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Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

642 points by juokaz 7y ago

simplecomplex 7y ago
Of course. Good for them. It’s their fucking store! > Amazon has adjusted its product-search system to more prominently feature listings that are more profitable for the company Unthinkable. A store trying to make a profit selling things. How crazy.
- bsamuels 7y ago
  You might want to add some supporting information why you feel that way instead of just sharing your opinion and dropping the mic
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ry_ry 7y ago
    I think their point is simply that "it's their store" - and to be brutally honest, I agree. Two not-entirely-random examples of similar behaviour: Supermarkets place their own brand merchandise where they feel it'll sell best. Undeniably good business, and certainly no reason for concern. Perhaps more questionably, but bare with me - Google place AMP content, which is to say content they have made their product by merit of some ToS/caching slight of hand, front and center. Is it exactly the same as what Amazon are doing? Well, no. Is it placing content they want consumed above other content irrespective of merit or consumer benefit? Probably. Similarly Amazon are doing what businesses do and promoting their most profitable products, straddling both the above examples. Whether it's best for the customers is open to debate, but it doesn't change that it's entirety their prerogative.
    - rrss 7y ago
      Note the European Commission has fined Google billions for giving Google Shopping preferential placement in search results.
      - ry_ry 7y ago
        Yeah, the search vs shop tension is the big question. The difference being that Google are ostensibly a search engine, who are looking to monetize and leverage their ubiquity - Amazon are a book store grown to titanic proportions looking to maximize profits. The same, but different. I fully support Amazon's divergent empire being broken up into sperate companies, but for the moment Amazon.com - the online marketplace - is still an internet shopfront.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      > I think their point is simply that "it's their store" - and to be brutally honest, I agree. Amazon claims they are a marketplace, not a store. Amazon itself is only one player on that marketplace, according to Amazon.
- UserIsUnused 7y ago
  It depends if it operates as a store or as a market place, laws are different.
  - simplecomplex 7y ago
    Which law would that be?
- berdon 7y ago
  Is this only being down voted because of tone? I am curious if there actually are any laws relevant to this situation. As far as I can tell, this is exactly like Walmart or BigBoxCo pushing their own brands. It's not illegal and, generally, it's not even a bad thing for the consumer (in the short term). It really feels like most of the people taking issue with this are doing so because of their personal sentiments rather than legality.
  - Konnstann 7y ago
    I have lukewarm feelings on the issue, but the difference to me is that BigBoxCo isn't selling counterfeit products in their stores, which means their brands have to compete on price/quality with the rest of the store, even if they are "pushed". With Amazon, the presence of counterfeit items, especially due to shared inventory, etc. means that even if I wanted another brand, I can't guarantee that I will even get a genuine item. This gives Amazon brands a huge advantage they wouldn't have at a big box store.
  - edoceo 7y ago
    I think it's downvotes because Amazon is not a store, it's a marketplace. And it's well different than BigBox because there is way less capital outlay for both property and goods. Downvotes for bad information, not snark
    - simplecomplex 7y ago
      “marketplace” is just a word, not a legal fiction/status like “corporation”. AFAIK US antitrust law does not have any concept of “marketplaces.”
  - IanCal 7y ago
    It's a similar problem to why we have antitrust laws. If this was you or I, there wouldn't be a problem. If you are the only / pretty much the only store used then it (to me) would clearly be a problem for consumers. You'd be using your monopoly in one area (marketplace) to benefit you elsewhere (selling USB cables) rather than competing on a level playing field. In between it becomes trickier. At what point are they too big? How dominant would they need to be? I think there are differences to physical stores partly due to scale. If a shelf has 10 different variations of basically the same thing that's the equivalent of all products being on the front of the search results. If there are hundreds, then the ranking becomes vital.
CriticalCathed 7y ago
>Amazon’s lawyers rejected an initial proposal for how to add profit directly into the algorithm, saying it represented a change that could create trouble with antitrust regulators, one of the people familiar with the project said. I wonder in what was they tweaked it so that the lawyers approved this change? I wonder if regulators will care if it skirts the letter of that law when the intention was to attempt to sneak by oversight by the FTC and the DOJ?
- deanCommie 7y ago
  Did you finish reading the article before commenting? They explain pretty clearly.
- overkill28 7y ago
  Later on in the article they explain that the initial approach was to include the profitability of an item directly in its metadata so that the algorithm could use that in its ranking criteria. They changed their approach to instead measure how much profit Amazon makes on a given search. This allows them to analyze whether various changes to the search algorithm increase or decrease profit, and optimize for those that do. It's a subtle distinction but it means that instead of explicitly promoting their products in search, they are instead making changes based on other product attributes that naturally boost the ranking of their products (and thus increase their profits). It's kind of like a blind study: they're telling the engineers, "we won't tell you which products are ours, but we'll see if you can figure it out based on these 100 other traits."
tachyonbeam 7y ago
It's not surprising that, given this kind of power, they would use it. What's a little unsettling is how little concern they have for people selling on their platform. If they treat their vendors like shit, and compete with them directly, that will incentivise said vendors to look for alternative platforms. You might say "who cares, there is no real competition for Amazon", but competition will come. What is Amazon going to do, are they planning to make their own version of every single product out there? I don't think that can scale.
- imglorp 7y ago
  The competition is not zero. Walmart and alibaba to name two, not aws scale but aspiring. Also some alliances like Target + Shipt are nipping at their heels with same day delivery. https://www.target.com/c/shipt/-/N-t4bob https://www.target.com/c/shipt/-/N-t4bob
- pacala 7y ago
  They are betting that when competition comes, they'll be subject to the same ~greed~ fiduciary duty forces. The market only has room for a handful of megacorps. They'll all highly likely to implement skewed algorithms to promote their own wares. If you don't like it, go build your own [TM].
monitron 7y ago
I would compare this to a supermarket allocating shelf space to maximize its profits, either by placing its own brands front and center or by featuring brands that have made a deal for prime shelf placement. I don't see this as scandalous or even new. Coincidentally, Amazon brand products are usually pretty good in my experience, so this might not be a terrible outcome for users who have already decided to come shop at Amazon's store.
- learc83 7y ago
  Grocery stores don't operate as a "marketplace" though. Grocery stores curate their offerings, vet vendors, deal with returns etc... Amazon is more like shopping mall that decides to start operating their own stores and competing with their tenants.
  - skybrian 7y ago
    On the other hand, it's somewhat unlike a regular marketplace since Amazon requires vendors to match or exceed their own return policy.
  - EGreg 7y ago
    Amazon does that with A-Z guarantee and helping resolve disputes and presenting listings and having Amazon Basics and Amazon’s Choice.
  - whoisjuan 7y ago
    Is it really? I don't see how this comparison works at all. Amazon gives you distribution, traffic, logistics, etc, with zero risk. They just take a fee if you sell. The only upfront cost is if you pay the premium FBA and that's still a like a 40 bucks per month fee. I'm not trying to defend Amazon, but I don't think that comparison makes sense.
    - learc83 7y ago
      It's obviously not a perfect metaphor, but neither is a grocery store. >Amazon gives you distribution, traffic, logistics, etc, with zero risk. Not everyone uses the distribution, and a mall or flea market also provides traffic to tenants.
goatinaboat 7y ago
Umm, good? I want genuine products with an assured supply chain, not any random counterfeit that gets commingled.
- kenforthewin 7y ago
  So the solution to counterfeits on Amazon is to only buy Amazon brands? I'd prefer they address their counterfeit problem directly.
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    I would like it if when you specifically bought “sold by Amazon” products or chose that as an option you were guaranteed a genuine item but with “shipped by Amazon” that ship (hah!) has unfortunately sailed. They won’t be accepting anything from third party sellers that has Amazon branding on, so it’s safe.
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      > "They won’t be accepting anything from third party sellers that has Amazon branding on...." I feel like that assertion has to be tested. Amazon demonstrably cannot weed out counterfeits of other well-known brands. If it can weed out counterfeits for it's own brand, we will know that it has chosen not to expend the effort for anyone else, and therefore cannot be trusted to sell those brands in its marketplace. If it cannot, we then know it lacks the capability, and therefore cannot be trusted to sell those brands in its marketplace.
  - ajmurmann 7y ago
    I loved Amazon before it became a marketplace. I wish we could go back to that.
    - mrweasel 7y ago
      Sadly everyone want’s to be a marketplace, and online shopping has become devided into two categories. Stores are either extremely niche with good quality and high prices or they have become caught in a race to the bottom, selling as cheaply as possible with no regard for how that might affect quality. There’s no mid-range anymore.
billman 7y ago
Amazon is not a search engine. You are doing it wrong!
paggle 7y ago
I cannot imagine using Amazon search if they didn’t do this and let 3rd party garbage sit at the top of the rankings.
Pxtl 7y ago
Considering how shopping at Amazon now feels like shopping at an electronics bazaar in Singapore with giant bins of random knock-off products of suspicious quality, tweaking the algo to push name-brand options (even if it's their own name-brand) would be a welcome move to me as a buyer. Obviously it's grossly unfair to their vendors, but from a strictly user-centric view it's an improvement. Otherwise, Amazon feels like AliExpress with faster shipping and better English.
