Does anyone else go looking on amazon because they used to have loads of stuff, but now there’s just a few things over and over and over and they’re not quite what you wanted. It’s so full of promoted content and you keep thinking that somewhere on one of the pages there might be something new, but no, it’s these same products again and again.
I use google. All it does is shove products at you anymore, so you might as well take advantage of that and use the search function that works far better than Amazon’s. All the Amazon sold products will show up in the google search anyway. Unfortunately, google’s modifiers are essentially worthless (like if you put -“amazon.com” or whatever to avoid amazon items) so it’s pretty hard to filter stuff, but at least Google casts a wider net so you might find better products or deals. Amazon does not always have the better price.
If you see a particular item in the google search that is what you’re looking for you can plug that specific brand and item name in amazon’s search and see if they even carry it. Sometimes they don’t, but that will help skip past Amazon’s shitty algorithm that forces items they want you to buy like made-for-Amazon crap vs what might actually be a better product.
Order it right from the widget maker directly if you can and skip amazon.
What annoys me about Amazon search is it doesn’t listen to my search, and it doesn’t allow qualifiers such as minus sign. Most other searches listen to minus sign as excluding that word from search.
Example: metal cup -plastic -mug -jug
I search for a metal cup, but I do not want plastic, and not a mug or jug.
Yeah, their plan is: deduce what kind of thing they want, broaden it to include more sponsored products, list as many as possible to boost ad revenue, try as hard as possible to get them to cave and buy a sponsored product so we can make more money from ad revenue. Sucks as a customer. Probably sucks as a supplier, it’s the standard monopoly enshitified money extraction maximiser.
Yeah it’s pretty trash, and I’ve found that if I buy direct from the manufacturer website for 99% of stuff I’ll actually save $5-10, including shipping
In Germany, and by extension the EU, we have a website called “geizhals”, which basically translates to “penny-pincher”.
It is an insanly good tool to find the specific item you’re looking for and where to buy it for the least amount of money. Its got a pretty robust search, and some of the most comprehensive filters I’ve ever seen. When I cant find what I’m looking for using Amazons search, which is nearly always, I use their site instead.
Only real downside (for me) is when stuff isn’t listed on there. They probably collect data and stuff, but they also provide a useful service in return.
While writing this I have also noticed that they offer the same thing called “skintflint” for the UK. Maybe something similar exists for ppl. in the U.S. ?
skintflint
Oh wow, I visited, and instead of the usual cookie popup (where you have to click to accept all cookies or customise them), it put a little box in the corner saying “Do not track mode detected. Storing only strictly necessary cookies.” which then automatically closed!
My browser often detects and auto-fills the more common cookie dialogs for me, but this is the loveliest cookie experience anywhere.
I randomly decided to pretend to want a new mobile - RELEVANT filters that ACTUALLY FILTER!
Thank you so much for this recommendation.
The product you actually want:
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Out of Stock -
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Doesn’t qualify for Prime Shipping -
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Doesn’t have the best Shipping/Price options -
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Unavailable -
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“We do not know when this item will be restocked!” -
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I boycot Amazon because that company is fucking evil.
I salute you, lord wiggle.
can’t say I’ve experienced this exactly but I feel ya in spirit o7
Amazon is just speedy AliExpress. Sellers use all kinds of key words so they pop up in the search, and they’ll use different words for the same drop-shipped item that a dozen other sellers have. The sizes are all different because they’re from varying shops and countries, quality is always questionable, and some are just scams (shout out to that 2tb hardrive I got a few years back that was just coded to read that when plugged in). You can’t trust the reviews, as they’re likely bought, bots, or both.
Looking for a product is low key exhausting, especially if it’s important. You have to check videos, reviews, reddit, lemmy, Twitter, so you can get a variety of responses since the first 5 are alway "wow, my life has been changed by the DooDoo dome 1500.“
Amazon search was never good, but it was not a problem before it got flooded with cheap Chinese crap.
The cheap Chinese crap makes Amazon worse, which results in loss of customers, which frightens the Shareholders (line has to go up), to increase the profit the management milks their cash cow (AKA cheap Chinese crap sellers) so more Chinese crap is in the site. The circle of life.
Yesterday was some houseware. There wasn’t anything Chinese in the listing, but it was the same sponsored wrong products again and again and again and again and again and again. I get more Chinese stuff when I look for electrical items, but sometimes the Chinese stuff works out for me.
If you make the same search for houseware on AliExpress I bet you’ll find most of what you saw on Amazon
Unless you bought something, then you get the exact item in your ads too. Because hey, we know you liked that book! Why don’t you want another copy of it, uh?
