4 ms·

What I cannot figure out is why Amazon is not able to tell what I purchased on their own website... Why don't they have a "things people only purchase once" fla

What I cannot figure out is why Amazon is not able to tell what I purchased on their own website... Why don't they have a "things people only purchase once" flag to avoid trying to sell me the same watch or pair of shoes twice in the same week?

alexqgb 11y ago
Exactly. I recently bought a pair of bluetooth headphones form Amazon, and for weeks after I was getting stalked by ads for bluetooth headphones from Amazon. For a product I'd just bought. From Amazon.
AJ007 11y ago
The cohort for someone repurchasing the exact same item within the following month is probably a lot higher than just showing an ad for some other random item. This probably isn't a number like 20% more likely, it could be like 500-1000x. There may just not be enough data to exclude specific products. On the other hand retargeting companies definitely are over selling inventory to non sophisticated clients that should be excluded. Targeting definitely works. A big entrepreneurial mistake is looking at things through your own eyes instead of those of users. Many brilliant coders can't get a handle on the business stuff because they just assume everyone else thinks and behaves like they do.
- WalterBright 11y ago
  > Many brilliant coders can't get a handle on the business stuff because they just assume everyone else thinks and behaves like they do. Ironically, the successful products I've created in my career I built to please myself. The ones I built to please others have all been failures. Apparently I'm not the unique snowflake others allege I am :-)
  - koide 11y ago
    But what has been your target audience? Grandma or fellow John J. Hacker?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jerven 11y ago
What I really detest in Amazon Adverts, is the tracked adverts for stuff they wont sell to me. I live in Switzerland, and some things I can order at amazon.de, others not. I often only find out at checkout which it is. So lets say I want to buy an SSD, I shop at amazon.de, find out they won't sell/ship it to me. Then for a month I get followed by amazon adds for that SSD that they wont sell to me.
- usrusr 11y ago
  Sometimes, when I'm angry at Amazon, I deliberately window-shop all those expensive feature phones from the mid-00s that Amazon still has not pruned from their database. For weeks the whole web will be decorated with ads for the fast-forgotten technical marvels of the past and there is that stupid little satisfaction of seeing what is supposed to be the greatest AI in existence filling the tipjar of websites for putting my eyeballs on pictures of a Walkman phone.
- frik 11y ago
  The Amazon.de branch is especially bad at this. It got worse with the new EU VAT that differs for every country, most third party vendors on Amazon.de ship only to destinations in Germany, but not to neighbour countries. Only on the checkout page Amazon.de shows one that they won't deliver the item - very bad UX.

alexqgb 11y ago

Exactly. I recently bought a pair of bluetooth headphones form Amazon, and for weeks after I was getting stalked by ads for bluetooth headphones from Amazon. For a product I'd just bought. From Amazon.

AJ007 11y ago

The cohort for someone repurchasing the exact same item within the following month is probably a lot higher than just showing an ad for some other random item. This probably isn't a number like 20% more likely, it could be like 500-1000x. There may just not be enough data to exclude specific products. On the other hand retargeting companies definitely are over selling inventory to non sophisticated clients that should be excluded. Targeting definitely works. A big entrepreneurial mistake is looking at things through your own eyes instead of those of users. Many brilliant coders can't get a handle on the business stuff because they just assume everyone else thinks and behaves like they do.

WalterBright 11y ago
> Many brilliant coders can't get a handle on the business stuff because they just assume everyone else thinks and behaves like they do. Ironically, the successful products I've created in my career I built to please myself. The ones I built to please others have all been failures. Apparently I'm not the unique snowflake others allege I am :-)
- koide 11y ago
  But what has been your target audience? Grandma or fellow John J. Hacker?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

jerven 11y ago

What I really detest in Amazon Adverts, is the tracked adverts for stuff they wont sell to me. I live in Switzerland, and some things I can order at amazon.de, others not. I often only find out at checkout which it is. So lets say I want to buy an SSD, I shop at amazon.de, find out they won't sell/ship it to me. Then for a month I get followed by amazon adds for that SSD that they wont sell to me.

usrusr 11y ago
Sometimes, when I'm angry at Amazon, I deliberately window-shop all those expensive feature phones from the mid-00s that Amazon still has not pruned from their database. For weeks the whole web will be decorated with ads for the fast-forgotten technical marvels of the past and there is that stupid little satisfaction of seeing what is supposed to be the greatest AI in existence filling the tipjar of websites for putting my eyeballs on pictures of a Walkman phone.
frik 11y ago
The Amazon.de branch is especially bad at this. It got worse with the new EU VAT that differs for every country, most third party vendors on Amazon.de ship only to destinations in Germany, but not to neighbour countries. Only on the checkout page Amazon.de shows one that they won't deliver the item - very bad UX.