I'd love to see the data, but knowing Amazon they have both extensively tested it and will not release the findings. Anecdotally I have never not purchased something because I had to set the cursor focus and I have purchased something I saw on the home page.
Also, if you're a nerd, just search right in the browser. If I want to search Amazon I never actually go Amazon first I just type "a", hit tab and then my search terms. Chrome is smart enough to do the rest and I get right to the SERP on Amazon.
Seeing a blinking cursor and a potentially-highlighted search box (not for me on Chrome at least) might distract a portion of those users.
edit: Mouse movement = tracking content with eyes? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5333496
Re:Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown
by powermeat on Wednesday March 06, 2013 @03:53PM
(#5333821)
You've gone to Amazon, had to do an extra click, and decided not to buy because of that?
I would have never thought so, but Amazon's own data has shown that seemingly trivial things like increasing page load times by 100 ms reduces sales by a non-negligible %.
Why do you think they obsess over dropdown menus?
We're all arguing over data we don't have, but if they have that kind of information I think they have also considered search box focus. Seeing that they don't have it, one can draw the conclusion that for their site it was not profitable.
Re:Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown
by harlanlewis on Wednesday March 06, 2013 @04:04PM
(#5333910)
Remove the question mark - you've succinctly described funnel optimization.
The kind of user who likes to browse will probably browse using a mouse, not a keyboard like us nerds. So the position of the cursor doesn't matter to them.
I hardly ever go to Amazon and not directly search for something (except maybe during Black Friday deals when I just click on the banner). I'd bet Amazon loses money by making me do an extra mouse click into the search box every time.
Unless there's a sizeable proportion of users who go to the homepage and scroll using the keyboard, I don't get it.