If I’m looking for headphones, wouldn’t it be more logical to start on Amazon?

It’s not like Amazon is a site that people haven’t heard of. It’s the 4th most trafficked site in the US.

Personally, Amazon is where I go to check prices after I've decided what it is I'm buying. I've never gone to Amazon without knowing exactly what I wanted.

Your experience doesn’t jibe with market realities. Merchants play all sort of games to be the number one listed search result when you are searching for something generic like “headphones”.

Who actually searches for such a short tail term and expects good results? Does anyone ever google the term “cars” when they want to buy a car? More likely it’s a term like “8 seat SUV” or something more focused. Maybe headphones are different though..

And the first non advertising link is car.com where I can search for specific cars. Now Google has lost a customer and car.com has gained one. Now I can advertise on car.com and get a much better targeted advertising.

I never start a product search on Amazon unless I know the exact product I want. With headphones, I’d be likely to care about reviews in audiophile magazines long before I’d enter the noise of Amazon. I don’t generally use Amazon for product discovery, but except perhaps for paper books and I want related titles to something.

As long as your happy paying a premium in many cases for consistency. Certainly a lot of the marketplace stuff can be found outside of Amazon for cheaper as the merchant has an extra 15% to play with gong direct.

Most people are happy to pay a premium for the convenience - as evidenced by all of the third party merchants who sell on Amazon even though setting up a website to sell merchandise is trivial even for someone who knows nothing about websites.

I just searched for “buy new headphones” on Google with my ad blocker turned off.

It showed ads where I could get headphones from different web sites - where neither I nor most people have an account.

What’s more likely? That I am going to register for an account on “Under Armour” - the first site that appeared or that I’m going to go to Amazon where they already have all of my information,I’m an Amazon Prime customer and where I have one-click activated?

If Under Armour were smart they would have web based Apple Pay payments available to reduce friction.

I think the clear answer is it's not for you. Part of the reason behind selling through other channels is to capture people like you: you (and me for most things) would rather shop through Amazon than a retailer.

Retail vs. online is a prime example of channel selling. Some people prefer to try on things or are so brand loyal that they're blind to other retailers.

To speak to this from data:

3 out of 4 people searching "buy new headphones" will buy a product on amazon.com

On Google ads, you're lucky if one quarter of your clicks convert into anything.

Advertisers are choosing amazon because people on amazon are 1 click away from transacting. Google just can't compete there for eCommerce.

Now, on home services and virtually everything else Amazon falls short, but for direct to consumer eCommerce they win hands down.

Yup. Amazon also has the advantage of dark UI patterns; they put sponsored listings inline with normal product results in the exact same style. I'm the (probably atypical) sort of person who will deliberately not click on a sponsored listing even if it seems the most relevant, and I still regularly click sponsored items on Amazon by accident. I back out if I notice this, but I'm sure I've bought a few products this way. These seem like very effective ads to me.

Arguing that an incumbent business is impossible to disrupt in a large market seems like an odd thing to do on the forum of YC, an accelerator that pretty much specialises in supporting startups that disrupt large markets and topple incumbent businesses.

Not that Amazon is a startup exactly, but they certainly act like one a lot of the time.

There's something to be said for the expectation vs reality PR creep factor.

People searching on Google (or checking in on friends and family on Facebook) or browsing the Internet don't expect their history to be mined for advertisements.

People browsing on Amazon have already signaled their intent to shop.

And if Facebook is advertising tech related merchandise based on me putting that I am a developer in my profile, it’s a straight line from A to B that wouldn’t creep me out.