While it is absolutely valid to discuss Amazon's market power and the nature of monopoly in the modern era, the ideas that a featured product would be featured because it makes the company more money is in no way scandalous!
If any retail store has an end-cap product placement of an item that they are featuring, everyone presumes it is because it is a profit maximizer for them. Why is it presumed that Amazon must be a more impartial arbiter of quality versus traditional brick and mortar retail? In part it is because Amazon is a marketplace, but both are middlemen (except for private label products from your grocery store or Walmart/target).
I would say the difference here is that you can’t see ratings/reviews from other buyers on an end-cap the same way you do online. So the phrase “Amazon’s Choice” suggests that there is a level of editorial oversight that might not exist if the phrase was “featured by Amazon.”
Overall, I agree that this isn’t a huge surprise, but I think the fact that Amazon has data on things like returns, ratings, reviews, makes it totally understandable why someone would assume a “choice” product was chosen because of those factors and not because the company paid to be featured.
If a mommy blogger who makes $0/month from her 'business' gets a free product to promote a product on a youtube video watched by 100 people, they have to disclose this. Even reviewers on amazon.
Yet Amazon charges for the 'Choice' wording without disclosing the financial side. And they are making way more, and therefore can be way more biased, than the mommy blogger who gets fined a few grand for not disclosing her endorsements.
More than just the monopoly situation, the extreme disparity in enforcement of rules, and the amount of fines as a percentage of yearly income, is quite galling.
The vast majority of people don’t think about or understand advertising and marketing - if they did it wouldn’t work as well as it does.
Amazon has tons of little “ha ha tricked you” ways of making more money these days.
Next time you but an N-pack of anything on Amazon - more often than not the pack costs more per unit.. thats not how economy of scale is supposed to work right?
Having spent time inside a number of industries, I think there's a huge difference between insider knowledge and general-public knowledge. I'd guess that the average shopper would think something ends up more visible because it's something shoppers buy more frequently.
Also, the notion that X is terrible does not justify Y being also terrible. Do people object more to new or newly-revealed terribleness? Yes. Is that a reason not to take their objections seriously? Not at all.
> the ideas that a featured product would be featured because it makes the company more money is in no way scandalous!
This is completely true for most retailers. In particular for in person sales where people can straight assume they are getting bullshitted to close the sale.
The disconnect comes from amazon’s relentless push for customer satisfaction, clear labeling of the promoted and sponsored entries, separation between popular choices and well rated products etc.
That’s a corner of shadiness where we don’t expect it, which ends in a shock.
What looks unethical / abuse of monopoly-ish here is - you (business) something else completely unrelated, like ads or whatever, and in exchange they get an unrelated "Amazon's choice" tag.
Well, the fact that this has so many upvotes, sort of contradicts you. Some portion of people (maybe 15 or 20)% had brand-trust in amazon that their "choice" products were a service to the purchaser.
With that disproven, those same people (presumably the ones who were most trusting of Amazon) now have been bitten and are forced to reevaluate Amazon's honesty and Amazon's reputability. I imagine those upvoting this topic are the very 10-15% who find this behavior shocking and potentially self-destructive of amazon.
These days, I see Amazon as a combination of eBay and AliExpress with faster shipping and prices that are ~$2-3 higher.
I still use it a lot, because I'm almost always happy with what I get with those expectations. But it surprises me when people talk about it like some sort of heavily-curated marketplace.
Even so, it sounds like they haven't done what the title describes for a couple of years. FTA: "An agency source said that while this bidding program ran briefly in 2017, Amazon rolled it back and Amazon’s Choice badges are now driven by Amazon’s algorithms."
>To be considered, Amazon required brands to be able to keep products in stock for a 12-month duration, keep customer review ratings above four stars, and maintain certain technical specifications for their respective subcategories.
i don't see anything wrong with this. Essentially, if multiple products in a category are all good enough to be recommended, amazon was selling the featured slot instead of picking one of the contenders randomly. They weren't selling the featured slot to undeserving products.
I'd agree if they're was any oversight of the review process. Instead, they have the same score gaming problem as app stores. There are literally sellers that send competing products and their own products to random people so they (the sellers' themselves) can post fake reviews as verified purchases. Hell, even having to mark reviews as verified should be enough to make people doubt the legitimacy of all reviews on the store.
Unless the product is failing in catastrophic ways that inspire loads of pissed off customers, 3 stars is the new 0 stars and be suspicious of anything with a high number of reviews. High review count means the seller had to stuff the ballot box to make up for lower score real reviews or a fake review battle with a competitor.
My latest way of weeding out the more egregious fakes (in addition to ReviewMeta and FakeSpot) is to look for customer pics that are either just pictures of the box, item not being used, or, to a lesser extent, promo styled (nice lighting and odd angles). Also, a quick scan of early reviews to see if there were more low ratings or mentions of a completely different product. Some sellers will pay for or get legit good reviews on an item, then swap the item number to a new item in the same category. Same goes for having multiple very different items in one listing as purchase options (4 options for a keyboard - red color, blue color, travel mouse, fishing lure set).
Look at the reviews for Amazon's choice for "iphone charge audio". The questions, pictures and reviews are about some totally unrelated product. I'm not sure if Amazon sold this slot, or just randomly chose from a huge assortment of crap listings.
(Though seriously, if anyone has a recommendation of a decent product to charge an iPhone and allow audio out at the same time, please post it)
Isn't this obvious? I mean I'm pretty cynical, but the first time I ever saw "amazon's choice" I figured oh - they have a higher profit margin on this or something - it's obviously not (necessarily) the best thing for me.
