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New Parents Complain Amazon Baby-Registry Ads Are Deceptive (wsj.com)
Unwanted gifts arrive after friends click on promotions tucked into wish lists. From a report: Kima Nieves recently received two Aveeno bath-time sets and a box of Huggies diapers through her baby registry on Amazon. The only problem? The new mother didn't ask for the products, or even want them. Instead, Johnson & Johnson and Kimberly-Clark each paid Amazon.com hefty sums to place those sponsored products onto Ms. Nieves's and other consumers' baby registries. The ads look identical to the rest of the listed products in the registry, except for a small gray "Sponsored" tag. Unsuspecting friends and family clicked on the ads and purchased the items, assuming Ms. Nieves had chosen them. "Very sneaky," said the 28-year-old health-care analyst from Fredericksburg, Va. "That's friends' and family's money going somewhere we didn't approve of."
Amazon in recent years has charged into advertising, building the third-largest digital ad business in the U.S. after Alphabet's Google and Facebook, according to eMarketer. Its ad revenue is on pace to double this year, to $5.8 billion, eMarketer estimates. As Amazon has monetized more space on its website, shoppers are increasingly encountering sponsored ads. Amazon is "starting to see how far they can push things," said Harry Brignull, a U.K.-based consultant who specializes in spotting web-design tactics that get people to click on something. Amazon's sponsored ads have appeared in its baby registries for more than a year. Responding to a Wall Street Journal inquiry about the ads, an Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment on criticism that the ads are deceptive, but said the retailer is now phasing out the sponsored listings. "We're constantly experimenting with new ways to improve the shopping experiences for customers," she said.
Amazon in recent years has charged into advertising, building the third-largest digital ad business in the U.S. after Alphabet's Google and Facebook, according to eMarketer. Its ad revenue is on pace to double this year, to $5.8 billion, eMarketer estimates. As Amazon has monetized more space on its website, shoppers are increasingly encountering sponsored ads. Amazon is "starting to see how far they can push things," said Harry Brignull, a U.K.-based consultant who specializes in spotting web-design tactics that get people to click on something. Amazon's sponsored ads have appeared in its baby registries for more than a year. Responding to a Wall Street Journal inquiry about the ads, an Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment on criticism that the ads are deceptive, but said the retailer is now phasing out the sponsored listings. "We're constantly experimenting with new ways to improve the shopping experiences for customers," she said.
if they were smarter they'd make them add-on bundle products, clearly marketed as such (perhaps w a special discount, as this would encourage gifters to add-on the products and get the new parents hooked on them)
mainlining the sponsored products among parent-selected ones is very shortsighted and likely to lead to anger, because a registry should be a "trusted" information source
Former Amazon employee in marketing research... Not surprised at all.
Kima Nieves recently received two Aveeno bath-time sets and a box of Huggies diapers through her baby registry on Amazon. The only problem? The new mother didn't ask for the products, or even want them.
Not only that, she didn't make a baby registry on amazon, never even had a baby and wasn't even a woman! ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
>> Registries are deceptive to people buying crap for new parents
Buy your own stuff |
Avoid problems with registries |
Millennials wreck everything |
Burma Shave!
Amazon could have only done better here if they were also pushing their supply of counterfeit or grey-market crap (since they've offloaded > %50 of their merchandise to unaccountable "3rd party" sellers). HEY LADY! You had a baby? We helped you out by adding some deceptive-I-mean-sponsored ads in your registry for fake formula, complete with melamine!
Canâ(TM)t be assed to put any thought or effort into baby shower shopping. Just log onto amazon, click mindlessly away and then be surprised when you bought stuff you didnâ(TM)t intend to.
SAD.
Return the unwanted items and buy what you actually wanted.
Not indicating paid advertisements as such is unacceptable.
I cancelled my Amazon account two years after they not once, but twice, tried to sign me up for Amzon prime by the use of a sneaky checkbox placed on the order form which was so small and inconspicuous I didn;t spot it was pre checked when making an rder..
Even though they do have some great bargains that co-workers occasionally alert me to I've not felt compelled to use them since and will never do so again. If they were the very last shop on earth I'd live off bush tucker.
Sorry I'm not dealing with a company without morals or ethics.
It doesn't necessarily follow that they were intending to be deceptive. Maybe they were just copying everything else on the internet.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
To me the worst part of the whole thing is not that the person received something they did not want - it's that someone meaning to buy them something they did want was tricked into buying something they did not. :-(
It's a way to turn a nice gesture into a crappy experience. So even if you can return something it taints the whole reason to have a registry, at a time when you have no free time to worry about things like returns.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'd expect that if three people with a total IQ of over 60 had sat down and thought about it for five minutes they'd have concluded that this was a bad idea.
Unsupervised millenials again.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Since the FTC is cracking down on social media ads not being clearly marked as such. I'd suspect Amazon will be contacted by them shortly. Even though Amazon did mark them as ads, I expect the FTC will be coming out with new rules specifying what "clearly marked" means.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
That's one of the main reasons I stopped shopping at Amazon: it's all so deceptive.
Their search results are cluttered with ads. On top of that they don't even show me what I'm searching for. Instead they try to upsell me more expensive shit. The same damn ad often gets repeated on every page of the search results ... sometimes multiple times on the same freaking page. I have to skip over all these ads. You are actively wasting my time while I try to spend money with you! Fuck that!
