Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products (wsj.com) 74
Amazon.com has adjusted its product-search system to more prominently feature listings that are more profitable for the company, WSJ reported Monday citing people who worked on the project, a move, contested internally, that could favor Amazon's own brands. From the report: Late last year, these people said, Amazon optimized the secret algorithm that ranks listings so that instead of showing customers mainly the most-relevant and best-selling listings when they search -- as it had for more than a decade -- the site also gives a boost to items that are more profitable for the company. The adjustment, which the world's biggest online retailer hasn't publicized, followed a yearslong battle between executives who run Amazon's retail businesses in Seattle and the company's search team, dubbed A9, in Palo Alto, Calif., which opposed the move, the people said.
Any tweak to Amazon's search system has broad implications because the giant's rankings can make or break a product. The site's search bar is the most common way for U.S. shoppers to find items online, and most purchases stem from the first page of search results, according to marketing analytics firm Jumpshot. The issue is particularly sensitive because the U.S. and the European Union are examining Amazon's dual role -- as marketplace operator and seller of its own branded products. An algorithm skewed toward profitability could steer customers toward thousands of Amazon's in-house products that deliver higher profit margins than competing listings on the site. Further reading: Amazon Falls After Report That the Company Prioritized Profit in Its Search Listings.
Any tweak to Amazon's search system has broad implications because the giant's rankings can make or break a product. The site's search bar is the most common way for U.S. shoppers to find items online, and most purchases stem from the first page of search results, according to marketing analytics firm Jumpshot. The issue is particularly sensitive because the U.S. and the European Union are examining Amazon's dual role -- as marketplace operator and seller of its own branded products. An algorithm skewed toward profitability could steer customers toward thousands of Amazon's in-house products that deliver higher profit margins than competing listings on the site. Further reading: Amazon Falls After Report That the Company Prioritized Profit in Its Search Listings.
As long as they lower the search rank for fakes (Score:4, Insightful)
I sympathize with the honest small vendors but if this change helps route my searches to legit products instead of fakes then I like it.
Re: (Score:2)
higher margin != real, if anything this makes it easier for fakes. Fake products have a lot of flexibility to offer amazon high margins whereas real products are saddled with pesky real costs that eat into their margins.
Re:As long as they lower the search rank for fakes (Score:5, Interesting)
I sympathize with the honest small vendors but if this change helps route my searches to legit products instead of fakes then I like it.
Unfortunately it doesn't.
It routes your search to shoddier products at higher prices.
Because the way to get high profit margins is to sell the lowest quality product at the highest possible price, and "high profit margin" is what they are optimizing for.
Re:As long as they lower the search rank for fakes (Score:4, Informative)
You may have incompletely read - while it does say higher margin, it also specifies "Amazon's own brands". The problem with fakes on Amazon is they're "fulfilled by Amazon" and not "sold by Amazon". I've never had a fakes problem with sold-by. Just fulfilled-by.
Re: (Score:2)
For example, the "solar eclipse" glasses that Amazon finally pulled from sale aft
I am shocked, shocked to find crooked gambling... (Score:3)
I really have to protest against the "Insightful" mod of that comment. Is it an FP effect or professional astroturfing from Amazon? That comment is completely orthogonal to this story. Diversionary, NOT insightful.
Of course Amazon is going to tilt the playing field in favor of increasing the corporate cancer's own profits. Of course they will start tilting the searches to push higher margin products towards the top. The only questions are when and how much and for whom. (Another aspect of personalization is
Re: (Score:1)
I really have to protest against the "Insightful" mod of that comment. Is it an FP effect or professional astroturfing from Amazon? That comment is completely orthogonal to this story. Diversionary, NOT insightful.
Is it really your position that the #1 problem with Amazon is that as a company they turn a profit and not that their "marketplace" sellers are flooded with bad actors peddling counterfeit and outright fake products? I think it is much more of a problem when someone buys OTC medication or vitamins that's just chalk dust, or worse, than Amazon being a corporate giant.
Re: (Score:2)
No, that is NOT at all my position. The rest of my comment (which you snipped out and ignored) is an attempt to make my position clear. Therefore your "reply" has the appearance of intellectual dishonesty and I am STILL uninterested in playing any diversionary games.
Re: (Score:1)
I really have to protest against the "Insightful" mod of that comment. Is it an FP effect or professional astroturfing from Amazon? That comment is completely orthogonal to this story. Diversionary, NOT insightful.
