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>Compare this to, say, Amazon where Amazon's needs are prioritized over the customers' I'm not sure that's the whole story. A critical point is that this is a

>Compare this to, say, Amazon where Amazon's needs are prioritized over the customers' I'm not sure that's the whole story. A critical point is that this is a B2B site. The people shopping here would tend to have a need in mind that can be solved by finding the exact right part that meets their specifications. By comparison, the typical consumer shopping experience is much more one of discovery, not need-solution mnatching. Keep in mind the average HN user is not the typical shopper. You and I might like to "get in and get out" but so many consumer shoppers LOVE to go to a place like Target or HomeGoods and browse around aimlessly, window shop, discover, explore - and that indicates a far different type of UX than what B2B would look like. These shoppers value stimulus, sparks of ideas, reviews and testimonials, and all the other "cruft" that was removed from McMaster.com

TeMPOraL 4y ago
Wonder how much of that is actually a preference of typical consumers, and how much it is just being forced on them. > stimulus, sparks of ideas, reviews and testimonials, and all the other "cruft" that was removed from McMaster.com In meatspace this is often discussed as customer-abusive design - overloading senses with shapes, colors, sounds and smells, confusing and ever-changing shop layout forcing shoppers to wander and explore, defeating the no.1. normal people advice for responsible shopping - make a list beforehand and stick to it. I don't think HNers are that much different. We complain more, because we know more about how the web works, and realize things could be much better.
- geodel 4y ago
  Great point. At this point it is pretty clear Amazon is fattened on sweet billions from ads. To add insult to injury they also get to say We are delighted to offer ten thousand brands of USB cable in hundreds of colors to suit every personal style
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > Wonder how much of that is actually a preference of typical consumers, and how much it is just being forced on them. I can just about guarantee it's mostly the latter. My elderly dad was shown how to do a couple things on Craigslist, years ago, and has been using it without assistance for years. Meanwhile he often has to ask for help with the fucking phone app on his phone. And every time Google updates it or he gets a new phone, he has to figure it all out again. For no benefit, just to be able to do the same shit he already could. Design thrashing and all kinds of slow-downs and animations and "helpful" pop-ups and crap make things harder on everyone, it's just that some of us can push past it. It has a cost, but we become blind to it because we're so used to putting up with it. A few seconds lost there, a couple minutes here, but we've forgotten about it by the end of the day. For those on the edges it's catastrophic to their ability to actually use their devices for anything.
gumby 4y ago
Ordinary people are well known to suffer from "choice fatigue" and overstimulation. In a supermarket though it's considered a zero sum race between independent players. On a web site run by a single entity that need not be the case. > all the other "cruft" that was removed from McMaster.com The point of my comment is that crap was not removed but rather was never introduced in the first place.
geodel 4y ago
> By comparison, the typical consumer shopping experience is much more one of discovery, not need-solution mnatching. Even if I put full fucking detail with brand and model I keep getting pages and pages of random products with different "sponsored" brands, model, features and so on. Its clearly need of Amazon are taking priority over mine. > Keep in mind the average HN user is not the typical shopper. You and I might like to "get in and get out" but so many consumer shoppers ... Yes I love to stores and see various items that I wouldn't typically buy. I could even go to, say Costco website to see random "newly arrived seasonal items". But on shopping websites when searching for products most people are not looking to enjoy "incredible joys of discovery" by being forced to scroll through search results for things which they haven't even searched for. Its purely ads and "marketplace" bullshitery from Amazon and others.
- julianlam 4y ago
  I was (and still am) frustrated with Amazon's practice of showing me what _they_ think I want, instead of what I searched for. It violates a basic tenet of the server-client relationship, serve what the client asked for. I was happy to discover that AliExpress didn't do these shenanigans. You search for an item, it shows matches. Wonderful — and then they changed it, so now halfway through your results, you'll see completely unrelated items. So now it's just a garbage web filled with garbage results.
  - geodel 4y ago
    Exactly right. And considering how many here do appreciate Amazon's position here, to me, it just shows Amazon/ e-commerce web sites have conditioned tons of users to find terrible user experience agreeable.
  - davnn 4y ago
    I have made the opposite experience. I enjoy the search results Amazon provides, but find it incredibly difficult to find the right product on AliExpress. How do you navigate the seemingly auto-translated jungle of similar products on AliExpress?
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
MengerSponge 4y ago
McMaster is also better for wandering the aisles than Amazon! Just hop onto a catalog page, and see related item after item. Amazon tries to sell you things that are cross-correlated, so if you buy tiny resealable bags for your board game collection, they try to sell you portable precision scales.
- dahdum 4y ago
  > McMaster is also better for wandering the aisles than Amazon! Just hop onto a catalog page, and see related item after item. It’s all fun and games until you get blocked for viewing too many pages. Been a few years since I needed to use them but that was always super annoying.
mmmmpancakes 4y ago
Not only this but Amazon is a marketplace for buyers AND sellers whereas it appears McMaster-Carr is the seller. Sellers on Amazon are also Amazon customers who want their own pages, copy, etc.
- somat 4y ago
  I don't know if it is the same as amazon. but I suspect it is. Newegg: the store, I love, newegg: the marketplace, I dislike. newegg at least had the grace to include the filter "sold by newegg" when they made the transition to marketplace. So then "amazon: the store" would be what? books? does amazon still sell books? or is that all amazon: the marketplace" as well? it is impossible to tell with amazon.

