near what it used to be. I used to participate on two very popular threads and read several others. Five years ago, traffic was cut in at least half. It’s dwindled since then.

That doesn’t mean that the people who are on there will be happy to see it go. It just means that Amazon no longer finds it worth keeping.


Amazon Not Closing All Its Support Forums | The Digital Reader October 9, 2017 um 10:44 am

[…] I reported my scoop last week that Amazon was closing its support forums, it looked like Amazon was going to simply abandon its customers to go find support on social […]


Stacey Shenton November 12, 2017 um 5:49 pm

My account was suspended for changing my bank details . My only form of income. Why would they do that . No foul play. Practically a perfect seller. Heart broken


Sandy January 30, 2018 um 6:13 am

How do i deal with copying 20++ SKUs from one campaign (auto) to another campaign (manual)?


E. C. Griffin February 16, 2018 um 9:56 am

Public discussion about a particular company’s product, possible customer solutions, etc., is always a good thing. Closing this avenue down just feeds into the narrative of the "big guys" vs the "little guys". As for the "cost" of keeping these forums open? Balderdash!


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