The dark side of Amazon search

I hate Amazon search.
It just doesn’t work.
 
You search for a specific thing.
And it brings you back related, but unhelpful, other stuff.
You can’t even exclude things from the search, like you can on proper search tools.
 
If I need a screen cover for a certain phone, I don’t want to see covers for other phones.
If I search for a solar-powered something, I’m not interested in seeing mains-powered versions.
 
The extra results clutter my experience.
I get lost in a “can’t see the wood for the trees” moment.
Trying to figure out which of the thousands of products might actually serve my task.
 
The product names don’t always make it clear.
Sometimes even the descriptions don’t.
 
I’ve often ended up receiving a product that is useless for my purpose.
And then having to return it.
 
And every return costs Amazon money.
But obviously not enough to make them improve their search.
Perhaps enough of us end up keeping the useless thing and then buying the right one.
 
Perhaps their rubbish search is deliberate.
A ‘dark pattern’ to make us buy twice. 

I still blummin’ use it tho’.

more insights

TGIF: Think of a Good Idea for the Friday retro

TGIF Or in my world: that moment of panic when you have to quickly Think of a Good Idea for the Friday retro. I have a love/hate relationship with looking back.It’s a constant thing in IT: you hold a retrospective every sprint.But so many teams use it as a moaning shop, whinging but doing nowt about

Read more >

The dark side of Amazon search

I hate Amazon search.It just doesn’t work. You search for a specific thing.And it brings you back related, but unhelpful, other stuff.You can’t even exclude things from the search, like you can on proper search tools. If I need a screen cover for a certain phone, I don’t want to see covers for other phones.If I search

Read more >

Undocumented tomato feature

PSA: reading this post may make you immediately go and check your tomatoes for a little-known feature I’m about to reveal… In hindsight, I was always destined to be a problem-solver.An untangler of knotty problems.A niggler at complex issues. Even when that problem is as commonplace as a tomato. Many moons ago when I was waiting for my

Read more >
Scroll to Top