- helpPeople 7y ago
  I've seen Amazon prices go up while Walmart Online has been cheaper for household items. On speciality electronics, I don't think anyone would be surprised to know Amazon is more expensive. It's an ancedote sure, but back in 2012, we shopped only at Amazon. Now they are no longer King.
  - dmarlow 7y ago
    I too have noticed this. I recently bought a new keyboard and mouse and got them both at best buy for cheaper.
    - jedberg 7y ago
      When I spilled water on my keyboard, I actually walked into a Fry's and got a better deal than anything online, for a genuine Microsoft keyboard.
      - zucked 7y ago
        I've noticed this on many occasions in the last month. I bought a mouse that Amazon had listed for $39. I walked a block and bought it from Office De/Max for $10 cheaper. I wanted to get a sweater shaver. Amazon had it for 22. I bought a NIB one from Ebay for $12. As far as I am concerned, the only thing Amazon has going for it right now is that it is a a one stop shop. That's worth something… how much? I'm not sure, but I know I'm buying a hell of a lot less stuff from Amazon now than 2 years ago.
      - 7y ago
mdolon 7y ago
I was so annoyed by the promoted products and expert recommendations that I wrote a Chrome/Firefox extension that hides them. It needs to be updated but mostly works as expected: http://mdolon.com/projects/shopsuey http://mdolon.com/projects/shopsuey
softwaredoug 7y ago
As someone who works in search this is unsurprising, and happens all the time. Search is a two sided sales exercise both to show you good products and also to products that make the e-commerce business money. Search is the e-commerce businesses sales person - not a neutral broker. You don’t expect the blue shirt at Best Buy to be entirely neutral do you? It’s actually a pretty understudied microeconomics case https://opensourceconnections.com/blog/2017/07/04/optimizing-user-product-match-economies/ https://opensourceconnections.com/blog/2017/07/04/optimizing...
josefresco 7y ago
Side rant: Where is my Amazon branded phone case?!? This weekend I placed a half dozen searches for "iphone 11 case" and was only presented with super shady, low quality vendors. Floveme? Tendam? Donse? Spigen? and my favorite: Vapesoon. Is it just too early for the legit brands to have a case ready? Or am I doing it wrong?
- ChrisLTD 7y ago
  Spigen is a legit brand
  - josefresco 7y ago
    Cool, thanks for that! Beyond Speck and OtterBox I actually couldn't name any other legit brands. I had an easier time finding seemingly "legit" brands via Google.
- johnqpub 7y ago
  Spigen is a completely legit brand.
  - josefresco 7y ago
    Thanks! For those curious, here's their Amazon brand store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/2A847EF6-D682-42A6-8564-E7676CCD610C https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/2A847EF6-D682-42A6-8564-E...
- ptruesdell 7y ago
  Can't speak for the others, but Spigen is a well known and generally well-trusted brand.
- chihuahua 7y ago
  I agree the brand names sound ridiculous, but I bought a Spigen phone case from Amazon for a Moto X4 and I'm very happy with it. Fits perfectly, looks fine, good access to buttons etc.
- 7y ago
nbanks 7y ago
I've always considered Amazon's search system as pretty bad, often ignoring keywords to get more search results. It does look like their sort by price mechanism has improved. eBay has my favourite search system because it's willing to admit if there are no results and allow me create an e-mail alert. It also allows negation and lets me use parentheses to define a logical "or" as part of the query.
jjohansson 7y ago
If you’re a manufacturer without a strong brand, it’s incredibly risky selling through Amazon. They will take your sales data to evaluate ROI of building it themselves , and then undercut you. Similar if you’re a retailer. This is why Shopify’s new model is better for D2C and retail (but very difficult for them to pull off).
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  Also, a factory can produce a counterfeit of your product and sell it on Amazon on the same listing as your genuine product, with no way the customer can tell which they're buying.
  - gok 7y ago
    Hell, that factory can produce an AmazonBasics-branded version of your product too.
grumpy8 7y ago
"Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products", and the sun is hot
- charlesism 7y ago
  Read between the lines: "Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Lower Customer Satisfaction." That's less obvious because Amazon traditionally has been a customer-focused company, and this is a step away from that.
Rafuino 7y ago
"After the Journal’s inquiries, Amazon took down its A9 website, which had stood for about a decade and a half. The site included the statement: 'One of A9’s tenets is that relevance is in the eye of the customer and we strive to get the best results for our users.'" Huh, that's an interesting reaction.
otroqueccorre 7y ago
Obiously, like google, or like any other company. I would have done the same. The name of that is: capitalism.
dqpb 7y ago
Amazon should be required to display product origin.
AFascistWorld 7y ago
Should have just put the ones who pay the most ahead.
blueadept111 7y ago
I'm glad they do this! I publish books on Amazon.com using Amazon KDP, and it's impossible to compete on a level playing field in brick-and-mortar bookstores. Distributors won't touch self-published titles. And I can't offer them at a cheaper price, due to the nature of print on demand (much pricier to print compared to doing a print run in China). The ONLY advantage I have is that my titles are more promoted by Amazon in the search results (since they make a killing off the higher margins, even when they decide to discount it themselves). If Amazon wasn't boosting KDP self-published titles in the search results, it wouldn't work... period, in my opinion. I wouldn't even try. And if anyone from Amazon is reading this, you guys should allow the authors to purchase the title in bulk at a much cheaper rate, so that reselling to local bookstores is a viable option.
feketegy 7y ago
Shocking. If you go into a candy store where the owner also makes their own brand of candy, what do you think will be the most prominent item on the shelf?
- panopticon 7y ago
  That's not really comparable. The candy store owner is still paying for the other brand of candy to collect dust. Amazon isn't exposed to the same risks in a lot of product listings.
otakucode 7y ago
According to the book 'The Everything Store,' Amazon's search engine is a matter of internal contention. Years ago, when people noticed that Amazon's search engine was terrible (as it is), someone from another group in the company developed a new search system based on Elasticsearch and more modern technologies. He presented the new search to Bezos. But there was an existing team whose primary responsibility was the search functionality. And the man who led that team was one of Bezos' personal friends. That man was, apparently, petty and status-seeking, so pushed back against adopting the new search engine. Bezos proposed that there would be a contest between the old and new search engines. Judged by his friend, head of the current bad search engine team who didn't want the new search because it threatened his status. Predictably, the new search 'lost.'
- senderista 7y ago
  They even hired Udi fucking Manber to improve product search, with no apparent results. Like their hire of Jef Raskin: pearls before swine.
- TheRealDunkirk 7y ago
  This sort of thing makes me sick, and I'm familiar with the feeling because I've seen this several times in my career. But the older I get, the more a tiny kernel of respect grows in me for the kind of person that can parley a modicum of technical understanding into an unassailable political position in a large company, and succeed -- at least in terms of money and influence -- despite the opportunity costs I've witnessed. You just kind of have to hand it to people like this. I guess. Maybe that's the only way I stay sane at this point.
Bhilai 7y ago
My problem with Amazon is that I dont know what to trust anymore. For every product I buy off Amazon, I spend time reading "verified purchase" reviews, 1 star and 2 star reviews and may be then find an item that seems legitimate and durable. I only recently learned that "Amazon's Choice in category X" label does not necessarily mean that Amazon has actually vetted that item. So my experience shopping at Amazon has drastically changed.
deleted 7y ago
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scarface74 7y ago
Without getting into whether what Amazon is doing is right or wrong, as a vendor, you have to accept reality for what it is and come up with a business plan that gives you an “unfair advantage”. Selling physical goods is a three part process - manufacturing, marketing, and selling. At each part of the process, you have to know what helps you stand out. Manufacturing - is there something that enables you to manufacturer a product that can’t easily be copied or that allows you to create the product cheaper than competitors? Marketing - are you depending on SEO and Google ads just like all of your competitors? Selling - Are you depending on Amazon just like all of your competitors? You have to be able to optimize on at least one of those areas or you’re going to find yourself competing on price at either slim, no or negative margins or being lost in a marketplace where everyone is doing the same thing.
Animats 7y ago
It's too bad that Sears never really got into online. They were once the top catalog retailer, and known for consistent quality, good warranties, and boring products. Somehow they missed the Internet, retiring from catalog operations just as Internet shopping got going.
- falcrist 7y ago
  I cannot for the life of me understand why Sears didn't become a major online retailer. They not only had a physical catalog system that could be fairly easily converted into an online catalog, they have physical stores that could be used as pickup points and warehouses for customers who don't want to wait until things are mailed. In the UK there's a company called Argos that worked ENTIRELY as a catalog store. Their physical locations were basically a warehouse with a lobby that had the catalogs and computers where you could look items up and order them. THEY should be a major competitor to Amazon... but according to my UK friends, they're not.
  - Kalium 7y ago
    Among other things, Sears was afraid of cannibalizing their in-store sales and didn't understand the potential of the internet. They had a very B&M-centered mindset.
    - falcrist 7y ago
      That's insane, though. In reality, these things can coexist just fine, but even if they couldn't... why wouldn't you want to have a business model with lower overhead?
      - _edo 7y ago
        Because they didn't know how to run the new business. It's the same story as when Sears rose to prominence: they saw a business model the other mail-order retailers didn't understand. The irony is Sears started as a mail-order catalog but couldn't get back to the old model in time. But of course their large management structures couldn't move as fast as small company with somebody like Bezos at the helm who could just make calls on the spot.
