I experienced my first chink in Amazon's brand experience armor. It wouldn't have necessarily been enough to report on (how many random issues do we run into in experiences daily?), but this seemed too different in too many ways. I did a search to see if anyone else had reported anything (not that the search engines aren't so clogged with 'noise' that results would be meaningfully indicative of anything) and found only 1 artifact, which isn't even directly related. Take my observation for what it's worth.

I went to order a book on Amazon yesterday. Amazon set the bar for simplicity in online ordering. I could have used 1-click, but after the initial novelty wore off (years ago), I often find that I change orders a lot and like to mess with a shopping collection for some time. But in this case it was just one book.

When I got to the payment page, my head tilted to the right -- you know, the autonomic inclination when your eyes and brain are trying to resolve some unidentified conflict -- where "something's different" is trying to raise to the level of conscious awareness.

Months earlier, as a result of very successfully-crafted persuasion, I had set up my primary payment option as my bank account. It was suddenly not there. Then I noticed that issues at the payment stage were not supported in any way: there was no access from the page to your account information and there was no access to any help links. I bailed out of the transaction to do some research. This was the first of many repeats of this action.

The only 'clue' that I had was that there was some 'red' on the payment page: one of my cards on file had expired. Having been in this business too long, I'm supposing that there might be an error condition overriding the display of my bank account. I check and my bank account is listed as my primary method of payment. I'm running short of time -- I wasn't planning to spend this much time to order a book. I engage the online feedback loop to get some clarity.

The next morning there's a response in my inbox. Well, there's an email. There's nothing in the response that even remotely addresses my concern, but there are phone numbers. I call. While the support agent spoke perfect English I knew they were not US-based (I had to spell everything). They had no answers and suggested at least two actions I was not happy with (1. Would need to wait until Monday to get someone to help me 'fix' issues with my bank account -- there was no evidence that my bank account had any issues and 2. They'd report that I had problems with a virus (where the heck did this come from?)). Lastly, they gave me an email address for the web team.

In the meantime, the prior email had a feedback feature for me to respond if the email had solved my problem, and the call itself generated another one of these. It was through this mechanism that I got some real answers:

Hello from Amazon.com.

First, please allow me to extend my sincere apologies for any inconveneince this matter has caused to you.

I want to let you know that we've removed the option to "pay directly from your bank account" temporarily due to an issue with our payment processor. I'm afraid I don't have any information about when or if we may offer this option again.

That's pretty significant. And yet, through at least 4+ touchpoints this oh-so-important piece of information was not available to either myself or the interacting support staff/mechanisms.

Has Amazon finally exceeded the optimal tipping-point of size and control?

Or are they too focused elsewhere?

Lately profits have fallen, dragged down by spending on new technology projects and on free-shipping offers that Amazon considers marketing in place of TV ads. Analysts expect full-year net income this year to come in at about $180 million, or half of last year's total. Most worrisome to investors is Amazon's three-year-plus binge on new technologies. So far this year its spending on technology and content, including hiring hundreds of engineers and programmers to produce all these new services and buy more servers to run them, is up 52%, to $485 million. As a result, operating margins, at 4.1% for the past four quarters, now come in at less than Wal-Mart's 5.9%.