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

481–490 of 510 posts

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#481

Post by singron »

wardedVibe wrote: post #473
za3faran wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you find cheap, good quality printers? I found Amazon pricing to beat my local Microcenter website.

The printer in staples/fedex/local print shop down the road. Unless you print a lot (like business/university department amounts), or have some high levels of paranoia about your documents, you're way better off letting someone else deal with the capital costs of the printers.

Check your library too. Mine has cheaper printing than Staples and a free allowance.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#482

Post by mclightning »

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…

I opened the page and immediately got paywalled... Maybe that's the intention, create such a terrible enemy that the thought piece becomes mute.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#483

Post by midoridensha »

cycomanic wrote: post #346
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…

Are other sites so bad in the US? I can count the number of times I've been tempted to buy with Amazon in Europe on one hand. I mean pretty much every other webshop has a search experience that is orders of magnitude better then add Geizhals to the mix and you're almost guaranteed to find the cheapest offer, in much less clicks than even trying to find something that is legit and matches the search criteria on amazon…

>Are other sites so bad in the US? I can count the number of times I've been tempted to buy with Amazon in Europe on one hand.

Here in Japan, Amazon is really popular, especially with expats. Other online sites are Japanese-only, so if you don't read Japanese well, Amazon is just much easier to use because it can be set for English, and will auto-translate everything that's in Japanese. The checkout process is also really simple. Japanese websites tend to have really poor UI too, and Amazon doesn't. Also, Amazon has relatively easy returns, unlike most Japanese retailers.

However, according to the grapevine things are getting worse. Instead of using reliable local shipping companies like Yamato or Sagawa, supposedly they're doing more delivery with freelance contractors and the results aren't good.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#484

Post by midoridensha »

shellfishgene wrote: post #421
mrweasel wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Work…

It's weird, one would expect eBay to be more of a wild west than Amazon marketplace, but in my experience the eBay sellers are fast and mostly trustworthy.

That's because on Ebay, there's seller feedback, and it's actually useful. People leave negative feedback if there's a problem, and the feedback is specific to that seller. If a seller has been on there for 20 years with a perfect 100% feedback score, you know they're trustworthy, and if they've been on there for 1 week with 0 feedback, you know they're not.

Amazon comingles listings from Amazon themselves, FBA, and independent sellers shipping things themselves, so there's not really a good way of telling if you'll have a good experience or not.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#485

Post by fmajid »

dymk wrote: post #410
fmajid wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon will promote sellers who use their fulfilment service over those who DIY. https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/fulfillment-by-ama...

How is that not a violation of antitrust laws?

They've been fined for it in Italy. But yes, the law struggles to catch up with Big Tech's brazen violations of antitrust. The reason why is because you'd be surprised how short-staffed antitrust departments are worldwide, even in the US and EU. Big Tech, on the other hand, can afford armies of lawyers to stall, deflect and obfuscate, and when the fines eventually come due, just pay as a cost of doing business.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#486

Post by tbran »

BetterGeiger wrote: post #352

I manufacture and sell one unique product. I started with direct sales, doing okay, but it was clear that Amazon is where the real action is, so I tried to sell there. Getting the listing up was a slow and painful experience due to horrible seller service (this is typical). Finally it's listed. Around 15% of revenue is fees. That's with me doing my own fulfillment! Hardly any sales at first, so I had no choice but to…

Frankly, you're probably better off learning some SEO, writing some articles in your niche, and waiting for a while (6-12 months) for your website to show up in Google results for as many keywords as you can.

Use a tool like Ahrefs (you can get 7 days free iirc, or just use it for a month and then cancel) to find keywords people search for in your niche and start writing. When you're selling stuff on the internet, keyword data is illuminating!

Use keyword data to think about why people want a Geiger counter (I see you have a survey!) and the kinds of problems they have, then show them how yours fixes their problem.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#487

Post by taoufix »

It's hard to trust Amazon products even when shopping for brands. Every time I search for a brand name, after filtering the recommended non-brand stuff, on the brand product page itself, a lot of reviews say the product is a knock off.

Nowadays I just go to brand.com and shop from there, it cost 5-25% extra, but at least I have some guarantee that I will not end up with a fake.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#488

Post by ikt »

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…

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

Why do you still use it? Is it just because it's cheap?

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#489

Post by sylvainkalache »

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 would suggest adding Fakespot to your process. They analyze reviews and will spot the ones that are most likely fake, and then adjust the rating of the product accordingly.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#490

Post by TexanFeller »

wardedVibe wrote: post #473
za3faran wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you find cheap, good quality printers? I found Amazon pricing to beat my local Microcenter website.

The printer in staples/fedex/local print shop down the road. Unless you print a lot (like business/university department amounts), or have some high levels of paranoia about your documents, you're way better off letting someone else deal with the capital costs of the printers.

The whole point of having a printer is not having to waste time driving somewhere to print something.

Not to mention the extortionate fees such places charge because they prey on the elderly and technically illiterate. One of the majors(can't recall if Staples, Kinkos etc.) recently tried to charge my parents $2/page to fax some records to a new doctor which would have been >$100.

Post reply on HN