chiefalchemist 7y ago
I'm certainly no Amazon fan (read: they are my last choice when I run out of options), but this title/headline should be: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Maximized Its Profits In other words, no news here really. Shareholders come first. The customers (who are presumedly happier getting better prices) come next. Finally, last comes Amazon's vendors. In other words, no news here really. Perhaps the follow up could be: WSJ Use Clickbait Headlines to Boost Its Own Agenda And Ad Revenues
pixelpoet 7y ago
ANTITRUST! If Microsoft can get hammered for packaging Internet Explorer with Windows (and probably rightly so, given the market conditions at the time), there is a direct analogy to be made here. Pick what you want to be: if you want to be the greatest goods index and shipment company in the world, fantastic. But you have to accept that you cannot sneak some of your own other-products to the top using that power. In this case, spin off your Kindle etc companies or have them broken up.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  No, there is not a direct analogy because Amazon is not a monopoly. They aren't even the largest retailer.
  - pixelpoet 7y ago
    I feel there's an argument to be made for Amazon having a near-monopoly on online sales and distribution in many countries, even outside America. They've simply nailed it and scaled it. In New Zealand a company called TradeMe got there first and successfully fended off Amazon, but that's a minority case. There are pros (e.g. consumers love it) and cons (e.g. human toll when optimising efficiency without robots) to having Amazon dominate in whatever country, but you can't deny, they get the job done. There isn't really another company competing with them at that level, is there? And that's why I think it's an effective monopoly. To abuse this wide-reaching power, in making your own stuff rise to the top of world sales, is absolutely a concern and we should honestly be grateful that there are laws and funded agencies giving a shit about this.
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      We are so early in the shift to online retailing. People using Amazon for stuff other than books, DVDs, and CDs only became a thing in the last 10 years. Walmart has barely started to get their shit together with online retailing. Same for the major supermarket chains. They have an incredible physical presence with huge transaction volume that they can leverage into their online efforts.
noego 7y ago
The article is disappointingly misleading and buries one of the key details "Amazon’s lawyers rejected the overt addition of contribution profit into the algorithm... They turned to the metrics Amazon uses to test the algorithm’s success in reaching certain business objectives, said the people who worked on the project. When engineers test new variables in the algorithm, Amazon gauges the results against a handful of metrics. Among these metrics: unit sales of listings and the dollar value of orders for listings. Positive results for the metrics correlated with high customer satisfaction and helped determine the ranking of listings a search presented to the customer. Now, engineers would need to consider another metric—improving profitability—said the people who worked on the project. Variables added to the algorithm would essentially become what one of these people called “proxies” for profit: The variables would correlate with improved profitability for Amazon, but an outside observer might not be able to tell that. The variables could also inherently be good for the customer." Tldr: some people in Amazon wanted to give a boost to Amazon-products. The search team fought them vociferously and refused to budge. The lawyers came out against it as well. Amazon's internal A/B testing framework measures a number of metrics, including both revenue and profit, when determining whether a specific feature/change should be deployed. The fact that the A/B testing framework measures the profit impact of any change, is hardly earth shattering. This is one of the core features that any A/B testing framework attempts to accomplish. This also doesn't tell you anything about what the search algorithm is actually doing. An A/B testing framework can only help you evaluate the relative effectiveness of different algorithms. It doesn't actually create/influence the algorithm in any way. As WSJ themselves reported, Amazon's search algorithm does not take profitability as an input. WSJ has done a fantastic job in unearthing this very interesting internal-debate that's happening in Amazon. But they have reported it in a way that is very misleading and gives laypeople the impression that they have a smoking gun. In reality, the only thing they have produced is the fact that Amazon's A/B testing framework is profit-aware.
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  Thank you. I was struggling to understand what the article was trying to tell me or why it was so lengthy. It feels like news has evolved to buzzword/sensationalist headline + enough content/data (even if irrelevant) to provide a sense of comprehensiveness/substance.
rc_kas 7y ago
Anytime a competitor to Amazon wants to step up and play the game, I'd be more than excited to switch the place where I do my shopping.
crushingcrash 7y ago
Literally been in meetings at Amazon HQ in Seattle talking about "hit lists" for popular product categories - which products they were going to take into an Amazon brand first.
isostatic 7y ago
Put a check box saying “amazon choice only” World gets better.
ilaksh 7y ago
People want the large networks and platforms that tech monopolies provide. In order to get that without the private centralized control, we need to turn to decentralized technologies.
senderista 7y ago
Amazon already lost all my "customer trust" when I found out they not only sold but endorsed untested, toxic Chinese toys. The slogan seemed sincere enough when I worked there. I guess it's a casualty of the recent drive for profitability.
spike021 7y ago
Honestly, what's the big deal? Google prioritizes certain websites/results when I enter queries too, it doesn't mean I'm required to click on them. What ever happened to people spending a few extra minutes looking for the result they want? If the first few aren't correct for you then move on. Unless you're spending an extra 30+ minutes because the search doesn't work correctly at all then there's no issue here.
- calibas 7y ago
  If you have a product that's negatively affected by this, then this is kind of a big deal. If you look at the marketing data, most people don't like spending a dozen extra seconds, much less a few extra minutes, finding what they want.
- bduerst 7y ago
  The issue is that Amazon is prioritizing their own products/labels, not that prioritization just happens (which is basic search query functionality).
- gundmc 7y ago
  Google was fined several billion dollars by the EU for prioritizing their own products in search.
- lleolin 7y ago
  >Google prioritizes certain websites/results when I enter queries too, it doesn't mean I'm required to click on them. I would like to call this "an appeal to free will". It's true that individuals can choose what they click, but there is also going to be a statistical reality of what people "choose" to click more/most often. Because of this, imo the big deal is absolutely gargantuan. Google for example handles several billions of searches per day. To your point of continuing to hunt for the right results, just adding a few seconds per search increases the amount of aggregate time spent searching on a scale of centuries per day. I would argue it's a similar case with Amazon; the service is so large that a minute changes can have tremendous impacts.
test111111 7y ago
who does not now a days.
vz8 7y ago
I've taken to keeping a copy of Fakespot[0] open in an incognito browser and regularly submit Amazon URLs to it. Over the past month or so, I've looked at everything from headphones to shampoo and been boggled at the amount of rigging that goes on. While I can't say for sure that their algorithms are always spot on, they give some interesting feedback in terms of recent review count history, price history, whether Amazon has recently bulk deleted reviews, and some heuristic comment quality ratings. So often I've found that Amazon's Choice is questionable: 4.8 stars, hundreds of reviews within the last 30 days on a slickly packaged, no-name electronics gadget is all too common. Typically, I use Fakespot to look for red flags, flip back to the reviews area on Amazon, sort them by Most Recent Reviews, and dig around. I don't use the Fakespot Chrome extension, though. Too invasive for my tastes. [0] https://www.fakespot.com https://www.fakespot.com
mrweasel 7y ago
Does that mean search on Amazon will finally work? How is it possible to have so many products and not care about the ability for customers to actually find what they’re looking for?
hbosch 7y ago
There was a post on HN a while back about Apple boosting it's own apps in their App Store search. Likewise, I am sure that Google prefers to show results from it's own companies (e.g. if I google the word "spreadsheet", my first result is for Google Sheets). This is all the same thing, no? Edit: I'll add that I'm not saying it isn't an anti-competitive practice, I'm sure it is. But I am saying that it's a bit silly to insinuate that stores don't already advertise for their own goods.
- cglong 7y ago
  It's worth noting Microsoft's own email offering is third on a Bing search for "email": https://www.bing.com/search?q=email https://www.bing.com/search?q=email
logfromblammo 7y ago
Given the functionality of Amazon's search algorithm before this, I can't exactly say that any changes to it could make it worse. I can't even count the number of times I have searched for Product-X, by lowest price, and encountered a dozen pages of Clearly-Not-X and Actually-Just-An-Accessory-For-X before even reaching the first X. Or Item-Sold-By-Weight-Y, that comes in 30 different package sizes, none of which is tagged with comparable unit prices. If you want some Y, you cannot order your search by $/kg or $/L. And sometimes it's difficult to figure out exactly how much Y you would be getting. The giant barrel of industrial generic will be listed next to the 20 oz bottle of gold-plated spiritual-grade Woo-Woo brand.
StygiesVIII 7y ago
and?
AcerbicZero 7y ago
Was there some level of assumption that Amazons search isn't going to favor Amazon to some degree? When I search on Wal-Mart's website, the top results are normally the wal-mart label, or they're at least on the first page. The value of Amazon to me, is similar to Steam. Amazon's influence of product reviews is more concerning to me, anyway.
woah 7y ago
How is this worse than the sponsored results?
raz32dust 7y ago
I see folks saying that it is good for consumers because Amazon products are better quality that the other sellers who tend to be unreliable. However, we are missing the long-term impact of this - (a) It will slowly kill competition, at which point Amazon products no longer have to be better quality. (b) It kills innovation because anyone who wants to sell stuff online knows Amazon is going to copy the product soon enough. Why is this not an antitrust case? Amazon has the monopoly on online retail I assume, so isn't ranking it's own products higher an antitrust violation?
