It's Not Your Imagination. Shopping on Amazon Has Gotten Worse (msn.com) 106
"When you search for a product on Amazon, you may not realize that most of what you see at first is advertising," reports the Washington Post's technology columnist, introducing some eye-opening interactive graphics. (Alternate URL here.)
The Post's graphics show that Amazon's first six search results — basically everything on their first screen — were all ads. Scrolling to the second screen, we finally start to see non-ads. These are the first products that were actually chosen because they've got the best combination of price and quality. But the real results don't last long.
Scroll to the next screen, and it's all ads again. Here's a set of listings labeled "Highly rated," but don't be fooled.... These are also just ads. [Later the article points out that while customers can't specifically buy their way into the highly-rated section, it's still just "often stacked with sponsored listings that don't have terrible customer reviews." And then on the next screen three of the six displayed results are "top rated for our brands" — that is, Amazon's own products. And then...]
Keep on scrolling, and the ads keep coming — even if they're repeats. On these first five screens, more than 50 percent of the space was dedicated to ads and Amazon touting its own products....
The first page of Amazon results includes an average of about nine sponsored listings, according to a study of 70 search terms conducted in 2020 and 2021 by data firm Profitero. That was twice as many ads as Walmart displayed, and four times as many as Target... The Amazon we experience today is pretty much the opposite of how Amazon used to work. Even as recently as 2015, Amazon's results pages were filled with actual results, ranked by relevancy to your search....
Here's a modest proposal: No more than half of any screen we see at any given time — be it on desktop web or a smartphone — should contain ads.... Another idea: Shill results should be much more clearly marked. A label disclosing that a shill listing is "Sponsored" should have the same font, size and contrast as the most prominent text in the ad. Even better: It should have to go on the top-left part of the ad, where our eyes go first. No more burying it in the far-right corner.
The article notes that even typing the name of a specific brand may first bring up off-brand rivals who've paid for higher placement. (An Amazon spokesman tells the Post, "This practice is good for customers — it drives discovery and presents them with more choices.")
But Post argues Amazon's various sponsored results "fill up spaces people have every reason to expect to contain trustworthy, independent information," ultimately warning that Amazon "is betraying your trust in its results to make an extra buck.... Sure, Google and Facebook are chock full of ads, too. But on Amazon, we're supposed to be the customers, not the eyeballs for sale."
Ironically, since 2013 the Washington Post has been owned by... Jeff Bezos.
The Post's graphics show that Amazon's first six search results — basically everything on their first screen — were all ads. Scrolling to the second screen, we finally start to see non-ads. These are the first products that were actually chosen because they've got the best combination of price and quality. But the real results don't last long.
Scroll to the next screen, and it's all ads again. Here's a set of listings labeled "Highly rated," but don't be fooled.... These are also just ads. [Later the article points out that while customers can't specifically buy their way into the highly-rated section, it's still just "often stacked with sponsored listings that don't have terrible customer reviews." And then on the next screen three of the six displayed results are "top rated for our brands" — that is, Amazon's own products. And then...]
Keep on scrolling, and the ads keep coming — even if they're repeats. On these first five screens, more than 50 percent of the space was dedicated to ads and Amazon touting its own products....
The first page of Amazon results includes an average of about nine sponsored listings, according to a study of 70 search terms conducted in 2020 and 2021 by data firm Profitero. That was twice as many ads as Walmart displayed, and four times as many as Target... The Amazon we experience today is pretty much the opposite of how Amazon used to work. Even as recently as 2015, Amazon's results pages were filled with actual results, ranked by relevancy to your search....
Here's a modest proposal: No more than half of any screen we see at any given time — be it on desktop web or a smartphone — should contain ads.... Another idea: Shill results should be much more clearly marked. A label disclosing that a shill listing is "Sponsored" should have the same font, size and contrast as the most prominent text in the ad. Even better: It should have to go on the top-left part of the ad, where our eyes go first. No more burying it in the far-right corner.
