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(same poster) BTW, amazon.com is in my opinion even more infuriating. I just searched for "Odense Marzipan" (which is a 100+ years old brand serving the royal d

(same poster) BTW, amazon.com is in my opinion even more infuriating. I just searched for "Odense Marzipan" (which is a 100+ years old brand serving the royal danish court) and they show me pictures of gamepads made out of chocolate along with a note: Your search "odense marzipan" was automatically translated into "odicht marzipan". Then searching for "odicht" out of curiousity, they auto-correct it to "olight". So I start with almond-based sugar sweets, follow their auto-correct twice and now I'm staring at headlamps. And even Google has no idea what "odicht" might have been, so I really wonder how Amazon decided to auto-correct from an existing product into a non-word. Searching for "odense marzipan" including the quotes then works, but it yields the cringe-worthy message: Your search ""odense marzipan"" was automatically translated into "„odense marzipan“". (where the only difference between the first and the second thing is that they converted the ascii quotes to up and down sentence quotes)

vgeek 5y ago
"We know what is best for you, consumer!"
- chaoskanzlerin 5y ago
  well, this particular instance is amazon
azalemeth 5y ago
Thanks for introducing me to Odense marzipan (I have a job in Aarhus!) I very much get the feeling that amazon and eBay "Don't like" Denmark – the former redirects amazon.dk to amazon.de saying "we deliver!" and the latter doesn't exist (but it does wholly-own a local alternative). Going to Denmark always makes me aware of how good the local Danish things are, and how inflexible and annoying the "global" options usually are by comparison. Riding roughshod over the language is a good example of this.
- bserge 5y ago
  They "don't like" many small countries. Perhaps based on population or GDP, who the fuck knows. They just redirect you to the nearest bigger country website and call it a job well done. Tbf, there are no issues buying from German or French versions. UK was the best choice but now customs is a pain in the ass so...
narag 5y ago
I've searched for a product with a unique name and Amazons can't find it. "Do you need help?" not even "I'm unable to find what you need". Nice. The product is there. It works adding the company name.
867-5309 5y ago
I'm getting lots of results on Amazon UK, and also Google Shopping. maybe try setting your delivery location?
nucleardog 5y ago
Amazon also really seems to push what they _want_ to sell over what they have available. A while back I spent a lot of time looking around for a basic SATA bluray drive on Amazon before finally giving up. All I could find was burners for several hundred dollars when I really just needed a drive to quickly rip a single disc I'd bought. I spent probably an hour scrolling through results and trying all sorts of variations on search strings. I eventually gave up and punched it in Google to get... kicked back to Amazon to a simple, cheap SATA bluray drive that had been there all along.
- Accujack 5y ago
  >Amazon also really seems to push what they _want_ to sell over what they have available This is exactly it. Amazon isn't a shopping site, they're a corporation using third party sellers to offload the risk and cost of providing a wide array of goods. They let customers experiment with product offerings, find products that sell using their web site, then cherry pick the most lucrative ones to produce and stock to compete with their own "customers". They're not a service for anyone but themselves.
  - mcovey 5y ago
    I almost always filter for items shipped from and sold by Amazon. The only times I buy from third-party sellers are when the seller is clearly the manufacturer or a large distributor.
- spaniard89277 5y ago
  I just gave up on Amazon Spain about 2 years ago already. It's just completely impossible to filter and rank stuff properly, just loads of crap you don't want. I heard it's worse in Amazon US. What I don't get about this companies (because this seems a problem shared between google, YT and Amazon) is when they optimize for clicks or whatever their KPI, what are they thinking is the outcome in the mid term? I mean, IDK around you, but I'm the prosumer regular folks ask for recommendations. They may be safe for the time being but of course I'm going to contribute for their competitors getting klout. I don't have an alternative for YT, but people watches me using DDG and whe they ask for recommendations for buying stuff I don't even bother with Amazon. I'm not the type who pushes his decisions onto others, but I already got asked why I don't use google and amazon.
pixelgeek 5y ago
It must be a recent thing as well as I recall being able to get good results from them last year at Xmas when I was searching for some science books for the kids. This year my searches got absolute garbage in return.
u10242 5y ago
Just a theory, but "dense" in English translates to "dicht" in German.
kingcharles 5y ago
Amazon.com search is probably the worst offender of all the awful search engines. You can spend hours trying to find something you know is on there.
makeitrain 5y ago
Yeah, Amazon search results are often infuriating. Most searches are flooded with similar items that need better filters and some notes on product differentiation. Amazon feels like a bazaar set up inside a Walmart where everyone is yelling at you to buy from them and you don't really know what you're going to get. I know it's a hard problem, but I can often look at the results and imagine some easy UX improvements. Maybe they have higher priorities than helping me buy insulated pants.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  I wish shopping for consumer goods was as nice as faceted search on Octopart or Digikey. It seems that even for Amazon-sold products, either the products don't have relevant data listed accurately and consistently, or the faceted search doesn't let you query it. (And that leaves aside the issue of the product page of a really nice wastebasket I bought years ago being hijacked by a meat slicer.)
  - iudqnolq 5y ago
    I just wish DigiKey let you filter by price, or even sort by price on mobile.
DonaldFisk 5y ago
Are others getting the same problem? I searched for "Odense Marzipan" on duckduckgo.com, google.com, amazon.com, and amazon.co.uk, and all of them return almond-based sugar sweets in the top links.
smallerfish 5y ago
Amazon is absolutely terrible. Try this search, for example: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A1990+trackpad+replacement https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A1990+trackpad+replacement There is an actual product (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084GKQB9T https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084GKQB9T) with all of my keywords in the title. I found it via a google search because I gave up scrolling through Amazon. I actively avoid shopping Amazon where possible these days, just because it's such a trashy experience.
blt 5y ago
Maybe I am looking upon the past with rose-colored glasses, but I recall a time when shopping on Amazon was like shopping at a huge Target. A lot of well-known name brands mixed with some no-name stuff. It was a nice relief from the limited selection, daytime hours, lines, and out-of-stock errors at department and big-box stores. Now shopping on Amazon feels like shopping on eBay or Aliexpress with fast shipping. Everything name-brand could be counterfeit, and everything no-name is a complete gamble.
matt_heimer 5y ago
Searching on amazon.com for Odense Marzipan works for me and is not automatically translated. No quotes needed.
bradlys 5y ago
Amazon search is horrendous garbage. I was trying to buy replacement ear tips for my earbuds. I knew exactly what to search for. Yet, Amazon search only returned the Large size and none of the others. (Clicking on the large listing only had the large size available. No drop down selection or anything) I go to Google and type in the same search and put Amazon in the search too. Immediately shows up as first result and I was able to buy them. I figured they were out of stock and that’s why I couldn’t get them. Nope - Amazon search is just that bad.
xnx 5y ago
Google does a pretty good or better job of searching amazon.com than Amazon does, e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22odense+marzipan%22+site%3Aamazon.com https://www.google.com/search?q=%22odense+marzipan%22+site%3...

vgeek 5y ago

"We know what is best for you, consumer!"

chaoskanzlerin 5y ago
well, this particular instance is amazon

azalemeth 5y ago

Thanks for introducing me to Odense marzipan (I have a job in Aarhus!) I very much get the feeling that amazon and eBay "Don't like" Denmark – the former redirects amazon.dk to amazon.de saying "we deliver!" and the latter doesn't exist (but it does wholly-own a local alternative). Going to Denmark always makes me aware of how good the local Danish things are, and how inflexible and annoying the "global" options usually are by comparison. Riding roughshod over the language is a good example of this.

bserge 5y ago
They "don't like" many small countries. Perhaps based on population or GDP, who the fuck knows. They just redirect you to the nearest bigger country website and call it a job well done. Tbf, there are no issues buying from German or French versions. UK was the best choice but now customs is a pain in the ass so...

narag 5y ago

I've searched for a product with a unique name and Amazons can't find it. "Do you need help?" not even "I'm unable to find what you need". Nice. The product is there. It works adding the company name.

867-5309 5y ago

I'm getting lots of results on Amazon UK, and also Google Shopping. maybe try setting your delivery location?

nucleardog 5y ago

Amazon also really seems to push what they _want_ to sell over what they have available. A while back I spent a lot of time looking around for a basic SATA bluray drive on Amazon before finally giving up. All I could find was burners for several hundred dollars when I really just needed a drive to quickly rip a single disc I'd bought. I spent probably an hour scrolling through results and trying all sorts of variations on search strings. I eventually gave up and punched it in Google to get... kicked back to Amazon to a simple, cheap SATA bluray drive that had been there all along.

