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Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

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Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#261

Post by H1Supreme »

greetings wrote: post #48
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If so many people weren't sharing access to my my prime membership I would have cancelled it a year or two ago. Between Walmart and eBay it's rare for Amazon to be the best price for an item or to be the same price and available with two day shipping. For stuff that isn't time sensitive eBay is the clear winner because I can buy items at little markup as long as I'm willing to wait a month for them to ship from China…

Not to mention that 2 day shipping is no longer a guarantee. I have had multiple items that have not shipped on time, or had long delays.

The last three orders I placed from Amazon took over a week to ship. Every product was sold directly from Amazon, and shipped from their New Jersey warehouse to Ohio. It's my opinion that they are intentionally delaying orders that aren't Prime.

I've never been someone who used Amazon for everything, so a Prime membership never made sense. I'd estimate 2-3 orders a year at most. Placing 3 orders in a short time frame was an anomaly. But, all three had abnormally long delays compared to nearly every other retailer.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#262

Post by eric_the_read »

huehehue wrote: post #227
scrooched_moose wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just looking at my recent purchases: Electronics - Newegg and Monoprice Board & Table Top Games - Miniature Market Pet Food - Chewy (owned by PetSmart now) Clothing - Depends on your style, but I tend to stick to Eddie Bauer and Duluth Trading Company for good quality, affordable clothes Comic trade paperbacks - InStockTrades Books - Barnes & Noble (new) and eBay (used) The big one I've still struggling to find a rep…

Can't you go direct to a brand's site for shoes, if you already know what you want? For marketplaces/browsing, there are sites like ASOS, Gilt, Yahoo! Japan, eBay, etc. You can also browse any department store's online section to find something you like, and then order straight from the brand.

I actually had no idea I could by from the brands directly. Nike's store seems fairly decent.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#263

Post by jachee »

lechiffre10 wrote: post #239
Gustomaximus wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it though? 1) The day Amazon feel threatened they can become the cheapest in the market quickly again. 2) Given purchasing power scale and people like fast delivery there will only be a handful of companies that can complete with Amazon ever, so it seems unlikely there will be a 'started in the garage' business compete with them now the market is maturing. 3) With the extra profit Amazon are making vs a competit…

1) The day Amazon feel threatened they can become the cheapest in the market quickly again. The problem with that statement is that you assume customers will flock back. It might be true in the short term however when you lose customers specifically because of pricing and the monopoly behavior, clients aren't going to quickly forget this behavior. You really think people will come running back and allowing Amazon to…

Ever seen a Black Friday stampede?

Price is king.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#264

Post by adrianmonk »

sairahul82 wrote: post #39

In the details page of the product, they used to show people brought this product also brought this list. Now that is replaced with sponsored products in most of the pages. They moved that list to bottom of page. IHMO this is deceiving users. There used to be lot of product recommendations and I find it useful. Now most of these recommendations are gone and they are replaced with sponsored ads. Not good for users.

The worst part is that they are visually similar. There's text at the top of the section that tells you whether it's sponsored or organic, but the layout and format is otherwise identical. If you recognize things more by shape and color and such as you're scanning the page (as I do), it's easy to not notice sometimes.

While nobody loves ads, I'm OK with them if it's always very obvious which you're looking at. This skirts that line.

Which is an unfortunate trend. Even Google's web search results page is making ads less visually distinctive. If I remember right, they used to have a different background color, and now they just have a small box that says "[Ad]".

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#266

Post by awaywopassd »

fishbone wrote: post #83
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 use…

You were likely buying from a 3rd party seller.

I know of some people who do this. Basically, list tons of items on Amazon from local speciality stores, Costco, etc. They markup prices, of course. Then once a day, on their way back home, they pickup stuff that was bought, pack it at night, and then ship it in the morning. You are basically paying for someone else to shop.

