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What's amazing to me is how terrible Amazon's ads, related products and upselling are. There's no adblocker there, they know exactly what you bought. Many / mos

What's amazing to me is how terrible Amazon's ads, related products and upselling are. There's no adblocker there, they know exactly what you bought. Many / most are probably buying a significant amount of all products from them. And still their targeting is terrible. Why? Are they just incompetent? Is the tech just not good enough yet? Are they just not showing their true abilities to keep the population calm?

Regnore 4y ago
My favourite example of this is when I get ads for something that I’ve just recently purchased and clearly no person would want more than one of. Just bought a waffle maker? Why not buy another identical one? Never know when you’re going to need a backup right?
- luckylion 4y ago
  I'd totally understand that when you're returning the waffle maker and they're like "hey, that one probably sucked, here are 12 others", but yeah, it's weird. And that's coming from a guy who absolutely does buy backups of the things he likes, because how would I survive if my electric foot warmer would die and I had to wait 4 days for a replacement?
  - account42 4y ago
    Or worse than having to wait for the replacement, by the time you need to replace your favorite foot warmer the product has been discontinoued and all the available alternatives are worse or at least different enough that you have to spend time figuring out which one is best for you.
rchaud 4y ago
> And still their targeting is terrible. Why? Why not? Most Amazon search results for non-branded goods (towels, furniture, appliances) are going to feature identical products from Chinese companies with unmemorable, nonsensical names. They cannot differentiate on anything besides price, and search position, so Amazon may as well give the largest bidders top billing.
- account42 4y ago
  > products from Chinese companies with unmemorable, nonsensical names > They cannot differentiate on anything besides price, and search position I could think of many more things they could differentiate on. Or even let me filter explicitly. I can think of one thing in particular that would greatly improve the product targeting for me.
- luckylion 4y ago
  They might not be able to differentiate between the products, but they should know you, and they should know what you're most likely to buy. If they show ads but you don't click on them because they weren't relevant to you, they've failed. At least they ought to know whether you'll buy Chinese brands like HNWERZ or will prefer a household name you'll recognize. Essentially, they should be better than a great sales person in a regular store. You tell them what you're looking for "towels", and they'll show you some and quickly reiterate based on your feedback. Amazon has lots of advantages over a human sales person: they don't see you for the first time today. They have a perfect memory of all your orders of the past 20 years. They'll often even know what family members have bought recently. I don't believe they couldn't make you spend more money if they showed you an ad for the brand name your wife loves.

Regnore 4y ago

My favourite example of this is when I get ads for something that I’ve just recently purchased and clearly no person would want more than one of. Just bought a waffle maker? Why not buy another identical one? Never know when you’re going to need a backup right?

luckylion 4y ago
I'd totally understand that when you're returning the waffle maker and they're like "hey, that one probably sucked, here are 12 others", but yeah, it's weird. And that's coming from a guy who absolutely does buy backups of the things he likes, because how would I survive if my electric foot warmer would die and I had to wait 4 days for a replacement?
- account42 4y ago
  Or worse than having to wait for the replacement, by the time you need to replace your favorite foot warmer the product has been discontinoued and all the available alternatives are worse or at least different enough that you have to spend time figuring out which one is best for you.

rchaud 4y ago

> And still their targeting is terrible. Why? Why not? Most Amazon search results for non-branded goods (towels, furniture, appliances) are going to feature identical products from Chinese companies with unmemorable, nonsensical names. They cannot differentiate on anything besides price, and search position, so Amazon may as well give the largest bidders top billing.

account42 4y ago
> products from Chinese companies with unmemorable, nonsensical names > They cannot differentiate on anything besides price, and search position I could think of many more things they could differentiate on. Or even let me filter explicitly. I can think of one thing in particular that would greatly improve the product targeting for me.
luckylion 4y ago
They might not be able to differentiate between the products, but they should know you, and they should know what you're most likely to buy. If they show ads but you don't click on them because they weren't relevant to you, they've failed. At least they ought to know whether you'll buy Chinese brands like HNWERZ or will prefer a household name you'll recognize. Essentially, they should be better than a great sales person in a regular store. You tell them what you're looking for "towels", and they'll show you some and quickly reiterate based on your feedback. Amazon has lots of advantages over a human sales person: they don't see you for the first time today. They have a perfect memory of all your orders of the past 20 years. They'll often even know what family members have bought recently. I don't believe they couldn't make you spend more money if they showed you an ad for the brand name your wife loves.