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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

#301

Post by ljm »

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 had to buy a replacement USB cable in a pinch the other week. Probably the first time since pre-COVID where I could justify next day delivery (where I would normally be happy to just wait however long it takes from a more local retailer).

I knew exactly the kind to look for but I couldn't just search for that and pick the first item on the list. I could have easily bought the wrong thing in one click and not known it.

Instead I had to spend about 30 minutes tweaking my search query, scrolling through SEO-spam listings ("NEW iPhone 14 Galaxy S21 MacBook Pro Windows 95 SE USB 2.1A cable 6cm!") and other listings which were all just the same listing but with a different no-name logo laser printed on the casing. Was on Google cross-referencing some of them to see if they'd actually be legit, since I'd trust a post in a niche forum over a review on a marketplace.

It took me longer to verify what I was buying than it did to go through checkout. Reminded me why Amazon stopped being my go-to.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#302

Post by throwaway5752 »

arcturus17 wrote: post #298
Archipelagia wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but can you share some source for that? Like, on first page I've found in Google ( https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/amazon-revenue/ ) it says: AWS – ~17B Ads – ~9B Online stores – ~66B I actually wouldn't be surprised if I'm misunderstanding something and you're right, but can I ask where you got these numbers? Edit: On second read I realized the source I sent was misleading – the title talks about…

Yea no I'm also left scratching my head. I've never heard of a methodology to attribute market cap portions to business units; eager to hear some clarification too.

It is a well-established concept called https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sumofpartsvaluation.asp. A company's value is estimated on net present value (npv) of its projected, discounted future cash flows. If a company has a large, stable subsidiary that is growing slowly but is cash flow positive and a very fast growing but money losing subsidiary, it makes more sense to value parent company as if both subsidiaries were separate companies than the average of the two. A famous example was AWS within Amazon before it became noticeable in the bottom and top lines.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#303

Post by kennend3 »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #265
kennend3 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what many people outside North America fail to grasp is the size of north America. To give you an idea: I live just outside Toronto (Ontario, Canada) and if i want to drive east to the next province (Quebec) it will take me 4 hours to cover the 450 KM. If i want to go to the next province to the west (Manitoba) It will take me 20 hours to cover the 2,000 KM. So to cut across Ontario you are looking at somethi…

HaH, exactly. 25 years ago, I lived in a city of Rijeka. You could start from Croatia; enter & drive through entire country of Slovenia ; enter into Italy and go shopping into Trieste, two countries over - in 75km. Now I'm in the Greater Toronto Area, and my best friend lives about the same distance, officially in the same city or metro. There's just over two thousand kilometers between the capitals of two neighbouri…

> what is daily commute in GTA used to be a yearly vacation pilgrimage in my childhood :)

This is something Europeans also overlook.

I use to commute to Toronto every day. 100KM return trip daily, 500KM a week...

I think Most Europeans would be surprised to know we have a train system which basically travels back and forth from Hamilton to Oshawa all day long.. 127KM one way. Basically the Width of England at the more narrow part and yet we consider this a "greater Toronto area" train system.

People in Toronto dont think about how there are countries which would fit in this distance, Europeans dont think about how a daily passenger train service would cross the country dozens and dozens of times each day.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#304

Post by strenholme »

That’s why I use uBlock origin: It hides all of those Amazon ads. Also hides Twitter ads, even YouTube video ads, pretty much everything except Facebook ads (Facebook plays cat and mouse games with ad blockers).

While I don’t mind YouTube ads -- I have disabled ad blockers on that domain because I’m an electronic musician myself so strongly feel it’s important to support artists and musicians -- these Amazon ads are in my book unethical, since they look like legitimate results with only a light grey “sponsored” in small text underneath them.

Don’t get me started with how Amazon pesters me to join Prime every time I order with them.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#305

Post by entropie »

Heyso wrote: post #297
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've bought and seen crap with good reviews. On Amazon. You have a good chance to end with some chinese crap if you rely only on Amazon. On some product, I prefer finding a specialized seller (that isn't dropshipping). Or find a real blog (tends to be hard with all those fakes websites listing top 100 products, but they nmask hemselves when all products are chinese crap on Amazon). Reddit also work to get advice from…

> I've bought and seen crap with good reviews. On Amazon.

Have you heard of https://reviewmeta.com/ ?, If not, give it a try, I use it regularly and it does as advertised.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#306

Post by yalogin »

Over the last few years Amazon has been overwhelmed by Chinese goods and over time the search results has become similar to aliexpress. I would have never heard the manufacturer’s name and will never remember them either. All of them have close to 5 star rating and there is no way to even judge if they are any good. You buy if you accept that. Feels like it’s time for this to be disrupted.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#307

Post by dehrmann »

CPLX wrote: post #62
verdverm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tbh, just used Newegg this week... 2 day shipping costs more, they didn't even get it here in 2 days, they split my order into 8 orders, each tracked and emailed separately. I've been boycotting Amazon almost 5 years, but their competition really sucks to the point I'm thinking of going back. At least I've been able to avoid a lot of frivolous purchases for a while...

Newegg has cloned the Amazon strategy. They also do marketplace stuff. It’s really just another example of the same thing.

I look down on Newegg more for its marketplace strategy because it distracted from a niche it served well. By the time Amazon was doing its marketplace, it was already selling everything, so I didn't notice.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#308

Post by DoingIsLearning »

up2isomorphism wrote: post #21
aslilac wrote: post #2

Amazon is unusable at this point, and I don’t get how they have so many customers. Free and fast shipping is no longer exclusive to them, and there are others out there with far nicer websites and no shitty ad listings.

Are you sure? I tried at least 4 other online shopping recently, the experience is horrible compared to amazon. There are bunch issues about return that eventually easily cost me more than what prime cost me for one year.

Are you sure? I tried at least 7 other online shops recently, the experience is amazing compared to amazon.

Returns are as easy as scanning a barcode at the post office. Product reviews are meaningful and don't have bi-modal distributions. Spam and knocks offs are non-existing.

The only downside is that I pay slightly more for shipping but arguably I am biased to believe that logistics couriers should have a living wage.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#310

Post by wkdneidbwf »

i’m not sure exactly when it happened, but i slowly lost confidence shipping on amazon. too much crap and too many fake reviews. at some point it began to make sense to just go to a store again—as it turns out also means i make a decision about how much i actually need something.

amazon fucked up bad by chasing growth at all costs. sounds like a lot of tech companies these days.

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