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> Not many people want to trust an AI with spending their money or buying an item without seeing a picture or reading reviews. I wonder how much the decline in

> Not many people want to trust an AI with spending their money or buying an item without seeing a picture or reading reviews. I wonder how much the decline in quality of Amazon's marketplace has affected other parts of the company's business including Alexa. I remember a time when, if I wanted to buy something online, I'd just buy off Amazon without shopping around. They almost always had the best price, their shipping was fast, and I trusted the quality of what I received. In that world, I could see myself saying my shopping list out lout to an Echo to make things easier. But in Amazon's current free-for-all marketplace, I would never do that. Now I typically check traditional big box stores first, and only go with Amazon if I can't find what I need elsewhere.

grepfru_it 4y ago
I actually started sorting price from low to high and have found the real price that way. It's interesting to see promoted items $5-10 higher than a similar product thrown randomly in the list
- sgc 4y ago
  As soon as you do that, the product count will usually drop drastically. They don't want you to see the real list, and won't show it to you.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  I've been trying to do that, but as soon as i sort, there is a whole bunch of unrelated stuff for pages... How do you address that?
  - antifa 4y ago
    I suspect they do this on purpose to frustrate you into spending more.
    - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
      Maybe, but it’s a legitimately hard problem. Sort by lowest price legitimately means show the lowest price item first, even if it’s less relevant. Based on other search systems I have worked with, they probably have an initial fast filter that limits the items from the entire inventory to a loosely matching set (erring on the side of including irrelevant items). Then a more intelligent and expensive ranking system would be used to find the best items from that set (where “best” means a bunch of things including relevance and profitability). Selecting “price: low to high” probably bypasses the intelligent system, so you end up with crap at the top of the list. The low-priced items could be doing some kind of SEO scam to get on the list, or it could be something innocent like a fuzzy match to text in the description (could be a dumb issue like tf-idf that randomly exceeds a threshold due to noise). You could argue that if they don’t prioritize the investment to fix these issues, it’s in some sense intentional. Nobody sorts by low price, because it gives poor results, because they don’t bother fixing it, because it’s not a priority, because nobody sorts by low price…
      - tpxl 4y ago
        > erring on the side of including irrelevant items This is the reason for this problem. When searching for 'cat' and sorting by lowest price, the first promoted item doesn't contain the word cat and neither does the first actual result (but they are cat items). If they didn't hoist 'legitimately hard' problems onto themselves, maybe they wouldn't need to solve them.
        grepfru_it 4y ago
        You can’t buy cats on Amazon, this is a poor example. But if you need the kittie fresh liter-o-magic model 2, then you will get the specific listings or nothing at all (garbage results as op said)
        fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
        I would guess that adding fuzzy match to the candidate selection layer would result in better results after ranking with the default “Featured” ranker. Search teams tend to be pretty data-driven and likely have the ability to test whether a change like this improves revenue or some result satisfaction metric.
  - rg111 4y ago
    Yes. If you search for "samsung smartphone" and sort from low to high, all you get are covers and screen protectors in the first many pages.
    - grepfru_it 4y ago
      You need to be specific, it’s helpful when you are looking for the cheapest Samsung sh-213 smartphone. Not for browsing categories of items
subpixel 4y ago
This. Alexa is a trust-interface. Many consumers don’t trust Amazon anymore, so they sure as hell won’t trust some bot to spend their money for them there. I just decided not to buy an item from Amazon despite it being cheaper, because I need it and I don’t have time to deal with it being a model from a previous year or whatever the catch may be.
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  I've owned and used Alex-powered devices for a while and have never spent a dime via that infernal machine. I use it to turn on the radio, change the station, play audible books, stream podcasts, toggle lights, and get the weather. Hell, I don't even know how to buy anything via Alexa, and the one time I tried "Order some cheerios", it never came. Alexa doesn't even push me to order things. It does, however, push me to use Amazon Music, which is a total nonstarter for probably everyone.
- ctvo 4y ago
  > Many consumers don’t trust Amazon anymore How did you come to this conclusion?
- dylan604 4y ago
  >Many consumers don’t trust Amazon anymore, on HN. I know many many many people that don't give one iota about the things you and I might care about regarding Amazon's "quality". All they care about is that they thing they want is available, fast/free shipping, and at a price they are okay with paying. They don't know one thing about comingling inventory, they don't care about fake reviews, or any of the other things discussed frequently here.
  - subpixel 4y ago
    Everyone trusts Amazon until they have a horrible experience.
  - stemlord 4y ago
    > on HN. Really? Because Amazon is on pace to lose $10B this year
TulliusCicero 4y ago
I find that Amazon is still okay if I already know specifically what I'm trying to order. But browsing, yeah that shit is a nightmare.
- genewitch 4y ago
  i like going through the black friday and "cyber monday" pages, there's usually about 60 pages of junk. I don't think i've ever bought anything. Interesting to see what amazon wants to get rid of in their warehouses, though.
threadweaver34 4y ago
It's not just that, it's that it has to get the details right. Even for "order post-its," it's not clear what color you want, maybe you want extra sticky, or jumbo.
aborsy 4y ago
I still buy from Amazon and almost never had issues. The delivery is max the following day, cheap, lots of variety, etc. It’s an open to all market, and there are certified channels and customers reviews. Big box stores dream to replicate that.
- schnitzelstoat 4y ago
  The customer reviews are hard to tell if they are genuine though. I still like it, as sometimes you don't really care if you get some cheap knock-off good. But for important stuff like my monitor, television etc. there's no way I would buy them from Amazon.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > It’s an open to all market, and there are certified channels and customers reviews. How is it certified if they are commingling inventory?
- thomasjudge 4y ago
  You must live in a major metro. I live in a medium size town in a rural state, I haven't had two-day prime delivery in years. Typical minimum is about a week
vhold 4y ago
I really want to understand how Amazon doesn’t understand this. What is it that has them so totally blind to what everybody else can so plainly see?
xnx 4y ago
Once you've shopped Alibaba, you recognize that Amazon is basically is just a more expensive interface with a better return policy. just learned that Target stores will price match Amazon at the register. No cumbersome customer service process or anything.

