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Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

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Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#21

Post by paul7986 »

bunderbunder wrote: post #14
whoisjuan wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fakespot is pure trash. That thing doesn't work at all. According to Fakespot everything in Amazon is fake. Even small legitimate third-party sellers get bad ratings from Fakespot. But that's not even the worst part. I have found dubious listings where Fakespot didn't detect anything and gave them a semi-decent rating when it's obvious that the reviews were manipulated just by looking at them. If you want to understa…

> According to Fakespot everything in Amazon is fake. http://www.chioka.in/class-imbalance-problem/

And probably half or more that’s on the Internet is fake too especially if it revolves around making money.

I’ve told my older parent not to buy a product or use a svc based on Internet reviews.. go with personal recommendations only!

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#22

Post by sonnyblarney »

gcb0 wrote: post #5
Simulacra wrote: post #4

I'm curious if acquisitions impact the rate of growth, Amazon has been on a buying spree these past couple of years.

they finally stagnated. the site is still as unusable as when I first used it. Search and categories are complete garbage. The listings that breakdown price (e.g. $/unit or $/Gb or $/ounce) are a inconsistent mess in the same search result, sometimes showing different units for the same product from two sellers! and I still have no idea if a listing will be OK or from a seller worse thab ebay.

"Search and categories are complete garbage."

I'm consulting in the pet space, if you search for 'Mousr' which is the name of a very cool pet toy brand that they carry - you get PC mouses (ie 'Mouse'). Not the brand 'Mousr'.

So basically their 'spell correct' 'Mousr->Mouse' utterly and completely overrides the notion that the users wanted to in fact input 'Mousr' to get that product.

Instead, in order to find the product, you have to type the company name 'Petronics'.

FYI - if you've worked in NLP, you might recognize this problem: the edit distance from Mousr->Mouse is short, and the 'e' and 'r' keys are beside one another, and of course the word 'Mouse' is very common while the word 'Mousr' is very uncommon, leading the error correction algorithm to 'over correct'.

This is a problem in NLP where very uncommon things that are lexically adjacent to common things get suppressed.

Since 'Mousr' however, is 100% in the Amazon catalougue, you'd think they'd include it!

But no.

Consider the resulting 'lowest common denominator' approach: statistically speaking, it might be slightly more economically efficient to actually assume the error and show PC mice, besides, 'everyone' needs a PC mouse anyhow!

But the interesting, long-tail stuff gets suppressed.

This is to me the statistical epitome of not just Amazon, but of our new, globalized culture - the big brands have such power they just bulldoze through everything else - and the 'short run' economics are in their favour! They can point to 'the efficiency of the search' etc. to validate to everyone else in the equation (ie city councillors approving permits, banks giving loans, buyers - heck, even consumers) to validate their case on competitive, culturally secular grounds.

It takes quite some magic, a loyal following, a magic meme of attention, a super faithful investor, or deep rooted cultural behaviours (like Italians who could care less about the new 'Starbucks' because they already have good coffee).

Most big CEO founders have made some kind of 'big claims' or almost arbitrary statements about 'how it ought to be' and they stuck to their guns on those, I wish Bezos et. al. would think just one tiny bit about the 2cnd order effects of their businesses.

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#23

Post by tyingq »

I think the poor management of 3rd party sellers is at least part of it. I've had several bad experiences with slow shipping, "out of stock" after the sale, items very much not as described, counterfeits, etc. And crazy bad support from those sellers...English bad enough that I couldn't understand the response.

I now only buy a very specific subset of what I used to buy there.

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#24

Post by iClaudiusX »

gcb0 wrote: post #5
Simulacra wrote: post #4

I'm curious if acquisitions impact the rate of growth, Amazon has been on a buying spree these past couple of years.

they finally stagnated. the site is still as unusable as when I first used it. Search and categories are complete garbage. The listings that breakdown price (e.g. $/unit or $/Gb or $/ounce) are a inconsistent mess in the same search result, sometimes showing different units for the same product from two sellers! and I still have no idea if a listing will be OK or from a seller worse thab ebay.

Using the search/filter options on the site is useless now.