Is it really your position that the #1 problem with Amazon is that as a company they turn a profit and not that their "marketplace" sellers are flooded with bad actors peddling counterfeit and outright fake products? I think it is much more of a problem when someone buys OTC medication or vitamins that's just chalk dust, or worse, than Amazon being a corporate giant.
Is it really your position that you want to make a false equivalency argument?
Re: (Score:1)
Is this different from normal retailers? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Is this different from normal retailers? (Score:5, Insightful)
People have a really hard time understanding the concept that the rules change for entities with monopoly status. Amazon has grown to absorb most of the market by offering a reasonably fair and level platform for companies to sell their goods through.
If they were one of many comparable players like Walmart is (target, k-mart, bed bath and beyond, etc as competitors) it wouldn't matter that they are promoting their own products.
But because Amazon controls so much of their market that most of their competitors on the products have to sell through their platform, they aren't allowed to use that platform to give them any sort of advantage over their competition. Monopolies aren't allowed to use their monopoly (online marketplace in this case) to eat into additional markets (retail goods).
Buying something off Amazon is nearing the same level of universal applicability as "googling" so there is a very strong argument to be made that they've reached this status. Natural monopolies are kind of a bug in capitalism, the entire concept is to ultimately benefit consumers by promoting healthy competition. If it can be avoided you don't crush a fairly gained monopoly and punish success but a monopoly is anti-consumer and also bad for the economy as a whole so it can't be allowed to grow beyond it's current market. Hopefully the restrictions hinder Amazon enough that competitors who don't have those restrictions can gain enough traction that someday Amazon won't need them any longer.
If Amazon can't follow the rules then it isn't merely a monopoly but an illegal monopoly and retail piece would need to be broken off from the core marketplace so that the retail businesses products benefit it no more than any other party.
Re: (Score:3)
Interesting comment in several ways. Why am I surprised by its lack of visible moderation? (Actually it currently has one hidden "Insightful" mod point.) However I do think you're looking at the problem without seeing the solutions, so I'll go ahead and describe a solution approach:
What if there were a progressive profits tax related to market share? Then any excessively monopolistic player would find itself in a position of increasing its retained earning by dividing itself into competing companies. With t
Re: (Score:2)
"However I do think you're looking at the problem without seeing the solutions, so I'll go ahead and describe a solution approach:"
That is another possible way of dealing with it, maybe a better one. But the intention of my post wasn't to fix the bug so much as explain that different rules apply and explain why they get applied.
To that end I outlined some of the typical solutions as applied to date for monopolies since Amazon is a pretty solid classical case where classic solutions fit neatly. Anytime a mon
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know if Amazon has this much chutzpah, but the obvious angle for claiming Amazon's distribution monopoly is "natural" is along the lines of "There is only one shortest distance between two points, and Amazon was first to get there." There is an intrinsic inefficiency in shipping extra goods that aren't consumed, but just displayed in different stores so that consumers have more choices. From that perspective Amazon can be claiming to offer the same range of choices with less waste.
My perspective (c
Re: (Score:3)
As others have pointed out, monopoly rules change everything.
But also important is the idea that you should get what you request. 'Secret' algorithm not withstanding.
By default, when you search, you get the 'Featured' Sorting. I have no idea what featured is, but I assume Amazon is playing whatever tricks it does here to push products or brands. That sounds legit to me.
But if I click on sort price, avg customer review... then those better be untouched.
If those are touched, I don't know what the legal term i
Re: (Score:2)
A company wants to favor its own products? (Score:3, Informative)
No WAY! Next you'll tell me water is wet too!
How the hell is that a surprise to anyone?
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, some of the shit I read online is just so asinine. I didn't even know what to make of this article. I mean I guess you could take the "muh monopoly!" angle to claim they shouldn't (?) put their profits first but what are you going to do, separate the "Amazon search bar" off as a separate business? It's absurd.
It's like the putzes who complain about Facebook advertising policies and then say they should "break up Facebook". What the fuck are you going to break up??! The advertising and the Facebooky p
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, some of the shit I read online is just so asinine. I didn't even know what to make of this article. I mean I guess you could take the "muh monopoly!" angle to claim they shouldn't (?) put their profits first but what are you going to do, separate the "Amazon search bar" off as a separate business? It's absurd.
It's like the putzes who complain about Facebook advertising policies and then say they should "break up Facebook". What the fuck are you going to break up??! The advertising and the Facebooky parts are one fucking business. It makes 0 sense.
Life isn't fair. If your business depends on the largess of another then you will always have these sorts of issues.
This is a good point, we need to root out the source of the issue, not the symptoms. It rhymes with bunrestrained capitalism.