They are one of the worst companies I have encountered. Their products are scented (which is not good for baby skin), and clearly marketed at the grandparent generation. Without them, the world would be a better place, where maybe you could buy actually useful and healthy baby products.
Everyone is getting upset over the ad concept, but the reality is that the Amazon "store" is poorly designed. The fact that the UI pops a sponsored link in the middle of the visual area should be a giant red flag to any retailer in the world.
It's what happens when an MBA comes in and make suggestions that while technically valid and short term boosts, the long term effect is not positive.
--WooooHoooo--
Not to be one of those 'slippery slope' guys, but if Amazon thinks its OK to add items to people's baby registeries, other gift lists and wedding registeries are sure to follow. Newly married couples will find undersired items bought for them by mistake, and Christmas will be awkward getting the lastest Taylor Swift CD when it wasn't asked for. If Amazon wants to add a clearly marked off "Other Suggested Items" section where companies can pay for space, that's one thing, but to use subtle marking and place items in the actual list is deceptive.
I would love a filter that simply blocked *all* "sponsored" content.
I don't have a problem with ads that don't blink/move/bleat, don't slow my page loading, and don't track me. I've *never* blocked anything just for being an ad, even in the junkbuster era.
But sponsored results are something I never considered, so eliminating them would save me effort.
hawk
The story indicates that companies sold additional product with this clever method. Obviously it was a great idea.
to steal from our customers.
"if they were smarter they'd make them add-on bundle products, ..."
Exactly! I'm seeing many, many examples of Amazon managers not being smart.
It is VERY important to recognize ALL of the abusiveness of Amazon. Only a small part of that is mentioned here, in this re-post of a former comment, with added information:
My opinion: Jeff Bezos is not a sufficiently capable manager. Evidence: Look at any Amazon web page. As you are researching some product that is interesting, you are often distracted by other products. One fix: Put any distractions at the bottom of the page. There are many other shortcomings of the Amazon web site.
A few of the stories about Amazon being abusive:
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace. (New York Times, Aug. 15, 2015)
Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."
Amazon warehouse jobs push workers to physical limit (Seattle Times, April 3, 2012)
Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (Salon.com, Feb. 23, 2014)
Amazon paid no US income taxes for 2017 (SeattlePI, Feb. 27, 2018)
Undercover author finds Amazon warehouse workers in UK 'peed in bottles' over fears of being punished for taking a break (Business Insider, April 16, 2018)
The undercover author who discovered Amazon warehouse workers were peeing in bottles tells us the culture was like a 'prison' (Business Insider, April 18, 2018)
Amazon Gets Tax Breaks While Its Employees Rely on Food Stamps, New Data Shows (The Intercept, April 19, 2018)
Quote: "Though the company now employs 200,000 people in the United States, many of its workers are not making enough money to put food on the table."
Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany (bloomberg.com, Feb 19, 2013)
Quote from the Wikipedia page for Jeff Bezos. (Nov. 29, 2018):
"Journalist Nellie Bowles of The New York Times has described the public persona and personality of Bezos as that of 'a brilliant but mysterious and coldblooded corporate titan'. During the 1990s, Bezos earned a reputation for relentlessly pushing Amazon forward, often at the expense of public charity and social welfare."
In my opinion, Bezos is not "briliant". No one who is habitually abusive can be called brilliant; his abusiveness damages the quality of his own life.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns Blue Origin.. Blue Origin does NOT now have the capability of orbiting the earth. Would you fly into space with a company owned by someone who makes huge mistakes and doesn't detect them?
"We're constantly experimenting with new ways to improve the shopping experiences for customers," she said.
How about improving the feedback experiences for customers by letting them interact with the people responsible for such shopping experiences in a gratifying manner?
So, does anyone know of any good, independent wish list services we can use instead of Amazon? Prefereably ones that don't partake in this kind of skulduggery!
"We're constantly experimenting with new ways to improve the shopping experiences for customers,"
There aren't enough "fuck off"s in the world to reply to that adequately
American corporations have a right to free speech just like any other individual.
Now we know how the sex doll wound up on that Ohio street.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
If you RTFA, you'll see the screenshot which shows that the ad looks identical to the baby registry items, except for the grey "sponsored" text, including the "0/1 Purchased" bit which can only be meant to deceive, since it indicates someone has requested some number of this item.
Anyway, I've been bugged by this practice for a while. When you're scrolling through the results, you can't quickly pick out the ads from the real results without reading each item. If you have the Stylish browser extension, you can add the following rules to better highlight which items are ads. I just change colors to make them obvious, but I you could make them invisible if you wish:
color: #f00 !important;
font-weight: bold !important;
}
color: #ddd;
background-color: #ffa;
}
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
Where are the mods? Why is this only at +2?
What the fuck. Isn't this the textbook definition of fraud?
I am trying to use their wish list to send gift ideas to my family. I found a book I want for $13.55. I added it to my wish list, it seems to work. But later I went back to see my list, and the book was there, but the cost was $20.99. Another book that I chose was higher too. Try it for yourself. Add this book to your wish list, then look at your wish list. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/pr... My family will buy the more expensive book for me.