> Another problem I see with the shopping experience is that I would sometimes spend 10 or 20 minutes looking for just the right product (which is absurd when you think about just how powerful modern filtering and search algorithms can be.) And then it dawned on me. Amazon is making money off of those 10 or 20 minutes of "engagement" because it gives them time to show a bunch of paid ads as I search.

that's a galaxy brain moment. never even thought of that, despite taking efforts to be conscious of how companies are monetizing my interactions with their products. now it makes more sense why one of the biggest companies in the world has had such a terrible website for so long

I would just like a manual filter. If I search for "rechargeable AA batteries" I get dozens of entries. It would be so much easier if I could manually click off the ones I know are not what I want. Like the multitude of AAA rechargeable batteries that always come up when I search for AA rechargeable batteries. No, I can't remove them. I'm forced to scroll through them again and again while evaluating the other options, continuously multiplying my opportunity to make a mistake and buy the wrong item.

By the way, if you do buy AAA batteries by accident, because you forgot half the entries are going to be for AAA even when you explicitly searched for AA, they won't take the AAA rechargeable batteries back. In fact they'd rather give you a refund and have you fling those brand-new unopened AAA rechargeable batteries into a landfill.

It's an increasingly hostile user experience, much like buying a used car used to be.

I often put half a dozen competing products in my shopping cart, with no intent to buy more than one of them, just to be able to compare them nicely. First round is elimination by some red flags, next is a feature-for-feature spec comparison that usually leaves just one winner.

Congratulations, you just taught Amazon ad engine to show you the ones you “almost bought” for the next two years, in hopes you’ll finally crack and pull the trigger on what you actually did not want.

I'm going to navigate to those pages, scroll back and forth, click to expand reviews -- they would know anyway.

If that's your issue, you practically can't buy things from Amazon.

I've seen people complain on reddit about Fakespot not being good anymore.

ReviewMeta is an alternative and supposedly "better": https://reviewmeta.com/

I have little experience with either, I'd probably try both at the same time.

I'm interested in trying ReviewMeta.

In the past I used Fakespot quite a bit, but I started seeing cases where it wouldn't flag products with obviously fake reviews, and it would flag perfectly good products. For example, try it with any five-star LEGO set and it will give it a D rating and "real" rating of 1.5 stars. Without reliable results I had no reason to trust Fakespot any more than Amazon itself.

At a quick glance ReviewMeta seems to give a much more accurate rating to the same LEGO set.

Just please keep in mind that the person responsible (may have?) left last year: https://reviewmeta.com/blog/successor-to-reviewmeta/

I don't use any third party plugin. My approach for spotting fake reviews is simple. Anything that has positive reviews that span over a short period of time is suspect. I only buy things that have good reviews that span over a few years. I think most new products on Amazon are sellers relisting products so that they can start from scratch with a bunch of 5 star reviews. Amazon could easily automate this and show the info to users but I guess they don't have an incentive. Big mistake if you ask me. I guess that l's the problem with big tech. You cannot push an idea that shows to reduce revenue in the short term. Long term impact is something that is much harder to measure.

This has worked well for me:

1. Sort reviews by recent; average MUCH lower than overall? Avoid.

2. Use Lustre.ai to suggest alternatives (site or browser plugin).

3. Read 1- and 2-star reviews; many re: misleading features/broken functions? Avoid.

4. Check most helpful negative review.

5. Search reviews and questions for what you've learned in steps 3 and 4.

6. Ignore short to medium reviews explaining nothing and using glowing superlatives.

I thought about it, and realized what I do is a bit more involved:

1. Find lower-cost options that have a lot of reviews.

2. Sort reviews by recent; average MUCH lower than overall? Avoid. Ignore short to medium reviews explaining nothing and using glowing superlatives.

3. Use Lustre.ai to suggest alternatives (site or browser plugin), and use the steps below to know what issues MOST of these kind of products have.

4. Check much more expensive versions of the product for desirable features / problems solved, e.g. Bluetooth earbuds with a physical or app-based "re-pairing" function.

5. Read 1- and 2-star reviews; many re: misleading features/broken functions? Avoid, but note what kinds of problems are common.

6. Check most helpful negative review when available

7. Search reviews and questions for the issues you uncovered in steps 3 and 4. Sometimes MOST products have similar issues regardless of price—there may not be ANY product worth buying, e.g. home blood pressure monitors.

I've never heard of Lustre.ai, I'm going to try it out, thanks for the tip.

Besides #2, I pretty much do the rest of these steps already and it has been helpful.

I also use "Prime Only" to filter out items shipping from China. If I'm okay waiting a month, I'll buy it from AliExpress for less.

That doesn’t help much because 3rd parties use Amazon FBA all the time. It’s an even worse problem due to inventory commingling ie even if you buy from Amazon as a seller, there’s no guarantee that the item shipped to you is actually Amazon’s inventory unless you look at all the sellers for the item and verify that there are no other 3rd party sellers using FBA aka Prime

I have noticed certain electronics are much cheaper on AliExpress, but you do have explicit shipping costs vs that being rolled up in prime membership costs.

Is this still a better experience than seeking out reputable brand names that have their own online shop?

I get my recommendations from user forums and YT channels I trust, and then go straight to the manufacturer.

I have one experience with Corning (Corelle) - wanted simple white square bowls straight from the manufacturer to replace some that broke.

The order was more expensive (by 15%), shipping took a week (as opposed to 2 days) and one of the bowls was "warped" - still functional but definitely a factory reject.

I did not want to bother complaining or returning but honestly, will never buy from them direct again.

And I hate Amazon. I try to use local retailers now, sometimes with online+curbside.

Usually the manufacturers websites have the highest prices

Amazon’s seller policy demands that be the case. You can have your listings removed for policy violation if you offer a price lower than amazon including sales events and discounts. The product manufacturer can have priority control on the amazon listing so there is incentive for the manufacturer to be on amazon if only for that control. I see some sellers offer discounts in their website greater than amazon sometimes but they are vulnerable to expulsion if they are reported.

I am surprised the FTC has not raised issue with this policy.

Anecdotally, that's not my experience. In fact, I often find sales on old warehouse stock I don't find elsewhere. Shipping is usually a sticking point, though.