RyanAF7 7y ago
Amazon is about 6 months away from total collapse and they know it. Bezos and all his cronies will be squeezing every last dime out until then. At which point, his wife will sell all their stock the day before without a fart from the SEC.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
swrobel 7y ago
Wow, had no idea they were still using the A9 moniker at all. I'll always remember it as their ill-fated Google competitor that they tried to make cool by shoehorning into perhaps the cringeworthiest moment of an already-cringeworthy show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNZ-3KLF7A0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNZ-3KLF7A0
cptaj 7y ago
We definitely need platform legislation for the web. After a certain size, they should be regulated as public utilities. So many companies completely depend on Amazon's platform for their business and they're all easy prey for the behemoth. I did some work for a company that sells batteries on Amazon. A simple dispute got them suspended across the board. A decision made by a third rate employee from god knows where, probably without even a cursory reading of the case, made in a split second, brought down a company with 10 years in the market and hundreds of employees. No due process, no rights, nothing. You can't defend yourself, they just shut you down and then you have to beg for weeks to be let back in. After weeks and hundreds of thousands in losses, you have no legal recourse against a wrongful suspension. You can make the argument that they could just set up their own online store for the batteries and you're right, they can. But amazon and ebay are so big that its practically impossible to sell these things at scale without them. Its not a fair game and this is but one of the issues. They definitely need to be treated as public utilities after a certain amount of users.
- bongobongo 7y ago
  You’re describing a monopoly and the proper tool to deal with it is anti-trust, not entrenching it by pretending it’s a public utility.
  - notJim 7y ago
    What would that look like though? If consumers wanted to go to 20 different stores to shop online, they'd already be doing that.
    - twblalock 7y ago
      > What would that look like though? If consumers wanted to go to 20 different stores to shop online, they'd already be doing that. They do. Amazon accounts for about 47% of online retail. The rest is divided up among a bunch of other sites.
      - bongobongo 7y ago
yalogin 7y ago
They do that with their content also. There is no way to only see prime videos. They constantly push their paid content onto the main feed. On top of that there is no way to restrict purchase or gate it with a password on smart TVs so it’s a bad experience. Of course amazon doesn’t much care about user experience.
- janesvilleseo 7y ago
  I have to enter a pin every time on my smart TVs. I thought every smart tv had that feature.
reilly3000 7y ago
I’m not sure how this is news. Maybe I’m too in the bubble, but I thought every tech company used their platforms to promote their own wares. VScode gives me tools to build AKS clusters but not GKE clusters. Facebook wants me to use their marketplace, dating service, etc. Google is boosting Google Flights over travel sites. It’s unsavory and betrays their guise of impartiality, but is nothing close to illegal.
specialist 7y ago
When we finally decide to chop up these monopolies, I'd like "competing with your own clients" to be a consideration. I don't mind that Apple runs an App Store. I mind that they have an unfair advantage over their competition. I don't mind that Google reams advertisers. I mind that they sit on both sides of the brokerage, thereby taking advantage of their own clients. It's like the "firewall" between financial advisors and investment ratings for those bankers. That crap needs to be kept separate, to prevent perverse incentives, self-dealing, conflicts of interest, fraud, unfair advantages, etc.
jerhewet 7y ago
I never use Amazon's site search to try and find anything, because it's just horribly bad and broken. In my experience the more specific my search terms are, the worse the results. If I'm looking for something on Amazon I use Google and the "site:" prefix, and use the meta returned by Google's search engines to find what I'm after.
ajoy 7y ago
Wonder how the new shipping agreement (or rather a break up of the old international shipping agreement : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20810142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20810142 ) will affect this. This might make it less attractive for items from China.
ReverseCold 7y ago
The only reason I still use Amazon is because it's so easy to buy things using Bitcoin/Ethereum on it. I can get giftcards from literally hundreds of vendors (some even at a discount), or use a service like Moon which makes the gift card buying fully transparent (I just click checkout and scan the qr code with my phone), and I can buy almost anything on Amazon. Everywhere else requires me to convert coin into USD and then buy things, which sucks.
- soVeryTired 7y ago
  Aren't you effectively converting to USD by buying gift cards?
nickfromseattle 7y ago
>Amazon says it operates in fiercely competitive markets, it represents less than 1% of global retail and its private-label business represents about 1% of its retail sales. While the graph towards the end of the article indicates Amazon captures ~35% of online retail in the US What a disingenuous way for Amazon to communicate - I hope the people their original quote was directed to saw right through this.
Insanity 7y ago
It's within their rights to do so and frankly a move most of us would make, no?
- pb7 7y ago
  Google got fined $3B for this exact thing on Google Shopping in the EU. "Within their rights" is highly dependent on location.
WalterBright 7y ago
I don't see anything surprising or unusual about this. It's hardly different from a supermarket giving better display positions for their store brand.
privateSFacct 7y ago
I just wish they'd bring the "Ships and sold by amazon.com" checkbox back. The rest is pretty much garbage.
TwoQ 7y ago
In other news, people get older as they age.
12345abcde 7y ago
You don't have to be an rocket surgeon to see that amazon search sucks. I wouldn't even call amazon search "Search". If I have one file on my computer named "Amazon Search Sucks ASS.txt" and I search for it by name, in quotes, I expect to see only one result. A similar search on amazon will return a bunch of results many of them have nothing to do with the words I typed, not in the title, description, etc. DON'T GET ME STARTED ON SORTING BASED ON PRICE!!! The number of search results should not change based on how you sort the result list!!! Bezoz should just stick to sexting...
stjohnswarts 7y ago
Well as long as they present -some- other options I'm fine with it. I always look through the first 2 or 3 pages.
samstave 7y ago
Here is what i want to shop by on amazon: * kitchen * wash * garage —- Basically, id like to setup a standard or select a standard product lineup and say “refill my kitchen” “Refill my bathroom set” “Refill my washing supplies” Etc... And you could see the averaged products used to supply each area of the home... This goes in line with a previous YC application i had submitted which was called “standard pantry” The idea was that a pantry cabinet would be delivered to you, with ingredients and recipes on how to make various healthy dishes based on the whole pantry of ingredients. The goal being to raise nutritional health, especially among lower income. And with a smart pantry it would give you recipe ideasbased on what you have and know what ingredients you lack and auto order Like a netflix for healthy food... YC hated it...
jmlon 7y ago
Would you have done something different? It's business as usual.
PascLeRasc 7y ago
Could we take a break with these articles for a bit? I’m all for redistributing Jeff Bezos’s money, and I'd be happy to have mine redistributed as well if that happened, but this and the Apple App Store algorithm news are so insignificant in the world. We're arguing about if online stores can organize their shelves how they want to while people are dying because they can't afford insulin or drink their tapwater. Yeah, you can care about two issues at once, but this isn't really an issue. I don't care to read the same comment about Microsoft with Internet Explorer every day. Maybe it's unfair to them but I really do not care, they clearly survived just fine.
- CGamesPlay 7y ago
  Honestly and without sarcasm, maybe just take a break from this site? If those are the kinds of issues that you want to find more about, I don’t think this is the right venue. Yes, HN does dabble in politics sometimes but for the most part, this isn’t a place to talk about the “big issues”.
Takiya 7y ago
Interesting
supyus 7y ago
and have a look at how they are even using fake reviews on their own products: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20819344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20819344
Tepix 7y ago
I‘m so annoyed with the inferiority of the search experience on Amazon. For example when i search for shoes in my size, why doesn‘t it show the price for the shoes in my size? It‘s super inconvenient.
vkaku 7y ago
We need a browser plugin which can read a product name and tell us: Amazon brand or not?
stefek99 7y ago
Excuse me, what's the news here? A company wants to maximize its profit. If it is wasn't that way, they would be acting illegaly. (publicly trading company must seek shareholders profit) So what is the news once again?
- diffeomorphism 7y ago
  > If it is wasn't that way, they would be acting illegally. Common misconception. > Corporate directors are not required to maximize shareholder value. https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/academics/clarke_business_law_institute/corporations-and-society/Common-Misunderstandings-About-Corporations.cfm https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/academics/clarke_business_...
  - stefek99 7y ago
    Interesting. "Usually maximizing shareholder value is not a legal obligation, but the product of the pressure that activist shareholders, stock-based compensation schemes and financial markets impose on corporate directors."
nojvek 7y ago
Amazons in a weird boat. Like building a marketplace where they are the most dominant player and they favor themselves. But I guess that’s how supermarkets are too. I buy Krogers brands because I know they'll be vetted and meet a certain bar. If I don’t like it, I can always return it for a refund. It’s not great for competition and Amazon can easily boost crappy cheap products. Amazon is a massive beast. What is the alternative with better experience ?
Apofis 7y ago
This should be a massive lawsuit on behalf of all 3rd party sellers.
Ketsaalretails 7y ago
Amazon has many products so that to trace the audience it needs time to time update in the algorithm. If you want to increase sales you can use our platform Ketsaal as We are Amazon & Flipkart Authorised service providers.