Accujack 5y ago
>Amazon also really seems to push what they _want_ to sell over what they have available This is exactly it. Amazon isn't a shopping site, they're a corporation using third party sellers to offload the risk and cost of providing a wide array of goods. They let customers experiment with product offerings, find products that sell using their web site, then cherry pick the most lucrative ones to produce and stock to compete with their own "customers". They're not a service for anyone but themselves.
- mcovey 5y ago
  I almost always filter for items shipped from and sold by Amazon. The only times I buy from third-party sellers are when the seller is clearly the manufacturer or a large distributor.
spaniard89277 5y ago
I just gave up on Amazon Spain about 2 years ago already. It's just completely impossible to filter and rank stuff properly, just loads of crap you don't want. I heard it's worse in Amazon US. What I don't get about this companies (because this seems a problem shared between google, YT and Amazon) is when they optimize for clicks or whatever their KPI, what are they thinking is the outcome in the mid term? I mean, IDK around you, but I'm the prosumer regular folks ask for recommendations. They may be safe for the time being but of course I'm going to contribute for their competitors getting klout. I don't have an alternative for YT, but people watches me using DDG and whe they ask for recommendations for buying stuff I don't even bother with Amazon. I'm not the type who pushes his decisions onto others, but I already got asked why I don't use google and amazon.

pixelgeek 5y ago

It must be a recent thing as well as I recall being able to get good results from them last year at Xmas when I was searching for some science books for the kids. This year my searches got absolute garbage in return.

u10242 5y ago

Just a theory, but "dense" in English translates to "dicht" in German.

kingcharles 5y ago

Amazon.com search is probably the worst offender of all the awful search engines. You can spend hours trying to find something you know is on there.

makeitrain 5y ago

Yeah, Amazon search results are often infuriating. Most searches are flooded with similar items that need better filters and some notes on product differentiation. Amazon feels like a bazaar set up inside a Walmart where everyone is yelling at you to buy from them and you don't really know what you're going to get. I know it's a hard problem, but I can often look at the results and imagine some easy UX improvements. Maybe they have higher priorities than helping me buy insulated pants.

nitrogen 5y ago
I wish shopping for consumer goods was as nice as faceted search on Octopart or Digikey. It seems that even for Amazon-sold products, either the products don't have relevant data listed accurately and consistently, or the faceted search doesn't let you query it. (And that leaves aside the issue of the product page of a really nice wastebasket I bought years ago being hijacked by a meat slicer.)
- iudqnolq 5y ago
  I just wish DigiKey let you filter by price, or even sort by price on mobile.

DonaldFisk 5y ago

Are others getting the same problem? I searched for "Odense Marzipan" on duckduckgo.com, google.com, amazon.com, and amazon.co.uk, and all of them return almond-based sugar sweets in the top links.

smallerfish 5y ago

Amazon is absolutely terrible. Try this search, for example: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A1990+trackpad+replacement https://www.amazon.com/s?k=A1990+trackpad+replacement There is an actual product (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084GKQB9T https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084GKQB9T) with all of my keywords in the title. I found it via a google search because I gave up scrolling through Amazon. I actively avoid shopping Amazon where possible these days, just because it's such a trashy experience.

blt 5y ago

Maybe I am looking upon the past with rose-colored glasses, but I recall a time when shopping on Amazon was like shopping at a huge Target. A lot of well-known name brands mixed with some no-name stuff. It was a nice relief from the limited selection, daytime hours, lines, and out-of-stock errors at department and big-box stores. Now shopping on Amazon feels like shopping on eBay or Aliexpress with fast shipping. Everything name-brand could be counterfeit, and everything no-name is a complete gamble.

matt_heimer 5y ago

Searching on amazon.com for Odense Marzipan works for me and is not automatically translated. No quotes needed.

bradlys 5y ago

Amazon search is horrendous garbage. I was trying to buy replacement ear tips for my earbuds. I knew exactly what to search for. Yet, Amazon search only returned the Large size and none of the others. (Clicking on the large listing only had the large size available. No drop down selection or anything) I go to Google and type in the same search and put Amazon in the search too. Immediately shows up as first result and I was able to buy them. I figured they were out of stock and that’s why I couldn’t get them. Nope - Amazon search is just that bad.

xnx 5y ago

Google does a pretty good or better job of searching amazon.com than Amazon does, e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22odense+marzipan%22+site%3Aamazon.com https://www.google.com/search?q=%22odense+marzipan%22+site%3...