The article notes that even typing the name of a specific brand may first bring up off-brand rivals who've paid for higher placement. (An Amazon spokesman tells the Post, "This practice is good for customers — it drives discovery and presents them with more choices.")
But Post argues Amazon's various sponsored results "fill up spaces people have every reason to expect to contain trustworthy, independent information," ultimately warning that Amazon "is betraying your trust in its results to make an extra buck.... Sure, Google and Facebook are chock full of ads, too. But on Amazon, we're supposed to be the customers, not the eyeballs for sale."
Ironically, since 2013 the Washington Post has been owned by... Jeff Bezos.
simple filter (Score:4, Interesting)
simply change the filter from "featued" to "avg customer review". that blogger is acting like all they do is shop off the "end caps" at stores.
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i forget, is there a setting for verified purchasers only review? i mean if you thought bots were bad at twitter!
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Worse than that is the suggestion that the "promoted" tag "should have the same font, size and contrast as the most prominent text in the ad" -- no! It should be at least as legible, but distinctive and in a consistent location.
There's a good reason that statements like "no warranty" need to use different text formatting than the rest of a license or end-user agreement. Listings should not be able to embed anything that looks like the "promoted" tag, or else they'll abuse it by adding claims like "best se
Re:simple filter (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, I just searched for "cat beds" on Amazon and my results look NOTHING like those pictured in the "article".
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change the filter from "featued" to "avg customer review".
Unfortunately that doesn't work well - or, in some cases, at all. I pretty much always use "average customer review", and have often seen it fail. Sometimes the search using "featured" does show a few relevant results, but changing the filter returns pages and pages of items that have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual search.
Amazon search has become so bad I sometimes just give up in frustration and drop the purchase altogether. I don't know how breaking search so badly makes them more money, but I g
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Doesn't work if you're looking for a specific item. "Hey, you searched for 'Magnum Tolsen 5/8" Boxcar Prawns', here are five pages of results for vaguely similar things made by anyone but Magnum Tolsen that will snap, corrode, or not fit if you get them".
The only Amazon search system that actually still works is Google with site:.amazon.com.
No ad blocker? (Score:2, Funny)
So, sucker doesn't block ads then complain about ads.
Re:No ad blocker? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, interesting.. like I did the same search to see what I'd get and ... I didn't see one "Sponsored" one
Either I got a different view because my ad blocker has been way better than I even realized.. OR perhaps they fixed that "cat beds" search real quick so as to make the article look histrionic.
Now I'm curious - so firing up FireFox with UblockOrigin, I search "Cat beds" and then go on chrome with no ad block on - and search the same..
WOW there are all the ads -
So, TL;DR: turns out my ad blocker has just been sparing me this.
And I'm OK with the majority of folks NOT using them. If the number of folks using them is small then the time/effort to battle ad blocking is not worth the trouble to the big sites -
However, if they feel its eating into their profits it's gloves off...
Honestly though it's not even the ads that are the worst thing on Amazon.. it's all the shady ass AliBaba resellers with brand names that look like they let their cat walk on the keyboard ... ones that bough reviews or took over abandoned product ratings with good ones..
They're a minefield
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Now I'm curious - so firing up FireFox with UblockOrigin, I search "Cat beds" and then go on chrome with no ad block on - and search the same..
Yup - I just tried the same with the same results. It's nothing short of disgusting what you get when you don't have ad-blocking. Not to mention the big increase in hit on your data cap if you are on an inexpensive plan.
To me, the intrusion of the present ad system, along with the real possibilities of malware in the ads, makes the internet unusable without ad blockers. And if they ever make it impossible to go without adblocking, I'll just find something different to do with my time.
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Not to mention the big increase in hit on your data cap if you are on an inexpensive plan.
I question the implication that expensive internet plans don't have data caps (in the US).
