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55 Percent Of Online Shoppers Start Their Product Searches On Amazon (recode.net)
Another year, another data point showing Amazon has surpassed Google as the default search engine for shopping, a report on Recode reads. Fifty-five percent of people in the U.S. now start their online shopping trips on Amazon.com, according to results from a 2,000-person survey commissioned by the e-commerce startup BloomReach. That stat marks a 25 percent increase from the same survey last year, when 44 percent of online shoppers said they turned to Amazon first. From the report: Over the same time, the percentage of shoppers who start product searches on search engines like Google dropped from 34 percent to 28 percent. The number of online shoppers who check out a retailer's website (other than Amazon) first also shrunk, from 21 percent to 16 percent.
Im going to check the place with free shipping first.
...until it comes time to try and obtain a movie legally.
Why cant I buy an mp4? I HAVE TO watch it through the Amazon Viewer? No, I don't want a DVD, I just want to pay for a video file that I can pull up on my computer whenever I want to watch.... why can't I... ARGHGH!!!
I'm off to the torrents.
I want to find a MAX7219 display multiplexer chip. Where do I look? Amazon. I can get several of those chips, including shipping, for the price that Adafruit charges for a single chip. Drawback: have to wait several weeks for them to arrive, probably from China. But if I'm not in a rush, no problem.
Want 7-seg LED displays? Some other kinds of chips? Breadboards? Test instruments? I mean obscure things that most soccer moms don't order -- Amazon has it.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Amazon is only free shipping if you're prime. (and if you're prime you're paying a whopping $100 a year in most cases).
Whether or not the Prime fees are a good deal depends on how much you shop on Amazon. Last year I ordered 155 packages from Amazon which were delivered via Prime. That means my per-parcel shipping cost was $0.65 each. That's barely more than a first class stamp. That is a good price by any reasonable measure.
There really is no such thing as "free" shipping. Either the shipping is rolled into the cost of the product you are buying or you pay for it separately but either way you are still paying for the shipping.
I usually don't go to Amazon first when shopping for items, but only because it is easier to type the product into Google and follow the Amazon link I find in the results, with is almost always Amazon if they offer the product. I wonder if that counts as going to Amazon first or not.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Amazon provides a good benchmark for prices, and has useful reviews. It's a reasonable place to start.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This makes perfect sense. Google sucks for finding products to buy, but that is exactly what Amazon does. The Google Shopping option basically shows stuff from those who pay to be listed, severely limiting what you can find. When 99 times out of a 100 you can search on Google only to find the same thing on Amazon for less money, well you'd be a fool to keep going back to Google.
Watch for a merger...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I check amazon first because they have more product reviews than anywhere else. For me, it's the reviews, not always the price or shipping rate, that get me to buy something.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I still use search engines to look for retailers other than Amazon to buy stuff, because I like to give the little guy some business.
But nowadays it seems like Amazon is ALL there is for many products that I want. Either Amazon is driving many businesses out of business, or it is doing a great job completely dominating search engine results for several different search engines.
This makes using it an inconvenience so I never use it
love is just extroverted narcissism
So what about other countries in the world? I know US thinks "we're #1" but since when are they the barometer against which all the worlds spending is compared? Is all online shopping in the world done in the United States? I hardly think so... I'd be interested to know if that 55% is the same in Canada, or China. I'd wager no.
And the hands down best search engine for porn is still Bing ! Go ahead and try it. You'll see what I mean.
http://www.dailydot.com/debug/bing-porn-search-engine/
I usually hit Amazon early for two reasons
a) They often have product spec sheets that I can look up.
b) It gives me a basis for comparison.
However I've noticed that for a lot of stuff their pricing algo's lately are way out of whack, especially for older stuff. For example, a slightly older video card which is going for $100 on eBay or stores (where available) is listed on Amazon at $2500, presumably because they're harder to come by but there's still some demand. For $2500 I could build a whole rig including the latest gen card.
Not that others aren't a mess as well. I regularly see people caught up in eBay bids for used stuff that exceeds the price I could buy it new.
Funny, I always shop elsewhere before hitting Amazon, even though I'm a Prime member and will (probably) get it from Amazon.
IIRC there was an issue some years ago about how Amazon would check your system for recent cookies from other shopping sites (like bn.com), offering better prices on the fly if it appeared you'd been shopping around. Dunno if it is still true, but really with internet shopping there's no good reason NOT to do some decent price-comparison if it's something of any great value.
-Styopa
But then the 80's came, and they wanted their store back.
I check amazon prime, ebay, amazon non prime and then google search. (and if i'm really desperate bing) in that order
and yes I mean google search google shopping has been worthless ever since they switched to promoted listings.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Prime is mostly a scam anyway.
Hardly. Prime is a perfectly reasonable deal and given its popularity a lot of people (myself included) find it to be good value for money. Maybe it doesn't suit your needs but it doesn't remotely fit the definition of a scam for many of us.
For the longest time, delivery times from Amazon for nearly everything was 2-3 days (in Europe), with some deliveries actually happening the next day.
I cannot speak for Europe but in the US even non-Prime orders usually arrive in 2-4 business days. Probably about 15% of what I order through Amazon isn't eligible for Prime and most of that arrives considerably before the estimated delivery date. Mostly it just depends on where it is shipping from. Stuff that ships within a single state radius usually arrives in 1-2 business days. Stuff from the opposite coast might take as long as 4-5 business days to receive. Even when I use Amazon's "No Rush" delivery it still tends to arrive within 4-5 business days.
Either Amazon is driving many businesses out of business, or it is doing a great job completely dominating search engine results for several different search engines.
