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My process for getting usable results on Amazon (.co.uk, presumably the others too): 1. Search for thing 2. Filter by department (necessary for 3) 3. Filter

My process for getting usable results on Amazon (.co.uk, presumably the others too): 1. Search for thing 2. Filter by department (necessary for 3) 3. Filter by Seller: only Amazon 4: Filter by reviews: 4 stars+ 5: Sort by price, Low > High 6: (Further filters as appropriate) 7: Look at only products with a high number of reviews 8: For every product, "See all reviews" and filter on "Verified purchase only" and "Show only reviews for {the product variant you're actually looking at}". Closely scrutinise 1 and 2 star reviews. But sometimes even this _still_ doesn't get me quite what I want, because when an item is sold both by Amazon and a 3rd-party it can be sorted based on the non-Amazon price. It does feel just a little like Amazon's goals might not be perfectly aligned with those of the customer.

cryptoegorophy 4y ago
You are not their customer. You are a small percentage that they just don’t care about. 99.99% people don’t do what you do to search. They successfully click on ads.
ikt 4y ago
> It does feel just a little like Amazon's goals might not be perfectly aligned with those of the customer. Why do you still use it? Is it just because it's cheap?
- sanitycheck 4y ago
  This is a good question. I use it a lot less than I used to, and I don't have Prime. Sometimes it's because of price, if something's significantly cheaper on Amazon I'll buy it from Amazon. Free delivery tips it in Amazon's favour sometimes. Sometimes it's availability. It can be quite painful to order things from outside the UK, most sellers aren't equipped to deal with VAT/duty their end so I end up with the delivery company holding packages hostage until I pay those (which is fine) plus a £20-30 "admin fee" for their package-hostage service. Pre-Brexit I could avoid this by ordering from elsewhere in the EU, but now I'm even more limited. Looking through my Amazon purchase history 3 of the last 5 things I've ordered are only available from Amazon in the UK (and at twice the price from a couple of dodgy looking online stores I've never heard of). The other reason is their returns policy, if the thing I order doesn't work they'll take it back with no fuss and refund the money. Other major retailers in the UK make this difficult, frustrating and/or time-consuming. I think they succeeded in retail because of a relentless focus on making the experience for customers better than their competitors. That's all still there, in the background - but it's being eclipsed by some other part of the org that wants to trick those customers into buying a load of shit.
sylvainkalache 4y ago
I would suggest adding Fakespot to your process. They analyze reviews and will spot the ones that are most likely fake, and then adjust the rating of the product accordingly.
- sanitycheck 4y ago
  I've looked at a couple of services which look for patterns in reviews to flag fakes, but I think this only helps me if I'm prepared to buy from third-party sellers - which I'm not. Fake reviews are paid for by sellers shifting tat that Amazon themselves will not sell (because someone in that bit of Amazon still cares about quality). If Amazon themselves wanted to add fake reviews they could easily do it in a way undetectable by Fakespot etc. Fakespot in particular is a business with a business model, and that is (I think) all about ads and affiliate links. Just a guess, but probably VC-funded with a pressure to actually make a profit somehow. I am thus not their customer, and their incentives may not always align with mine so it's hard to trust them.
odysseus 4y ago
You can skip steps 2 and 3 by using https://www.shipsfromandsoldby.com https://www.shipsfromandsoldby.com to search or by appending a certain string to the URL which I forget now. I'm not affiliated with that site (and it DOES use affiliate links) but I've found it useful.
- sanitycheck 4y ago
  Just tried it, doesn't appear to work. It does redirect me to search results on amazon.co.uk, but some of the results are items from third party sellers.
  - odysseus 4y ago
    Hmm, I just tried it again and both the first and last page of search results were all shipped and sold by Amazon. My search term was "geiger counter" and results were from amazon.com.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
candiddevmike 4y ago
I applaud anyone who leaves a non 5 star review, gets contacted by the company with bribes to make it 5 stars, and updates their review to report the company doing that.
- sanitycheck 4y ago
  I'm sure people do it, the bribes are probably not very good. Sadly the company can probably get Amazon to take down the review in that case. Reviews for sellers themselves are a joke too, I was looking at some earlier today, via black friday deals. The number of reviews with a line through them and "Amazon takes responsibility for this fulfillment-related experience" was hilarious, when those reviews were things like "the motor doesn't work". I guess those then aren't included in the "90% positive" statistic.