TeMPOraL 4y ago

Wonder how much of that is actually a preference of typical consumers, and how much it is just being forced on them. > stimulus, sparks of ideas, reviews and testimonials, and all the other "cruft" that was removed from McMaster.com In meatspace this is often discussed as customer-abusive design - overloading senses with shapes, colors, sounds and smells, confusing and ever-changing shop layout forcing shoppers to wander and explore, defeating the no.1. normal people advice for responsible shopping - make a list beforehand and stick to it. I don't think HNers are that much different. We complain more, because we know more about how the web works, and realize things could be much better.

geodel 4y ago
Great point. At this point it is pretty clear Amazon is fattened on sweet billions from ads. To add insult to injury they also get to say We are delighted to offer ten thousand brands of USB cable in hundreds of colors to suit every personal style
yamtaddle 4y ago
> Wonder how much of that is actually a preference of typical consumers, and how much it is just being forced on them. I can just about guarantee it's mostly the latter. My elderly dad was shown how to do a couple things on Craigslist, years ago, and has been using it without assistance for years. Meanwhile he often has to ask for help with the fucking phone app on his phone. And every time Google updates it or he gets a new phone, he has to figure it all out again. For no benefit, just to be able to do the same shit he already could. Design thrashing and all kinds of slow-downs and animations and "helpful" pop-ups and crap make things harder on everyone, it's just that some of us can push past it. It has a cost, but we become blind to it because we're so used to putting up with it. A few seconds lost there, a couple minutes here, but we've forgotten about it by the end of the day. For those on the edges it's catastrophic to their ability to actually use their devices for anything.

gumby 4y ago

Ordinary people are well known to suffer from "choice fatigue" and overstimulation. In a supermarket though it's considered a zero sum race between independent players. On a web site run by a single entity that need not be the case. > all the other "cruft" that was removed from McMaster.com The point of my comment is that crap was not removed but rather was never introduced in the first place.

geodel 4y ago

> By comparison, the typical consumer shopping experience is much more one of discovery, not need-solution mnatching. Even if I put full fucking detail with brand and model I keep getting pages and pages of random products with different "sponsored" brands, model, features and so on. Its clearly need of Amazon are taking priority over mine. > Keep in mind the average HN user is not the typical shopper. You and I might like to "get in and get out" but so many consumer shoppers ... Yes I love to stores and see various items that I wouldn't typically buy. I could even go to, say Costco website to see random "newly arrived seasonal items". But on shopping websites when searching for products most people are not looking to enjoy "incredible joys of discovery" by being forced to scroll through search results for things which they haven't even searched for. Its purely ads and "marketplace" bullshitery from Amazon and others.

julianlam 4y ago
I was (and still am) frustrated with Amazon's practice of showing me what _they_ think I want, instead of what I searched for. It violates a basic tenet of the server-client relationship, serve what the client asked for. I was happy to discover that AliExpress didn't do these shenanigans. You search for an item, it shows matches. Wonderful — and then they changed it, so now halfway through your results, you'll see completely unrelated items. So now it's just a garbage web filled with garbage results.
- geodel 4y ago
  Exactly right. And considering how many here do appreciate Amazon's position here, to me, it just shows Amazon/ e-commerce web sites have conditioned tons of users to find terrible user experience agreeable.
- davnn 4y ago
  I have made the opposite experience. I enjoy the search results Amazon provides, but find it incredibly difficult to find the right product on AliExpress. How do you navigate the seemingly auto-translated jungle of similar products on AliExpress?
cjbgkagh 4y ago

MengerSponge 4y ago

McMaster is also better for wandering the aisles than Amazon! Just hop onto a catalog page, and see related item after item. Amazon tries to sell you things that are cross-correlated, so if you buy tiny resealable bags for your board game collection, they try to sell you portable precision scales.

dahdum 4y ago
> McMaster is also better for wandering the aisles than Amazon! Just hop onto a catalog page, and see related item after item. It’s all fun and games until you get blocked for viewing too many pages. Been a few years since I needed to use them but that was always super annoying.

mmmmpancakes 4y ago

Not only this but Amazon is a marketplace for buyers AND sellers whereas it appears McMaster-Carr is the seller. Sellers on Amazon are also Amazon customers who want their own pages, copy, etc.

somat 4y ago
I don't know if it is the same as amazon. but I suspect it is. Newegg: the store, I love, newegg: the marketplace, I dislike. newegg at least had the grace to include the filter "sold by newegg" when they made the transition to marketplace. So then "amazon: the store" would be what? books? does amazon still sell books? or is that all amazon: the marketplace" as well? it is impossible to tell with amazon.