Ask HN: Why are my Amazon order emails so devoid of useful information? Why do my amazon order details consist of: "Thank you for shopping with us. We’ll send a confirmation when your items ship." Then it lists my order number, shipping address and amount paid. Nowhere to be found is the product that I ordered. This is infuriating because now I cannot search for orders in email without going to Amazon's closed wall system. Any way to change this? |
Furthermore, it seems weird to be upset (let alone infuriated) about having to use "Amazon's closed wall system" to search your past orders; you have to use "Amazon's closed wall system" to shop for items and to place orders and to do literally everything else related to buying things on Amazon. I don't even see how it makes sense to talk about a "closed wall system"——as if that's a bad thing——when it comes to Amazon's retail store.
Meanwhile, the system cannot add the detailed description likely because: accessing order item would need your personal credential, which only you would have. Extra db calls would cause more time delays and strain on the system.
I don’t work for the retail side of Amazon, but that would be my educated guess of the situation.
An algorithm has probably told them that you would be 0.0047% more likely to order something again.
..alternatively it's so that the order process is slightly more secure as the email is not secure communication.