  - robryan 4y ago
    The seller could argue that it was damaged in transit. The whole thing would probably be luck of the draw in how their first level support in India chooses to apply guidelines.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      Amazon would know that’s bullshit from the density of reviews and feedback on the product’s problems.
- webignition 4y ago
  I left a non 5 star review of an inexpensive Pixel 4 case. The case was too close around the flash resulting in the flash reflecting off the case resulting in absolutely awful pictures. I was offered a refund and replacement of a newer version of the case in return for a better review. The phone case was simply not fit for purpose as it was and the review fairly (I hope) highlighted this. I accepted the replacement newer version and agreed to a more flattering review once the improved case was seen to indeed be improved. If the flaw had been fixed then it would be fair to reflect this in my review. The improved case was no different and my review remained unchanged, except for an update reflecting the bribe.
jamiek88 4y ago
I do similar but actually prefer the product with the lower amount of reviews as IMO a product with 200 reviews is more likely to have real reviews than one with 20k reviews, they just look fake to me.
Heyso 4y ago
I've bought and seen crap with good reviews. On Amazon. You have a good chance to end with some chinese crap if you rely only on Amazon. On some product, I prefer finding a specialized seller (that isn't dropshipping). Or find a real blog (tends to be hard with all those fakes websites listing top 100 products, but they nmask hemselves when all products are chinese crap on Amazon). Reddit also work to get advice from peoples. What's more. I make research on the compagny producing the thing. LinkedIn helps with that. Only commercials on a tech product ? Get out.
- entropie 4y ago
  > I've bought and seen crap with good reviews. On Amazon. Have you heard of https://reviewmeta.com/ https://reviewmeta.com/ ?, If not, give it a try, I use it regularly and it does as advertised.
- hattmall 4y ago
  eBay is actually legit a good source for quality items. You can see actual seller ratings, how much the seller sells and specific item feedback. The returns / refund process is dead simple and flawless as well. The only issue is that none of the processes are as quick as Amazon. Shipping is slower and if you need to do a return it can take like 3 days to get the label.
ljm 4y ago
I had to buy a replacement USB cable in a pinch the other week. Probably the first time since pre-COVID where I could justify next day delivery (where I would normally be happy to just wait however long it takes from a more local retailer). I knew exactly the kind to look for but I couldn't just search for that and pick the first item on the list. I could have easily bought the wrong thing in one click and not known it. Instead I had to spend about 30 minutes tweaking my search query, scrolling through SEO-spam listings ("NEW iPhone 14 Galaxy S21 MacBook Pro Windows 95 SE USB 2.1A cable 6cm!") and other listings which were all just the same listing but with a different no-name logo laser printed on the casing. Was on Google cross-referencing some of them to see if they'd actually be legit, since I'd trust a post in a niche forum over a review on a marketplace. It took me longer to verify what I was buying than it did to go through checkout. Reminded me why Amazon stopped being my go-to.
- cryptoegorophy 4y ago
  Pro Tip: never get chargers or cables from Amazon or eBay or AliExpress. It is better to get the one from official store or if there is absolutely no option get Anker or other reputable brand and even those could be sold as a fake with all the craziness that is going on in Amazon.
- skunkworker 4y ago
  If I'm buying USB cables now I pretty much only go with anker unless it's something that doesn't need to be a necessarily good (like a printer usb cable).
  - tornato7 4y ago
    Monoprice is excellent as well
- YeBanKo 4y ago
  For small things like that monoprice has been my go to.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  what's wrong with getting the Amazon Basics version of whatever commodity?
InCityDreams 4y ago
Fair and balanced. My last several purchases with amazon have been a breeze, and i will continue (especially as local shops are taking full advantage to up their prices for seemingly no good reason except 'there'sa crisis') I regularly kill cookies. Perhaps it's a .com thing as I'll take the healthcare route and search through .nl, .it, .de, .co.uk for the same item. And then pay from where i have my account.
cycomanic 4y ago
Are other sites so bad in the US? I can count the number of times I've been tempted to buy with Amazon in Europe on one hand. I mean pretty much every other webshop has a search experience that is orders of magnitude better then add Geizhals to the mix and you're almost guaranteed to find the cheapest offer, in much less clicks than even trying to find something that is legit and matches the search criteria on amazon. Why do people still use it?
