Retail, search and Amazon’s $40B ‘advertising’ business • Hacker News Board

Re: Retail, search and Amazon’s $40B ‘advertising’ business

#161

Post by brandon272 » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 1:29 PM UTC

KVFinn wrote: post #12

irjustin wrote: post #8

Anecdotally, I was connected to a number of people on the Ads team and years ago, the upper ups in the G machine were already extremely nervous of Amazon's internal ads system. Google has been regularly losing marketshare to Amazon because people perform searches for products directly there when previously it was done through google-search.

>Google has been regularly losing marketshare to Amazon because people perform searches for products directly there when previously it was done through google-search. Ironically Amazon has been so aggressive with the ads recently I've lost all trust in searching on Amazon itself. I'm back to using Google to find the Amazon product page. On Amazon I search for a specific brand and model and it's on page 4, buried unti…

> Like yesterday Amazon kept showing lightbulbs with the wrong physical socket size.

This is where ads really break the user experience. When I search for a specific air filter by model number it will prioritize ads for different air filters above the listings of air filters that are actually compatible.

Checking out on Amazon is easy. Everything else from the searching to the filtering to the reviews is openly user hostile.

Re: Retail, search and Amazon’s $40B ‘advertising’ business

#162

Post by SomeHacker44 » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 1:31 PM UTC

muspimerol wrote: post #118

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #97

Amazon is really shit now. You try to buy a product and instead of showing you the actual brands it just shows you alibaba scam products. I have to go to other sites and find the actual products and then search directly on amazon. It won’t be long before I just stop using amazon altogether.

I think (hope?) it's the beginning of a long, slow decline for Amazon as a marketplace, unless they fix this. This distrustful sentiment is something I hear from a lot of younger people (<40 year olds). I didn't even notice it myself until recently, but I am buying more and more stuff directly from other niche e-commerce websites, because I know half of the search results on Amazon are a scam.

In NYC, B&H has free next day delivery and many of the same tech products. Microcenter has nice stores and price matches.

Re: Retail, search and Amazon’s $40B ‘advertising’ business

#163

Post by gumby » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 1:32 PM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #120

I never encountered ads on Amazon, so out of curiosity I disabled uBlock Origin and visited Amazon. It seems that the ads are for products sold on Amazon. Clicking an ad redirects you to the product page. Until now I thought that sites where you go to spend money are free of ads. This is a new low. What's next, ads on banking apps? Ads on the revenue service website? I think ads play the biggest part in why the Inter…

You know products labeled as Amazon's choice? Those are actually ads. Search for a product by a specific manufacturer and see that first in the results is a (usually) similar product from a different manufacturer? An ad.

They also use their customer data to sell ads off the Amazon site.

Re: Retail, search and Amazon’s $40B ‘advertising’ business

#164

Post by gumby » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 1:37 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #156

DeathArrow wrote: post #120

I never encountered ads on Amazon, so out of curiosity I disabled uBlock Origin and visited Amazon. It seems that the ads are for products sold on Amazon. Clicking an ad redirects you to the product page. Until now I thought that sites where you go to spend money are free of ads. This is a new low. What's next, ads on banking apps? Ads on the revenue service website? I think ads play the biggest part in why the Inter…

> This is a new low. Like many things people criticize Amazon for "starting", this has a long history in retail. When you walk into a store and see an attractive display at the end of an aisle full of products from one brand, that is a "end cap" and is something that brand paid for.

And "fulfilled by Amazon" or even a product shipped without Amazon's involvement at all comes from supermarkets. In the chips and snacks aisle, that section full of Frito-Lay products or soft drinks (come to think of it, Pepsi owns Frito-Lay): the store rents our a section of the aisle and it's managed by the manufacturer: their truck shows up and the truck driver restocks that section of the shelving, rearranges the product, etc.

The store is essentially just collecting rent and selling the goods on consignment. Amazon does the same and you know, doesn't provide any real support for those sales.

Re: Retail, search and Amazon’s $40B ‘advertising’ business

#165

Post by brookst » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

deepGem wrote: post #126

DeathArrow wrote: post #120

I never encountered ads on Amazon, so out of curiosity I disabled uBlock Origin and visited Amazon. It seems that the ads are for products sold on Amazon. Clicking an ad redirects you to the product page. Until now I thought that sites where you go to spend money are free of ads. This is a new low. What's next, ads on banking apps? Ads on the revenue service website? I think ads play the biggest part in why the Inter…

Ads on Amazon are far more annoying than ads on other web properties, because I go to Amazon for a very specific need. I search for Tide washing liquid and I see these sponsored products on top, way above the Tide result. From a purist viewpoint, this is disgusting. I have to come to you Amazon, to just give me what I want, not what you think I want. That said, there isn't a better alternative so I just ignore the ad…

To be fair, from a purist viewpoint everything is disgusting.

