Even then it's borderline useless as when you search for the exact pair of trousers you want you'll now get other ranges, and dozens upon dozens of fake-brand cheap knockoffs.

When you do find the item, you'll find in amongst the "customers also looked at/bought" 4 or 5 other pages containing the exact same item. At different prices and stock levels. None of which showed up in the search you just did for that item.

It's completely broken and absurd.

I'm pretty sure I got factory seconds buying some jeans on Amazon recently. I got a pair where the waist size on the inside tag was different than the one on the outside tag, and another pair of relaxed fit jeans with a regular fit tag on them. I think they were authentic, they were just factory seconds that somebody bought to sell on Amazon.

You simply cannot buy clothes online. It's far too unreliable in every way. Even if they deliver what the advertise it's hard enough determining what size to buy when in person, the amount of work it takes to buy something int he right "size" online is astronomical. Easiest examples are shoes and pants. I can wear size 8.5 to size 11 shoes or 29 to 33 pants. These all fit the same.

I've found the exception to this is first-party webshops. For example, buying Patagonia gear from Patagonia.com is by far the easiest way. Their sizing is consistent across their line, and the website has a much better selection of colors and stock than any reseller does.

Yeah, that seems reasonable if you're unable to walk into a store. Even if the sizing is internally consistent it still seems difficult for a first time purchase though.

>now they're just an eBay clone selling cheap knockoffs trying to hide the fact.

I've moved almost all of my online purchases BACK to ebay actually because of this. At least ebay's trust system is easy to understand and harder to game than what amazon has in terms of reviews.

I'm interested to see if this is a trend, or if my circle of friends is an outlier.

I've switched to other independent online shops as I can usually find what I want. I just search for "buy 'something' uk" on duckduckgo and can always find a few good non-Amazon sellers.

I avoid Amazon as much as possible now since it's no longer possible to rely on their reviews and there are way too many results to be able to find one that's not fake or of extremely poor quality.

I'm starting to appreciate going to brick-and-mortar shops again and having the choice between only a dozen of good quality products, instead of thousands cheap barely usable ones.

Try "r:uk" instead of "uk" to set the region.

Same here. I either go to eBay or B&H. In eBay I can see at least quickly the seller rating. Amazon has just turned into a big mess.

Just so you know, B&H was years ahead of Amazon on warehouse worker abuse: http://www.boycottbnh.com/#a11y-abuse

Any tips for buying on eBay?

Filter by "New" and "Buy It Now" and eBay effectively becomes an Amazon clone. A better one, I think.

Also, the "daily deals" page is hand-filtered by eBay staff to guarantee no shady sellers.

B&H has been around forever. I bought a good pair of binoculars from them when I was a kid. My mom had to drive me to the store to get a money order so I could mail my order form to them. She thought I was crazy.

Yes, I still have and use the binoculars.

What's B&H?

An electronics store in NYC that delivers nationally and has a strong reputation for reliability and competitive pricing.

Electronics and photography mainly. https://www.bhphotovideo.com.

B&H or Adorama are really the only two places on the internet worth buying camera gear on. Any other place I have used I have gotten fake gear or gear that is not what was advertised (like the cheaper version of a lens for example).

Thank you so much for the shout-out, And for ongoing business.

Helen Oster Adorama Camera [email protected]

bhphotovideo.com

I've started to cross check my purchases with Ebay. Recently, I bought a case for my Kindle. A 3rd party company was selling the case on Amazon FBA for $5 more than they were selling it for on Ebay (free shipping, same company name, same product pictures).

...as someone that worked in and out of the used/remaindered book industry over the last 15 years as a developer. For a larger scale seller that is automated, has ship forwarding (bulk carrier to nearest BMC), it is significantly cheaper to sell on ebay now. You will pay $1 less on ebay for the same used book from us.

I've never really understood the search results in amazon or how anyone could even browse it without knowing the exact item they are looking for. Often the results it returns only has a tenuious link to what I searched for and it just feels like a list of what they have most of in stock that they want to flog off quickly.

