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Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

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Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#111
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They recalled a quarter million power banks because they were catching fire. Everybody uses the same factories and Amazon doesn't have better quality control than anyone else.

To be fair, Samsung had to scrap a whole phone model because of battery problems. The Boeing 787 suffered with problems of batteries catching fire (and according to some reports still does). It's a tricky problem to avoid.

With a power-supply it's not a hard problem to avoid. You have to hire independent engineers to evaluate the product design and establish testing procedures to verify that the product isn't unsafe. And you have to do QA and design verification during receiving on all batches of product to confirm that the manufacturer followed the design. I've never had a power supply catch fire and I've done some really dumb stuff in my lab. Frankly it's a matter of paying for UL/CE marks(including testing) and actually looking at the component layout, and Amazon doesn't strike me as the kind of company to respect that kind of QA/Verification work.

Batteries are a different story because they're basically tiny plastic bombs. Somehow Samsung managed to deliver almost 15 years of Android phones before having their batteries catch fire, and that was almost certainly a result of skipping essential QA/Verification processes because they've never had a problem before.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#112
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Samsung had to scrap a whole phone model because of battery problems. The Boeing 787 suffered with problems of batteries catching fire (and according to some reports still does). It's a tricky problem to avoid.

Anecdotally I've spoken to people who compete with Amazon private label in electronics and they tell me Amazon doesn't care about quality, and that the factories they were buying from were known to be lower quality. I've also heard the opposite about Anker - that they always get the best quality.

AmazonBasics isn't any more trustworthy than any of the junk you find on AliExpress or at Wal-Mart/Target/Best Buy. (Except that it has a good return policy backing it, I think)

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#113
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Samsung had to scrap a whole phone model because of battery problems. The Boeing 787 suffered with problems of batteries catching fire (and according to some reports still does). It's a tricky problem to avoid.

Anecdotally I've spoken to people who compete with Amazon private label in electronics and they tell me Amazon doesn't care about quality, and that the factories they were buying from were known to be lower quality. I've also heard the opposite about Anker - that they always get the best quality.

It makes sense- if Anker's batteries start exploding, nobody will buy Anker's batteries again, and that's a significant part of their brand.

If Amazon's batteries start exploding, it's not quite the same magnitude. People will still shop at Whole Foods.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#114
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Samsung had to scrap a whole phone model because of battery problems. The Boeing 787 suffered with problems of batteries catching fire (and according to some reports still does). It's a tricky problem to avoid.

Anecdotally I've spoken to people who compete with Amazon private label in electronics and they tell me Amazon doesn't care about quality, and that the factories they were buying from were known to be lower quality. I've also heard the opposite about Anker - that they always get the best quality.

I’m sure Amazon’s competitors are the best source for unbiased feedback about the quality of Amazon-branded products.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#115
post #34

Considering how shopping at Amazon now feels like shopping at an electronics bazaar in Singapore with giant bins of random knock-off products of suspicious quality, tweaking the algo to push name-brand options (even if it's their own name-brand) would be a welcome move to me as a buyer. Obviously it's grossly unfair to their vendors, but from a strictly user-centric view it's an improvement. Otherwise, Amazon feels l…

Amazon's reputation is pretty damaged in my eyes. I have rarely used them for electronics anymore as you can't trust anything. Even at work we used prime to buy certain items and I stopped it. Example: Last week two symbol barcode scanners used in the erp system died. I look up the same model on newegg and see that sold and shipped by newegg it was about $120. Amazon had multiple listing in the $60 range and checking…

I don't buy from Amazon simply because they've become a dump of all things crap for years. Their UI is horrid an tricks you into clicking on ads by putting them in product listings. And they treat their employees like dirt.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#116
My problem with Amazon is that I dont know what to trust anymore. For every product I buy off Amazon, I spend time reading "verified purchase" reviews, 1 star and 2 star reviews and may be then find an item that seems legitimate and durable. I only recently learned that "Amazon's Choice in category X" label does not necessarily mean that Amazon has actually vetted that item. So my experience shopping at Amazon has drastically changed.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#117
post #9
post #6

I would compare this to a supermarket allocating shelf space to maximize its profits, either by placing its own brands front and center or by featuring brands that have made a deal for prime shelf placement. I don't see this as scandalous or even new. Coincidentally, Amazon brand products are usually pretty good in my experience, so this might not be a terrible outcome for users who have already decided to come shop…

> Coincidentally, Amazon brand products are usually pretty good in my experience, so this might not be a terrible outcome for users who have already decided to come shop at Amazon's store. So it's fine they're shafting other vendors on their platform because their products are good?

Sorry, no, that's not the argument I was trying to make. I was trying to show this by starting the sentence with "Coincidentally." It was just a separate observation about the same topic.

I am frustrated by plenty of things that Amazon does, by the way...I just don't think that this is a particularly bad feature of theirs.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#118
post #34

Considering how shopping at Amazon now feels like shopping at an electronics bazaar in Singapore with giant bins of random knock-off products of suspicious quality, tweaking the algo to push name-brand options (even if it's their own name-brand) would be a welcome move to me as a buyer. Obviously it's grossly unfair to their vendors, but from a strictly user-centric view it's an improvement. Otherwise, Amazon feels l…

At this point, anecdotally, it feels as though the top comment on almost every article I see on HN about Amazon is some variation of this complaint. Has anyone done any analysis on the HN posting dataset to see if that happens to be the case? And if that is the case, does anyone have any insight into why that might be?

Amazon used to have the best service, best quality products, and best prices, so practically every HN user loved them.

Now they're wavering on all three of those fronts, and I guess that fact really bothers most of us

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#119
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, anecdotally, it feels as though the top comment on almost every article I see on HN about Amazon is some variation of this complaint. Has anyone done any analysis on the HN posting dataset to see if that happens to be the case? And if that is the case, does anyone have any insight into why that might be?

Amazon used to have the best service, best quality products, and best prices, so practically every HN user loved them. Now they're wavering on all three of those fronts, and I guess that fact really bothers most of us

> Amazon used to have the best service, best quality products, and best prices

They used to usually have the best prices on the products they had, and the widest selection of products. They didn't always have the best quality products (which were sometimes exclusive to non-Amazon channels), and outside of return policy (which was very generous, probably specifically to cover all the other glitches) their service was nothing special at its best.

Let's not view past Amazon through rose-colored glasses.

Re: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

#120
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one difference is that the Amazon Basics products seem to have a quality bar higher than the other random re-labeled products.

They recalled a quarter million power banks because they were catching fire. Everybody uses the same factories and Amazon doesn't have better quality control than anyone else.

Amazon almost certainly has better quality control that most of the sellers on their platform. The vast majority of their sellers are extremely low effort, one or two person companies who take advantage of how easy it is to source and ship goods in the modern age.
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