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I question an expensive internet plan where a text add on Amazon results would be enough (even if you spent your whole day on Amazon) to hit that cap.
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I have not actually heard of a broadband plan at any price where Amazon browsing is likely to make a difference with regard to the data cap.
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I question an expensive internet plan where a text add on Amazon results would be enough (even if you spent your whole day on Amazon) to hit that cap.
You wouldn't - but the amount of data you are downloading of ads is indeed part of what you are paying for.
My example was back in the day when I got my first cellphone, I blew through my data cap downloading 1 - 40 K pdf.
The rest was all ads and whatever crap they were putting on my phone.
Re:No ad blocker? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this an ad for UblockOrigin?
Re:No ad blocker? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Good grief, I just tried it as well. I didn't realize Amazon included so much extra crap, but then I'm always using Firefox with uBlock Origiin.
What's weird is - I also tried it in Safari with no ad block running, and it was pretty close to what I see with Firefox + uBlock. So I guess the moral of the side-story is "don't use Chrome"?
In any case, even setting the extra garbage ads aside... the fundamental Amazon experience has, itself, gotten significantly worse over the past few years - which is what I ass
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As I write this reply on /., it is 14.
amazon.com: 31
foxnews.com: 48
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CNN: 60
I also block the video player so that may make a difference.
Slashdot: 12 - and that is with the checkbox for no advertisment enabled on the site.
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Slashdot: 12 - and that is with the checkbox for no advertisment enabled on the site.
I am reasonably certain that checkbox is a dummy, at least nowadays.
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I don't use Ad blockers, so I have no idea how many ads I am missing out on. NoScript for the win. Almost all ads rely on JavaScript.
The Amazon Search is terrible (Score:5, Informative)
Since the beginning of last year, when I look for something, I use Google Search and lock the website option to Amazon and I get the products I'm looking for.
Amazon Search is so terrible, that in some cases, it wouldn't even show me books even though they were selling it with Prime... whose links where shown via Google Search.
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Are there any shopping websites where the search isn't shit? eBay is the best I know of WRT search filters and the like.
Re:The Amazon Search is terrible (Score:4, Insightful)
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Digikey and McMaster-Carr also have outstanding search and filter capabilities.
I tried searching "cat bed" (the search term in the article we're discussing), and the results were unsatisfactory. Would not recommend.
Granted, those are pretty specific use cases, not general commerce.
Yep.
Re:The Amazon Search is terrible (Score:5, Funny)
I tried searching "cat bed" (the search term in the article we're discussing), and the results were unsatisfactory. Would not recommend.
Could you try a more specific search, like "100uF 250V cat bed"?
Re:The Amazon Search is terrible (Score:5, Funny)
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Resistance is futile.
Given he said "100uF 250V cat bed", shouldn't that have been Capacitance is futile?
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Re:The Amazon Search is terrible (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree 100% with this. It is really difficult to find things on Amazon. The worst part is trying to find movies on prime video. I can't believe an interface that bad was actually shipped. I have sometimes given up on finding something I know is there because even searching for it does not find it.
Maybe that thing of having teams compete and winners keep their jobs was not a great method to build a highly reliable and predictable system. It is almost like competition internally instead of cooperation results in highly fragmented systems.
Re:The Amazon Search is terrible (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't believe that, for years now, you can type in the exact title of a book AND the name of its author - and not see that book in the first few pages of results.
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I'm not trying to defend Amazon here, but that has not been my experience. I frequently type the names of specific items and get a result page where the top items are what I need. Maybe it's because I search for a part number instead of "replacement battery" or something generic. Certainly if you go search for "laptop computer", you'll get a bunch of ads, but if you know what you want/need, it's easy to find it.
Of course, if you cannot find the right name for something, you're right you probably won't fi
Re: The Amazon Search is terrible (Score:2)
Try searching on peacock.
But Amazon search is horrible on purpose. They could add boolean operators in an hour, if they wanted to.