grepfru_it 4y ago

I actually started sorting price from low to high and have found the real price that way. It's interesting to see promoted items $5-10 higher than a similar product thrown randomly in the list

sgc 4y ago
As soon as you do that, the product count will usually drop drastically. They don't want you to see the real list, and won't show it to you.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
I've been trying to do that, but as soon as i sort, there is a whole bunch of unrelated stuff for pages... How do you address that?
- antifa 4y ago
  I suspect they do this on purpose to frustrate you into spending more.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
    Maybe, but it’s a legitimately hard problem. Sort by lowest price legitimately means show the lowest price item first, even if it’s less relevant. Based on other search systems I have worked with, they probably have an initial fast filter that limits the items from the entire inventory to a loosely matching set (erring on the side of including irrelevant items). Then a more intelligent and expensive ranking system would be used to find the best items from that set (where “best” means a bunch of things including relevance and profitability). Selecting “price: low to high” probably bypasses the intelligent system, so you end up with crap at the top of the list. The low-priced items could be doing some kind of SEO scam to get on the list, or it could be something innocent like a fuzzy match to text in the description (could be a dumb issue like tf-idf that randomly exceeds a threshold due to noise). You could argue that if they don’t prioritize the investment to fix these issues, it’s in some sense intentional. Nobody sorts by low price, because it gives poor results, because they don’t bother fixing it, because it’s not a priority, because nobody sorts by low price…
    - tpxl 4y ago
      > erring on the side of including irrelevant items This is the reason for this problem. When searching for 'cat' and sorting by lowest price, the first promoted item doesn't contain the word cat and neither does the first actual result (but they are cat items). If they didn't hoist 'legitimately hard' problems onto themselves, maybe they wouldn't need to solve them.
      - grepfru_it 4y ago
        You can’t buy cats on Amazon, this is a poor example. But if you need the kittie fresh liter-o-magic model 2, then you will get the specific listings or nothing at all (garbage results as op said)
      - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
        I would guess that adding fuzzy match to the candidate selection layer would result in better results after ranking with the default “Featured” ranker. Search teams tend to be pretty data-driven and likely have the ability to test whether a change like this improves revenue or some result satisfaction metric.
- rg111 4y ago
  Yes. If you search for "samsung smartphone" and sort from low to high, all you get are covers and screen protectors in the first many pages.
  - grepfru_it 4y ago
    You need to be specific, it’s helpful when you are looking for the cheapest Samsung sh-213 smartphone. Not for browsing categories of items

