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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

#381

Post by vinay_ys »

bduerst wrote: post #281
jonknee wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think retail stores controlling what you see based on how much money they get which is quite similar to Amazon controlling what you see in a search result based on profitability, but I guess we can agree to disagree. However, it's not just stores like Best Buy. Your local grocery store almost certainly makes a large percentage of their profit from companies paying for shelf space. End caps don't come out of thin ai…

Again, comparisons with physical retail are moot because, in your grocery store, nobody can walk in off the street and start selling off the shelves. The grocery store is not an open e-commerce platform but a curated service with physical scarcity. People don't have an issue with Amazon default sorting to best selling either. The problem is that Amazon is slowly pushing out the competition on their platform to focus…

> Again, comparisons with physical retail are moot because, in your grocery store, nobody can walk in off the street and start selling off the shelves. The grocery store is not an open e-commerce platform but a curated service with physical scarcity.

So, if Amazon marketplace was an invite-only, curated marketplace and not an "open" marketplace, this wouldn't be a problem?

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

#382

Post by Scoundreller »

Pxtl wrote: 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…

AliExpress: a massive company that somehow never bothered to observe a new user using their software.

Why the heck does the ordering window have 2 or 3 “Confirm” boxes that I have to press?

And if I haven’t, why can’t it just tell me what’s not confirmed when I hit “Submit Order”?

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

#383

Post by mattrp »

password1 wrote: post #52
Pxtl wrote: 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…

> Otherwise, Amazon feels like AliExpress with faster shipping and better English. It literally is. All these products are cheap stuff that marketers find on aliexpress. They buy them in bulk, stamp a logo on it, import in the US/EU, stock in logistic centers and then sell on Amazon. It's the same stuff, but it comes from an English seller and a warehouse in US/EU. It's exactly the same thing that Amazon does with it…

I used to wonder why amazon didn’t prioritize “name” brands as a proxy for quality but then I realized all they are doing is sourcing cheap crap too. So what’s the difference if it’s a one man shop or a big name if the original source is the same crap. Amazon is merely a exaggerated reflection of just how bs the retail marketplace is these days unfortunately.

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

#384

Post by mattrp »

partialrecall wrote: post #166
kortilla wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two programs have nothing to do with each other.

It reflects poorly on the brand in general. If I can't trust Amazon's Choice, how can I trust anything Amazon decides to put their name on?

Like when prime simply meant two day shipping?

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

#388

Post by infogulch »

toasterlovin wrote: post #142
m_ke wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The product is still taking up their limited shelf space so it's in their best interest to see it get moved. Amazon made their business on the long tail of products that rarely get bought but in aggregate add up to a large portion of total sales because they don't have the same physical constraints.

Amazon also has an equivalent of shelf space: search results. They are just as incentivized to maximize revenue per customer search as super markets are incentivized to maximize revenue per shelf space.

Search results are an interesting comparison because their consumer-facing functionality is the same: They both have some limited consumer attention while they are present, and they both want to guide that attention to products that make them more profitable.

Except the analogy falls flat when you actually compare the implementation: Amazon's costs to host listings is negligible to negative (they may get more value from having extra listings than it costs to serve them), but that is far from true for grocery stores.

Grocery stores have a very small, finite, shelf space compared to Amazon; you can put a lot of items in the "..." after page 3, but grocery stores have to expend labor to count and organize each item at least once a month.

Yes stores may be able to return non-selling items for a refund, but do you think it cost them nothing while it was sitting on the shelf? What about the labor of stocking them, cleaning them, heck even packing them back up to return? On Amazon anything that doesn't sell well automagically gets shunted into the depths of page 10+, and they can keep them there indefinitely, at no cost.

Stores have a fixed cost associated with every item stocked, this gives them an inventive to sell every item they stock even if they prefer to sell some items over others. But they still want to sell it, even in they have to discount it by huge margins to get rid of it. By contrast Amazon doesn't give a piss about any one of your items in particular getting sold, it can stay there forever as far as they're concerned.

I like to say, a sufficiently large quantitative change manifests as a qualitative change. By that, I mean yes the only "real" difference between these scenarios is some of the costs are different, but how those costs become incentives when you have multiple parties actually matters.

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

#389

Post by jfim »

Spare_account wrote: post #186
ikeboy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The issue, then, is how do I guarantee that the Anker branded product I'm buying through Amazon is genuinely Anker manufactured. I'm of the understanding that Amazon comingle stock from different supply chains in their warehouses so presumably I can't trust them to be supplying genuine hardware.

In that specific instance, Anker also sells directly from their website, so you can shop there if you're concerned about counterfeited merchandise.
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