[HN Gopher] Everything on Amazon Is an Ad
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       Everything on Amazon Is an Ad
        
       Author : StuieK
       Score  : 33 points
       Date   : 2021-03-02 19:51 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.marketplacepulse.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.marketplacepulse.com)
        
       | Normal_gaussian wrote:
       | When a store owns its own inventory it is natural to tailor
       | recommendations to optimise margin gain - its largely testament
       | to the technological illiteracy of brick and mortar stores that
       | margin is rarely factored into personalised web positions such as
       | search results. It is very much factored in when designing store
       | layouts, catalogues, and ad campaigns.
       | 
       | In all these other places there is a contention between getting
       | the customer exactly what they might want (discovery) and getting
       | the customer to buy what you want. Note that stores want the
       | customer to buy items that will most cost them (overstock) as
       | well as items that will most profit them.
       | 
       | This way the store manages this contention becomes a key part of
       | its public image / brand, and affects its long term perception
       | and customer base.
       | 
       | How this heavy push from personalised recommendations to
       | personalised advertising will affect amazon is going to be
       | interesting.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | mdeck_ wrote:
       | Between this issue, the general untrustworthiness of the reviews,
       | and the fact that I can quite often find a better deal on masking
       | tape, undershirts, or whatever else at my local brick-and-mortar
       | store or a more specialized big-box retailer's website, I
       | actually rarely shop at Amazon anymore. I do still buy there--
       | especially for certain categories, such as streaming videos--but
       | I used to do SO much of my shopping at Amazon. All in all, Amazon
       | just doesn't feel to me like the outstanding store, the "shiny
       | object" that I once thought of it as--it feels much more like a
       | typical "rent-seeking" operation. But clearly they aren't
       | suffering for it--so they must be doing something right. *shrug*
        
       | hertzrat wrote:
       | Somewhat embarrassingly, I didn't realize that all those products
       | were ads. I thought their recommendation algorithms were getting
       | worse
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-02 23:02 UTC)