4 ms·

I feel like Amazon search is one of the worst products I've ever used. It is a clusterf/ck of paid advertisements and obviously gamed results. I don't care how

I feel like Amazon search is one of the worst products I've ever used. It is a clusterf/ck of paid advertisements and obviously gamed results. I don't care how many requests/sec you get. If the results are horrible, what does it matter?

wombat-man 3y ago
'chaos' is a great way to describe the results, to be fair.
- latchkey 3y ago
  technically they said 'chaos engineering'... which obviously means they use monkeys slapping their hands on keyboards to write the code that returns the results.
beebmam 3y ago
I'm sick of it being impossible to identify cheaply made products from high quality, durable products on Amazon. The rating system is flat out broken and there's an entire industry built around gaming those ratings. I'm at the point that I rarely ever buy products on Amazon anymore. It's a total disgrace. On an ethical level, I wish I had the ability to say "I only want to be presented with results that weren't made in China or other slave societies".
- digging 3y ago
  These days it should be assumed that the quality of anything bought on Amazon is dogshit. Which, even though I canceled Prime years ago for ethical reasons, is honestly the biggest reason I won't even click an Amazon link.
- baz00 3y ago
  The trick is to find your products somewhere else and then look them up on Amazon for a price comparison.
- amzthrow 3y ago
  I understand how you feel. It can be frustrating. Contrary to popular belief Amazon actually does put energy into making sure products are responsibly sourced. Products are de-listed if they’re found to come from unethical sources. To take that even further take a look at Climate Pledge Friendly. Those are products with (at least one) third party certification. These certifications don’t just further climate goals. Social responsibility is also considered. Including worker conditions and product durability. You can filter search results by this attribute. Admittedly it can be hard to filter for specific certifications. https://www.amazon.com/b?node=21221607011 https://www.amazon.com/b?node=21221607011
  - NoPicklez 3y ago
    Buying from ethical sources is great, but that doesn't mean those products aren't crap either
    - amzthrow 3y ago
      Take a look at the certifications. It’s a signal.
  - nijave 3y ago
    Amazon can simultaneously do due diligence on a subset of products while completely ignoring the rampant fraud and knockoffs of many other products.
  - beebmam 3y ago
    A giant portion of Amazon's products are made in China by a populace that's enslaved by their totalitarian dictator. Please allow me to identify which products are made in China, and other communist/totalitarian states, so that I can exclude them from my searches.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
  Is that Amazon’s fault? So many once reputable brands have been MBAed to death and are now indistinguishable from the bottom tier garbage. It is near impossible to do real product research on anything, anywhere.
  - nijave 3y ago
    Surely a company with the resources of Amazon can determine fake reviews from real ones. Especially those bait-and-switch where the product is changed and half the reviews aren't even for the current listing.
xnx 3y ago
Is there any alternative front end for Amazon? AI with some image-similarity smarts could do a much better job grouping/de-duping similar products.
- tkahnoski 3y ago
  This would be awesome... When I'm in a rabbit hole trying to find a product and I see three or four of roughly the same design I know not to bother any further unless I can find a reliable manufacturer website.
RockRobotRock 3y ago
Working as intended.
- waynesonfire 3y ago
  source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-changed-search-algorithm-in-ways-that-boost-its-own-products-11568645345 https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-changed-search-algorithm...
yazaddaruvala 3y ago
Disclaimer: Used to work at Amazon. Funny story, internally Amazon Search doesn't consider the ads products to be part of the "search results". It is tracked and accounted to Ads. The way Ads are handled on Amazon is really poorly done. The Ads teams claim to make a lot of money (and based on the internal accounting tricks they do), and as such have been pushing Amazon's leadership to go more into Ads, even tho every person I've met that worked at Amazon also hated the prevalence of Ads. Literally, Directors and VPs at Amazon are afraid to step on the toes of Ads' leadership team because of how well they have told the story about "Ads is excessively profitable". Meanwhile, all of us in the thread can easily say, even if it is short term profitable, it most certainly is not long term profitable for Amazon. Both from internally and externally it has been very disappointing to watch actually.
- acchow 3y ago
  Sure the ads aren’t great. But that’s almost barely a problem compared to the gamed reviews
  - SteveNuts 3y ago
    > But that’s almost barely a problem compared to the gamed reviews Which pales in comparison to the problem of counterfeit goods, IMO. I can at least somewhat comb through the reviews to look for outliers of well written reviews. Getting something that's obviously a fake (has happened to me multiple times) is completely unacceptable. Newegg has this issue too, I got a knock-off Intel CPU there once, I was furious.
    - wincy 3y ago
      What the heck, what does a knock off Intel CPU even look like? Who is making them and more importantly, how?
      - NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
        It's more like: old being sold as new, engineering samples sold as production parts, relabelling lower spec parts as higher spec on the packages etc.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

wombat-man 3y ago

'chaos' is a great way to describe the results, to be fair.