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Yep. But _why_ would they make it internationally terrible? I do not see the business case at all.
Also, the Kindle firmware has gotten worse as well, two times now. Why would they do that? I think I will get a different ebook reader next time and just break the Amazon DRM (legal here for private use).
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Why mess up a football broadcast with so many ads when it would clearly be more fun to watch without them?
Presumably Amazon is seeking the balance point of increasing margins and ad revenue at the cost of driving away some shoppers.
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Because getting people to buy what they want isn't good for business. You just get that sale.
You want to get people to buy what they wanted to buy, but also a bunch of stuff they didn't intend to buy but came across anyways.
So a "bad" search that gets the user to add unrelated things they saw is good for business.
it's why grocery stores are laid out in very scientific layouts. You always enter and the first thi
Re:The Amazon Search is terrible (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe that thing of having teams compete and winners keep their jobs was not a great method to build a highly reliable and predictable system. It is almost like competition internally instead of cooperation results in highly fragmented systems.
No idea, but something fundamental got broken at Amazon IT a few years back and it seems to be getting worse. Maybe they stopped hiring competent people and just go for cheap these days, because all IT experts are the same, right? I think this must already have cost them more in lost sales than they could ever have saved by hiring cheap. Or maybe they still hire expensive, but lost the ability to filter out "incompetent".
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You're assuming it's broken. You know how grocery stores put the things you buy most right at the back? It's definitely not because they're incompetent.
Amazon having "bad search" lets them show you lots of things you might buy while you're sifting though results looking for the thing you actually want to buy. It's annoying to many people but it's more than made up for by the number of people who actually like it, and also spend more money on Amazon.
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I don't even use Prime Video anymore because the interface is so bad. Maybe that's their goal? I'm sure they pay rights holders less when Prime members don't use the service.
Re:The Amazon Search is terrible (Score:4, Informative)
Amazon’s prices are terrible as well. Half the shit is products that people buy locally and then resell for a few bucks more. Like Taza chocolate discs. The local hippie co op sells them for $5. They range from $7-$10 on Amazon. I make sure and get my money’s worth from prime shipping though. Buying things like cat litter and brake rotors.
Re:The Amazon Search is terrible (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Amazon Search is terrible (Score:5, Funny)
Not as much as that UPS driver abused my NAS when he insisted in putting that anvil of yours on top of it while driving it here.
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set of pickup tires, 200 lbs of cement, and an anvil
Wile E Coyote? Is that you?
Amazon = eBay (Score:4, Informative)
I think this is one of the biggest problems with Amazon from the users' perspective. Amazon is not an index of companies selling products, it's simply an index of products and who the seller is, what their customer service is like, how carefully they'll ship the product, etc. is not relevant. Sure, the users do not bid on items directly, but because of how Amazon prioritizes listings by Advertisers > own products > others' products by price; it's really a race to the bottom. And since anybody can sell anything, if someone gets a hold of a product on the cheap, they'll beat the actual manufacturer.
I've run into this problem myself as a manufacturer. It's too bad. I would LOVE to be able to put my products on Amazon so my customers could take advantage of Prime shipping. Unfortunately there's always someone who got a few of the products at distributor rates and is selling them on Amazon for a few bucks over that price...undercutting me and all the retail outlets.
Re: Amazon = eBay (Score:2)
I donâ(TM)t understand. If someone buys your product at rates you set, and resells them for more, how is that a problem for you?
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The problem is they are selling it for less than MSRP. If our only revenue stream was through distribution, it would not affect us as much, but we also sell at MSRP directly to our customers that do not have access to a retail store. It's a huge problem for those brick and mortar retailers though. Their margins are razor-thin, and they provide a service by relaying information about our products to their customers, as well as doing demos on occasion. Because of that, they are the only ones who are supposed
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Don't you have product serial numbers? You can easily buy an item on Amazon and find out which retailer is reselling it at wholesale prices.
