Amazon search

hippietim

hippietim

Axe-Master
Is it just me or is their search getting worse and worse?

For instance, I was looking for some uncommon USB cables and I was very specific about the connectors. I got one reasonable result and then a dozen pages of everything but what I want. Google and Bing both gave better results.

I was searching for a very specific Fender part and was very specific about the name and I selected Music Instruments as the starting point. The results were for all of Amazon and I could not filter to just MI - literally clicking on Musical Instruments would redirect back to searching all of Amazon.

Etc
 
Amazon's search is horrible. I frequently receive results totally unrelated to what I was looking for. Search for a potato and receive a tomato.
 
Their entire model is now based on buying massive amounts of knock-off crap from a China and pushing that forward in your results. For instance the PS4/PC compatible Thrustmaster racing wheel i was looking for was buried in dozens upon dozens of Chinese knockoff of the same category of product. Even a search for the specific brand was buried because they put Thrustmaster in the title of their far cheaper product. I needed to replace my Gen 1 Apple Pencil (smashed the old one in a fall from a table). Again, dozens of knockoffs at 30% the price of the real deal.
 
Yes, its gotten almost useless. And if you use the filters on the left side the results often have nothing to do with what you started out looking for.
 
it's infuriating!!! just end up with all the sponsored ads they want you to see and you maybe find what you searched for on page 9 if you're lucky
 
Yeah Amazon's search is crap. It's surprisingly difficult to find specific items sometimes. The whole marketplace setup can be a pain too. You have to be careful about who is actually fulfilling the order. Some have crazy lead times and shipping rates. I stick to Prime items as much as possible.
 
It’s not 100% useless. I was able to find the CPU I wanted for $50 bucks less than Newegg who didn’t have it in stock anyway (vice versa for the motherboard, actually). So, not the worst yet.
 
I have gotten to the point that I have a handful of things that are hard or impossoble to find locally that I get there thru the subscribe and save plan, and only look on Amazon for things that I absolutely cannot find anywhere else. I'll deal with Guitar Center over Amazon if that shows how bad Amazon is getting.
 
I have no issues with the search because I only buy brand name stuff from them. I learned a while back that it's easier to do a "normal" google search and usually Amazon is in the results. I check to see if it's really what I wanted.. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.
The worst search I have come across is Sweetwater. If you dare misspell a word the search engine has no answer.
A good tech company will put the misspellings in there, but not Sweetwater. How dumb is that. Lose a customer because he or she spelled Gibson like this- Gibsen? Amazon is like that pretty much also. Just dumb. We always added the most common misspellings when I was in the biz-always.
 
steadystate said:
The only thing worse than their search is their sort.
Click to expand...
The filters actually help. The first thing I do is hit Prime, then 4 Stars and up (eliminates a lot of the crap, gets me to things that have actually been bought and reviewed. Another key trick is to copy pasta actual nomenclature, part or model numbers into the search. NSN or SKU is good, too. ISBN also. So if you can find that with a google search, you’re good to go.
 
Another angle is that bulk sellers pay Amazon to shove their wares in front via the Fulfillment By Amazon mechanic, and Amazon isn’t in the not taking money business.
 
USMC_Trev said:
Another angle is that bulk sellers pay Amazon to shove their wares in front via the Fulfillment By Amazon mechanic, and Amazon isn’t in the not taking money business.
Click to expand...
There also are tons of people who stuff the reviews - it's an entire business model. They buy something, write a glowing review, and then get paid back for it. (and I'll assume there are also people who are paid to tank competitors' ratings by saying it broke right away, etc). You really can't trust the ratings at all any more. Again, Amazon won't do anything about it because they're moving product.
 
There searches my be crap but they sure are putting ma and pa out to pasture. Were guilty in my house also, my wife seems to be ordering stuff from them almost daily.
 
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