The most frustrating experience I've had is attempting to buy anything that has add-ons or ancillary parts sold separately?

Want a phone? Here's 300 phone cases, which have the word 'phone' and are much cheaper! Want a left-angle USB to straight microUSB cord? Here's straight USB to left-turn micro, because those words are the same. And here are some right-angle options because most of the words are the same!

I understand that Amazon isn't indexing 100% of their items by hand, but the combination of no support for sophisticated search features and the failure to index even very popular product classes makes certain products essentially hopeless to buy.

Indeed. It has been common practice for PC parts to use Newegg's search and buy from Amazon, but lately Amazon's price hasn't actually been lower so you can eliminate one step.

Unfortunately Newegg also seems to have gone downhill. Allowing third party sellers is a good way to boost revenues quickly but it also quickly makes the buying experience worse. I now prefer stores where they have the same item only once and not from dozens of sellers. Or I go to eBay.

When NewEgg started the 3rd-party sellers, I quit buying from them. I don't buy from Sears for the same reason. If I wanted a flea market, I'd go find an shut-down drive-in theater.

And that's the trick: I'd buy from NewEgg based on their reputation, not the reputation of some company I've never heard of. Back in the day, if I bought from Amazon I assumed (probably incorrectly) that it was somewhat curated. With 3rd-parties, NewEgg is no longer a trusted vendor, they're just a big ol' barrel of random shit that I have to try and fish through to find what I want. Amazon is just a big ol' barrel of random shit where I hope to not get tricked. Is that really the reputation you want, Amazon? That I wander down your virtual aisles constantly looking over my shoulder?

I "prefer" a vendor because they have demonstrated that they "carry good stuff". These days, hell, even they don't know what they carry.

You know you can filter out non-NewEgg results?

To me it doesn't matter. Newegg used to be my trusted vendor and now they aren't anymore. They should decide if they are a vendor or a marketplace like eBay or Craigslist. Don't do both.

No, I did not; thanks for the tip. Did NewEgg go out of their way to make that obvious before I said, "WTF is this shit?" and closed the tab? No.

Thought people were exaggerating but I recently purchased a cheap USB keyboard and the third party company sent me a CAT 5 network cable. I am now going to Fry's from now on.

My last PC was built in 2016 from Amazon, but you'd be crazy to do that now. All the parts were sold by Amazon besides the case. I'd ordered a 6600K, the box said it was a K processor, but it wasn't (reported itself as a 6600). Amazon was good about the return, and as far as I can tell the replacement was genuine, but that was too much money to risk on getting counterfeit parts. I've had poor luck with anything electronic in the last 2 years, trying to get a USB-C cable that meets specs might actually be easier on AliExpress. I'm needing some new spinning rust drives for the Nas, and I haven't even considered purchasing from Amazon. Even if they were cheaper, I'll gladly pay 5-10% more from micro center to ensure my backup drives are legitimate.

Try searching "airpods" (a registered trademark of Apple) and you won't find a legitimate Apple product until the third page. Even if you search "Apple airpods", the first page is filled with knockoffs of the product I'm clearly intending to purchase.

In frustration I simply walked to an Apple store and learned they price-match Best Buy and Walmart (not Amazon) with up to a 10% discount - I found the Amazon price on walmart.com from my phone and successfully gave myself free same-hour delivery.

First page, 1st non-sponsored result:

Apple MMEF2AM/A AirPods Wireless Bluetooth Headset for iPhones with iOS 10 or Later White by Apple

can't get any more legit than that.

"Apple airpods": 1st non-sponsored result: Apple MMEF2AM/A AirPods Wireless Bluetooth Headset for iPhones with iOS 10 or Later White by Apple

wait wut?

Huh, I can confirm GP. Nothing by Apple, no Airpods. https://i.imgur.com/LymtHOnr.jpg (sorry about the quality, I thought Imgur was lossless...)

It’s probably because you’re in Portugal. I’m in the US and also see Apple AirPods as 1st result.

I've noticed lately that Amazon's search also returns products if the query matches customer Q&A questions.

