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My biggest gripe with Amazon is its search. For a company that initially was a searchengine (A9 if i recall right, still being used for the site) the search an

My biggest gripe with Amazon is its search. For a company that initially was a searchengine (A9 if i recall right, still being used for the site) the search and filter options aren't worthily described if you use the word bad. I mean, what else besides being able to filter for brands and maybe price is there? Cue every purchase being research into the fundamentals of the thing you need, together with not being able to trust reviews. Regarding the reviews, i've turned to only looking at "most critical" reviews - at least with those i'm kinda quickly able to differ between "logistics service dun f'up" and "this thing has so many issues it's not even funny anymore". Edit to add: my purchases on AMZN are down by like 90% - replacing my online shopping by going to local (hardware) stores mostly

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
> I mean, what else besides being able to filter for brands and maybe price is there? So many things. Take a look at NewEgg's search. Even when I search for specific model numbers on Amazon I have to wade through irrelevant results.
- moepstar 5y ago
  Just to clarify, we're on the same page here - with "there" i meant "on Amazon"...
varispeed 5y ago
They should add a country of origin filter (or be mandated by law to do this), so customers can easily filter out all crap from unethical countries. edit: also drop shipping filter would be helpful.
- bootlooped 5y ago
  If the product isn't Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA), there is probably no way to know if it is drop shipped or not. Some of them state the country it will be shipped from, but I'm not sure that is a requirement, and it could still be drop shipped from inside the country.
  - varispeed 5y ago
    I think this is a great regulatory omission. Companies like Amazon should be required to publish country of origin information and give consumer tools to help make ethical choices. So far I only saw this on clothes, perhaps because of the sweatshop outrage, but it should be shown on all products. If we also cannot ban trade with countries that allow slave labour, then we should at least require producers to include information about what kind of environment their workers are coming from.
    - permo-w 5y ago
      I suspect if this law would come in, Amazon would make it a mandatory box for sellers to fill, and 9/10 they’d just lie and Amazon probably wouldn’t chase it up.
      - bootlooped 5y ago
        My cynical view is that most people don't care about country of origin, and in many cases if they do their desire for the product will override their ethical stance most of the time.
        permo-w 5y ago
        you’re very probably right. would still be ideal to have the option
  - permo-w 5y ago
    even if it is FBA, there’s still no inherent way for them to know. some stuff is shipped straight to them from China or wherever, but a lot of stuff goes via a third party
    - bootlooped 5y ago
      If the third party seller is buying the product, and paying to have it labeled and shipped directly to Amazon, I would not consider that drop shipping. Drop shipping implies the product is never really in-stock with the seller, but if the seller paid for it and it's sitting in an Amazon warehouse then that's in-stock by any normal definition.
TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
I've ranted about this in the past. What makes me a little crazy is how freaking obvious this problem is, yet Amazon won't fix it. It must be what they want, otherwise they'd change it. Right? Am I taking crazy pills here? I just wrap my head around how they think that their god-awful search and filtering is helping them. I am also buying everything I can from brick-and-mortar these days.
- permo-w 5y ago
  It’s not you, it is shit. My assumption is that they want it that way so they can control what you see more easily. I reckon Google is the same I think they have marginally improved though. I could be wrong about this, but I think that you couldn’t filter by specific price until a few years ago.
sjs382 5y ago
> For a company that initially was a searchengine (A9 if i recall right, still being used for the site) Amazon wasn't initially a search engine. A9 was created in 2004, by Amazon.
- moepstar 5y ago
  Yes, according to this[0] you're right. Anyways, the point still stands - for a company that also has/operates a search engine, the results one gets when entering a search-term on Amazon.com are comically bad - to the point i really wonder if they even try. The results could only be worse if they won't return any results at all. But, i suppose, it'd be bad for their bottomline if they'd only show you what you've searched for and not return hundreds of products which supposed brand-names oftentimes is alike to $BARELYRECOGNIZABLEENGLISHWORDS [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com#A9.com_search_portal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com#A9.com_search_portal
  - sjs382 5y ago
    > to the point i really wonder if they even try Or maybe your goals are misaligned with Amazon's, wrt/ product search.
notacoward 5y ago
My biggest gripe is related: filtering doesn't work. I was just looking for a small video projector today. I had specified a maximum price and some specs. The results were full of items that were up to 3x the maximum price, clearly didn't meet the specs, or weren't even video projectors (usually accessories). This seems so incredibly central to the shopping experience that they'd try to get it right, but apparently they feel it's much more important to get products from their favorite vendors in front of many eyeballs as possible. Somebody should really investigate how one becomes a favorite vendor, because it seems shady AF. My best guess for what happened to Aukey and Mpow is that they stopped paying the protection money.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