642 points by juokaz 7y ago

Of course. Good for them. It’s their fucking store! > Amazon has adjusted its product-search system to more prominently feature listings that are more profitable for the company Unthinkable. A store trying to make a profit selling things. How crazy.

bsamuels 7y ago
You might want to add some supporting information why you feel that way instead of just sharing your opinion and dropping the mic
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ry_ry 7y ago
  I think their point is simply that "it's their store" - and to be brutally honest, I agree. Two not-entirely-random examples of similar behaviour: Supermarkets place their own brand merchandise where they feel it'll sell best. Undeniably good business, and certainly no reason for concern. Perhaps more questionably, but bare with me - Google place AMP content, which is to say content they have made their product by merit of some ToS/caching slight of hand, front and center. Is it exactly the same as what Amazon are doing? Well, no. Is it placing content they want consumed above other content irrespective of merit or consumer benefit? Probably. Similarly Amazon are doing what businesses do and promoting their most profitable products, straddling both the above examples. Whether it's best for the customers is open to debate, but it doesn't change that it's entirety their prerogative.
  - rrss 7y ago
    Note the European Commission has fined Google billions for giving Google Shopping preferential placement in search results.
    - ry_ry 7y ago
      Yeah, the search vs shop tension is the big question. The difference being that Google are ostensibly a search engine, who are looking to monetize and leverage their ubiquity - Amazon are a book store grown to titanic proportions looking to maximize profits. The same, but different. I fully support Amazon's divergent empire being broken up into sperate companies, but for the moment Amazon.com - the online marketplace - is still an internet shopfront.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > I think their point is simply that "it's their store" - and to be brutally honest, I agree. Amazon claims they are a marketplace, not a store. Amazon itself is only one player on that marketplace, according to Amazon.
UserIsUnused 7y ago
It depends if it operates as a store or as a market place, laws are different.
- simplecomplex 7y ago
  Which law would that be?
berdon 7y ago
Is this only being down voted because of tone? I am curious if there actually are any laws relevant to this situation. As far as I can tell, this is exactly like Walmart or BigBoxCo pushing their own brands. It's not illegal and, generally, it's not even a bad thing for the consumer (in the short term). It really feels like most of the people taking issue with this are doing so because of their personal sentiments rather than legality.
- Konnstann 7y ago
  I have lukewarm feelings on the issue, but the difference to me is that BigBoxCo isn't selling counterfeit products in their stores, which means their brands have to compete on price/quality with the rest of the store, even if they are "pushed". With Amazon, the presence of counterfeit items, especially due to shared inventory, etc. means that even if I wanted another brand, I can't guarantee that I will even get a genuine item. This gives Amazon brands a huge advantage they wouldn't have at a big box store.
- edoceo 7y ago
  I think it's downvotes because Amazon is not a store, it's a marketplace. And it's well different than BigBox because there is way less capital outlay for both property and goods. Downvotes for bad information, not snark
  - simplecomplex 7y ago
    “marketplace” is just a word, not a legal fiction/status like “corporation”. AFAIK US antitrust law does not have any concept of “marketplaces.”
- IanCal 7y ago
  It's a similar problem to why we have antitrust laws. If this was you or I, there wouldn't be a problem. If you are the only / pretty much the only store used then it (to me) would clearly be a problem for consumers. You'd be using your monopoly in one area (marketplace) to benefit you elsewhere (selling USB cables) rather than competing on a level playing field. In between it becomes trickier. At what point are they too big? How dominant would they need to be? I think there are differences to physical stores partly due to scale. If a shelf has 10 different variations of basically the same thing that's the equivalent of all products being on the front of the search results. If there are hundreds, then the ranking becomes vital.

CriticalCathed 7y ago

>Amazon’s lawyers rejected an initial proposal for how to add profit directly into the algorithm, saying it represented a change that could create trouble with antitrust regulators, one of the people familiar with the project said. I wonder in what was they tweaked it so that the lawyers approved this change? I wonder if regulators will care if it skirts the letter of that law when the intention was to attempt to sneak by oversight by the FTC and the DOJ?

deanCommie 7y ago
Did you finish reading the article before commenting? They explain pretty clearly.
overkill28 7y ago
Later on in the article they explain that the initial approach was to include the profitability of an item directly in its metadata so that the algorithm could use that in its ranking criteria. They changed their approach to instead measure how much profit Amazon makes on a given search. This allows them to analyze whether various changes to the search algorithm increase or decrease profit, and optimize for those that do. It's a subtle distinction but it means that instead of explicitly promoting their products in search, they are instead making changes based on other product attributes that naturally boost the ranking of their products (and thus increase their profits). It's kind of like a blind study: they're telling the engineers, "we won't tell you which products are ours, but we'll see if you can figure it out based on these 100 other traits."

tachyonbeam 7y ago

It's not surprising that, given this kind of power, they would use it. What's a little unsettling is how little concern they have for people selling on their platform. If they treat their vendors like shit, and compete with them directly, that will incentivise said vendors to look for alternative platforms. You might say "who cares, there is no real competition for Amazon", but competition will come. What is Amazon going to do, are they planning to make their own version of every single product out there? I don't think that can scale.

imglorp 7y ago
The competition is not zero. Walmart and alibaba to name two, not aws scale but aspiring. Also some alliances like Target + Shipt are nipping at their heels with same day delivery. https://www.target.com/c/shipt/-/N-t4bob https://www.target.com/c/shipt/-/N-t4bob
pacala 7y ago
They are betting that when competition comes, they'll be subject to the same ~greed~ fiduciary duty forces. The market only has room for a handful of megacorps. They'll all highly likely to implement skewed algorithms to promote their own wares. If you don't like it, go build your own [TM].

monitron 7y ago

I would compare this to a supermarket allocating shelf space to maximize its profits, either by placing its own brands front and center or by featuring brands that have made a deal for prime shelf placement. I don't see this as scandalous or even new. Coincidentally, Amazon brand products are usually pretty good in my experience, so this might not be a terrible outcome for users who have already decided to come shop at Amazon's store.

learc83 7y ago
Grocery stores don't operate as a "marketplace" though. Grocery stores curate their offerings, vet vendors, deal with returns etc... Amazon is more like shopping mall that decides to start operating their own stores and competing with their tenants.
- skybrian 7y ago
  On the other hand, it's somewhat unlike a regular marketplace since Amazon requires vendors to match or exceed their own return policy.
- EGreg 7y ago
  Amazon does that with A-Z guarantee and helping resolve disputes and presenting listings and having Amazon Basics and Amazon’s Choice.
- whoisjuan 7y ago
  Is it really? I don't see how this comparison works at all. Amazon gives you distribution, traffic, logistics, etc, with zero risk. They just take a fee if you sell. The only upfront cost is if you pay the premium FBA and that's still a like a 40 bucks per month fee. I'm not trying to defend Amazon, but I don't think that comparison makes sense.
  - learc83 7y ago
    It's obviously not a perfect metaphor, but neither is a grocery store. >Amazon gives you distribution, traffic, logistics, etc, with zero risk. Not everyone uses the distribution, and a mall or flea market also provides traffic to tenants.

goatinaboat 7y ago

Umm, good? I want genuine products with an assured supply chain, not any random counterfeit that gets commingled.

kenforthewin 7y ago
So the solution to counterfeits on Amazon is to only buy Amazon brands? I'd prefer they address their counterfeit problem directly.
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  I would like it if when you specifically bought “sold by Amazon” products or chose that as an option you were guaranteed a genuine item but with “shipped by Amazon” that ship (hah!) has unfortunately sailed. They won’t be accepting anything from third party sellers that has Amazon branding on, so it’s safe.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    > "They won’t be accepting anything from third party sellers that has Amazon branding on...." I feel like that assertion has to be tested. Amazon demonstrably cannot weed out counterfeits of other well-known brands. If it can weed out counterfeits for it's own brand, we will know that it has chosen not to expend the effort for anyone else, and therefore cannot be trusted to sell those brands in its marketplace. If it cannot, we then know it lacks the capability, and therefore cannot be trusted to sell those brands in its marketplace.
- ajmurmann 7y ago
  I loved Amazon before it became a marketplace. I wish we could go back to that.
  - mrweasel 7y ago
    Sadly everyone want’s to be a marketplace, and online shopping has become devided into two categories. Stores are either extremely niche with good quality and high prices or they have become caught in a race to the bottom, selling as cheaply as possible with no regard for how that might affect quality. There’s no mid-range anymore.

billman 7y ago

Amazon is not a search engine. You are doing it wrong!

paggle 7y ago

I cannot imagine using Amazon search if they didn’t do this and let 3rd party garbage sit at the top of the rankings.