Re: (Score:1)
Amazon does not have any products. What they are favouring are the products where Amazon makes the most money.
Re: (Score:3)
> Amazon does not have any products.
Really? So the Amazon Fire stick plugged into my TV is imaginary? As well as the Amazon Fire tablet on my coffee table? And the AmazonBasics charger used to charge it? And all the other AmazonBasics stuff others have purported to buy?
And how much money are they pissing away on commercials promoting imaginary Amazon Echo devices?
Re: (Score:3)
https://cpcstrategy.com/blog/2017/07/amazons-private-label-brands [cpcstrategy.com]
Why wouldn't they? (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
To give a better service to the user? To make sellers happy to sell thing on amazon? I know, I know... I was joking.
Btw: no, regular stores change placement so you see more items, even if they are not the more profitable they are happy to sell them. It's not the same thing.
Re: (Score:2)
To give a better service to the user? To make sellers happy to sell thing on amazon? I know, I know... I was joking.
Btw: no, regular stores change placement so you see more items, even if they are not the more profitable they are happy to sell them. It's not the same thing.
In regular stores, companies pay (either directly or in incentives) for better shelf placement, in store promotion (end caps, placement in circulars, etc), and more shelf space for their products. Maybe Amazon should just start doing that instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't. The majority of the time the majority of customers would be looking for direct Amazon products. So this is the better default anyway.
Then I suppose us dumbasses that know exactly what we want are just out of luck then.
Re: (Score:2)
And some physical stores scatter things throughout the whole floor so that you have to wander around the entire building in order to just find a pair of shoes. Because there is no "shoe" place, they are scattered a few in this corner and a few in that corner over there, some by the checkout, and some by the elevator in the hopes that you will be grabbed by the desire to buy a bunch of other crap that you neither need nor want while tooling about.
Re: (Score:1)
every retailer does this (Score:1)
they place the most profitable products close to the customers and charge for that space
The real news (Score:2, Insightful)
So I guess the real news here is they did not always do that, as anyone would have assumed?
I find it hard to imagine why we are supposed to be mad about something obvious. Yet that's the angle you are driving for.
No, we only did not alway know! :/ (Score:1)
Then againy there was a time, when Amazon had no own products.
In other news Sears pushes "Craftsman" tools (Score:1)
It seems that people expect, non-biased Pulitzer prize winning integrity and non-bias when it comes to private companies.
Remember "Caveat emptor", make sure you know who is hosting your search.
Yes. We expect not to be ripped off. (Score:1)
I don't care how their own self-written law books define things.
I must dust off those "self-written law books" (Score:2)
What "self-written law books" are you talking about?
You think it should be illegal or at least morally wrong for a company to promote it's own products?
Re: (Score:2)
pretty funny attitude they have enjoying the good life and tech that capitalism has made possible, yet bitching about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Capitalism is not freedom (Score:2)
You can immediately tune out people who overly bitch about "capitalism". Capitalism is simply freedom,
...
No. Capitalism is freedom (in certain economic transactions) plus private property.
Private property turns out to be the opposite of freedom. If you own a piece of land, what ownership gives you is the ability to forbid other people from making use of it: ownership is restricting their freedom.
In the real world, almost everything is the result of trade-offs, and yes, I understand the value of making this particular trade-off restricting freedom. I lock the door of my house.
But don't pretend that capital
Re: (Score:3)
You are confused. My freedom to own property of necessity means you are a trespasser or thief if you violate, vandalize or take my property. You are claiming the equivalent statement that if you can't use a certain woman's vagina for sex you don't have freedom. Nonsense. Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I do think "freedom" (per my sig) is key to this discussion of Amazon's practices, but I also suspect you are trying to argue with a Libertarian, and I have yet to meet one who actually understands what freedom is. Perhaps the key question to ask a Libertarian is "Can you explain why other people's freedom is as important as your own?" They can only answer along the lines of explaining why other Libertarians' freedom competes fairly with their own.
(Or at least that was true in every case I tested before I s
Re: (Score:2)
just think how offended he'd get if I suggest he train for marketable skills and get a job and buy his own property if he wants something. why the nerve of me.
Public masturbation of 596061 (Score:2)
Z^-1
Nice Strategy - Deliberately Poor UI/UX Design (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
My latest beef with Amazon's site design is that they've pushed the "filter" tools way down on mobile within some sections. For example, if you want to look at laptops, you might want to view only laptops with a certain OS, a certain amount of RAM, a specified storage space, with a certain review level, and within a set price range. To get to this, though, you need to scroll through "popular" and "featured" listings. Then, with each filter selection, they refresh the page - forcing you to scroll back throug
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
While I basically agree with the Insightful moderation, I also have to disagree with your premise. This is actually related to my sig, but Slashdot's constraints mutated it. There should be a {~5} after the word "Choice" there. Around 5 is the number of choices you can keep in your head while you are deciding, so whenever there are many more choices than that, the decision is subject to manipulation (AKA coercion).