It's a bit of both. Amazon is definitely the 800lb gorilla of ecommerce. Even companies like Walmart are having a hard time dealing with them. And to be honest Amazon has earned their place. Honestly I do most of my shopping there these days because there isn't anything else remotely as convenient in most cases. They have the best selection, usually reasonable prices, excellent customer service, and checkout is a breeze. With Prime their shipping costs are very reasonable as well. I seldom have to go to a physical store anymore and that suits me just fine because that generally is a waste of my time. I really only shop locally for groceries, certain specialty items, and if I need something quicker than 2 days.
I also buy stuff for my company through Amazon. I used to get office supplies from Staples but they try to charge absurd prices and make me clip coupons. Amazon just charges a reasonable price up front and no hassle. Toner through Amazon for our printers is about 30% cheaper than at Staples.
Mind you it's not very good, includes a lot of stuff relevant to one of your search terms but irrelevant to your search because it lacks another keyword, and is missing a lot of options like being able to sort the results by rating but exclude the things with just 1-2 reviews.
Google Shopping used to be better, but about 1-2 years ago they redid the format of the search results page. Clicking on the name of the search result used to give you the list of all stores which sold the item. Now both it and the "Shop" button send you directly to the first vendor selling the item (probably the one which paid Google the most). To get the list, you now have to click the little text that says "Compare prices". And some time this year the search results stopped being a spot-on match for your search terms. Putting terms in quotes no longer excludes results which don't have that term, so the results page is as polluted with irrelevant results as Amazon's search results.
Amazon also has better sort options for the reviews. Their "most helpful review" system really helps filter out the crappy two-word reviews and bring the thorough ones up to the top. Google Shopping's reviews are aggregated from multiple sources, and only recently have they begun to allow you to view reviews only from certain sources. It's aggravating enough that I do my initial search on Amazon, then do a price comparison search on Google Shopping. A lot of useful third party services like camelcamelcamel and fakespot also tie in to the Amazon reviews.
Newegg still has the best shopping search engine IMHO. But they only sell tech stuff.
Since I got it I did find I start hitting Amazon first but I still look elsewhere as Amazon is not necessarily the cheapest location
Amazon is not always the cheapest but they usually are the most convenient in my experience. Generally their prices are competitive but if you need rock bottom pricing you can usually do better if you are willing to put in the time. For much of what I buy Amazon's prices are good enough that it isn't worth the extra time to save just a little extra. I'm fully aware that I'm paying for this convenience and generally I'm ok with that.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People may also want to check the place with more reviews. Its part of researching the product to decide if one even wants to buy.
Home > Apparel & Accessories > Jewelry > Rings
Amazon or Newegg to see the product and reviews.
If I'm not in a hurry, aliexpress; otherwise A or N usually has the best price.
But I do agree with the other poster--Amazon has gotten very tricky in the past few years.
You have to dig to make sure you get the right price.
Also the default free shipping option seems to come and go.
I've gotten burned a couple times at checkout, then have to cancel the order.
If I catch it soon enough, start the checkout process again. as there's no "backup" as you are herded down the checkout chute to the killing floor.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I used to use Amazon a lot, but their site is just so damn slow. More and more of my purchases have been on other sites. Amazon has slowly worn me down with their bad website. Shopping on other sites, I've also noticed Amazon doesn't have as wide a range of products like I thought it did. Sure you can find almost everything there, but there's only a few of each type. More specific sites have more choices.
If you do use Amazon, please use smile.amazon.com to support a charity. If you can't remember, get a browser plug-in that redirects you.
Apart from some furniture and decorations, Amazon has little competition for convenience, shipping, and customer service. Whenever something goes wrong, I'm always amazed how quickly and easily they fix it.
I do still use Wayfair and Overstock for some of above two categories, though. For whatever reason, Amazon still has much smaller selection there.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
I often go to amazon because it's a good database of general consumer and media products. Product pages have good links and info, and good discussions attached.
Amazon's 'near' searches - Like also bought, and often bought with, can give you lots of good alternatives to what you're looking for.
Similarly for tech stuff, Newegg will 95% of the time will have better technical info and photos than the actual product manufacturer's web page.
Some things are still better with curation. Product searches that are algorithmic are gamed to the point where they only offer crap and noise. Ever tried to click on the shopping link for a google search? Complete waste of time.
Because I like their review system. I've avoided a lot of "lemon" products by reading reviews first.
I've noticed that a lot of "Prime Eligible" items are priced higher than the exact same item from a different merchant that is not eligible. So you're paying a subscription and paying more for the item still.
You're paying for the convenience of being able to get it in 2 days. You can get cheaper prices than Amazon offers in a lot of cases. The question is how much is it worth to you to spend the time looking? Sometimes it's worth it. Sometimes not so much. Generally I'll take a good price with excellent convenience over a great price with lots of hassle any day unless we are talking about an amount of money large enough that the number involves a comma.
that also 55% of all statistics are made up.
I only seem to use Newegg first when I have a specific idea of a type of computer parts, but I don't have a specific brand or anything in mind. They seem to organize their stuff and sort it based on more technical matters. On Amazon I can sort which internal M.2 SSD I want by color, but that's not always what I'm looking for.
I even complained to Bezos' personal email about this saying that this attacks Amazon's most valuable asset. They just don't care.
Everytime I see ""I received this product at a discount in exchange for my unbiased review" I die a little. Such a great service being ruined.
As near as I can tell, Google isn't indexing (or at least sharing results for) product pages -- specific products, digital goods, or services listed for sale within a online shopping cart's catalog. So if you're looking to buy something, Google is largely worthless. It's much more likely to show reviews than items for actual sale, as near as I cant tell. Meanwhile, I know developers who are now listing products in regular blog posts (with single Paypal buttons included), in order to try to get those products to show up in Google.