> I mean, what else besides being able to filter for brands and maybe price is there? So many things. Take a look at NewEgg's search. Even when I search for specific model numbers on Amazon I have to wade through irrelevant results.

moepstar 5y ago
Just to clarify, we're on the same page here - with "there" i meant "on Amazon"...

varispeed 5y ago

They should add a country of origin filter (or be mandated by law to do this), so customers can easily filter out all crap from unethical countries. edit: also drop shipping filter would be helpful.

bootlooped 5y ago
If the product isn't Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA), there is probably no way to know if it is drop shipped or not. Some of them state the country it will be shipped from, but I'm not sure that is a requirement, and it could still be drop shipped from inside the country.
- varispeed 5y ago
  I think this is a great regulatory omission. Companies like Amazon should be required to publish country of origin information and give consumer tools to help make ethical choices. So far I only saw this on clothes, perhaps because of the sweatshop outrage, but it should be shown on all products. If we also cannot ban trade with countries that allow slave labour, then we should at least require producers to include information about what kind of environment their workers are coming from.
  - permo-w 5y ago
    I suspect if this law would come in, Amazon would make it a mandatory box for sellers to fill, and 9/10 they’d just lie and Amazon probably wouldn’t chase it up.
    - bootlooped 5y ago
      My cynical view is that most people don't care about country of origin, and in many cases if they do their desire for the product will override their ethical stance most of the time.
      - permo-w 5y ago
        you’re very probably right. would still be ideal to have the option
- permo-w 5y ago
  even if it is FBA, there’s still no inherent way for them to know. some stuff is shipped straight to them from China or wherever, but a lot of stuff goes via a third party
  - bootlooped 5y ago
    If the third party seller is buying the product, and paying to have it labeled and shipped directly to Amazon, I would not consider that drop shipping. Drop shipping implies the product is never really in-stock with the seller, but if the seller paid for it and it's sitting in an Amazon warehouse then that's in-stock by any normal definition.

TheRealDunkirk 5y ago

I've ranted about this in the past. What makes me a little crazy is how freaking obvious this problem is, yet Amazon won't fix it. It must be what they want, otherwise they'd change it. Right? Am I taking crazy pills here? I just wrap my head around how they think that their god-awful search and filtering is helping them. I am also buying everything I can from brick-and-mortar these days.

permo-w 5y ago
It’s not you, it is shit. My assumption is that they want it that way so they can control what you see more easily. I reckon Google is the same I think they have marginally improved though. I could be wrong about this, but I think that you couldn’t filter by specific price until a few years ago.

sjs382 5y ago

> For a company that initially was a searchengine (A9 if i recall right, still being used for the site) Amazon wasn't initially a search engine. A9 was created in 2004, by Amazon.

moepstar 5y ago
Yes, according to this[0] you're right. Anyways, the point still stands - for a company that also has/operates a search engine, the results one gets when entering a search-term on Amazon.com are comically bad - to the point i really wonder if they even try. The results could only be worse if they won't return any results at all. But, i suppose, it'd be bad for their bottomline if they'd only show you what you've searched for and not return hundreds of products which supposed brand-names oftentimes is alike to $BARELYRECOGNIZABLEENGLISHWORDS [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com#A9.com_search_portal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com#A9.com_search_portal
- sjs382 5y ago
  > to the point i really wonder if they even try Or maybe your goals are misaligned with Amazon's, wrt/ product search.

notacoward 5y ago

My biggest gripe is related: filtering doesn't work. I was just looking for a small video projector today. I had specified a maximum price and some specs. The results were full of items that were up to 3x the maximum price, clearly didn't meet the specs, or weren't even video projectors (usually accessories). This seems so incredibly central to the shopping experience that they'd try to get it right, but apparently they feel it's much more important to get products from their favorite vendors in front of many eyeballs as possible. Somebody should really investigate how one becomes a favorite vendor, because it seems shady AF. My best guess for what happened to Aukey and Mpow is that they stopped paying the protection money.