Therefore I think you are stretching to describe their UI/UX as "Poor" because the situation b
Re: (Score:2)
Well, they don't even have to do step 1; they can also bias the "display" algorithm (unless they're only presenting choices alphabetically or some other ordering that exists outside of their choices).
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget the part where they break the sorting option. Search for a three-handled family gradunza*. Wow, over a thousand results! Now sort by price, lowest to highest, and at least half the time it says there are no results in my chosen category so it shows me partial matches from other categories, or it only shows me 5 of the original thousand results. Sometimes I can fool it by sorting on price in descending order, then go to the last page... but not always.
* No, you won't find a thousand results sear
Thay always had a useless search. (Score:1)
Their search is so utterly complelety useless!
There ia no way t specify a product category let alone properties (like e.g. the number and version range of USB 3 ports on a motherboard)
s/Thay/They/ (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon search is great.
put in "motherboard usb 3.0 ports" and click search, then on left filter by clicking "motherboards"
piece of cake
Re: (Score:2)
also can click brand name or price range
easy peasy filtering
Re: (Score:2)
I can't tell if you're sincere or not, but I have a lot of problems with them.
They seem to have a generous definition of "similar" and flood your results with nonsense.
When I search for Zigbee 3.0 lightswitch, I don't really even want Zigbee HA or Zigbee LL, but fine, close enough.
But why are my results flooded with Z-Wave, WiFi, and Bluetooth equipment?
I'm assuming it's just throwing all smart light-switches at me in a seemingly unordered list (though I guess ordered by profit?).
Re:Thay always had a useless search. (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, we bought another brand in 2015 and about 2 months ago realized that if you searched for one of that brands product name EXACTLY as it is spelled, Amazon's search would give you other results. Why? Looked closer, and Amazon assumed you made a mistake searching and searched for another term. Just like Google, they give you the link to instead search for exactly what you originally entered. Keep in mind this is the product name as entered in their system. Not some nickname or anything.
TL;DR Amazon doesn't recognize that your search term matches a single-word product name EXACTLY, and changes your search on you. You have to click a link to tell them not to do that.
I've wondered about that. (Score:3)
I have even gotten to the point where I'll back up and repeat the search 5 or 6 times. Each time I try to move my mouse fast enough to try and click on the initial item before it goes away. Having a laptop with a touch screen has made that process easier.
Either way, this weighting algorithm has completely negated any useful results from an Amazon search. Someone on here earlier this year showed how you can use Google to search Amazon. That has been a god send.
tldr: Jeff Bezos is a piker and the Amazon updated Amazon search engine sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls.
Lock Picking Lawyer Proves Amazon Promotes Crap (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/result... [youtube.com]
As a longtime Amazon shareholder (Score:2)
Is anyone really surprised by this? (Score:2)
Build your own thing people if you want total control.
In other news (Score:2)
So what? (Score:2)
If people are settling for whatever is shown on the first page, they aren't very concerned about their money in the first place. If I'm looking for anything more than $10, I'll spend quite of bit of time reviewing multiple products, and will often rearrange the ordering to Price: Lowest to Highest. It is only when I've already made up my mind and I'm returning to make the purchase that I'll buy from the first page, but only if the item I was looking for is there.
I'm thinking there is a correlation/causati
Re: (Score:2)
If people are settling for whatever is shown on the first page, they aren't very concerned about their money in the first place. If I'm looking for anything more than $10, I'll spend quite of bit of time reviewing multiple products, and will often rearrange the ordering to Price: Lowest to Highest.
You don't value your time, do you. My time is worth more than that.
I'll spend a few minutes to save one or two dollars, but I'm not going to make spreadsheets and exhaustive feature comparisons for every twelve dollar purchase I make.
Say it isn't so (Score:2)
"Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products"
My goodness, that is shocking. So so shocking. This is my shocked face.
Well, why wouldn't it? (Score:2)
I mean, they're in the business of selling you shit. Why WOULDN'T they return search results optimized to sell you shit that increases their profits? I mean...DUH!!
Executives vs. Engineers (Score:2)
irrelevant (Score:1)
And this number continues to grow.
This is FUD.