subpixel 4y ago

This. Alexa is a trust-interface. Many consumers don’t trust Amazon anymore, so they sure as hell won’t trust some bot to spend their money for them there. I just decided not to buy an item from Amazon despite it being cheaper, because I need it and I don’t have time to deal with it being a model from a previous year or whatever the catch may be.

jvanderbot 4y ago
I've owned and used Alex-powered devices for a while and have never spent a dime via that infernal machine. I use it to turn on the radio, change the station, play audible books, stream podcasts, toggle lights, and get the weather. Hell, I don't even know how to buy anything via Alexa, and the one time I tried "Order some cheerios", it never came. Alexa doesn't even push me to order things. It does, however, push me to use Amazon Music, which is a total nonstarter for probably everyone.
ctvo 4y ago
> Many consumers don’t trust Amazon anymore How did you come to this conclusion?
dylan604 4y ago
>Many consumers don’t trust Amazon anymore, on HN. I know many many many people that don't give one iota about the things you and I might care about regarding Amazon's "quality". All they care about is that they thing they want is available, fast/free shipping, and at a price they are okay with paying. They don't know one thing about comingling inventory, they don't care about fake reviews, or any of the other things discussed frequently here.
- subpixel 4y ago
  Everyone trusts Amazon until they have a horrible experience.
- stemlord 4y ago
  > on HN. Really? Because Amazon is on pace to lose $10B this year

TulliusCicero 4y ago

I find that Amazon is still okay if I already know specifically what I'm trying to order. But browsing, yeah that shit is a nightmare.

genewitch 4y ago
i like going through the black friday and "cyber monday" pages, there's usually about 60 pages of junk. I don't think i've ever bought anything. Interesting to see what amazon wants to get rid of in their warehouses, though.

threadweaver34 4y ago

It's not just that, it's that it has to get the details right. Even for "order post-its," it's not clear what color you want, maybe you want extra sticky, or jumbo.

aborsy 4y ago

I still buy from Amazon and almost never had issues. The delivery is max the following day, cheap, lots of variety, etc. It’s an open to all market, and there are certified channels and customers reviews. Big box stores dream to replicate that.

schnitzelstoat 4y ago
The customer reviews are hard to tell if they are genuine though. I still like it, as sometimes you don't really care if you get some cheap knock-off good. But for important stuff like my monitor, television etc. there's no way I would buy them from Amazon.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> It’s an open to all market, and there are certified channels and customers reviews. How is it certified if they are commingling inventory?
thomasjudge 4y ago
You must live in a major metro. I live in a medium size town in a rural state, I haven't had two-day prime delivery in years. Typical minimum is about a week

vhold 4y ago

I really want to understand how Amazon doesn’t understand this. What is it that has them so totally blind to what everybody else can so plainly see?

xnx 4y ago

Once you've shopped Alibaba, you recognize that Amazon is basically is just a more expensive interface with a better return policy. just learned that Target stores will price match Amazon at the register. No cumbersome customer service process or anything.