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You're lucky. In Canada it's all stuff people buy off Aliexpress for $5 and then try and resell anywhere from $20 to $1500.
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Yeah, it's bad.
You sort by price and 1000's of products disappear from the list
You search for a product and get nothing in return apart from rubbish results.
You want Prime and get terrible long delivery options because the item is not in the country and needs to be got from China on a boat. Then this should not be a prime option.
Sellers seem to tag their product with 100's on misleading keyworks, for example I was look for 30m of cable but got lots of results for 15m twin core cable because the seller quote
Zeitgeist (Score:5, Insightful)
All of the internet has gotten worse. We can get more individual tasks done but each task has become a worse user experience.
Used to be we argued that if it's free, then you are the customer and must live with downsides but they try to make us the customer even when we pay through the nose for a service.
Mercedes is just one example in long line of such events.
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s/customer/product/g on that... :D
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It's not just the Internet. EVERYTHING. Even humans. :(
I'm seeing cat beds.. (Score:2)
So TFA suggests I test using "cat beds". When I do this, I get a bunch of cat beds to choose from. To me it is not obvious that these are "ads". Surely amazon is not a search engine but a store. I would expect them to push the items that makes them most money first ( == their own brand). Am I not understanding something?
Try "DeWalt Cordless Fan" or "HP laptop" (Score:5, Informative)
So TFA suggests I test using "cat beds". When I do this, I get a bunch of cat beds to choose from. To me it is not obvious that these are "ads". Surely amazon is not a search engine but a store. I would expect them to push the items that makes them most money first ( == their own brand). Am I not understanding something?
You must not shop on amazon much. I see ads all the time as the first result. For example, "DeWalt cordless fan." Result #3 is a cordless fan from DeWalt. Result 1 is a fucking ceiling fan. Most of the page is off-brand fans that are compatible with DeWalt. I also tried "HP laptop." The first two results are Microsoft tablets...which have nothing to do with HP or arguably laptops.
It's surprisingly awful. Amazon is really devolving into a shit show.
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Thanks. Indeed I try to avoid amazon. So if I understand you correctly, the issue is not so much that a result is sponsored, but that the result is not relevant to your request? I agree that would suck, I'm just not seeing it. I have ublock and ghostery running, but I do not expect that to influence these adds?
anyway, thanks for clarifying
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old vs new alogithm (Score:3)
Thanks. Indeed I try to avoid amazon. So if I understand you correctly, the issue is not so much that a result is sponsored, but that the result is not relevant to your request? I agree that would suck, I'm just not seeing it. I have ublock and ghostery running, but I do not expect that to influence these adds?
anyway, thanks for clarifying
You are correct. Those results are a specific brand and a specific product. DeWalt is an EXTREMELY popular global tool brand headquartered in the USA and is the top choice for most pros in my area. Amazon sells a fuck ton of DeWalt and has since they started selling tools over 15 years ago.
Prior to becoming a shit ad platform, you'd see something results approximately in this order
1. All matching keywords. (DeWalt cordless fan: They currently make precisely 1 and they used to make 1 other 3 or 4 ye
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Been a Prime shopper for many years, but this year I have gradually stopped using Amazon for routine supply shopping and the impetuous "an Amazon order in the hand is worth two items on a shopping list I'll forget when I go to the store", for this exact reason.
The whole reason Amazon got so much of my business was that I could go from idea to app to search to confirmed purchase in a handful of clicks and just 3-5 minutes in most cases. More expensive or complex items like appliances and electronics would re
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Most of the page is off-brand [crap]
par for the course w/ amazon these days.
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Yeah it's pretty bad. Recently was trying to buy a decent windows laptop (or maybe a convertable) for a certain price point. Impossible to do on Amazon. You cannot set a price point range at all. And of course was swamped by all the ads, not to mentioned overwhelmed by all the absolute garbage out there when it comes to PC laptops. And tons of really old stock. And most times when I'm searching for something, if I switch to "average review" sort, I get pages and pages of stuff that's not at all what I w
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So TFA suggests I test using "cat beds". When I do this, I get a bunch of cat beds to choose from. To me it is not obvious that these are "ads". Surely amazon is not a search engine but a store. I would expect them to push the items that makes them most money first ( == their own brand). Am I not understanding something?
