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Our data shows "Amazon Choice" is essentially a join table between product and search keywords, ordered by a multiplier of conversions, ratings, and availabilit
by blairanderson 7y ago
Our data shows "Amazon Choice" is essentially a join table between product and search keywords, ordered by a multiplier of conversions, ratings, and availability.
- Customers are happy when they get stuff fast - it needs to be available right now, and in the buy box
- Higher rated items are theoretically better than lower rated items
- "choice" badge is keyword specific: a plant light could be choice for "grow light bulb" and "grow light led" but not for "light bulb".
Our data shows the items are not correlated by margins for. We often see negative NET PPM on "choice" items.
Source: I run an Amazon consultancy that manages roughly $30M/year sold through Amazon.
- swampthinker 7y agoWhat does PPM mean in this context?
- jetrink 7y agoPure profit margin (otherwise known as net profit margin)
- blairanderson 7y agoNet Pure Product Margin after cost of goods sold and various agreed services such as damage allowance are deducted.
- zippergz 7y agoSo this would largely imply that Amazon's Choice truly is about giving customers the best experience (to the extent possible given the quality of keyword and review data)?
- losteric 7y agoBasically, labeling products the customer is most likely to purchase. but, pessimistically or realistically, I expect they are also training customers to blindly trust the black box and eventually the criteria will change towards maximizing short-term value.
- xwdv 7y agoDon’t see why that’s a bad thing, the less time I spend browsing amazon and reading reviews to find a suitable product the better. As long as people are consistently happy with the things they get they only have reason to rejoice. Could I get something cheaper if I spend time looking for it? Maybe, but the time I spend looking is also money down the drain, for what usually amounts to savings of a couple dollars and cents. Rarely worth it.
- jedimastert 7y agoI see two problems. First, the Amazon rating system is untrustworthy. There is simply far too much counterfeit reviewing and far too little done about it. This is a systemic problem that just needs to be fixed for the platform as a whole. The more nuanced problem, I think, is the fact that it can create a feedback loop. Something can be popular simply because it's cheap, but "Amazon's Choice" implies quality, which makes people think they're getting a deal because it's also cheap. What sprung to mind for me was LockpickingLawyer's[1] series on Amazon's Choice for things like "padlock", lock, and safe, all of which were of fairly low quality, or at least lower quality than "Amazon's Choice" would suggest. The problem is that, most of the time, people aren't going to know that what they have is low quality because it will almost never get tested and most people don't know anything about lock security. So they trust Amazon to tell them, when really it's the blind leading the blind [1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm9K6rby98W8JigLoZOh6FQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm9K6rby98W8JigLoZOh6FQ [2]: https://youtu.be/kJ1_P5oqf6Y https://youtu.be/kJ1_P5oqf6Y
- dahfizz 7y agoI agree with the spirit of your comment, but I think padlocks is a bad example. The "quality" of a padlock genuinely does not matter. You should know this if you watch LPL! An experienced picker can get into any lock. And a determined but less dexterous enemy can trivially cut any lock you paid less that $100 for. And even then it won't take someone with the right tool more than a minute or two to cut through any padlock. It's the same way with bike locks, or really any lock. They are a deterrent against the unwashed masses, but they never actually stop a determined actor.
- Reedx 7y agoYeah, I suspect the core motivation is to combat paradox of choice. Doing so is in the best interest of both the customer and Amazon.
- jdreyfuss 7y agoRight, this makes sense to me. If you can cut down on customers' needs to make a decision, you'll increase the likelihood that someone makes a purchase. Building consumer trust by recommending actually good products is in Amazon's interest here
- throwaway1280 7y agoYup. There was a famous memo from Jeff that went round years ago that read something like "I want to buy a kettle. I search for 'kettle' and I get thousands of products. That sucks - now I have to comparison shop for kettles, when I don't particularly care what sort of kettle I get. Why can't Amazon just tell me 'buy this one'?" Amazon's choice arrived years after my tenure at the big A, and I'm not sure it's directly connected, but it definitely helps solve this problem.
- losteric 7y agoThat's a blindfold, not a solution. If I told a personal assistant "I want any kettle", they would know there's an implied <among buy-it-for-life high-quality stainless steel in America with a non-garish finish>. They would also know me well enough to provide options when it's a non-commodity context, ie pressure cookers where the same implied values hold but I want to actually made the feature tradeoffs as a poweruser. YouTube went down then global optimization path, and the experience was terrible...
- manojlds 7y agoAmazon's Choice in the context that Amazon is other customers here, makes sense. Amazon Customers' Choice essentially.
- modzu 7y agono, most users are still probably under the impression that "amazon's choice" means more than an automatic algorithmically derived badge. the wording implies a conscious decision was made, but there was none it would be better phrased as what it truly is: a badge that says "popular item" or similar. even "shopper's choice". the intent of the badge is to sell (as the article states, combat the paradox of choice)
- jp555 7y agoI read this faster than it took Wired to render the text on their article’s page, and I think your comment is more info-dense. Although the ads & graphics were loaded, with the text highlights in place it looked like a weird redacted document.
- ltc5505 7y agoIf you don't mind me asking: what does an Amazon consultancy mean / do?
- sbassi 7y agoI bet the help their customers to position their products to rank better in Amazon search engine and how to sell more.
- blairanderson 7y agoAmazon Consultants understand brand economics and translating those into Amazon retail economics. By the time brands are talking to us, they already have products developed OR are actively launching them every year. I am a software developer/eCommerce marketing guy, so I understand SEO and all the different levers that Amazon offers to get sales momentum moving faster and faster. Our target market are the large brands, where sales to Amazon is still a rather small portion of their total GMV sales. Them hiring a sales consultant is better ROI (results / investment) than hiring an employee/team full-time internally.
- ltc5505 7y agoAwesome! Thank you for taking the time to explain!
- SHAKEDECADE 7y agoThank you for your input. Do you a blog or provide information for buyers to better find your clients wares?
- tantalor 7y ago> conversions Including conversions from ads?
- blairanderson 7y agoI would think conversions from ads are weighted the same. Same as reviews from conversions with ads.
- tantalor 7y agoIf that's true then "Amazon's choice" is based on paid placement but not labeled as an ad.