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >Are other sites so bad in the US? I can count the number of times I've been tempted to buy with Amazon in Europe on one hand. Here in Japan, Amazon is really popular, especially with expats. Other online sites are Japanese-only, so if you don't read Japanese well, Amazon is just much easier to use because it can be set for English, and will auto-translate everything that's in Japanese. The checkout process is also really simple. Japanese websites tend to have really poor UI too, and Amazon doesn't. Also, Amazon has relatively easy returns, unlike most Japanese retailers. However, according to the grapevine things are getting worse. Instead of using reliable local shipping companies like Yamato or Sagawa, supposedly they're doing more delivery with freelance contractors and the results aren't good.
- Drew_ 4y ago
  The search experience on Amazon is not actually that bad. It's only bad if you're paranoid or picky. I don't use Amazon to discover anything that I'm actually passionate/picky about so I personally never have this problem.
  - fmajid 4y ago
    Amazon used to emply Udi Manber, who literally wrote the book on search. Yet it still doesn't offer basic search features every search engine has had for years, like using quotes for phrases, the plus sign to require a phrase to be present in the search result, or the minus sign to exclude keywords or phrases from search results. That's by design. Amazon search is so useless that about half the time I use DuckDuckGo to search Amazon itself.
- 4y ago
russdill 4y ago
It's very frustrating the number of clicks that are necessary to get a list of reviews most recent first, and not just the first few.
prmoustache 4y ago
My process for getting usable results on Amazon is to simply not use it. For any item you can think of there is an online shop dedicated to the specialty that is: - cheaper - easiest to search - do not sell knockoffs, counterfeits and fake products I know some people will raise the "you need to create another account for it annoyance" but it is not that annoying when you are using a password manager and the additionnal time spent could even be considered a feature to avoid compulsive buying.
- hombre_fatal 4y ago
  I thought thus was the way to go into I ran into bad shipping schedule and bad return policies, esp the latter. Now I never order anywhere except Amazon. I learn this lesson every time I try to follow your pitch.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    It depends. LL Bean for instance has amazing return policies.
- za3faran 4y ago
  Where do you find cheap, good quality printers? I found Amazon pricing to beat my local Microcenter website.
  - wardedVibe 4y ago
    The printer in staples/fedex/local print shop down the road. Unless you print a lot (like business/university department amounts), or have some high levels of paranoia about your documents, you're way better off letting someone else deal with the capital costs of the printers.
    - singron 4y ago
      Check your library too. Mine has cheaper printing than Staples and a free allowance.
FeistySkink 4y ago
I'm skeptical of #8. I sometimes leave detailed reviews for items that I purchased or used elsewhere and have a deep understanding of to dissuade other people from buying. Especially for new products that are being overhyped on YT or through Amazon Vine (how is that even a thing), even though they are of dubious quality. I have quite a few non-verified reviews that are voted most helpful, but Amazon obviously prioritized Vine reviews, even when they don't have any votes.
- sanitycheck 4y ago
  Unfortunately there isn't an obvious way to surface good reviews (it's not clear what "top reviews" means, but they don't generally seem that good), yours may get more eyes as Reddit posts or on a blog. Verified purchase only & 1-2 stars lets me quickly scan through for those people who come back months after purchase to write reviews because the thing broke in some way. I don't care about good/middling reviews except in aggregate, but the bad ones are worth delving into.
dtgriscom 4y ago
I tend to check 3-star reviews; you (hopefully) find out what's wrong with a product, but not from someone who hates it and may focus on trivialities just to trash it.
bradleyjg 4y ago
2. Filter by department (necessary for 3) 3. Filter by Seller: only Amazon This is harder and harder to do, especially on the app. I’ve started to use walmart instead. They also have this third party seller garbage but at least they make easier to filter out.
fleddr 4y ago
Yep, and then when you finally have your sights on a product, there will always be that one review: "Cable didn't work, instead it shortcircuited my TV".
tomrod 4y ago
Ads are infective. This is why folks are worried about Apple jumping into that revenue stream.