Pxtl 7y ago

Considering how shopping at Amazon now feels like shopping at an electronics bazaar in Singapore with giant bins of random knock-off products of suspicious quality, tweaking the algo to push name-brand options (even if it's their own name-brand) would be a welcome move to me as a buyer. Obviously it's grossly unfair to their vendors, but from a strictly user-centric view it's an improvement. Otherwise, Amazon feels like AliExpress with faster shipping and better English.

helpPeople 7y ago
I've seen Amazon prices go up while Walmart Online has been cheaper for household items. On speciality electronics, I don't think anyone would be surprised to know Amazon is more expensive. It's an ancedote sure, but back in 2012, we shopped only at Amazon. Now they are no longer King.
- dmarlow 7y ago
  I too have noticed this. I recently bought a new keyboard and mouse and got them both at best buy for cheaper.
  - jedberg 7y ago
    When I spilled water on my keyboard, I actually walked into a Fry's and got a better deal than anything online, for a genuine Microsoft keyboard.
    - zucked 7y ago
      I've noticed this on many occasions in the last month. I bought a mouse that Amazon had listed for $39. I walked a block and bought it from Office De/Max for $10 cheaper. I wanted to get a sweater shaver. Amazon had it for 22. I bought a NIB one from Ebay for $12. As far as I am concerned, the only thing Amazon has going for it right now is that it is a a one stop shop. That's worth something… how much? I'm not sure, but I know I'm buying a hell of a lot less stuff from Amazon now than 2 years ago.
    - 7y ago

mdolon 7y ago

I was so annoyed by the promoted products and expert recommendations that I wrote a Chrome/Firefox extension that hides them. It needs to be updated but mostly works as expected: http://mdolon.com/projects/shopsuey http://mdolon.com/projects/shopsuey

softwaredoug 7y ago

As someone who works in search this is unsurprising, and happens all the time. Search is a two sided sales exercise both to show you good products and also to products that make the e-commerce business money. Search is the e-commerce businesses sales person - not a neutral broker. You don’t expect the blue shirt at Best Buy to be entirely neutral do you? It’s actually a pretty understudied microeconomics case https://opensourceconnections.com/blog/2017/07/04/optimizing-user-product-match-economies/ https://opensourceconnections.com/blog/2017/07/04/optimizing...

josefresco 7y ago

Side rant: Where is my Amazon branded phone case?!? This weekend I placed a half dozen searches for "iphone 11 case" and was only presented with super shady, low quality vendors. Floveme? Tendam? Donse? Spigen? and my favorite: Vapesoon. Is it just too early for the legit brands to have a case ready? Or am I doing it wrong?

ChrisLTD 7y ago
Spigen is a legit brand
- josefresco 7y ago
  Cool, thanks for that! Beyond Speck and OtterBox I actually couldn't name any other legit brands. I had an easier time finding seemingly "legit" brands via Google.
johnqpub 7y ago
Spigen is a completely legit brand.
- josefresco 7y ago
  Thanks! For those curious, here's their Amazon brand store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/2A847EF6-D682-42A6-8564-E7676CCD610C https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/2A847EF6-D682-42A6-8564-E...
ptruesdell 7y ago
Can't speak for the others, but Spigen is a well known and generally well-trusted brand.
chihuahua 7y ago
I agree the brand names sound ridiculous, but I bought a Spigen phone case from Amazon for a Moto X4 and I'm very happy with it. Fits perfectly, looks fine, good access to buttons etc.
7y ago

nbanks 7y ago

I've always considered Amazon's search system as pretty bad, often ignoring keywords to get more search results. It does look like their sort by price mechanism has improved. eBay has my favourite search system because it's willing to admit if there are no results and allow me create an e-mail alert. It also allows negation and lets me use parentheses to define a logical "or" as part of the query.

jjohansson 7y ago

If you’re a manufacturer without a strong brand, it’s incredibly risky selling through Amazon. They will take your sales data to evaluate ROI of building it themselves , and then undercut you. Similar if you’re a retailer. This is why Shopify’s new model is better for D2C and retail (but very difficult for them to pull off).

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
Also, a factory can produce a counterfeit of your product and sell it on Amazon on the same listing as your genuine product, with no way the customer can tell which they're buying.
- gok 7y ago
  Hell, that factory can produce an AmazonBasics-branded version of your product too.

grumpy8 7y ago

"Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products", and the sun is hot

charlesism 7y ago
Read between the lines: "Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Lower Customer Satisfaction." That's less obvious because Amazon traditionally has been a customer-focused company, and this is a step away from that.

Rafuino 7y ago

"After the Journal’s inquiries, Amazon took down its A9 website, which had stood for about a decade and a half. The site included the statement: 'One of A9’s tenets is that relevance is in the eye of the customer and we strive to get the best results for our users.'" Huh, that's an interesting reaction.

otroqueccorre 7y ago

Obiously, like google, or like any other company. I would have done the same. The name of that is: capitalism.

dqpb 7y ago

Amazon should be required to display product origin.

AFascistWorld 7y ago

Should have just put the ones who pay the most ahead.

blueadept111 7y ago

I'm glad they do this! I publish books on Amazon.com using Amazon KDP, and it's impossible to compete on a level playing field in brick-and-mortar bookstores. Distributors won't touch self-published titles. And I can't offer them at a cheaper price, due to the nature of print on demand (much pricier to print compared to doing a print run in China). The ONLY advantage I have is that my titles are more promoted by Amazon in the search results (since they make a killing off the higher margins, even when they decide to discount it themselves). If Amazon wasn't boosting KDP self-published titles in the search results, it wouldn't work... period, in my opinion. I wouldn't even try. And if anyone from Amazon is reading this, you guys should allow the authors to purchase the title in bulk at a much cheaper rate, so that reselling to local bookstores is a viable option.

feketegy 7y ago

Shocking. If you go into a candy store where the owner also makes their own brand of candy, what do you think will be the most prominent item on the shelf?

panopticon 7y ago
That's not really comparable. The candy store owner is still paying for the other brand of candy to collect dust. Amazon isn't exposed to the same risks in a lot of product listings.

otakucode 7y ago

According to the book 'The Everything Store,' Amazon's search engine is a matter of internal contention. Years ago, when people noticed that Amazon's search engine was terrible (as it is), someone from another group in the company developed a new search system based on Elasticsearch and more modern technologies. He presented the new search to Bezos. But there was an existing team whose primary responsibility was the search functionality. And the man who led that team was one of Bezos' personal friends. That man was, apparently, petty and status-seeking, so pushed back against adopting the new search engine. Bezos proposed that there would be a contest between the old and new search engines. Judged by his friend, head of the current bad search engine team who didn't want the new search because it threatened his status. Predictably, the new search 'lost.'

senderista 7y ago
They even hired Udi fucking Manber to improve product search, with no apparent results. Like their hire of Jef Raskin: pearls before swine.
TheRealDunkirk 7y ago
This sort of thing makes me sick, and I'm familiar with the feeling because I've seen this several times in my career. But the older I get, the more a tiny kernel of respect grows in me for the kind of person that can parley a modicum of technical understanding into an unassailable political position in a large company, and succeed -- at least in terms of money and influence -- despite the opportunity costs I've witnessed. You just kind of have to hand it to people like this. I guess. Maybe that's the only way I stay sane at this point.

Bhilai 7y ago

My problem with Amazon is that I dont know what to trust anymore. For every product I buy off Amazon, I spend time reading "verified purchase" reviews, 1 star and 2 star reviews and may be then find an item that seems legitimate and durable. I only recently learned that "Amazon's Choice in category X" label does not necessarily mean that Amazon has actually vetted that item. So my experience shopping at Amazon has drastically changed.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

scarface74 7y ago

Without getting into whether what Amazon is doing is right or wrong, as a vendor, you have to accept reality for what it is and come up with a business plan that gives you an “unfair advantage”. Selling physical goods is a three part process - manufacturing, marketing, and selling. At each part of the process, you have to know what helps you stand out. Manufacturing - is there something that enables you to manufacturer a product that can’t easily be copied or that allows you to create the product cheaper than competitors? Marketing - are you depending on SEO and Google ads just like all of your competitors? Selling - Are you depending on Amazon just like all of your competitors? You have to be able to optimize on at least one of those areas or you’re going to find yourself competing on price at either slim, no or negative margins or being lost in a marketplace where everyone is doing the same thing.

