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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

#511

Post by jessaustin »

vel0city wrote: post #357
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…

To be honest, with the growth of self-checkout at Walmart the times I actually interact with a Walmart employee directly is now probably close to 30%.

This experience has really improved over time. Twenty years ago, in some locations, the average Walmart customer would have had more luck operating the space shuttle than they seemed to have with the self checkout. Long lines of people who apparently had never seen a TV, let alone a touchscreen interface, chased me over to Target. I was that theoretical consumer who was happy to pay more... Something has changed since then, because I can't remember the last time I was in a Target.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#512

Post by jessaustin »

hef19898 wrote: post #31
mtgx wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One could almost come to the conclusion that Amazon running a global experiment on price elasticity on their complete customer base.

At any retailer that isn't running that experiment constantly, at least half of the executive team should be fired.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#513

Post by kolderman »

dwild wrote: post #163

It's so weird, supermarket always sold better placement to some product and it was never an issue. Amazon is clear in their doing too, is that the issue? You don't notice it thus it's alright?

Because it is deceptive. People think they are getting search results when they are getting back ads.

There is nothing implied in product shelf placement - no-one thinks the items within easy reach are the best/cheapest, quite the opposite in fact - most people know it is the shiniest, most expensive, branded items which get the best placement.

Both Google and Amazon try and deceive users into thinking their ads are genuine, ranked search results. Deceptive, misleading conduct in order to make $$$ is not far away from criminal fraud.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#514

Post by daveheq »

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…

When people wake up, Amazon's gonna crash.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#515

Post by emmanuel_1234 »

What really kills me with Amazon is that, leaving outside of the US, I always tick the box for "Deliver in $COUNTRY", and regularly (95% of the time) find out at checkout time that no, in fact, this seller does not deliver in $COUNTRY.

To be fair, I gave up on Amazon after that, except for Kindle's books.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#516

Post by ckastner »

lolsal wrote: post #225
ckastner wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would you solve the counterfeit goods and preventing people from gaming the review system problems? No idea what do to about the reviews, but the first step to the counterfeit goods problem is simple: once you've received X complaints about a counterfeit product, stop selling the product . Continuing to sell a product for which there are numerous and credible indications that they are counterfeit is borderline…

> No idea what do to about the reviews, but the first step to the counterfeit goods problem is simple: once you've received X complaints about a counterfeit product, stop selling the product. If you don't have an idea of how to solve the review problem, I'm not convinced you've thought through the "received X complaints about a counterfeit product" problem and your proposed solution. In your system, I could easily as…

> If you don't have an idea of how to solve the review problem, I'm not convinced you've thought through the "received X complaints about a counterfeit product" problem

With "complaint", I meant a formal complaint to Amazon, over a proper channel, either by contacting Amazon Support, or during the returning process (I'm returning this product because it is counterfeit").

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#518

Post by ckastner »

kaitai wrote: post #340
ckastner wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would you solve the counterfeit goods and preventing people from gaming the review system problems? No idea what do to about the reviews, but the first step to the counterfeit goods problem is simple: once you've received X complaints about a counterfeit product, stop selling the product . Continuing to sell a product for which there are numerous and credible indications that they are counterfeit is borderline…

This just can't work on a logistical level. Let's look at diapers. There are lots of reports of counterfeit Huggies and Pampers. In some cases, it's true -- they're counterfeit. Recently, though, Huggies changed the 'movers & poopers' line or whatever they call it. Since consumers didn't know about the change beforehand (new leg-hole shape, for instance) there were many reports that those were counterfeit, and Huggie…

> Amazon cannot afford not to fix their supply chain legitimacy issues.

If they can't run a legitimate business properly, then that's their problem.

Take a look around -- plenty of other profitable retailers don't have this problem.

> But they can't just stop selling the product.

Not only can they, they must.

You can't continue with illegitimate business just because you'd be unprofitable otherwise.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#519

Post by ckastner »

taeric wrote: post #188
ckastner wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would you solve the counterfeit goods and preventing people from gaming the review system problems? No idea what do to about the reviews, but the first step to the counterfeit goods problem is simple: once you've received X complaints about a counterfeit product, stop selling the product . Continuing to sell a product for which there are numerous and credible indications that they are counterfeit is borderline…

Have you established that there are "numerous and credible indications" for all counterfeit products? I would, perhaps naively, think that this is just shifting the exact same problem to the reports. That is, reviews and reports are likely easier to manipulate/game than physical products. Not just in "ballet stuffing" but through many other means. (That is, it is probably easy to get credible people to also vouch for…

> Have you established that there are "numerous and credible indications" for all counterfeit products?

No, just anecdata, including personal experience. But the anecdata seems widespread enough.

> To that end, I'd imagine it is easy to get rid of someone that sells 100% fake items. But how hard is it to drop someone that sells 10% fake items?

I have absolutely zero experience with retail, but I'd probably set the bar at 0%. Any deviation from that 0% must be explained satisfactorily: "how did this happen", "what measures have been taken so that this doesn't happen again", etc.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#520

Post by zelos »

awaywopassd wrote: post #272
eganist wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies in advance for the self-referential commentary: I've put down a long list of reasons for why I've cancelled prime after almost ten years of consistent use. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16937290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17568320 If you-the-reader need good reasons to quit prime, I hope these help.

I am also not about to renew my Prime membership. You list gave me a lot of confidence. But one of important benefit I use Prime for is Amazon Photos. Unlimited backup of your photos. When I look at other solutions such as Backblaze, they will all cost at least $50 a year. Then another benefit I like is Prime Music. Which again is going to cost money if I get music subscription from Spotify or somewhere else. So when…

I partially justified resubscribing to Prime through Amazon Photos. Then I actually used it. As it doesn't include video, it's not much use for backing up my Photos library.

What really killed it for me though is that the Amazon Drive client software is terrible. Slow and extremely buggy: it appears to do file operations on the UI thread, so the whole UI freezes for minutes at a time.

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