Most recently I was looking for a countertop hot plate/burner to replace one that finally broke (filament burned out after 15 years). Searching within the Appliances / Cooktops category, it is filled with random apparel like t-shirts and dresses for Most of the sellers and brands have names that look like someone mashed their keyboard. At this point the only way to use the site is to already know the exact brand and model you want and search from google.

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#25

Post by jonas21 »

It seems that Amazon grew its annual sales by around $50 billion from 2017 to 2018 for a growth rate of "only" 19% (compared with 24% the year before). I'm not exactly concerned for them.

> In 2018, Amazon’s nearly $300 billion in GMV was about a 19 percent jump from the prior year. That was notably slower than the rates of increase of 24 percent and 27 percent, respectively, in 2017 and 2016.

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#27

Post by atomical »

tyingq wrote: post #23

I think the poor management of 3rd party sellers is at least part of it. I've had several bad experiences with slow shipping, "out of stock" after the sale, items very much not as described, counterfeits, etc. And crazy bad support from those sellers...English bad enough that I couldn't understand the response. I now only buy a very specific subset of what I used to buy there.

The letter seems to suggest the opposite.

> We helped independent sellers compete against our first-party business by investing in and offering them the very best selling tools we could imagine and build. There are many such tools, including tools that help sellers manage inventory, process payments, track shipments, create reports, and sell across borders - and we're inventing more every year. But of great importance are Fulfillment by Amazon and the Prime membership program.

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#28

Post by manigandham »

iClaudiusX wrote: post #24
gcb0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they finally stagnated. the site is still as unusable as when I first used it. Search and categories are complete garbage. The listings that breakdown price (e.g. $/unit or $/Gb or $/ounce) are a inconsistent mess in the same search result, sometimes showing different units for the same product from two sellers! and I still have no idea if a listing will be OK or from a seller worse thab ebay.

Using the search/filter options on the site is useless now. Most recently I was looking for a countertop hot plate/burner to replace one that finally broke (filament burned out after 15 years). Searching within the Appliances / Cooktops category, it is filled with random apparel like t-shirts and dresses for Most of the sellers and brands have names that look like someone mashed their keyboard. At this point the only…

What? That sounds really strange. Do you have a browser extension messing with the page?

You can just use the search from the homepage. Typing "hotplate" gave autocomplete for "hotplate for cooking" which is hundreds of products: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=hotplate+for+cooking

Or if you want to browse, the category homepage has all kinds of filters: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=&ref=nb_sb_noss&rh=n%3A3741261

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#29

Post by tyingq »

atomical wrote: post #27
tyingq wrote: post #23

I think the poor management of 3rd party sellers is at least part of it. I've had several bad experiences with slow shipping, "out of stock" after the sale, items very much not as described, counterfeits, etc. And crazy bad support from those sellers...English bad enough that I couldn't understand the response. I now only buy a very specific subset of what I used to buy there.

The letter seems to suggest the opposite. > We helped independent sellers compete against our first-party business by investing in and offering them the very best selling tools we could imagine and build. There are many such tools, including tools that help sellers manage inventory, process payments, track shipments, create reports, and sell across borders - and we're inventing more every year. But of great importanc…

That doesn't say anything definitive either way, does it?

Re: Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing

#30

Post by manigandham »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #22
gcb0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they finally stagnated. the site is still as unusable as when I first used it. Search and categories are complete garbage. The listings that breakdown price (e.g. $/unit or $/Gb or $/ounce) are a inconsistent mess in the same search result, sometimes showing different units for the same product from two sellers! and I still have no idea if a listing will be OK or from a seller worse thab ebay.

"Search and categories are complete garbage." I'm consulting in the pet space, if you search for 'Mousr' which is the name of a very cool pet toy brand that they carry - you get PC mouses (ie 'Mouse'). Not the brand 'Mousr'. So basically their 'spell correct' 'Mousr->Mouse' utterly and completely overrides the notion that the users wanted to in fact input 'Mousr' to get that product. Instead, in order to find the pro…

It is completely reasonable to optimize for the vast majority typing 'mouse' and potentially misspelling it. Also "mousr petronics" shows up as the 1st choice in the autocomplete when typing "mousr".

This is probably one of those products that can and should have its own website and sell from there or link directly to Amazon instead.

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