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Re:The Anti-Amazon Alliance by thaeli on Tuesday April 28, 2020 @12:37PM (#23008725)
There are other specific sectors with great product search - RockAuto for car parts, for example. It's a striking example because the big auto parts stores (AutoZone, Advance Auto, Pep Boys, etc) all try to have an "Amazon style" search and it doesn't work. Heck, it doesn't work well on Amazon either.

In the specific sector of car parts, search is based on the year, manufacturer, model, and trim line/options of the vehicle. What's weird to me is that every one of these retailers has a point of sale system that works on the "specify vehicle, list and search within parts" model, yet they're using a traditional/"Amazon style" search on their own website.

RockAuto's site is ugly, but it's extremely functional. Their business model has complicated shipping (sometimes buying a more expensive item from the same warehouse as another item in your cart is less expensive after shipping than buying a less expensive item from a different warehouse) but there are UI affordances that make this easier to deal with. It's kind of sad that "show the shipping cost in the shopping cart, on the same page as the product list" is a noteworthy UI affordance, but it's so rare. (Also the option to select several items that meet spec, and it will automatically select the overall lowest cost after shipping set of products)

Re:The Anti-Amazon Alliance by jdhn on Tuesday April 28, 2020 @09:17PM (#23014185)
>RockAuto's site is ugly, but it's extremely functional.

I went to their site to see how ugly it was, and was absolutely blown away by how visually terrible it is. Truly function before form.

Re:The Anti-Amazon Alliance by ars on Tuesday April 28, 2020 @02:38PM (#23010295)
The shipping is why I don't buy from RockAuto anymore.