I was introduced to this side-hustle by my friend and did this for a few months, but it was too much of hassle for very little return. Very hard to scale.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#267

Post by naravara »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #164
cs702 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly. Speaking as a longtime customer, I agree: this is what Amazon's behavior feels like to me nowadays. Search no longer works well for me. Reviews and product ratings are no longer trustworthy. The authenticity of products in key categories (e.g., electronics) can no longer be taken for gra…

Does it though? 1) The day Amazon feel threatened they can become the cheapest in the market quickly again. 2) Given purchasing power scale and people like fast delivery there will only be a handful of companies that can complete with Amazon ever, so it seems unlikely there will be a 'started in the garage' business compete with them now the market is maturing. 3) With the extra profit Amazon are making vs a competit…

>1) The day Amazon feel threatened they can become the cheapest in the market quickly again.

Only if they're being vigilant. Usually the threats to a company's business model come from places they don't expect, so by the time they feel squeezed it's already too late. Consider the examples of RIM and Microsoft.

> 2.) Given purchasing power scale and people like fast delivery there will only be a handful of companies that can complete with Amazon ever, so it seems unlikely there will be a 'started in the garage' business compete with them now the market is maturing.

Again, consider RIM and Microsoft. Apple + Google gobbled up much of their core markets. RIM just withered and Microsoft had to completely redo its business strategy. They're not the Borg anymore as a result.

Amazon's big gains come from taking advantage of low-hanging fruit in technology. It's something most other retailers just didn't have the internal expertise to do. But the Wally Worlds and Targets of the world can catch up eventually. The first mover advantage only lasts for so long.

At this point, the main thing that makes me go to Amazon is one-click ordering. But if things like Apple or Android Pay take off, that would kill much of the advantage Amazon has over other small retailers. I already don't really care for my Prime membership anymore.

And there is always the possibility that our government wises up and starts enforcing anti-trust la. . .no never mind. That's just ridiculous.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#268

Post by dingaling »

slivym wrote: post #42
village-idiot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their website is garbage for how popular it is. It’s really hard to navigate the sections for controlling your kindle, digital purchases, or settings.

Whilst their website is terrible, I actually think the specifics of what Amazon does makes it very difficult for the website to be good. They sell a million versions of a million products in a million sectors. What is useful for me to know when buying a hard disk is not the same thing that is useful for me to know when buying a bottle of wine. So they either have 1 size fits all, or a huge cost in building almost cus…

Even fixing the infamous 'Choose a Department to enable sorting' problem would be a start.

How am I meant to know Amazon's taxonomy?

Somehow eBay can sort products across all categories and present them in one list. Wicked majick!

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#269

Post by chabes »

NegativeK wrote: post #248
Gustomaximus wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it though? 1) The day Amazon feel threatened they can become the cheapest in the market quickly again. 2) Given purchasing power scale and people like fast delivery there will only be a handful of companies that can complete with Amazon ever, so it seems unlikely there will be a 'started in the garage' business compete with them now the market is maturing. 3) With the extra profit Amazon are making vs a competit…

As a sibling comment pointed out, cheapest doesn't trump everything -- otherwise we'd be ordering from Aliexpress. I've spend _way_ too much money on climbing gear in the past three years, very little of which was on Amazon. I simply can't risk getting counterfeit safety-critical goods. And while I'm not worried about counterfeit mops, I have noticed that the Amazon first habit is now broken in general.

> I simply can't risk getting counterfeit safety-critical goods.

That’s a good call. I usually buy direct from someone like Black Diamond when it comes to things like that.

Also, like with most industries , it helps to have a friend with a pro deal, if you’re trying to save money on important stuff.

I’ve found that AliExpress is good for cheap electronics that I don’t mind waiting for, but not much beyond that. I haven’t used the site in months (though, I haven’t used Amazon during the same time either)

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#270

Post by twothamendment »

maxxxxx wrote: post #18
Loughla wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>now they're just an eBay clone selling cheap knockoffs trying to hide the fact. I've moved almost all of my online purchases BACK to ebay actually because of this. At least ebay's trust system is easy to understand and harder to game than what amazon has in terms of reviews. I'm interested to see if this is a trend, or if my circle of friends is an outlier.

Same here. I either go to eBay or B&H. In eBay I can see at least quickly the seller rating. Amazon has just turned into a big mess.

B&H has been around forever. I bought a good pair of binoculars from them when I was a kid. My mom had to drive me to the store to get a money order so I could mail my order form to them. She thought I was crazy.

Yes, I still have and use the binoculars.

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