Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#81

Post by m3kw9 » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

m3kw9 wrote: post #77

arbuge wrote: post #19

Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly. Now that they've captured 50%+ of US ecommerce, they've also raised many prices, to the point where they're far from the cheapest price in many cases. A random example... the cat litter I just purchased is $17.89 at Amazon, $13.49 at Walmart. Last week I bought a chair mat for $21.95 on Eb…

They will not lose customers over this, I skip the ads and still buy what I want, at a good price, and reliable deliveries.

Infact, knowing Bezos, they will lower prices further from the money gained by either reinvesting to improve process like delivery price, time and cheaper logicstis

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#82

Post by m3kw9 » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

m3kw9 wrote: post #81

m3kw9 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will not lose customers over this, I skip the ads and still buy what I want, at a good price, and reliable deliveries.

Infact, knowing Bezos, they will lower prices further from the money gained by either reinvesting to improve process like delivery price, time and cheaper logicstis

Which means more customers $$.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#83

Post by fishbone » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

arbuge wrote: post #19

Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly. Now that they've captured 50%+ of US ecommerce, they've also raised many prices, to the point where they're far from the cheapest price in many cases. A random example... the cat litter I just purchased is $17.89 at Amazon, $13.49 at Walmart. Last week I bought a chair mat for $21.95 on Eb…

I almost ordered two pvc plumbing fittings from Amazon last week for $13.99. Thanks to some Hackernews skepticism I cancelled my shopping cart. I found the same fittings at my local hardware store for $8.99.

My question is, how dynamic are Amazon’s prices? Do all users see the same prices or is it more like google search where results are “personalized”? It seems like they could dynamically change prices based on user data pretty easily.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#84

Post by m3kw9 » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 2:23 PM UTC

tfha wrote: post #63

arbuge wrote: post #19

Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly. Now that they've captured 50%+ of US ecommerce, they've also raised many prices, to the point where they're far from the cheapest price in many cases. A random example... the cat litter I just purchased is $17.89 at Amazon, $13.49 at Walmart. Last week I bought a chair mat for $21.95 on Eb…

This is why I've been unhappy to see Bezos gaining steam. As his other products become more successful, you can expect a lot more of this. Alexa is not your friend, Alexa is a tool to make Amazon money. Amazon's move into media is not an effort to improve the media system, it's a recognition that there's a lot of money to be made by controlling the media that people consume. Same thing with the fire phone, it wasn't…

Xyz company is not your friend. Ok, like we didn’t know they are trying to make money off the other side? When is the last time a company trying to make a profit is our friend?

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#85

Post by chrisper » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 2:23 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #65

chrisper wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever end up installing the Helium10 extension?

I don't recall this being on my list. Remind me?

It's the first response to your second link.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#86

Post by _Codemonkeyism » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 2:23 PM UTC

arbuge wrote: post #19

Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly. Now that they've captured 50%+ of US ecommerce, they've also raised many prices, to the point where they're far from the cheapest price in many cases. A random example... the cat litter I just purchased is $17.89 at Amazon, $13.49 at Walmart. Last week I bought a chair mat for $21.95 on Eb…

In Germany it looks like Amazon removed a lot of camera gear from comparison sites [1] - and often is more expensive than other large retailers.

I've been a Amazon user since they started in Germany and a Prime user since its beginning. Will not renew in November for many reasons - the primary being Amazon logistics which has the worst delivery service I ever experienced. They moved delivery of many items to 7-9pm to an office address because they target people with an other job as drivers. Lots of calls with Amazon support, they will not change delivery times or switch to DHL.

[1] At least over the last months I didn't find Amazon listed e.g. on Idealo while the lens exists on Amazon.de

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#87

Post by moate » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 2:26 PM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #73

moate wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulations and oversight? Or anti-trust lawsuits? I have a feeling the only way to disrupt companies this large is with the force of a government busting up the monopolies. A scrappy start-up will just be pounded into submission and/or bought up.

Regulations where it's clean. But 'net neutrality' for example plays right into the hands of the FANGs. Networks can't make you 'pay per email' thereby allowing more of the surpluses to go to the FANGS. If there is 'network neutrality' - one might wonder if we also need 'search neutrality' i.e. if you're in the search business, you can't look at that data to infer anything about that person to sell them other kinds o…

Well that's why I'm more in favor of big, ugly "bust them up" type moves and force them to split. It's probably harder now due to globalization but it's still got to be possible right? Amazon (and Alphabet and all that) would be easy enough to carve up into smaller businesses cut off from the large central cash reserves. They would still come together to fund lobbying efforts that benefit all of them, but that's a whole other issue that needs to be addressed separately.

It's too bad Trump has made it so obvious that it's personal with Bezos, or he would be in the perfect position to take that sort of action. Obviously if he did that at this point, it would be worse than Nixon's "Enemies List".

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#88

Post by zaarn » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 2:27 PM UTC

arbuge wrote: post #19

Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly. Now that they've captured 50%+ of US ecommerce, they've also raised many prices, to the point where they're far from the cheapest price in many cases. A random example... the cat litter I just purchased is $17.89 at Amazon, $13.49 at Walmart. Last week I bought a chair mat for $21.95 on Eb…

I'm not in the US but for similar reasons I'm discontinuing prime membership and I refuse to order from Amazon. Everything is available in independent online shops or ebay or aliexpress/banggood (which one I pick depends on how much wait time I'm willing to endure, the first is usually the fastest).

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#89

Post by sonnyblarney » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 2:28 PM UTC

enitihas wrote: post #80

sonnyblarney wrote: post #17

Monopolizing one part of the value chain, enables you to leverage that monopoly into controlling the next. Owning the railroads enabled standard oil to price it's competitors more, put them straits, and buy them up cheaply. Owning the OS, Microsoft can make sure they own the Office Product productivity. It's why the electrical grid needs to be separate from the energy makers (and regulated). Amazon and Google as the…

When did standard oil own railroads? I thought Rockefeller had large disagreements with the railroads and they had to build oil pipelines, and that in sense contributed to downfall of certain railroads too reliant on the oil money.

Owned or controlled and colluded with them in illegal/shady ways. It was a major source of competitive advantage.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#90

Post by abnry » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 2:31 PM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #26

arbuge wrote: post #19

Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly. Now that they've captured 50%+ of US ecommerce, they've also raised many prices, to the point where they're far from the cheapest price in many cases. A random example... the cat litter I just purchased is $17.89 at Amazon, $13.49 at Walmart. Last week I bought a chair mat for $21.95 on Eb…

Amazon hasn't had the cheapest prices for a few good years now. They're taking advantage of the fact that they have what I like to call "brand inertia". The problem is brand inertia is not infinite. If you no longer do the things that have given you that inertia to begin with, eventually you'll run out of it. When a worthy competitor appears, your customers, who by then will have little loyalty to you, will switch.

So clearly there will be some delay in between when brand inertia is still going and competitors haven't caught up, but it does look like Walmart is stepping up its online retail business, so I have hope that Amazon won't maintain near monopoly status.