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I'm surprised. I've always thought that "Amazon's Choice" was paid advertisement and have avoided these suggestions. When I buy something on Amazon, I usually t

I'm surprised. I've always thought that "Amazon's Choice" was paid advertisement and have avoided these suggestions. When I buy something on Amazon, I usually take reviews from elsewhere into account or click on the most negative Amazon reviews to check whether there is a particular problem with the product. It seems hard to believe that many customers take into account some label that looks like paid advertisement.

dahfizz 7y ago
I'm curious why you think it looks like an ad? You should also consider that the average Amazon user is not the average HN user. Even if it was a paid ad, any sort of endorsement from Amazon would certainly "fool" all the middle aged parents out there who can't be arsed to do extensive research on third party reviews.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > I'm curious why you think it looks like an ad? I've had that impression as well. It's not anything particular about the look for me, but that I expect any highlighting / positioning on Amazon to be paid for.
- defertoreptar 7y ago
  I thought it was an ad too, and would devalue those items compared to others because of that pretense. Why? Because it's a similar pattern that we see on other websites: the "sponsored" content gets the top spots. The real content comes directly after.
- toomuchequate 7y ago
  > Even if it was a paid ad, any sort of endorsement from Amazon would certainly "fool" all the middle aged parents out there who can't be arsed to do extensive research on third party reviews. What is surprising that educated people are more aware of marketing/advertising/capitalism? I only had to see some fake business accounts for large companies(Aldi) acting like real users to put my on high alert for anything on the Internet.
- freeone3000 7y ago
  It's an item being explicitly promoted by the store I'm at - if that's not an advertisement, I don't know what is.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Anything a store promotes is an ad. In the very rare cases of mom&pop stores, it could even be because the product is good. In a typical case, it's because the store needs to cycle inventory, the product is bad and therefore doesn't sell well, or the supplier paid for it. A rule of thumb for urban shopping is to always ignore "helpful" store recommendations, especially unsolicited ones. They have little interest in doing right by you, and every reason to trick you into a purchase that's better for them and worse for you.
  - solarkraft 7y ago
    There is the rare case of a store posting honest reviews (I'm thinking of DigitalRev TV), to 1) Demonstrate trustworthiness 2) Make sure you think of them when making your decision, increasing the chance you'll buy something from them.
- _jal 7y ago
  Generally: promotion has value. Specifically: Amazon aggressively sells everything else. Why would they not sell promotional placement?
  - Kalium 7y ago
    Amazon is typically quite clear about what's a purchased advertisement and what isn't.
  - nostrebored 7y ago
    Because listing something as Amazon's Choice that isn't actually an estimate of what is best for the customer violates a large swathe of Amazon's leadership principles
maxerickson 7y ago
You don't think that lots of negative reviews are written by people with rather odd expectations? It certainly pays to take reviews into account, it's just that a soft survey style approach yields more information than a hard rules based approach.
- notahacker 7y ago
  You can generally get some idea of how odd the expectations are by reading them. Although I tend to agree that reviews with 2, 3 and 4 stars are generally more likely to contain useful nuance (and less likely to be paid for by someone) than those at the extreme ends of the spectrum.
rc_mob 7y ago
Me too. Or more realistically Amazon pushing whatver product they make the best profits from.

dahfizz 7y ago

I'm curious why you think it looks like an ad? You should also consider that the average Amazon user is not the average HN user. Even if it was a paid ad, any sort of endorsement from Amazon would certainly "fool" all the middle aged parents out there who can't be arsed to do extensive research on third party reviews.

luckylion 7y ago
> I'm curious why you think it looks like an ad? I've had that impression as well. It's not anything particular about the look for me, but that I expect any highlighting / positioning on Amazon to be paid for.
defertoreptar 7y ago
I thought it was an ad too, and would devalue those items compared to others because of that pretense. Why? Because it's a similar pattern that we see on other websites: the "sponsored" content gets the top spots. The real content comes directly after.
toomuchequate 7y ago
> Even if it was a paid ad, any sort of endorsement from Amazon would certainly "fool" all the middle aged parents out there who can't be arsed to do extensive research on third party reviews. What is surprising that educated people are more aware of marketing/advertising/capitalism? I only had to see some fake business accounts for large companies(Aldi) acting like real users to put my on high alert for anything on the Internet.
freeone3000 7y ago
It's an item being explicitly promoted by the store I'm at - if that's not an advertisement, I don't know what is.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Anything a store promotes is an ad. In the very rare cases of mom&pop stores, it could even be because the product is good. In a typical case, it's because the store needs to cycle inventory, the product is bad and therefore doesn't sell well, or the supplier paid for it. A rule of thumb for urban shopping is to always ignore "helpful" store recommendations, especially unsolicited ones. They have little interest in doing right by you, and every reason to trick you into a purchase that's better for them and worse for you.
- solarkraft 7y ago
  There is the rare case of a store posting honest reviews (I'm thinking of DigitalRev TV), to 1) Demonstrate trustworthiness 2) Make sure you think of them when making your decision, increasing the chance you'll buy something from them.
_jal 7y ago
Generally: promotion has value. Specifically: Amazon aggressively sells everything else. Why would they not sell promotional placement?
- Kalium 7y ago
  Amazon is typically quite clear about what's a purchased advertisement and what isn't.
- nostrebored 7y ago
  Because listing something as Amazon's Choice that isn't actually an estimate of what is best for the customer violates a large swathe of Amazon's leadership principles

maxerickson 7y ago

You don't think that lots of negative reviews are written by people with rather odd expectations? It certainly pays to take reviews into account, it's just that a soft survey style approach yields more information than a hard rules based approach.

notahacker 7y ago
You can generally get some idea of how odd the expectations are by reading them. Although I tend to agree that reviews with 2, 3 and 4 stars are generally more likely to contain useful nuance (and less likely to be paid for by someone) than those at the extreme ends of the spectrum.

rc_mob 7y ago

Me too. Or more realistically Amazon pushing whatver product they make the best profits from.