So if you are wanting to purchase, say, a 10ga extension cord, and UL listing is important to you, searching for '10 Gauge Extension Cord UL' will return many non-UL listed cords with customers asking 'Is this UL Listed?'. It makes for a very frustrating shopping experience.

I don't know about you, but I rarely buy any electrical equipment off of Amazon, because even if it's UL-listed the one received might be counterfeit.

It's like they want marketers to post fake reviews. We've all seen the so-called users who write "I was very disappointed in the Ronco Widget Tensioner. I returned it and bought a Spacely Sprockets(tm) Grommet Guard instead. That worked perfectly!"

Yes and ebays search actually at least trys to help you find what you're after.

Amazons just seems like an intentional labyrinth to keep you wandering. These days it seems like even the most specific queries just dump a ton of unrelated randomness and nothing of any use.

Only recently I've had tons of issues with search on Amazon. It seems bizarrely unfriendly now.

I'll search for a thing, I know what it is called, and the results are an absolute mess. I'll search something skewed but close to the other terms.... find thing. It's very odd.

Let alone the mass amounts of totally categorized wrong stuff. No socks with one word in common aren't the same as some PC parts...

So we need a service that provides better results for items that you can purchase on the internet?

But this is exactly why sponsored results are good for the searcher. Products that people are willing to spend money advertising will usually be better for you, especially in a context where repeated custom is likely.

> But this is exactly why sponsored results are good for the searcher. Products that people are willing to spend money advertising will usually be better for you, especially in a context where repeated custom is likely.

No, that's false. Ads are only a way of exchanging money for the eyeballs of potential customers, and both scrupulous and unscrupulous merchants use them. They make no reliable statement about what's really "better for you." And especially when the ads are targeted (an therefore relatively cheap), you can't trust anything.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/the-s...

> It all started with an Instagram ad for a coat, the West Louis (TM) Business-Man Windproof Long Coat to be specific. It looked like a decent camel coat, not fancy but fine. And I’d been looking for one just that color, so when the ad touting the coat popped up and the price was in the double-digits, I figured: hey, a deal!

> ....

> Several weeks later, the coat showed up in a black plastic bag emblazoned with the markings of China Post, that nation’s postal service. I tore it open and pulled out the coat. The material has the softness of a Las Vegas carpet and the rich sheen of a velour jumpsuit. The fabric is so synthetic, it could probably be refined into bunker fuel for a ship. It was, technically, the item I ordered, only shabbier than I expected in every aspect.

Of course all companies use ads, including unscrupulous ones. But ads work better for companies with a real product, and therefore you expect the % of good products among advertised products to be higher than among non-advertised ones.

> But ads work better for companies with a real product, and therefore you expect the % of good products among advertised products to be higher than among non-advertised ones.

[citation needed]

Are you contesting that ads work better for good products, or that such would imply more good products across advertised products?

The mechanism for the first is quite intuitive. An add can make someone buy something once. If that thing is good, there is a chance they will buy again, and so give you more money. If it is not good, they will at most buy it once.

So the EV of an add on a good product is by definition higher than one on a bad product; and so a company with a good product should be willing to spend more on an ad.

> Are you contesting that ads work better for good products, or that such would imply more good products across advertised products?

The latter. Basically, it boils down to the intuition that a company with an inferior product is likely to spend more on advertising to make up for its products deficiencies. The best products often don't need paid advertising at all because they can be successful with only word of mouth advertising from happy customers.

I've recently had some personal experience with this from an expensive home improvement product. One company advertises heavily, has a high-touch sales force, and engages in extensive SEO online. However, once I dug in deeper I came to believe the whole category of products probably doesn't work effectively over the long haul (their advertising and guarantees use some tricky wording), and is certainly not worth the expense. Their advertising was a poor proxy for quality.

Omg! This! I strongly disliked the market place model from the moment they introduced it and have come to only dislike it more.

I find it increasingly difficult to find the version of book I’m looking for

Amazon has basically become an overpriced version of the discount bin.