cryptoegorophy 4y ago

You are not their customer. You are a small percentage that they just don’t care about. 99.99% people don’t do what you do to search. They successfully click on ads.

ikt 4y ago

> It does feel just a little like Amazon's goals might not be perfectly aligned with those of the customer. Why do you still use it? Is it just because it's cheap?

sanitycheck 4y ago
This is a good question. I use it a lot less than I used to, and I don't have Prime. Sometimes it's because of price, if something's significantly cheaper on Amazon I'll buy it from Amazon. Free delivery tips it in Amazon's favour sometimes. Sometimes it's availability. It can be quite painful to order things from outside the UK, most sellers aren't equipped to deal with VAT/duty their end so I end up with the delivery company holding packages hostage until I pay those (which is fine) plus a £20-30 "admin fee" for their package-hostage service. Pre-Brexit I could avoid this by ordering from elsewhere in the EU, but now I'm even more limited. Looking through my Amazon purchase history 3 of the last 5 things I've ordered are only available from Amazon in the UK (and at twice the price from a couple of dodgy looking online stores I've never heard of). The other reason is their returns policy, if the thing I order doesn't work they'll take it back with no fuss and refund the money. Other major retailers in the UK make this difficult, frustrating and/or time-consuming. I think they succeeded in retail because of a relentless focus on making the experience for customers better than their competitors. That's all still there, in the background - but it's being eclipsed by some other part of the org that wants to trick those customers into buying a load of shit.

sylvainkalache 4y ago

I would suggest adding Fakespot to your process. They analyze reviews and will spot the ones that are most likely fake, and then adjust the rating of the product accordingly.

sanitycheck 4y ago
I've looked at a couple of services which look for patterns in reviews to flag fakes, but I think this only helps me if I'm prepared to buy from third-party sellers - which I'm not. Fake reviews are paid for by sellers shifting tat that Amazon themselves will not sell (because someone in that bit of Amazon still cares about quality). If Amazon themselves wanted to add fake reviews they could easily do it in a way undetectable by Fakespot etc. Fakespot in particular is a business with a business model, and that is (I think) all about ads and affiliate links. Just a guess, but probably VC-funded with a pressure to actually make a profit somehow. I am thus not their customer, and their incentives may not always align with mine so it's hard to trust them.

odysseus 4y ago

You can skip steps 2 and 3 by using https://www.shipsfromandsoldby.com https://www.shipsfromandsoldby.com to search or by appending a certain string to the URL which I forget now. I'm not affiliated with that site (and it DOES use affiliate links) but I've found it useful.

sanitycheck 4y ago
Just tried it, doesn't appear to work. It does redirect me to search results on amazon.co.uk, but some of the results are items from third party sellers.
- odysseus 4y ago
  Hmm, I just tried it again and both the first and last page of search results were all shipped and sold by Amazon. My search term was "geiger counter" and results were from amazon.com.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

candiddevmike 4y ago

I applaud anyone who leaves a non 5 star review, gets contacted by the company with bribes to make it 5 stars, and updates their review to report the company doing that.

sanitycheck 4y ago
I'm sure people do it, the bribes are probably not very good. Sadly the company can probably get Amazon to take down the review in that case. Reviews for sellers themselves are a joke too, I was looking at some earlier today, via black friday deals. The number of reviews with a line through them and "Amazon takes responsibility for this fulfillment-related experience" was hilarious, when those reviews were things like "the motor doesn't work". I guess those then aren't included in the "90% positive" statistic.
- robryan 4y ago
  The seller could argue that it was damaged in transit. The whole thing would probably be luck of the draw in how their first level support in India chooses to apply guidelines.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Amazon would know that’s bullshit from the density of reviews and feedback on the product’s problems.
webignition 4y ago
I left a non 5 star review of an inexpensive Pixel 4 case. The case was too close around the flash resulting in the flash reflecting off the case resulting in absolutely awful pictures. I was offered a refund and replacement of a newer version of the case in return for a better review. The phone case was simply not fit for purpose as it was and the review fairly (I hope) highlighted this. I accepted the replacement newer version and agreed to a more flattering review once the improved case was seen to indeed be improved. If the flaw had been fixed then it would be fair to reflect this in my review. The improved case was no different and my review remained unchanged, except for an update reflecting the bribe.

jamiek88 4y ago

I do similar but actually prefer the product with the lower amount of reviews as IMO a product with 200 reviews is more likely to have real reviews than one with 20k reviews, they just look fake to me.

Heyso 4y ago

I've bought and seen crap with good reviews. On Amazon. You have a good chance to end with some chinese crap if you rely only on Amazon. On some product, I prefer finding a specialized seller (that isn't dropshipping). Or find a real blog (tends to be hard with all those fakes websites listing top 100 products, but they nmask hemselves when all products are chinese crap on Amazon). Reddit also work to get advice from peoples. What's more. I make research on the compagny producing the thing. LinkedIn helps with that. Only commercials on a tech product ? Get out.

entropie 4y ago
> I've bought and seen crap with good reviews. On Amazon. Have you heard of https://reviewmeta.com/ https://reviewmeta.com/ ?, If not, give it a try, I use it regularly and it does as advertised.
hattmall 4y ago
eBay is actually legit a good source for quality items. You can see actual seller ratings, how much the seller sells and specific item feedback. The returns / refund process is dead simple and flawless as well. The only issue is that none of the processes are as quick as Amazon. Shipping is slower and if you need to do a return it can take like 3 days to get the label.

ljm 4y ago

I had to buy a replacement USB cable in a pinch the other week. Probably the first time since pre-COVID where I could justify next day delivery (where I would normally be happy to just wait however long it takes from a more local retailer). I knew exactly the kind to look for but I couldn't just search for that and pick the first item on the list. I could have easily bought the wrong thing in one click and not known it. Instead I had to spend about 30 minutes tweaking my search query, scrolling through SEO-spam listings ("NEW iPhone 14 Galaxy S21 MacBook Pro Windows 95 SE USB 2.1A cable 6cm!") and other listings which were all just the same listing but with a different no-name logo laser printed on the casing. Was on Google cross-referencing some of them to see if they'd actually be legit, since I'd trust a post in a niche forum over a review on a marketplace. It took me longer to verify what I was buying than it did to go through checkout. Reminded me why Amazon stopped being my go-to.

cryptoegorophy 4y ago
Pro Tip: never get chargers or cables from Amazon or eBay or AliExpress. It is better to get the one from official store or if there is absolutely no option get Anker or other reputable brand and even those could be sold as a fake with all the craziness that is going on in Amazon.
skunkworker 4y ago
If I'm buying USB cables now I pretty much only go with anker unless it's something that doesn't need to be a necessarily good (like a printer usb cable).
- tornato7 4y ago
  Monoprice is excellent as well
YeBanKo 4y ago
For small things like that monoprice has been my go to.
hgsgm 4y ago
what's wrong with getting the Amazon Basics version of whatever commodity?

InCityDreams 4y ago

Fair and balanced. My last several purchases with amazon have been a breeze, and i will continue (especially as local shops are taking full advantage to up their prices for seemingly no good reason except 'there'sa crisis') I regularly kill cookies. Perhaps it's a .com thing as I'll take the healthcare route and search through .nl, .it, .de, .co.uk for the same item. And then pay from where i have my account.

cycomanic 4y ago

Are other sites so bad in the US? I can count the number of times I've been tempted to buy with Amazon in Europe on one hand. I mean pretty much every other webshop has a search experience that is orders of magnitude better then add Geizhals to the mix and you're almost guaranteed to find the cheapest offer, in much less clicks than even trying to find something that is legit and matches the search criteria on amazon. Why do people still use it?