You have put your finger right on the main issue. Is a site like Amazon - or, say, Facebook - a store or a public utility? If it were a store, shouldn't there be some kind of peer competitors? There are competitors, but none that can claim to be peers. Go elsewhere than Amazon and suddenly the range of items offered shrinks drastically.
Amazons value is availability and ... (Score:2)
... ease of acquisition. Related products and targeted presentation are perhaps a distant third.
Amazons fundamental problem is that for 20+ years it threw everything into delivery and fulfillment.This exact thing is the value they provide, along with an early all-out 100% emphasis of SOA in their digital inftrastructure. A detail that enabled them to be an industry pioneer and leader in SaaS & virtual IaaS.
In my opinion they should concentrate on what they do best (fulfillment, delivery, end-to-end serv
Use Google/DuckDuckGo instead of Amazon's search (Score:5, Informative)
When I need a specific product (e.g. "#4 x 5/8 philips head screws"), I use DuckDuckGo instead of Amazon's own search. The top hit/hits there are actually relevant, and usually provide the item I'm looking for. Some times, the item doesn't show up at all on Amazon's own search.
And the Amazon argument that irrelevant noise is good for customers - it drives discovery and presents them with more choices is just bullshit.
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When I need a specific product (e.g. "#4 x 5/8 philips head screws"), I use DuckDuckGo instead of Amazon's own search.
Oh thank god, I thought for a second you were going to suggest McMaster Carr, where everything shows up but there is an extra 0 or two on the price.
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It depends what you’re ordering. Things like nuts and bolts are fine from McMaster. A box of 100 4-40 screws will be a few bucks. A welder or cordless drill is a different story. Since they stock a million items it’s easier and cheaper for companies to have them as a single vendor.
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And the Amazon argument that irrelevant noise is good for customers - it drives discovery and presents them with more choices is just bullshit.
Indeed. All I ever do is get angry and click that crap away. Well, maybe I am the exception and people really buy stuff simply because it is shown to them. I somehow doubt that though. Some others are doing the same crap, like AliExpress (search that competes with Amazon for being complete crap). I smell some economics PhD done on fake data behind this stupidity.
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... I smell some economics PhD done on fake data behind this stupidity.
You're Way Too Generous! It's just some marketing MBA thinking "ooh, throw more shit at them and maybe some of it will stick..."
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Interesting (someone mod parent up.) But you'd think those economists could calculate cost-benefit analysis based on search query. If I look for "screws" or even "philips-head screws", I'm probably much more interested in a broad set of results than for "#4 x 5/8 philips-head screws". The more specific the query, the less value results that don't match the query would have.
But then, maybe the reasoning/analysis is "the value is in the ad revenue, not in the relevance of search results." I guess that w
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Well, again I have no idea how common my behavior is, but I am increasingly often looking on Amazon only if I do not find stuff elsewhere because they are so annoying and dysfunctional. That cannot be good for their ad revenue either.
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Looks to me like they are hiring all the bad ones.
Ad revenue is large now (Score:3)
It's been terrible for years (Score:5, Informative)
It's a hateful site and a horrible shopping experience.
Not just ads... (Score:3)
It's flooded with a ton of different product entries for different logos on the same Chinese knock off of a product or product concept. Frequently from a 'manufacturer' that will disappear from Amazon within a few weeks, as part of a pool of never ending names/logos for the exact same group of people.
Sometimes they won't even bother to keep straight which logo you ordered and you receive something that would ostensibly be from a whole other manufacturer (also, it's likely to not even be the same product).
