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Amazon is Stuffing Its Search Results Pages With Ads (recode.net)
If it feels like Amazon's site is increasingly stuffed with ads, that's because it is. And it looks like that's working -- at least for brands that are willing to fork over ad dollars as part of their strategy to sell on Amazon. From a report: Amazon-sponsored product ads have been around since 2012. But lately, as the company has invested in growing its advertising business, they've become more aggressive. See, for example, our search below for "cereal." The first three results, which take up the whole screen above the fold -- everything visible before you scroll -- are sponsored placements that appear as search results: Ads for Kellogg's Special K, Quaker Life and Cap'n Crunch. (It's similarly dramatic on mobile, where it takes up the entire first screen.) This is followed by a section featuring Amazon's own brand, 365 Everyday Value, which was part of its Whole Foods acquisition. Not until scrolling down halfway on the next browser "page" do organic search results -- non-paid, non-Amazon brands -- come up: Post's Honey Bunches of Oats and Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats and Frosted Flakes.
It has been bizarre searching for specific items and seeing the first results have nothing to do with the query, until you realize they're ads. It will be disappointing if we end up depending on Google's index of Amazon's pages to find items...
I've found the quality/ranking of amazon results to be TERRIBLE. I always do a google search when I want to find products on amazon.
"We" don't all live in the Carolinas, "We" don't all have skin in the game, "We" aren't all affected by it, and "We" don't all give a damn.
It may surprise you to learn this, but the world doesn't stop because there's a storm somewhere.
I've been to the Carolinas, nice place, nice people ... but my life is in no way impacted by this, and I'd rather every news source not be overtaken with breathless drama about things which don't impact me.
Did you run around shrieking like this when Japan was getting hit with a typhoon last week?
there are hardware stores out of plywood and generators and grocery stores out of bottled water and many food items and runs on gas stations, etc.
Obvious solution: Raise prices.
The higher prices will:
1. Ensure the products go to those that need them the most.
2. Penalize hoarding.
3. Eliminate queuing, so people can focus their time on other priorities.
4. Incentivize sellers to expedite new supplies so they can cash in.
5. Incentivize residents to prepare better next time.
The term for that is price gouging when it happens around the time of a natural disaster. Some price fluctuation is to be expected but there is a limit to what is appropriate.
Why? If you keep the price artificially low you stop the market's natural forces from preventing hording. The reason for price spikes in times of extreme scarcity is precisely to prevent hording.
Ummm... no. It goes to those who can afford them. Not everyone has an equal ability to pay and price gouging during a natural disaster is a dick move.
I have news for you: keeping prices artificially low doesn't help your hypothetical poor person, in fact it makes their plight even worse. Now rich people can afford to horde scarce supplies by purchasing 20 of them instead of 5. Now the poor person who might have been able to scrape up the money for the high prices doesn't even have that option. They have nothing.
You cannot legislate away human nature any more than you could make cars more efficient by outlawing friction. The only hope of placing some kind of constraints on human nature are to create checks and balances that tend to work in opposition to each other. In the market, that's supply and demand, which is moderated by pricing.
When you go into the store, you see a lot of items on endcaps of the aisles. They are highly visible. You see items on shelves at eye level and other items that are shelved high up or at the floor.
Why do you think some items are on endcaps, and some are shelved at eye-level as opposed to floor-level? That's right. Companies PAY to have their products placed at more desirable locations.
As you were saying, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads.
> Amazon search has been increasingly ignoring the input and just barfing out SPAM
Precisely. In the article they search for "Justin's peanut butter" because they want that specific item, but instead Amazon returns results for a bunch of Other peanut butters irrelevant to want the customer wants.
Just now I searched for "Bounty Basic towels" and instead I was hit with a bunch of brands I care nothing about. When I want cheap Basic Bounty, that's EXACTLY what I want.... not other junk,.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall