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

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#281

Post by Raphmedia » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

melq wrote: post #221

specialist wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctor's orders. I'm immune compromised. Dr says it's as effective as tamiflu. From my reading, elderberry doesn't prevent infections, but it does minimize the symptoms, which matches my experience.

https://nccih.nih.gov/health/euroelder >Although some preliminary research indicates that elderberry may relieve flu symptoms, the evidence is not strong enough to support its use for this purpose. You may want to find a new doctor.

That's true for almost all herbs. There are few studies because you cannot stick a copyright on herbs so there's no almost incentives for big companies to push for such researches.

There seem to be some conclusive studies on elderberry helping for influenza.

Ex: "In conclusion, the proprietary elderberry extract used here is effective in controlling influenza symptoms and is complementary to current anti‐viral agents. The safety and ease of administration warrant further investigation of its clinical efficacy in children, elderly and other high‐risk patients of the proprietary elderberry extracts." - http://www.omicron-pharma.com/pdfs/ElderberryClinicalOJPK_Pu...

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#282

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

This is of course not the least bit surprising. The search box on Amazon is a pretty high value place, when someone types something into it they have already indicated they are looking to buy something so commercial intent is well established. Amazon has more third party sellers on their site now than Amazon, so there is a viper pit of competitive selling seething down there. The next step? Let those vendors give up margin over to Amazon by bidding to be in search results.

More money for Amazon both in ad revenue and additional sales (for all its evilness advertising exists because it works).

Interesting question to see how Walmart responds.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#283

Post by Kye » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

hrktb wrote: post #219

ashelmire wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>1) The day Amazon feel threatened they can become the cheapest in the market quickly again. Can they? They aren't the ones selling those products, individual companies set their own prices - and they have to pay a cut to Amazon. Even if that cut goes to 0 (making Amazon lose lots of money), that only puts them at barely better than the rest of the market. Walmart sets its own prices. >2) Given purchasing power scale…

They have a pretty aggressive policy of repricing in some markets. For instance in e-books, the most extreme cases, Amazon can straight give away a series' first volume to recoup on the sales on the following purchases. If I remember well in some cases the author or editor has no say on it and Amazon pays for the price difference. I wouldn't be surprised if they can do the same on other retail goods as long as they p…

I knew Google did this with ebooks, but this is the first I've heard about Amazon doing it.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#284

Post by tjr225 » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #233

tjr225 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is equally repulsive.

As a company, yes. As a customer experience, not really. At Walmart, I have to interact with employees who never seem happy to be there. A good quarter have no real reason to do more than minimum. I have to wait in line most times. Now, it has been over 5 years since I've had a walmart in the same country as I am, but I remember the horribleness of 2am walmart, mostly because they would only open one or two registers…

> Amazon? I click a few times, possibly put in some information, and I wait for my package.

You can do the exact same thing at walmart.com - not that I advocate shopping with either company.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#285

Post by Marsymars » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

j-c-hewitt wrote: post #143

The ads have been there for a long time (I know because I've either spent or managed spending on millions of dollars in clicks). It's not even the first time that it's been written about in the tech press. The share of voice provided to ads on Amazon's search results is not particularly greater than what you see on Google or FB. The headline ads are a little newer, but they're still more than a couple years old. On m…

> With search, unless you provide some avenue for sponsored results, you will get a winners-win-more effect in which the top 3 results for any given search will capture the entire market.

If a seller really cared about this, they could implement something like a Robson Rotation for search results of relatively equivalent quality for the search criteria.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#286

Post by hef19898 » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #256

daveFNbuck wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just that Amazon was the cheapest in the market. It was that they built up a reputation over the years of being cheap and reliable. There was a long period where I would buy things from Amazon without considering other sources. That's gone now and they can't quickly get it back. Forget about price. I can't even trust that I'll be getting a legitimate product anymore. When possible, I prefer to buy from a mo…

> There was a long period where I would buy things from Amazon without considering other sources. That's gone now and they can't quickly get it back. That's probably true, but the truth is that situation was an unstable equilibrium in the first place. There's absolutely no reason in a functioning market to expect (or want!) one provider to be the uniform best option at all things. Eventually everyone else starts comp…

Especially the part about everyone else sucks is ao true. At least in Europe there have a ton of opportunities to compete with Amazon that nobody took advantage of before the window closed.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#287

Post by Macha » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

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…

If Amazon's reputation for reliability falls low enough, sites like Aliexpress could break into new markets, and then there's no going back for Amazon. "Ordering from China" has a bit of a dodgy reputation (even if many Amazon sellers are the same companies), but if Amazon gets the same reputation, I'm not sure they can compete on price.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#288

Post by nicodjimenez » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

As Amazon's ad revenues increase, I expect them to gradually drop their prices, making it EVEN more impossible for other online retailers to compete.

Amazon retail's profit margin is 3.8 percent, on more than $51 billion in sales in 2016. They're probably thinking they can shrink this all the way down to 0, and make up the difference in ads.

The big question for me is when they will get into the search space. The growth of their ads business and Alexa's success is a massive threat to Google long term.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#289

Post by bootsz » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

In some sense it feels like Amazon is progressing along a similar trajectory as Facebook:

1. Start company with a minimally viable product

2. Hire smart people to iteratively optimize the usefulness of the product to attract as many users as possible. Incentive structure rewards maximizing new users

3. Product reaches "peak usefulness"; seemingly everyone uses it / loves it

4. Re-focus business efforts to maximize revenue (e.g. stuff ads everywhere). Incentive structure now puts greater emphasis on rewarding short-term revenue increases

5. Revenue climbs as usefulness declines; users begin to abandon the product

6. Company continues revenue-maximization strategy because data on user dissatisfaction / abandonment significantly lags behind data showing correlation of "ad-stuffing" with more revenue

7. User abandonment is finally apparent enough that management realizes it should do something; commence back-pedaling efforts to try to "win users back"

Seems like Amazon is approaching step #5 right now. Will be interesting to see how this plays out over another year or so.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#290

Post by bildung » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #184

na85 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To use your analogy, it's not clear to me that one can have the baby without it spoiling the bathwater.

you don't think people exchanging goods and services using money as an intermediate exchange (aka capitalism) can be a net-positive? Because any other aspect of our current formation of capitalism is negotiable. We can regulate to counteract negative corporate behaviours (though that has its own set of issues) so that companies are working for the benefit of the populace.

> you don't think people exchanging goods and services using money as an intermediate exchange (aka capitalism)

That isn't capitalism, you just described a market. Markets existed for thousands of years before capitalism was created.