Re: Retail, search and Amazon’s $40B ‘advertising’ business

#166

Post by currency » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

FinnKuhn wrote: post #154

ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t recall whether it’s been within the app or the website but my bank has definitely shown me ads - ads for a credit card with their brand or opening a money market account. I doubt it’s that unusual for a bank to advertise like that. On the other hand, if they started showing Taboola-esque, “one weird trick” trash my opinion of them would really plummet.

I think as long a bank is just advertising their services similar to how they do in a bank branch I don't really have a problem with it tbh.

PNC has ads for special offers in their banking app.

Re: Retail, search and Amazon’s $40B ‘advertising’ business

#167

Post by UncleMeat » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 2:02 PM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #120

I never encountered ads on Amazon, so out of curiosity I disabled uBlock Origin and visited Amazon. It seems that the ads are for products sold on Amazon. Clicking an ad redirects you to the product page. Until now I thought that sites where you go to spend money are free of ads. This is a new low. What's next, ads on banking apps? Ads on the revenue service website? I think ads play the biggest part in why the Inter…

When you go to a grocery store, manufacturers have paid money for specific locations in the store to draw your attention to their product. This is everywhere. Advertising is not something that only free services turn to in order to make money. It is something that everybody turns to in order to make money because they've got a platform for advertisement.

Re: Retail, search and Amazon’s $40B ‘advertising’ business

#168

Post by sct202 » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 2:04 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #156

DeathArrow wrote: post #120

I never encountered ads on Amazon, so out of curiosity I disabled uBlock Origin and visited Amazon. It seems that the ads are for products sold on Amazon. Clicking an ad redirects you to the product page. Until now I thought that sites where you go to spend money are free of ads. This is a new low. What's next, ads on banking apps? Ads on the revenue service website? I think ads play the biggest part in why the Inter…

> This is a new low. Like many things people criticize Amazon for "starting", this has a long history in retail. When you walk into a store and see an attractive display at the end of an aisle full of products from one brand, that is a "end cap" and is something that brand paid for.

Everything is amplified since the physical space on a screen is much smaller than the field of vision in a store. The real estate on phone is basically 2 products or 4 on laptop at a time for everything. This makes the ads wayyyy more powerful-not to mention targeted-than shelf placement or end caps or whatever else.

Re: Retail, search and Amazon’s $40B ‘advertising’ business

#169

Post by foobarian » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 2:05 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #156

DeathArrow wrote: post #120

I never encountered ads on Amazon, so out of curiosity I disabled uBlock Origin and visited Amazon. It seems that the ads are for products sold on Amazon. Clicking an ad redirects you to the product page. Until now I thought that sites where you go to spend money are free of ads. This is a new low. What's next, ads on banking apps? Ads on the revenue service website? I think ads play the biggest part in why the Inter…

> This is a new low. Like many things people criticize Amazon for "starting", this has a long history in retail. When you walk into a store and see an attractive display at the end of an aisle full of products from one brand, that is a "end cap" and is something that brand paid for.

I knew a guy (older, old school generation) who's one among other responsibilities was to go store-to-store and bring the end cap materials. In addition he would spot check that the end cap displays their company paid for were in fact being placed.

Re: Retail, search and Amazon’s $40B ‘advertising’ business

#170

Post by sithadmin » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 2:05 PM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #120

I never encountered ads on Amazon, so out of curiosity I disabled uBlock Origin and visited Amazon. It seems that the ads are for products sold on Amazon. Clicking an ad redirects you to the product page. Until now I thought that sites where you go to spend money are free of ads. This is a new low. What's next, ads on banking apps? Ads on the revenue service website? I think ads play the biggest part in why the Inter…

Pretty much every banking app I've used in recent memory (Chase, Citi, AmEx) has some kind of ad in it. Either to promote the bank's services, or promoting partnership deals (extra points for spending at certain retailers; discounts if you add a retailer's deal to what is basically a virtual coupon book). They're not quite as intrusive at Amazon's search result ads, but they're there.