Re:Not just ads... (Score:5, Funny)
I am shocked, shocked, to hear that AQTOO and OPUV and FRADOFF might not be legitimate, established brand names that will stand behind the products they shovel onto Amazon!
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Well obviously they are illegitimate, and that's why they are gone from Amazon. From now on I will trust these new upstarts, FASTOO, POVU, and FRADON. I like the cut of their jib and surely they are nice and legitimate after the ousting of those lame companies.
and the one time you want targetted ads... (Score:2)
well, for me at least, is when I've bought 5 previous albums from a certain band through Amazon and there is a new one out soon. Amazon has all the data and all the incentive to say "Hey, new album coming soon, do you want to pre-order"?
But no, they can't even get that part right.
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Re: and the one time you want targetted ads... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is particularly sad. I remember when Amazon was my go-to when I wanted to read a new book. Their recommendation engine was killer back in the day. I bought shit from them in a continuous stream.
"Dog beds" non-scientific experiment (Score:3)
With both my AdGuard protected Chrome browser on macOS and the Amazon application ("app") on my iPhone, I searched for "dog beds" (just in case the sudden, high influx of searches for "cat bed" is influencing Amazon in some way we don't know about).
In my browser, I do get "Amazon's choice" as the first result, but no sponsored brand header, and no sponsored results.
On the app, there's a huge banner for some little-known brand whose name I won't repeat, and several screenfulls of sponsored ads. The application seems to have endless scrolling instead of pagination, so I'm not sure at what point the real results start to show beyond "several screenfulls."
I also use AdGuard on my phone, so a quick check of the iPhone's built-in Safari browser show me similar results as desktop.
If I turn off my ad blocker and refresh the desktop page, whoah! What's all this garbage? It looks pretty similar to the ad-laden Amazon application. I had no idea my ad blocker was able to block internal-to-Amazon ads. Nice. And now I understand why Amazon always wants me to use their shitty application every time I visit the website in my iOS browser: my system level ad blocker seems to be defeated within their app.
I suppose one should tl;dr: before the wall of text, but I'd suggest that the problem as described in the article largely disappears when one uses a browser instead of a redundant application (I'm assuming we all use ad blockers already). This won't serve to fix the other problems with Amazon's crappy search, but the ad blocker will do as its description suggests, and block ads. So
tl:dr; use a browser instead of a redundant app.
I don't get it. (Score:1)
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For Chinese stuff, AliExpress has better prices and faster delivery at least in Europe. Quality is about the same, so YMMV.
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This. And you get the same slew of Chinese pseudo-brands when looking for something, so you can as well just go to AliExpress directly.
And yes, they charge for shipping... sometimes. But even with shipping it's cheaper. Even ignoring Prime.
Yep, book recommendations as well (Score:2)
They used to be pretty good. Then they got worse a 2-3 years back and now they are completely borked. Design by idiot and "fuck the customer" mind-set. I used to buy a lot of books based on Amazon recommendations, now I need to get my recommendations somewhere else since the Amazon recommendations are basically useless. You can tell they have given up on trying for any quality level by the simple fact that you can only remove a recommendation, where before you could also say "I already have that book". Appa
Sorting changes the results. (Score:1)
Only one of several really annoying 'features' (Score:2)
I get ads, go figure. But, but, there are other annoyances:
Try a search on '7 hole binder'. I would normally expect to see some planner binders etc. Nope. I see mostly checkbook binders. I cannot get rid of this pollution.
You can't really use modifiers in your search terms such as a - to eliminate terms. Kinda sad, that is a Google feature from way back. Com' on, man...
Try sorting by price. Watch your results list shrink, sometimes dramatically, .Ok, so Amazon, ya really don't want to show me cheap stuff? O
Re: (Score:2)
You can't really use modifiers in your search terms such as a - to eliminate terms. Kinda sad, that is a Google feature from way back. Com' on, man...
Alta Vista predated Google and had that feature. Google killed all the old time search engines except Yahoo... and I would argue they are dead too.
