Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 510 posts

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#241

Post by VLM »

jabo wrote: post #53

I recently had to buy something mundane - a light bulb, with a specific lumen and color temperature spec. Weeding out all the junk listings, ads and clearly fake reviews, I ended up spending an hour trying to get to the one I wanted to buy. Had a very similar experience for another product as well. At this point, I hesitate to look up stuff on Amazon just considering the time it takes to find stuff. I much rather pre…

> a light bulb, with a specific lumen and color temperature spec

Sponsored links are always useless and should only be scrolled past on Amazon.

Typical disappointing Amazon experience:

Search for LED 8W. First result, sponsored link to an 11W bulb. Then a sponsored link to a fake marketing 21 watt bulb with fake lumen marketing. Then a sponsored link to six pack of 14W bulbs. The 4th link returned is a sponsored link to a 8W designer clear glass thing which is at least not off topic.

Not all searches are as toxic as LEDs. If you search for "oil 5w-30" only 10% or so of search results are totally wrong (like 10w-30, or 5w-40)

Another hilarious search term "chocolate almond milk" most of the results are bulk almonds, some milk-product made of bananas, several oat milk results, chocolate almondmilk pudding (OK, close enough, but weird), protein bars made of almonds, some soy shake drink, starbucks frappuccino vanilla, pea-protein fake milk, admittedly at least 1/3 of results are on topic.

I just searched for "4-40 SHCS" (a SHCS is a socket head cap screw, like to fix a car part). About 2/3 of the results are on topic, but then Amazon throws in "D'Moksha Small Short Thanksgiving Holiday Navy Table Runner Or Dresser Scarf (14 x 36 Inch)", what? Some of it is just bizarre. I specified 4-40 size so I get a search result for 5/8-11 machine bolts. OK then.

Its getting hard to buy stuff on Amazon, like they're actively trying not to sell what you ask for.

I do EE type stuff at work and home and I am spoiled by professional sites like Digikey, if you search for a 1K resistor they present you with a parametric search result of 1K resistors, not random assortments of 74HCT logic chips or teddy bears or rolls of solder like Amazon would.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#242

Post by pohuing »

monetus wrote: post #188
moolcool wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hopefully degradation of user experience will curb it somewhat. Sometimes the ads even betray themselves. Like I, as a rule, hate ads. I block them where I can, and where I can't, I do my best to ignore them. But then you get instances where the ad _is_ what you're actually looking for. Like if you search Amazon for "iPhone", you get official first party iPhone stuff from Apple, but they're sponsored listings. My p…

They have to buy their own keywords so that others aren't first in the listings right? They don't want Samsung to be the first thing you see. Hilarious and sad at the same time.

The future is booking ads for other brands so they catch the ire of the customer.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#243

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #149
smolder wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They often don't, like the extension cord I bought that flips my breaker when I plug it in. I don't want garbage products that were sourced from the dumpster next to a Chinese factory after they make a defective batch.

"Six letter Chinese sellers" does not automatically mean cheap shitty defective rejects. If anything, that's just stereotyping and xenophobia. For every one of you, I'm sure there's a dozen who have had no issues with the product. And I'm sure there's been plenty of people who have had the same issue with a name brand product that was made in the same factory by the same process and people.

Admitting that there's around a 1/13 chance of these products being garbage isn't really a defence. Those are really bad odds.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#244

Post by fmajid »

Amazon is the third largest advertising company after Google and Meta. Its ad revenue is $32B (and growing fast, the run rate is $40B). That is half the revenue of AWS, which is worth 70% of Amazon's market cap. The inescapable conclusion is that Amazon's advertising is worth the remaining 30% of Amazon's market cap and Amazon's e-commerce arm is deemed worthless by Wall Street, its only purpose being to support the advertising business, just what Google Search is to Alphabet.

