2 ms·

I think the great problem is "commercial intent". I search the internet multiple times a day, but I rarely want to actually buy something. Amazon has a win he

I think the great problem is "commercial intent". I search the internet multiple times a day, but I rarely want to actually buy something. Amazon has a win here compared to facebook or Google because if I search for something on Amazon it's vastly more likely I am buying. It's the difference between asking a sales assistant "do you have good coffee" (amazon), asking a librarian for a book on good coffee (google) and asking my friend if they like their coffee (facebook). Intent and context matter. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535260

mjevans 6y ago
That, or I'm shopping for someone else to recommend it to them. Where Amazon's got a major problem is that the counterfeits and the perception that any negative product experience might be the result of that, makes it increasingly less likely that I and others, go to Amazon looking for that product.
- lifeisstillgood 6y ago
  I have been thinking about why Amazon is pissing in its own soup, with counterfeit and other "problematic" goods. 1. Scale - it's just too hard to curate all those products. Meh - Amazon has hired like a billion people, it can hire product line owners. 2. Do you remember in the mid-90s Amazon had some big push for sellers to add their SKUs abs descriptions of goods (ie instead of Amazon holding a database of goods, and you saying "i am selling one of these" you the seller added it to amazon marketplace. This was a move to collect all the data about all the goods ever. The current allowance of poor quality goods is I think the same game. Most dodgy goods sold are not "dangerous counterfeit" - as in selling medicinal drugs made from floor sweepings. Most dodgy goods are the things you find in Poundland and market stalls. A plastic knock off of "Mike-y Mouse" or running tops made from cotton not the high tech wick, or often the same goods as branded made on same machines, just not branded. This set of goods is what the next billion consumers will buy for two decades. You cannot afford H&M prices but you can afford the knock offs pouring out of Chinese and Philipino factories - and yet how do you get the catalog for those factories? The same way Amazon did in the 90s. Anyway ..
- lifeisstillgood 6y ago
  I think we need to look at the impact of the recent Apple ID and chrome / firefox changes. If it becomes harder for a the ad network ecosystem to track a person across sites, then sites that provide commercial intent (amazon) or provide first party access to self selecting groups (ie car magazines, Wall Street Journal articles on cars) If apple can stop ad networks selling "people who read the FT" at half the price that FT charges, then mainstream media might be able to claw back what Google and facebook took.
jefftk 6y ago
"Amazon has a win here compared to facebook or amazon" ?
- lifeisstillgood 6y ago
  I meant google - corrected The basic idea is in the GP - amazon is a shopping site so any search there carries a lot of commercial intent. This fades (linearly? exponentially?) as we walk down to google then facebook.

mjevans 6y ago

That, or I'm shopping for someone else to recommend it to them. Where Amazon's got a major problem is that the counterfeits and the perception that any negative product experience might be the result of that, makes it increasingly less likely that I and others, go to Amazon looking for that product.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago
I have been thinking about why Amazon is pissing in its own soup, with counterfeit and other "problematic" goods. 1. Scale - it's just too hard to curate all those products. Meh - Amazon has hired like a billion people, it can hire product line owners. 2. Do you remember in the mid-90s Amazon had some big push for sellers to add their SKUs abs descriptions of goods (ie instead of Amazon holding a database of goods, and you saying "i am selling one of these" you the seller added it to amazon marketplace. This was a move to collect all the data about all the goods ever. The current allowance of poor quality goods is I think the same game. Most dodgy goods sold are not "dangerous counterfeit" - as in selling medicinal drugs made from floor sweepings. Most dodgy goods are the things you find in Poundland and market stalls. A plastic knock off of "Mike-y Mouse" or running tops made from cotton not the high tech wick, or often the same goods as branded made on same machines, just not branded. This set of goods is what the next billion consumers will buy for two decades. You cannot afford H&M prices but you can afford the knock offs pouring out of Chinese and Philipino factories - and yet how do you get the catalog for those factories? The same way Amazon did in the 90s. Anyway ..
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
I think we need to look at the impact of the recent Apple ID and chrome / firefox changes. If it becomes harder for a the ad network ecosystem to track a person across sites, then sites that provide commercial intent (amazon) or provide first party access to self selecting groups (ie car magazines, Wall Street Journal articles on cars) If apple can stop ad networks selling "people who read the FT" at half the price that FT charges, then mainstream media might be able to claw back what Google and facebook took.

jefftk 6y ago

"Amazon has a win here compared to facebook or amazon" ?

lifeisstillgood 6y ago
I meant google - corrected The basic idea is in the GP - amazon is a shopping site so any search there carries a lot of commercial intent. This fades (linearly? exponentially?) as we walk down to google then facebook.