Re: Only one of several really annoying 'features' (Score:2)
Google permits modifiers, even the -com limits are and sellers still. But Amazon, no.
Shocking! (Score:1)
I'm shocked, SHOCKED, to discover ADVERTISING going on on a SHOPPING website!
Amazon is ENTIRELY devoted to shopping. Shopping almost REQUIRES advertising.
Ads should be color-flagged (Score:1)
When the web was new, all links were that bright blue color and people are still conditioned to visualize any text in that color as a link. If we can find a low-use color, like a bright pink with sparkles, and have all ads use this color for text or at least borders, it would distinguish ad content enough that people could easily mentally filter it out. In the meantime, there's uBlock. In the long-term, the bigger problem is that the internet has no working model for profit except ads, and most of the peopl
Use Google Search and local stores (Score:2)
I have switched almost completely to using Google Search. It gives you results from many sites, the ads are much more clearly marked, you get a nice blend of ads, organic product results, reviews, install guides, etc and there is a dedicated shopping tab.
I also increasing find better deals from non-Amazon sites than from Amazon. And pretty much everyone gives free or very reasonably priced shipping anyways. Even USPS delivers in 2-3 business days on average for most products I order in my experience, so the
Searching is bad for size and color choices (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Mice (Score:2)
This article is identifying something that Amazon will gently and quietly adjust so you can't see the cat. It's not much of a game of cat and mouse if you're trying to help people who ALREADY read things carefully and it's still misleading. I thought there was going to be some link that gave you a window with a realtime overlay with clever regexes or a way to set a plugin to change the CSS of ads.
I don't usually get caught, but my family who aren't super technical but are fairly savvy internet users get d
Why I despise Amazon! (Score:2)
[Actually a c&p job from a comment I wrote elsewhere... Sorry, but Slashdot isn't worth more editorial effort these years...]
I still love books but I think Amazon's monopsony has destroyed the entire publishing industry. Did you know that publishers lose money on most books they publish? But they have to publish the losers to find the rare and profitable bestsellers, especially for new authors. However it is now impossible to have a bestseller unless the publisher accepts Amazon's terms and conditions (
The worst is listings not related to specs (Score:2)
I don't like the ads, but I've already trained my eyes to ignore all the ads. What really bothers me is when I'm looking for something specific, like a specific size or model, and a whole bunch of different sizes or models pollute the list. I wonder if Amazon is just being lazy/inept or if they are allowing paid listings to pollute "related" listings without labeling as such.
Latency rules (Score:2)
"... be the customers, not the eyeballs for sale."
You're a resource to be used and discarded as quickly as possible.
As long as people tolerate this abuse, corporations will continue doing it. Of course, people tolerate a little abuse, so every business does it, leaving the customer little choice. Latency (laziness) means it's easier to suffer increased abuse than spend time and money on a better shopping experience. So, the abuse continues.
Meh (Score:2)
Misleading (Score:2)
The most annoying thing about Amazon is when you search for a specific part number, or product SKU, and instead of saying "We don't carry this, here are some alternatives." or "We're out of stock, but these might fit the bill." They just feedyou results, many of which are irrelevant. If your patient enough, you might eventually find what you were looking for only to realize the above. It just shows how much they value your time.
Instead of being upfront, and honest, they figure if they show you enough result
Lack of competition (Score:1)
is making them lazy and annoying. Walmart.com is not (yet) a sufficient threat, largely because of their smaller pool of choice.
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, it's pretty smart to not buy from amazon. They fuck up the local stores, then it starts to snow, and you can't get in anything by any means, from anyone. "Sorry kids, no dinner today. It's still in the delivery truck stuck in traffic out there somewhere." Being "disruptive" doesn't mean it's a good idea, too. It just means some silly valley assholes thought it was a good pitch to VCs.
And then you go off the deep end, making shit up. GP didn't even say "I could do better". Just said "this is neither u