Think on that for a moment. The other inescapable conclusion is that whenever the quality of the shopping experience on Amazon and the needs of Amazon's advertising business clash, advertising will win (just as it has on Google). That's an even more foregone conclusion since Andy Jassy took on the top job, he's from AWS and owes no special allegiance to the historical e-commerce business.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#245

Post by DebtDeflation »

takoid wrote: post #215
DebtDeflation wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>even their shipping (with Prime too!) is getting slower Not only that. Try searching while in Incognito Mode and you'll see the same products, sold by Amazon.com, without Prime, for a few bucks cheaper than when you're logged in and seeing them with "free" Prime shipping.

Does this only happen with an active Prime membership? I tested a few search queries and didn’t see the inconsistencies you’re describing.

I assume so, since I have a Prime membership and it knows this when I'm logged in.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#246

Post by sanitycheck »

My process for getting usable results on Amazon (.co.uk, presumably the others too):

1. Search for thing

2. Filter by department (necessary for 3)

3. Filter by Seller: only Amazon

4: Filter by reviews: 4 stars+

5: Sort by price, Low > High

6: (Further filters as appropriate)

7: Look at only products with a high number of reviews

8: For every product, "See all reviews" and filter on "Verified purchase only" and "Show only reviews for {the product variant you're actually looking at}". Closely scrutinise 1 and 2 star reviews.

But sometimes even this _still_ doesn't get me quite what I want, because when an item is sold both by Amazon and a 3rd-party it can be sorted based on the non-Amazon price.

It does feel just a little like Amazon's goals might not be perfectly aligned with those of the customer.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#247

Post by namdnay »

moolcool wrote: post #42

It runs deeper than just everything being an ad. It's also completely flooded with rebadged junk from dropshippers. A few weeks ago, I was looking for a new whetstone, and this is what I got when I searched Amazon https://i.imgur.com/1Utp2dF.png The results keep going like that. You see constant repetition of the exact same units with slightly different branding, often with the same stock photography, repeated for pa…

When did you do the query for that screenshot? If it was today the delivery dates seem a bit short for dropshipping

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#248

Post by z3c0 »

moolcool wrote: post #172
Mistletoe wrote: post #34

It’s refreshing to see this in the Washington Post, owned by Bezos. Tiny beacon of hope going out into the darkness. Search ads on shopping websites are just capitalism taken to the natural end. Hopefully degradation of user experience will curb it somewhat. Our only other option is some sort of new Internet Bill of Rights being passed and I’m not optimistic lobbyists would ever allow it. We need some sort of fund fo…

> Hopefully degradation of user experience will curb it somewhat. Sometimes the ads even betray themselves. Like I, as a rule, hate ads. I block them where I can, and where I can't, I do my best to ignore them. But then you get instances where the ad _is_ what you're actually looking for. Like if you search Amazon for "iPhone", you get official first party iPhone stuff from Apple, but they're sponsored listings. My p…

I generally look at aggressive ads as a detractor to the product. Money spent trying to bait me into making the purchase is money not spent on improving the product. I'll always pick the non-sponsored product with the highest (written) reviews. I agree that we'll need to be even more aggressive than advertisers, as their boundaries are pretty much nonexistent.

For example, I'm an avid Sonic fan, but no amount of fan service could get me to sit through the constant advertising woven into the script. I'm going to just skip this franchise entirely. Whatever happened to just slipping a sign in the background?

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#249

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

syntaxing wrote: post #81

It has absolutely gotten out of hand lately. 2 sponsored product, 3 regular listed, 2 sponsored product, continued perpetually. Walmart has been pulling the same stuff lately and it’s infuriating.

At a certain 'sponsored product' density, the 'sponsoring' effectively just becomes an additional mandatory listing fee.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#250

Post by [deleted] »

sanitycheck wrote: post #246

My process for getting usable results on Amazon (.co.uk, presumably the others too): 1. Search for thing 2. Filter by department (necessary for 3) 3. Filter by Seller: only Amazon 4: Filter by reviews: 4 stars+ 5: Sort by price, Low > High 6: (Further filters as appropriate) 7: Look at only products with a high number of reviews 8: For every product, "See all reviews" and filter on "Verified purchase only" and "Show…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN