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

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#291

Post by Judgmentality » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:19 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…

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." -Warren Buffett

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#292

Post by 0xffff2 » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

dawnerd wrote: post #199

kd5bjo wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart has a history making suppliers cut costs to the point that quality has to drop. Often, suppliers will produce inferior goods for Walmart, and mark them the same as the high-quality goods they sell to other retailers. I've actually wondered how many of Amazon's "counterfeit" items are genuine Walmart-class products commingled with Macy's-class products in Amazon's warehouses.

You think Macy’s is getting higher quality goods? Hah, that’s too funny.

Higher class than Walmart... yes. That's the whole point of the comment.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#293

Post by ntsplnkv2 » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

dymk wrote: post #189

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So essentially price gouging. What a great business model.

Optimizing revenue given a particular supply and demand isn't price gouging. People are paying for the convenience of buying anything they want with two clicks from their computer chair, turns out that's pretty valuable.

That isn't what the parent said:

> Detect when the customer is tired or stressed and show higher prices. Detect price conscious customers and show them lower prices.

Has nothing to do with supply and demand.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#294

Post by primitivesuave » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

maaaats wrote: post #10

Unless you know exctly brand/make/model you wan't to buy on Amazon, the search is useless. Hundreds of similar results from dozens of vendors of varying quality. I liked it better when they sold things themselves, now they're just an eBay clone selling cheap knockoffs trying to hide the fact.

Try searching "airpods" (a registered trademark of Apple) and you won't find a legitimate Apple product until the third page. Even if you search "Apple airpods", the first page is filled with knockoffs of the product I'm clearly intending to purchase.

In frustration I simply walked to an Apple store and learned they price-match Best Buy and Walmart (not Amazon) with up to a 10% discount - I found the Amazon price on walmart.com from my phone and successfully gave myself free same-hour delivery.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#295

Post by j-c-hewitt » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

Marsymars wrote: post #285

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.

There are millions of SKUs. On any popular search result there are hundreds if not thousands of SKUs, not all of which are of equal quality. The organic search results (and partially the paid ones) already rank things and will often swap spots frequently during any 24 hour period if they're otherwise close to even in relevance.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#296

Post by schaefer » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:22 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…

> My Prime membership expires in a couple months time, and this time I'm not renewing it, after being a member for several years.

Like many other in this thread - I have already canceled my prime membership for the first time since 2004.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#297

Post by hef19898 » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

awaywopassd wrote: post #255

apersona wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you solve the counterfeit goods and preventing people from gaming the review system problems? It seems like a hard problem - eBay suffered from this too for their goods,Yelp with reviews. I doubt it's just a "I don't care" kind of thing.

> How would you solve the counterfeit goods and preventing people from gaming the review system problems? The big issue is co-mingling inventory. This is where they mix same product from different sellers in same batch. I only order products from Amazon.com LLC. But I have still received items that seems fake. Some says that co-mingling inventory saves Amazon a lot of money but to me it seems like Amazon is actively…

One other, and somehow more troubling alternative to safing money, could that Amazon's homegrown warehouse management systems and fulfillment software are reaching some kind of limitation.

Seperating inventory not just by article but also supplier and / or inventory owner is no small feat. But if Amazon's IT environment is not able of doing it, this is opening all kinds of issues. None of them really good in the long run.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#298

Post by hef19898 » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC

PKop wrote: post #146

fishbone wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No, prices (aside from "Amazon Business" pricing which was a large internal project to achieve what you're describing but only for differentiation between business and personal purchases) are all the same for every user. I believe most of the rationale was not wanting upset customers annoyed with getting different prices than others first and foremost, but also technically pricing system is already extremely complex…

I heard that prices arw different for the webpage and the app in some cases. And even for Android or Apple users. Any truth to that or is it just office talk? Seriously wondering...

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#299

Post by bordercases » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

I don't think it's simply the lack of consumer price comparison that is making it easy for Amazon to front ads without consequence. I think it's also that for many different consumer products, consumers don't know precisely what they want, or more particularly, how to model their requirements. If they knew their precise requirements, they would easily be able to judge whether or not a given ad was fronting a product actually is the right one for the job (that sometimes happens), as well as whether or not the products were a good deal.

It would be interesting if there was a repository of the performance specs for different common household products. Right now it's the job for critics and reviewers to be the experts here, but how difficult would it be to simply read a five minute primer on the theory of detergents or the theory of headphones and then go out shopping with impunity?

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#300

Post by Broken_Hippo » Tue, Sep 11, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

tjr225 wrote: post #284

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was pretty sure the comment was referring to going to a physical store. Doesn't actually matter much to me anymore - I now live in a country with no wal-mart and no native Amazon. I'm pretty sure one doesn't ship here and when the other does, they usually are expensive (shipping) and do not include Norway's Vat in the price.