Of course I would want to buy it every week. Who wouldn’t buy the book every week if they liked it so much they bought it once. Buy! Buy! Buy!
Amazon is deliberately built to be terrible for the users, so they can push products that make them the most money. Most filters are useless, and some don’t work properly, you only have limited sorting options that also don’t work properly (if you sort ascending by price, it will still put sponsored results that don’t respect the sorting order). A while ago, I was looking for a product that I knew should cost about €5, and I couldn’t find any cheaper than €10 until I got to the 10th result page.
For an example of a good search interface, just check farnell.com. It’s insanely good, you can basically filter by any attribute of a product. Being able to use something like this to search for a laptop, or a mobile phone would be amazing.
I clicked through to their browse all products page, and it was a thing of organised beauty.
God forbid you want to use search exclusion.
Oh, you searched for “some item -plastic”, guess that means you want all these bestselling plastic ones.
I have literally used their own filter system to find something with very specific specs and it still shows me totally unrelated bullshit because just like SEO, people will just put an entire fucking dictionary in the description or tags so it always shows up no matter what you’re searching for.
And sometimes the filters are completely irrelevant. You’re searching for correction fluid and the filters say 1Gb, 2Gb, 4Gb-512Gb, 520Mb.
Amazon: the world’s largest enshittification platform!
The niche thing you just bought just two months ago and that no one would ever need two of in their life.
I mean I bought one toilet seat, clearly I need 16 more, they know us so well
That one drives me up the wall. It happened to me recently, but on something a bit more mainstream - a spanner set. No, I don’t need another spanner set! Seriously, who buys more than one spanner set ever? Oh, and sometimes I search for an item, don’t buy it, but then I’m offered great deals on similar products every time I log in for the rest of time.
I looked at ONE light switch because I couldn’t find exactly the type in other stores (single-gang dual 2-way multipole) and now they will NOT stop emailing me about electrical equipment and supplies as if i was a contractor
Exactly. Amazon are the pushiest of the dodgy pushy salesperson.
My weirdest Amazon experience was when I went to Lowe’s and bought a drill bit and a pair of cabinet door hinges, and just looked at cabinet pulls for a minute or two - didn’t buy any or even pick any up. That night, Amazon recommended for me drill bits, cabinet door hinges … and cabinet pulls. I’m assuming that I got linked to in-store footage from Lowe’s, which is creepy but certainly not suprising.
Your phone’s Wi-Fi told them exactly where in the store you were. That’s how they knew what you were looking at.
Is Lowe’s like a physical amazon store?
They’re not in any way associated with Amazon, as far as I know. But apparently they sell their customer data to them - and immediately.
That is pretty scummy.
Amazon Canada is just a bunch of no name brand Chinese shit.
the hilarious part is that there is genuinely good Chinese products in 2024 but it’s almost like Amazon wants to flood their store with over priced junk instead
Just go to AliExpress, same shit, half the price. Bonus points that while their initial results may not be exactly what you want their recommendation engine usually gets you there quickly enough.
Maybe it’s just my experience, but I have yet to find something on AliExpress for cheaper than somewhere else.
There might be a bit of a knack to it. Anything brand name or bulk generally there aren’t a lot of savings. With the right search terms you can usually uncover third shift items, whether that’s you’re thing or not. Anything you see on Amazon sold by companies with names like HSUUEHE are often 20-40% cheaper. You might need to dig a little, there may be 20-30 listings of the same product from different sellers, some just list things at the same price you’d see them on Amazon. Anything that looks mass produced on Etsy can usually be found as well.
Guess I gotta develop the knack. Thanks for the input!
Haha, tbh it stemmed from a mild fascination with the true range of utter crap and oddly specific items that are available on Ali. Mostly it went the other way (finding stuff on Amazon/Etsy that I’d seen on Ali and being a bit nonplussed with the price on the other platforms).
Edit: derped the image upload
Vs
When I look for electronic stuff, that’s exactly what happens. It turns out some of it is good, some of it is awful, but there’s absolutely no way to tell.
Also you have automatically been signed up and charged for Prime.
- So hard to avoid signing up for Prime.
- Even harder to cancel your free trial of Prime if you ever caved and took the free trial.
- I don’t know why they don’t do Prime for free all year. I always buy more when I’m on free trial Prime. It would be an easy way to get more of my cash. But I guess enshittifying executives are going to demand more customer charges, and maybe they get more money from paid Prime subscribers than they get from increased purchasing anyway.
It’s not just a matter of avoiding it, I have been signed up for prime on days I didn’t eve use Amazon. The system will sign you up on its own.