Animats 7y ago

It's too bad that Sears never really got into online. They were once the top catalog retailer, and known for consistent quality, good warranties, and boring products. Somehow they missed the Internet, retiring from catalog operations just as Internet shopping got going.

falcrist 7y ago
I cannot for the life of me understand why Sears didn't become a major online retailer. They not only had a physical catalog system that could be fairly easily converted into an online catalog, they have physical stores that could be used as pickup points and warehouses for customers who don't want to wait until things are mailed. In the UK there's a company called Argos that worked ENTIRELY as a catalog store. Their physical locations were basically a warehouse with a lobby that had the catalogs and computers where you could look items up and order them. THEY should be a major competitor to Amazon... but according to my UK friends, they're not.
- Kalium 7y ago
  Among other things, Sears was afraid of cannibalizing their in-store sales and didn't understand the potential of the internet. They had a very B&M-centered mindset.
  - falcrist 7y ago
    That's insane, though. In reality, these things can coexist just fine, but even if they couldn't... why wouldn't you want to have a business model with lower overhead?
    - _edo 7y ago
      Because they didn't know how to run the new business. It's the same story as when Sears rose to prominence: they saw a business model the other mail-order retailers didn't understand. The irony is Sears started as a mail-order catalog but couldn't get back to the old model in time. But of course their large management structures couldn't move as fast as small company with somebody like Bezos at the helm who could just make calls on the spot.

chiefalchemist 7y ago

I'm certainly no Amazon fan (read: they are my last choice when I run out of options), but this title/headline should be: Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Maximized Its Profits In other words, no news here really. Shareholders come first. The customers (who are presumedly happier getting better prices) come next. Finally, last comes Amazon's vendors. In other words, no news here really. Perhaps the follow up could be: WSJ Use Clickbait Headlines to Boost Its Own Agenda And Ad Revenues

pixelpoet 7y ago

ANTITRUST! If Microsoft can get hammered for packaging Internet Explorer with Windows (and probably rightly so, given the market conditions at the time), there is a direct analogy to be made here. Pick what you want to be: if you want to be the greatest goods index and shipment company in the world, fantastic. But you have to accept that you cannot sneak some of your own other-products to the top using that power. In this case, spin off your Kindle etc companies or have them broken up.

toasterlovin 7y ago
No, there is not a direct analogy because Amazon is not a monopoly. They aren't even the largest retailer.
- pixelpoet 7y ago
  I feel there's an argument to be made for Amazon having a near-monopoly on online sales and distribution in many countries, even outside America. They've simply nailed it and scaled it. In New Zealand a company called TradeMe got there first and successfully fended off Amazon, but that's a minority case. There are pros (e.g. consumers love it) and cons (e.g. human toll when optimising efficiency without robots) to having Amazon dominate in whatever country, but you can't deny, they get the job done. There isn't really another company competing with them at that level, is there? And that's why I think it's an effective monopoly. To abuse this wide-reaching power, in making your own stuff rise to the top of world sales, is absolutely a concern and we should honestly be grateful that there are laws and funded agencies giving a shit about this.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    We are so early in the shift to online retailing. People using Amazon for stuff other than books, DVDs, and CDs only became a thing in the last 10 years. Walmart has barely started to get their shit together with online retailing. Same for the major supermarket chains. They have an incredible physical presence with huge transaction volume that they can leverage into their online efforts.

noego 7y ago

The article is disappointingly misleading and buries one of the key details "Amazon’s lawyers rejected the overt addition of contribution profit into the algorithm... They turned to the metrics Amazon uses to test the algorithm’s success in reaching certain business objectives, said the people who worked on the project. When engineers test new variables in the algorithm, Amazon gauges the results against a handful of metrics. Among these metrics: unit sales of listings and the dollar value of orders for listings. Positive results for the metrics correlated with high customer satisfaction and helped determine the ranking of listings a search presented to the customer. Now, engineers would need to consider another metric—improving profitability—said the people who worked on the project. Variables added to the algorithm would essentially become what one of these people called “proxies” for profit: The variables would correlate with improved profitability for Amazon, but an outside observer might not be able to tell that. The variables could also inherently be good for the customer." Tldr: some people in Amazon wanted to give a boost to Amazon-products. The search team fought them vociferously and refused to budge. The lawyers came out against it as well. Amazon's internal A/B testing framework measures a number of metrics, including both revenue and profit, when determining whether a specific feature/change should be deployed. The fact that the A/B testing framework measures the profit impact of any change, is hardly earth shattering. This is one of the core features that any A/B testing framework attempts to accomplish. This also doesn't tell you anything about what the search algorithm is actually doing. An A/B testing framework can only help you evaluate the relative effectiveness of different algorithms. It doesn't actually create/influence the algorithm in any way. As WSJ themselves reported, Amazon's search algorithm does not take profitability as an input. WSJ has done a fantastic job in unearthing this very interesting internal-debate that's happening in Amazon. But they have reported it in a way that is very misleading and gives laypeople the impression that they have a smoking gun. In reality, the only thing they have produced is the fact that Amazon's A/B testing framework is profit-aware.

throwawaysea 7y ago
Thank you. I was struggling to understand what the article was trying to tell me or why it was so lengthy. It feels like news has evolved to buzzword/sensationalist headline + enough content/data (even if irrelevant) to provide a sense of comprehensiveness/substance.

rc_kas 7y ago

Anytime a competitor to Amazon wants to step up and play the game, I'd be more than excited to switch the place where I do my shopping.

crushingcrash 7y ago

Literally been in meetings at Amazon HQ in Seattle talking about "hit lists" for popular product categories - which products they were going to take into an Amazon brand first.

isostatic 7y ago

Put a check box saying “amazon choice only” World gets better.

ilaksh 7y ago

People want the large networks and platforms that tech monopolies provide. In order to get that without the private centralized control, we need to turn to decentralized technologies.

senderista 7y ago

Amazon already lost all my "customer trust" when I found out they not only sold but endorsed untested, toxic Chinese toys. The slogan seemed sincere enough when I worked there. I guess it's a casualty of the recent drive for profitability.

spike021 7y ago

Honestly, what's the big deal? Google prioritizes certain websites/results when I enter queries too, it doesn't mean I'm required to click on them. What ever happened to people spending a few extra minutes looking for the result they want? If the first few aren't correct for you then move on. Unless you're spending an extra 30+ minutes because the search doesn't work correctly at all then there's no issue here.

calibas 7y ago
If you have a product that's negatively affected by this, then this is kind of a big deal. If you look at the marketing data, most people don't like spending a dozen extra seconds, much less a few extra minutes, finding what they want.
bduerst 7y ago
The issue is that Amazon is prioritizing their own products/labels, not that prioritization just happens (which is basic search query functionality).
gundmc 7y ago
Google was fined several billion dollars by the EU for prioritizing their own products in search.
lleolin 7y ago
>Google prioritizes certain websites/results when I enter queries too, it doesn't mean I'm required to click on them. I would like to call this "an appeal to free will". It's true that individuals can choose what they click, but there is also going to be a statistical reality of what people "choose" to click more/most often. Because of this, imo the big deal is absolutely gargantuan. Google for example handles several billions of searches per day. To your point of continuing to hunt for the right results, just adding a few seconds per search increases the amount of aggregate time spent searching on a scale of centuries per day. I would argue it's a similar case with Amazon; the service is so large that a minute changes can have tremendous impacts.

test111111 7y ago

who does not now a days.

vz8 7y ago

I've taken to keeping a copy of Fakespot[0] open in an incognito browser and regularly submit Amazon URLs to it. Over the past month or so, I've looked at everything from headphones to shampoo and been boggled at the amount of rigging that goes on. While I can't say for sure that their algorithms are always spot on, they give some interesting feedback in terms of recent review count history, price history, whether Amazon has recently bulk deleted reviews, and some heuristic comment quality ratings. So often I've found that Amazon's Choice is questionable: 4.8 stars, hundreds of reviews within the last 30 days on a slickly packaged, no-name electronics gadget is all too common. Typically, I use Fakespot to look for red flags, flip back to the reviews area on Amazon, sort them by Most Recent Reviews, and dig around. I don't use the Fakespot Chrome extension, though. Too invasive for my tastes. [0] https://www.fakespot.com https://www.fakespot.com

mrweasel 7y ago

Does that mean search on Amazon will finally work? How is it possible to have so many products and not care about the ability for customers to actually find what they’re looking for?

hbosch 7y ago

There was a post on HN a while back about Apple boosting it's own apps in their App Store search. Likewise, I am sure that Google prefers to show results from it's own companies (e.g. if I google the word "spreadsheet", my first result is for Google Sheets). This is all the same thing, no? Edit: I'll add that I'm not saying it isn't an anti-competitive practice, I'm sure it is. But I am saying that it's a bit silly to insinuate that stores don't already advertise for their own goods.

cglong 7y ago
It's worth noting Microsoft's own email offering is third on a Bing search for "email": https://www.bing.com/search?q=email https://www.bing.com/search?q=email

logfromblammo 7y ago

Given the functionality of Amazon's search algorithm before this, I can't exactly say that any changes to it could make it worse. I can't even count the number of times I have searched for Product-X, by lowest price, and encountered a dozen pages of Clearly-Not-X and Actually-Just-An-Accessory-For-X before even reaching the first X. Or Item-Sold-By-Weight-Y, that comes in 30 different package sizes, none of which is tagged with comparable unit prices. If you want some Y, you cannot order your search by $/kg or $/L. And sometimes it's difficult to figure out exactly how much Y you would be getting. The giant barrel of industrial generic will be listed next to the 20 oz bottle of gold-plated spiritual-grade Woo-Woo brand.

StygiesVIII 7y ago

and?

AcerbicZero 7y ago

Was there some level of assumption that Amazons search isn't going to favor Amazon to some degree? When I search on Wal-Mart's website, the top results are normally the wal-mart label, or they're at least on the first page. The value of Amazon to me, is similar to Steam. Amazon's influence of product reviews is more concerning to me, anyway.

woah 7y ago

How is this worse than the sponsored results?

raz32dust 7y ago

I see folks saying that it is good for consumers because Amazon products are better quality that the other sellers who tend to be unreliable. However, we are missing the long-term impact of this - (a) It will slowly kill competition, at which point Amazon products no longer have to be better quality. (b) It kills innovation because anyone who wants to sell stuff online knows Amazon is going to copy the product soon enough. Why is this not an antitrust case? Amazon has the monopoly on online retail I assume, so isn't ranking it's own products higher an antitrust violation?

