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Amazon puts its own “brands” first above better-rated products

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Re: Amazon puts its own “brands” first above better-rated products

#21

Post by gruez »

only_as_i_fall wrote: post #14
krosaen wrote: post #9

I like Benedict Evan's perspective on this https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/3/28/amazon-pri... > Retailers have sold private label products for a century or more. Is something different when Amazon does it?

What's different is that Amazon is also an extremely dominant platform for other stores. It'd be like if Walmart came to your small town and signed a deal with the local government that stores had to carry their brands in addition to their own or pay higher taxes. The problem isn't the mere existence of store brands, but the use of anticompetitive practices to promote those brands.

>It'd be like if Walmart came to your small town and signed a deal with the local government that stores had to carry their brands in addition to their own or pay higher taxes.

Not really? You can get around amazon's "extremely dominant platform" by setting up a shopify store. I'm not sure how that can be compared to the government forcing you to amazon.

Re: Amazon puts its own “brands” first above better-rated products

#22

Post by jjtheblunt »

elmerfud wrote: post #2

Maybe it's because Amazon's site is just trash, but it's the trash we've become accustomed to. When you search for a very specific product and then choose sort by price and all if a sudden hundreds of irrelevant cheap items are at the top of the list. That's total trash design from a user perspective. From a corporate perspective it's a great design because they have such a large market share. Now they just have all…

Nowadays I feel Amazon's main insight (originally) was to test feasibility of an online searchable/shoppable version of Walmart.

Re: Amazon puts its own “brands” first above better-rated products

#24

Post by ravenstine »

elmerfud wrote: post #2

Maybe it's because Amazon's site is just trash, but it's the trash we've become accustomed to. When you search for a very specific product and then choose sort by price and all if a sudden hundreds of irrelevant cheap items are at the top of the list. That's total trash design from a user perspective. From a corporate perspective it's a great design because they have such a large market share. Now they just have all…

What I don't get is why their search pigeonholes you into a certain category, and often the category isn't accurate. I find I get better results when I set it back to "all departments".

Re: Amazon puts its own “brands” first above better-rated products

#25

Post by kova12 »

diego_moita wrote: post #17
Kalanos wrote: post #15

It's their platform. Apple pre-installs its own apps. Every convenience and grocery store does the same thing with their store-brand products.

As in: "yes, I am lying, but so does everyone else. What's the big deal?" If all you want is to be lied to or cheated then I guess it makes sense.

If I was to choose between Amazon and somewhat equal third party brand, I would pick Amazon brand every time. Reviews are manipulated all the time. When I buy amazon brand, I know that product has honest reviews and a seller that backs the quality guarantee. This is not a lie, that's the fact.

Re: Amazon puts its own “brands” first above better-rated products

#26

Post by gruez »

mfer wrote: post #12

This is an element that's different from a typical store. In a typical store that has store branded items they will be on shelves side by side with the other brands of the same product. What Amazon does is the equivalent of putting their products up front and the alternatives (even those that are better rated) in a back room.

>What Amazon does is the equivalent of putting their products up front and the alternatives (even those that are better rated) in a back room.

Is amazon burying results on the second or third page of the results or something? If it's one row down on the results page, it's closer to being one shelf down (which stores are known to do[1]), than "in a back room".

[1] https://traxretail.com/blog/eye-level-buy-level-importance-s...

Re: Amazon puts its own “brands” first above better-rated products

#27

Post by dobin »

yhoneycomb wrote: post #4

Not sure why this is a problem. They could ONLY sell Amazon-branded items on their website if they really wanted to. It's their store.

The problem is that Amazon said that they dont do it (Copy successful products and then manipulate search results so they appear before the others).

The available documents show that its an official Amazon strategy.

Re: Amazon puts its own “brands” first above better-rated products

#28

Post by jkestner »

merpnderp wrote: post #3

I don't trust Amazon ratings even a little bit. But I do expect anything Amazon branded to at least not be complete garbage. Maybe this is Amazon just embracing the fact no one can trust their ratings, but can somewhat trust their product partnerships?

Products usurping partnerships, you mean? Less about trust, and more about just taking more of the profit. It’s a classic move to wedge yourself into the market at one level and then move up and down as you become a chokepoint. Cloudflare is doing it to Amazon.

I only buy stuff on Amazon after running it through FakeSpot, because metareviews are what we’ve come to now. If that site could ever make itself as indispensable for everyone, it’d have a chokepoint to steer people away from Amazon, especially as better prices are often found elsewhere.

Re: Amazon puts its own “brands” first above better-rated products

#29

Post by satysin »

tryptophan wrote: post #16

I get anxiety shopping on amazon now. I just can't deal with 50 pages of options, all from "different" brands, selling the same mass produced chineese shit. Will not be renewing prime. There is a real opportunity for focused web stores out there. Selling only 1 type of product, filtering out crap, having good search, etc...

Not anxiety but I do get incredibly frustrated by the experience. Even when you search for a specific model number of something you get other similar items returned above the item you specifically searched for. Wtaf?

And God help you if you search for something generic. You will see an endless list of the same item from 2000+ rebranding outfits. If you search through a bunch you can see they all use the same product shots just edited slightly. A green star added on a flipped image or the tint adjusted so the colour is different, etc. Maybe their editor was more creative so they photoshopped in a different stock background.

Another thing I have noticed is many resellers on Amazon will use the correct product item in the search result but when you click through it is clear a different, albeit very similar, version of the product. You have to be so so careful to read the product description to ensure you buy the right product. USB items are notorious for this sort of thing with USB-C to C cables shown with two C connectors in the search result image but the actual item is a C to A??!

It is infuriating.

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