I have the same experience with Amazon whenever I buy a big-ticket item. When I interviewed with them, I asked them if they were working on that. "Yes, but it's hard."
A few years later my brother interviewed with them and they asked him how to solve that problem. I wonder if they were stumped, and if they were just looking for new ideas.
Re:Gigaom Closes Down
by Scoundreller on Tuesday March 10, 2015 @01:08AM
(#9176147)
> Newegg can't tell the difference between market research because you're about to buy versus research because you're about to sell
I agree. I think it would be very difficult for them to tell the two states apart, but I found it amusing.
Isn't this a market opportunity, though? Make a website that provides product information for people who want to sell an item. Give tips on how to advertise and mail the item. Sell packaging supplies. Why isn't Ebay already doing this?
Re:Gigaom Closes Down
by Scoundreller on Tuesday March 10, 2015 @11:52PM
(#9182502)
Only if newegg had a "Sell One Like This" button, they'd earn a commission, though cases aren't worth shipping, so it was a local sale anyway.
But it's always amused me (in a not very amusing way) that immediately after I purchase something I'm inundated with advertisements from the same vendor trying to sell it to me again. Big data is supposed to be about finding statistical relationships between events, right? In what world would the probability of someone buying something be highest when they're holding a brand new one in their hands?
What it really makes me think is the web advertising folks are pulling a con on their clients. They're not actually doing the critical analysis they promise but simply sorting by linear distance in n-dimensional space and hoping no one notices how useless the measurement is.