RyanAF7 7y ago

Amazon is about 6 months away from total collapse and they know it. Bezos and all his cronies will be squeezing every last dime out until then. At which point, his wife will sell all their stock the day before without a fart from the SEC.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

swrobel 7y ago

Wow, had no idea they were still using the A9 moniker at all. I'll always remember it as their ill-fated Google competitor that they tried to make cool by shoehorning into perhaps the cringeworthiest moment of an already-cringeworthy show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNZ-3KLF7A0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNZ-3KLF7A0

cptaj 7y ago

We definitely need platform legislation for the web. After a certain size, they should be regulated as public utilities. So many companies completely depend on Amazon's platform for their business and they're all easy prey for the behemoth. I did some work for a company that sells batteries on Amazon. A simple dispute got them suspended across the board. A decision made by a third rate employee from god knows where, probably without even a cursory reading of the case, made in a split second, brought down a company with 10 years in the market and hundreds of employees. No due process, no rights, nothing. You can't defend yourself, they just shut you down and then you have to beg for weeks to be let back in. After weeks and hundreds of thousands in losses, you have no legal recourse against a wrongful suspension. You can make the argument that they could just set up their own online store for the batteries and you're right, they can. But amazon and ebay are so big that its practically impossible to sell these things at scale without them. Its not a fair game and this is but one of the issues. They definitely need to be treated as public utilities after a certain amount of users.

bongobongo 7y ago
You’re describing a monopoly and the proper tool to deal with it is anti-trust, not entrenching it by pretending it’s a public utility.
- notJim 7y ago
  What would that look like though? If consumers wanted to go to 20 different stores to shop online, they'd already be doing that.
  - twblalock 7y ago
    > What would that look like though? If consumers wanted to go to 20 different stores to shop online, they'd already be doing that. They do. Amazon accounts for about 47% of online retail. The rest is divided up among a bunch of other sites.
    - bongobongo 7y ago

yalogin 7y ago

They do that with their content also. There is no way to only see prime videos. They constantly push their paid content onto the main feed. On top of that there is no way to restrict purchase or gate it with a password on smart TVs so it’s a bad experience. Of course amazon doesn’t much care about user experience.

janesvilleseo 7y ago
I have to enter a pin every time on my smart TVs. I thought every smart tv had that feature.

reilly3000 7y ago

I’m not sure how this is news. Maybe I’m too in the bubble, but I thought every tech company used their platforms to promote their own wares. VScode gives me tools to build AKS clusters but not GKE clusters. Facebook wants me to use their marketplace, dating service, etc. Google is boosting Google Flights over travel sites. It’s unsavory and betrays their guise of impartiality, but is nothing close to illegal.

specialist 7y ago

When we finally decide to chop up these monopolies, I'd like "competing with your own clients" to be a consideration. I don't mind that Apple runs an App Store. I mind that they have an unfair advantage over their competition. I don't mind that Google reams advertisers. I mind that they sit on both sides of the brokerage, thereby taking advantage of their own clients. It's like the "firewall" between financial advisors and investment ratings for those bankers. That crap needs to be kept separate, to prevent perverse incentives, self-dealing, conflicts of interest, fraud, unfair advantages, etc.

jerhewet 7y ago

I never use Amazon's site search to try and find anything, because it's just horribly bad and broken. In my experience the more specific my search terms are, the worse the results. If I'm looking for something on Amazon I use Google and the "site:" prefix, and use the meta returned by Google's search engines to find what I'm after.

ajoy 7y ago

Wonder how the new shipping agreement (or rather a break up of the old international shipping agreement : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20810142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20810142 ) will affect this. This might make it less attractive for items from China.

ReverseCold 7y ago

The only reason I still use Amazon is because it's so easy to buy things using Bitcoin/Ethereum on it. I can get giftcards from literally hundreds of vendors (some even at a discount), or use a service like Moon which makes the gift card buying fully transparent (I just click checkout and scan the qr code with my phone), and I can buy almost anything on Amazon. Everywhere else requires me to convert coin into USD and then buy things, which sucks.

soVeryTired 7y ago
Aren't you effectively converting to USD by buying gift cards?

nickfromseattle 7y ago

>Amazon says it operates in fiercely competitive markets, it represents less than 1% of global retail and its private-label business represents about 1% of its retail sales. While the graph towards the end of the article indicates Amazon captures ~35% of online retail in the US What a disingenuous way for Amazon to communicate - I hope the people their original quote was directed to saw right through this.

Insanity 7y ago

It's within their rights to do so and frankly a move most of us would make, no?

pb7 7y ago
Google got fined $3B for this exact thing on Google Shopping in the EU. "Within their rights" is highly dependent on location.

WalterBright 7y ago

I don't see anything surprising or unusual about this. It's hardly different from a supermarket giving better display positions for their store brand.

privateSFacct 7y ago

I just wish they'd bring the "Ships and sold by amazon.com" checkbox back. The rest is pretty much garbage.

TwoQ 7y ago

In other news, people get older as they age.

12345abcde 7y ago

You don't have to be an rocket surgeon to see that amazon search sucks. I wouldn't even call amazon search "Search". If I have one file on my computer named "Amazon Search Sucks ASS.txt" and I search for it by name, in quotes, I expect to see only one result. A similar search on amazon will return a bunch of results many of them have nothing to do with the words I typed, not in the title, description, etc. DON'T GET ME STARTED ON SORTING BASED ON PRICE!!! The number of search results should not change based on how you sort the result list!!! Bezoz should just stick to sexting...

stjohnswarts 7y ago

Well as long as they present -some- other options I'm fine with it. I always look through the first 2 or 3 pages.

samstave 7y ago

Here is what i want to shop by on amazon: * kitchen * wash * garage —- Basically, id like to setup a standard or select a standard product lineup and say “refill my kitchen” “Refill my bathroom set” “Refill my washing supplies” Etc... And you could see the averaged products used to supply each area of the home... This goes in line with a previous YC application i had submitted which was called “standard pantry” The idea was that a pantry cabinet would be delivered to you, with ingredients and recipes on how to make various healthy dishes based on the whole pantry of ingredients. The goal being to raise nutritional health, especially among lower income. And with a smart pantry it would give you recipe ideasbased on what you have and know what ingredients you lack and auto order Like a netflix for healthy food... YC hated it...

jmlon 7y ago

Would you have done something different? It's business as usual.

PascLeRasc 7y ago

Could we take a break with these articles for a bit? I’m all for redistributing Jeff Bezos’s money, and I'd be happy to have mine redistributed as well if that happened, but this and the Apple App Store algorithm news are so insignificant in the world. We're arguing about if online stores can organize their shelves how they want to while people are dying because they can't afford insulin or drink their tapwater. Yeah, you can care about two issues at once, but this isn't really an issue. I don't care to read the same comment about Microsoft with Internet Explorer every day. Maybe it's unfair to them but I really do not care, they clearly survived just fine.

CGamesPlay 7y ago
Honestly and without sarcasm, maybe just take a break from this site? If those are the kinds of issues that you want to find more about, I don’t think this is the right venue. Yes, HN does dabble in politics sometimes but for the most part, this isn’t a place to talk about the “big issues”.

Takiya 7y ago

Interesting

supyus 7y ago

and have a look at how they are even using fake reviews on their own products: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20819344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20819344

Tepix 7y ago

I‘m so annoyed with the inferiority of the search experience on Amazon. For example when i search for shoes in my size, why doesn‘t it show the price for the shoes in my size? It‘s super inconvenient.

vkaku 7y ago

We need a browser plugin which can read a product name and tell us: Amazon brand or not?

stefek99 7y ago

Excuse me, what's the news here? A company wants to maximize its profit. If it is wasn't that way, they would be acting illegaly. (publicly trading company must seek shareholders profit) So what is the news once again?

diffeomorphism 7y ago
> If it is wasn't that way, they would be acting illegally. Common misconception. > Corporate directors are not required to maximize shareholder value. https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/academics/clarke_business_law_institute/corporations-and-society/Common-Misunderstandings-About-Corporations.cfm https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/academics/clarke_business_...
- stefek99 7y ago
  Interesting. "Usually maximizing shareholder value is not a legal obligation, but the product of the pressure that activist shareholders, stock-based compensation schemes and financial markets impose on corporate directors."

nojvek 7y ago

Amazons in a weird boat. Like building a marketplace where they are the most dominant player and they favor themselves. But I guess that’s how supermarkets are too. I buy Krogers brands because I know they'll be vetted and meet a certain bar. If I don’t like it, I can always return it for a refund. It’s not great for competition and Amazon can easily boost crappy cheap products. Amazon is a massive beast. What is the alternative with better experience ?

Apofis 7y ago

This should be a massive lawsuit on behalf of all 3rd party sellers.

Ketsaalretails 7y ago

Amazon has many products so that to trace the audience it needs time to time update in the algorithm. If you want to increase sales you can use our platform Ketsaal as We are Amazon & Flipkart Authorised service providers.