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Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

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Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#281

Post by thaumasiotes »

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.

> "Six letter Chinese sellers" does not automatically mean cheap shitty defective rejects. If anything, that's just stereotyping and xenophobia.

I've seen people complain that the vendor contact info is obfuscated and untraceable when it's obviously the business owner's personal home address. People will say anything about Chinese vendors.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#282

Post by marcosdumay »

Animats wrote: post #236
kennend3 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now Amazon is nothing more than AliExpress with faster shipping. Shame. This. Once i realized what was taking place on amazon I simply moved to AliExpress. I mean if i am going to get something from there anyhow i might as well save the middleman fees and take the hit on shipping. I canceled my prime membership a while ago as well. I don't see how amazon can continue to simply be a front end for AliExpress for long…

> Now Amazon is nothing more than AliExpress with faster shipping. Shame. On Alibaba, you get business background info, whether it's a manufacturer or a reseller, a picture of the factory, info about whether someone checked out the factory, what certifications the product has, and how long it takes them to respond to inquiries. Amazon doesn't have any of that. On Alibaba, search for "outlet strip". You can check "Ver…

And you can get a long-term relationship with a seller, because you know that the product you got was actually delivered by them.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#283

Post by iso1631 »

cratermoon wrote: post #182
iso1631 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never managed to connect with America tales of the length of shipping. Almost (99%) everything I order from amazon arrives when it says, most of which is next day. I live in the country, but like most UK citizens fairly close to a major trunk road (10 miles or so). Of course I'm sure things are different if you live on Mull or Fair Isle, but for the vast majority of us it seems reliable The quality of what you g…

The difference between the US and the UK is size and the sheer remoteness of some places, even small cities. Unless you've been there, it's hard to grasp. I've driven around large parts of the western US and there's a LOT of empty space. I don't know how many shipping centers Amazon has in the UK, but I am about 99.999% sure that there's areas of the US larger than all of the British Isle that are served by a single…

Sure, but given that the majority of people in America, especially the ones I see complaining about amazon, are going to be living within an hour or so of a major city -- San Francisco, Seatle, Austin, New York, LA, I'm not sure how the difficulties of delivering to Hyder, AK or Las Vegas, NM factor in.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#284

Post by mrweasel »

walthamstow wrote: post #148
cunidev wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most products, at least in Europe you can get the same cheap junk of Amazon listings from eBay at 20-40% lower prices, and usually (slightly) higher quality one from brick and mortar stores at the Amazon price. I avoid Amazon in principle since many years (unless I _really_ need a product there), but that has never been hard, considering that most smaller stores always offered me more convenient prices, less hass…

This + the eBay sellers in the UK use Royal Mail so goods are delivered by my postman, who already walks past my house every morning anyway

As someone who dislikes eBay and prefer to deal with companies, rather then individuals, the UKs preference for eBay is interesting. Working for an eCommerce site we noticed that customers would prefer to deal with a lady in Scotland over us, for certain types of products. She just posted our product on eBay, added a few £ to the price, ordered them from us, typed in her customers address in the shipping fields.

Worked out for everyone, given that her customers would rather order on eBay and pay a little extra, compared to dealing with us. We got the price we wanted, plus we didn't have to deal with customer service.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#285

Post by s17n »

fmajid wrote: post #244

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…

> 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).

Saying that the e-commerce arm is worthless isn't really the right way to think about it - the ads business only exists to due the e-commerce product. Both Amazon and Google are well aware that their ad revenues depend on their having users, who will ultimately leave if the product (ecommerce and search, respectively) isn't compelling. Both of them know that long-term success requires them to prioritize user experience.

Do they make bad decisions, either due to misaligned incentives internally or due to simply making mistakes? Undoubtedly. But it's also worth considering that they probably get the tradeoff right a lot of the time and most people simply aren't bothered by ads nearly as much as you'd like them to be.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#286

Post by marcosdumay »

agumonkey wrote: post #124
kennend3 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now Amazon is nothing more than AliExpress with faster shipping. Shame. This. Once i realized what was taking place on amazon I simply moved to AliExpress. I mean if i am going to get something from there anyhow i might as well save the middleman fees and take the hit on shipping. I canceled my prime membership a while ago as well. I don't see how amazon can continue to simply be a front end for AliExpress for long…

And even that is not guaranteed. Lost of secondary sellers on their 'marketplace'. I order lipton tea a week ago and it's still not shipped. I don't remember how this is called, something like a honeymoon period. Most of the web love bombed us with unsustainable (loss leaders like) offers until they got everybody hooked and now they rely on habit, laziness and reduced competition. It's somehow quite a shame.

> I don't remember how this is called, something like a honeymoon period.

I think you mean "blatant worldwide market manipulation"?

Dumping products until the competition is bankrupt and then using your monopoly to crush the consumers is a practice as old as commerce.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#287

Post by s1artibartfast »

Rury wrote: post #170
s1artibartfast wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think this is the whole picture. It is generally true that selling products and making a profit is the goal for both. Optimizing the best result for each query can result in a terrible result for the minority of shoppers for that query. More importantly, it can lead to a terrible result for the majority of shoppers across many queries. The problem is other considerations that A/B testing metrics often leave ou…

Not sure about A/B testers, but that is essentially the issue. Steve Jobs even talked about it back in the 1990s, about tech companies and markets of the 70s and 80s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4

Yeah, it's like if you sell a multi-tool and realize that 90% of the time people just use the screwdriver. AB testing would tell you that you should make all the tools a screwdriver, but then you would have a shit multi-tool and no one would buy it except people that need a screwdriver.

This is what Amazon has done. They took their Marketplace and turned it into a search engine for the cheapest drop shipped product

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#288

Post by agentcoops »

I’m part of the I’m sure infinitesimal and ever-shrinking portion of Amazon’s userbase who actually try to use the site to buy rare and used books. Most annoying for my experience is that they recently replaced what was in fact a best-in-class recommendation engine, which lead to a lot of my purchases, with a totally useless ad bar that displays universally terrible “related” books. There’s a world where after effectively cornering the world book market they subsequently destroy it (and they of course own and have effectively feature frozen competitors such as abebooks and bookdespository).

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#289

Post by Edd314159 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #237
Edd314159 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is why I still use Amazon, even though it has indeed become a catalogue where 90% of the listed products are junk. Because that other 10% are legit brands, and when you want the legit brand, it's still very convenient and often* cheaper than other retailers. You just have to wade through the crap to find the real stuff. (*I said _often_, meaning I concede that it is sometimes actually not cheaper: please…

But Amazon commingles inventory, so how do you know you are receiving the branded item you want and not a counterfeit item that another seller sent to Amazon?

I dunno, I’ve never had a problem with counterfeit products on Amazon. I avoid third party sellers though (even if “fulfilled by Amazon”) so that’s probably why. Buying direct from Amazon hasn’t resulted in anything fishy for me yet.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#290

Post by webignition »

candiddevmike wrote: post #262
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…

I applaud anyone who leaves a non 5 star review, gets contacted by the company with bribes to make it 5 stars, and updates their review to report the company doing that.

I left a non 5 star review of an inexpensive Pixel 4 case. The case was too close around the flash resulting in the flash reflecting off the case resulting in absolutely awful pictures.

I was offered a refund and replacement of a newer version of the case in return for a better review.

The phone case was simply not fit for purpose as it was and the review fairly (I hope) highlighted this.

I accepted the replacement newer version and agreed to a more flattering review once the improved case was seen to indeed be improved. If the flaw had been fixed then it would be fair to reflect this in my review.

The improved case was no different and my review remained unchanged, except for an update reflecting the bribe.

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