midoridensha 4y ago
>Are other sites so bad in the US? I can count the number of times I've been tempted to buy with Amazon in Europe on one hand. Here in Japan, Amazon is really popular, especially with expats. Other online sites are Japanese-only, so if you don't read Japanese well, Amazon is just much easier to use because it can be set for English, and will auto-translate everything that's in Japanese. The checkout process is also really simple. Japanese websites tend to have really poor UI too, and Amazon doesn't. Also, Amazon has relatively easy returns, unlike most Japanese retailers. However, according to the grapevine things are getting worse. Instead of using reliable local shipping companies like Yamato or Sagawa, supposedly they're doing more delivery with freelance contractors and the results aren't good.
Drew_ 4y ago
The search experience on Amazon is not actually that bad. It's only bad if you're paranoid or picky. I don't use Amazon to discover anything that I'm actually passionate/picky about so I personally never have this problem.
- fmajid 4y ago
  Amazon used to emply Udi Manber, who literally wrote the book on search. Yet it still doesn't offer basic search features every search engine has had for years, like using quotes for phrases, the plus sign to require a phrase to be present in the search result, or the minus sign to exclude keywords or phrases from search results. That's by design. Amazon search is so useless that about half the time I use DuckDuckGo to search Amazon itself.
4y ago

russdill 4y ago

It's very frustrating the number of clicks that are necessary to get a list of reviews most recent first, and not just the first few.

prmoustache 4y ago

My process for getting usable results on Amazon is to simply not use it. For any item you can think of there is an online shop dedicated to the specialty that is: - cheaper - easiest to search - do not sell knockoffs, counterfeits and fake products I know some people will raise the "you need to create another account for it annoyance" but it is not that annoying when you are using a password manager and the additionnal time spent could even be considered a feature to avoid compulsive buying.

hombre_fatal 4y ago
I thought thus was the way to go into I ran into bad shipping schedule and bad return policies, esp the latter. Now I never order anywhere except Amazon. I learn this lesson every time I try to follow your pitch.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  It depends. LL Bean for instance has amazing return policies.
za3faran 4y ago
Where do you find cheap, good quality printers? I found Amazon pricing to beat my local Microcenter website.
- wardedVibe 4y ago
  The printer in staples/fedex/local print shop down the road. Unless you print a lot (like business/university department amounts), or have some high levels of paranoia about your documents, you're way better off letting someone else deal with the capital costs of the printers.
  - singron 4y ago
    Check your library too. Mine has cheaper printing than Staples and a free allowance.

FeistySkink 4y ago

I'm skeptical of #8. I sometimes leave detailed reviews for items that I purchased or used elsewhere and have a deep understanding of to dissuade other people from buying. Especially for new products that are being overhyped on YT or through Amazon Vine (how is that even a thing), even though they are of dubious quality. I have quite a few non-verified reviews that are voted most helpful, but Amazon obviously prioritized Vine reviews, even when they don't have any votes.

sanitycheck 4y ago
Unfortunately there isn't an obvious way to surface good reviews (it's not clear what "top reviews" means, but they don't generally seem that good), yours may get more eyes as Reddit posts or on a blog. Verified purchase only & 1-2 stars lets me quickly scan through for those people who come back months after purchase to write reviews because the thing broke in some way. I don't care about good/middling reviews except in aggregate, but the bad ones are worth delving into.

dtgriscom 4y ago

I tend to check 3-star reviews; you (hopefully) find out what's wrong with a product, but not from someone who hates it and may focus on trivialities just to trash it.

bradleyjg 4y ago

2. Filter by department (necessary for 3) 3. Filter by Seller: only Amazon This is harder and harder to do, especially on the app. I’ve started to use walmart instead. They also have this third party seller garbage but at least they make easier to filter out.

fleddr 4y ago

Yep, and then when you finally have your sights on a product, there will always be that one review: "Cable didn't work, instead it shortcircuited my TV".

tomrod 4y ago

Ads are infective. This is why folks are worried about Apple jumping into that revenue stream.