latchkey 3y ago
technically they said 'chaos engineering'... which obviously means they use monkeys slapping their hands on keyboards to write the code that returns the results.

beebmam 3y ago

I'm sick of it being impossible to identify cheaply made products from high quality, durable products on Amazon. The rating system is flat out broken and there's an entire industry built around gaming those ratings. I'm at the point that I rarely ever buy products on Amazon anymore. It's a total disgrace. On an ethical level, I wish I had the ability to say "I only want to be presented with results that weren't made in China or other slave societies".

digging 3y ago
These days it should be assumed that the quality of anything bought on Amazon is dogshit. Which, even though I canceled Prime years ago for ethical reasons, is honestly the biggest reason I won't even click an Amazon link.
baz00 3y ago
The trick is to find your products somewhere else and then look them up on Amazon for a price comparison.
amzthrow 3y ago
I understand how you feel. It can be frustrating. Contrary to popular belief Amazon actually does put energy into making sure products are responsibly sourced. Products are de-listed if they’re found to come from unethical sources. To take that even further take a look at Climate Pledge Friendly. Those are products with (at least one) third party certification. These certifications don’t just further climate goals. Social responsibility is also considered. Including worker conditions and product durability. You can filter search results by this attribute. Admittedly it can be hard to filter for specific certifications. https://www.amazon.com/b?node=21221607011 https://www.amazon.com/b?node=21221607011
- NoPicklez 3y ago
  Buying from ethical sources is great, but that doesn't mean those products aren't crap either
  - amzthrow 3y ago
    Take a look at the certifications. It’s a signal.
- nijave 3y ago
  Amazon can simultaneously do due diligence on a subset of products while completely ignoring the rampant fraud and knockoffs of many other products.
- beebmam 3y ago
  A giant portion of Amazon's products are made in China by a populace that's enslaved by their totalitarian dictator. Please allow me to identify which products are made in China, and other communist/totalitarian states, so that I can exclude them from my searches.
0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
Is that Amazon’s fault? So many once reputable brands have been MBAed to death and are now indistinguishable from the bottom tier garbage. It is near impossible to do real product research on anything, anywhere.
- nijave 3y ago
  Surely a company with the resources of Amazon can determine fake reviews from real ones. Especially those bait-and-switch where the product is changed and half the reviews aren't even for the current listing.

xnx 3y ago

Is there any alternative front end for Amazon? AI with some image-similarity smarts could do a much better job grouping/de-duping similar products.

tkahnoski 3y ago
This would be awesome... When I'm in a rabbit hole trying to find a product and I see three or four of roughly the same design I know not to bother any further unless I can find a reliable manufacturer website.

RockRobotRock 3y ago

Working as intended.

waynesonfire 3y ago
source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-changed-search-algorithm-in-ways-that-boost-its-own-products-11568645345 https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-changed-search-algorithm...

yazaddaruvala 3y ago

Disclaimer: Used to work at Amazon. Funny story, internally Amazon Search doesn't consider the ads products to be part of the "search results". It is tracked and accounted to Ads. The way Ads are handled on Amazon is really poorly done. The Ads teams claim to make a lot of money (and based on the internal accounting tricks they do), and as such have been pushing Amazon's leadership to go more into Ads, even tho every person I've met that worked at Amazon also hated the prevalence of Ads. Literally, Directors and VPs at Amazon are afraid to step on the toes of Ads' leadership team because of how well they have told the story about "Ads is excessively profitable". Meanwhile, all of us in the thread can easily say, even if it is short term profitable, it most certainly is not long term profitable for Amazon. Both from internally and externally it has been very disappointing to watch actually.

acchow 3y ago
Sure the ads aren’t great. But that’s almost barely a problem compared to the gamed reviews
- SteveNuts 3y ago
  > But that’s almost barely a problem compared to the gamed reviews Which pales in comparison to the problem of counterfeit goods, IMO. I can at least somewhat comb through the reviews to look for outliers of well written reviews. Getting something that's obviously a fake (has happened to me multiple times) is completely unacceptable. Newegg has this issue too, I got a knock-off Intel CPU there once, I was furious.
  - wincy 3y ago
    What the heck, what does a knock off Intel CPU even look like? Who is making them and more importantly, how?
    - NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
      It's more like: old being sold as new, engineering samples sold as production parts, relabelling lower spec parts as higher spec on the packages etc.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]