Is it obvious? People could just as well think it's something like Trader Joe's, where the first hurdle for selection is quality.
One of the big problems with e-commerce is trust, and I could easily see some bright spark at Amazon saying, "What if we did extensive testing, found the best-value item in each category, and gave it our blessing? We could reduce decision fatigue, increase revenue, and strengthen our customer bond."
We see Wirecutter out there making good money on doing exactly that, so it's not crazy to think Amazon would just do that themselves.
There are plenty of times people think their guess is the obvious truth, but it falls apart when examined. Gathering and presenting evidence to better examine our own assumptions about a situation should be a positive act.
Unrelated, but lately I'm frustrated that so many household items I want to buy are mostly available only in some kind of bulk pack. No, I don't want 6 bottles of dish soap if I don't yet know I like it. And it seems sometimes the bulk pack is even cheaper than a single item, like how a round-trip can be cheaper than a one-way. Also weird are the paid shipping options for me, even with Prime - most often if I chose to pay more for shipping it would schedule the package to arrive later than sooner, vs the free shipping being the fastest option. I don't know why I'm even presented with that choice.
What's odd is there isn't any outcry over stores doing that, and they don't even label promoted placement. At least Amazon labels product ads. That said, the opacity of Amazon's Choice is still concerning.
Nowhere in that article is Amazon's choice mentioned.
Amazon has always taken a pretty libertarian stance on selling books. It's been a dilemma for the company since inception. What is and isn't okay to sell.
I agree there should be some moderation, but I don't see anything wrong with the article you posted.
Everything is some sort of hustle. Companies pay for reviews. Reviewers often have no idea how to use the product. All you can really do is be ready to throw what you get in the trash if you don't like it.
My suggestion would be to reconsider local shops—even if they’re chains—as they’ve gotten much better at stocking good items these days. (Obviously this can’t apply for everything) Many stores have drive-up pickup and ship-to-store options, and have even gotten better about stocking good products on their shelves.
I have started to consider stores as “immediate delivery” over the two-ish day delivery of Amazon, and it has really helped me leave the Amazon machine. I never really needed all the impulse purchases from Amazon, and more standard purchases are far more convenient than any subscription or Dash purchase could ever be. And if the item is a dollar or two more? Oh, well; if I could upgrade my two-day shipping to “get it in 20 minutes” shipping for $2 more, then I’d probably do it.
You might have a different experience or a wider range of purchase history than me, but unsubscribing from Amazon Prime and driving to the store was a great choice for my shopping needs.
[+] [-] ryan_j_naughton|6 years ago|reply
If any retail store has an end-cap product placement of an item that they are featuring, everyone presumes it is because it is a profit maximizer for them. Why is it presumed that Amazon must be a more impartial arbiter of quality versus traditional brick and mortar retail? In part it is because Amazon is a marketplace, but both are middlemen (except for private label products from your grocery store or Walmart/target).
[+] [-] filmgirlcw|6 years ago|reply
Overall, I agree that this isn’t a huge surprise, but I think the fact that Amazon has data on things like returns, ratings, reviews, makes it totally understandable why someone would assume a “choice” product was chosen because of those factors and not because the company paid to be featured.
[+] [-] 4ntonius8lock|6 years ago|reply
Yet Amazon charges for the 'Choice' wording without disclosing the financial side. And they are making way more, and therefore can be way more biased, than the mommy blogger who gets fined a few grand for not disclosing her endorsements.
More than just the monopoly situation, the extreme disparity in enforcement of rules, and the amount of fines as a percentage of yearly income, is quite galling.
[+] [-] completelylegit|6 years ago|reply
Amazon has tons of little “ha ha tricked you” ways of making more money these days.
Next time you but an N-pack of anything on Amazon - more often than not the pack costs more per unit.. thats not how economy of scale is supposed to work right?
[+] [-] wpietri|6 years ago|reply
[citation needed]
Having spent time inside a number of industries, I think there's a huge difference between insider knowledge and general-public knowledge. I'd guess that the average shopper would think something ends up more visible because it's something shoppers buy more frequently.
Also, the notion that X is terrible does not justify Y being also terrible. Do people object more to new or newly-revealed terribleness? Yes. Is that a reason not to take their objections seriously? Not at all.
[+] [-] hrktb|6 years ago|reply
This is completely true for most retailers. In particular for in person sales where people can straight assume they are getting bullshitted to close the sale.
The disconnect comes from amazon’s relentless push for customer satisfaction, clear labeling of the promoted and sponsored entries, separation between popular choices and well rated products etc.
That’s a corner of shadiness where we don’t expect it, which ends in a shock.
[+] [-] rdsubhas|6 years ago|reply
What looks unethical / abuse of monopoly-ish here is - you (business) something else completely unrelated, like ads or whatever, and in exchange they get an unrelated "Amazon's choice" tag.
It feels similar to a kickback/bribe.
[+] [-] alexandercrohde|6 years ago|reply
With that disproven, those same people (presumably the ones who were most trusting of Amazon) now have been bitten and are forced to reevaluate Amazon's honesty and Amazon's reputability. I imagine those upvoting this topic are the very 10-15% who find this behavior shocking and potentially self-destructive of amazon.
[+] [-] leggomylibro|6 years ago|reply
I still use it a lot, because I'm almost always happy with what I get with those expectations. But it surprises me when people talk about it like some sort of heavily-curated marketplace.
Even so, it sounds like they haven't done what the title describes for a couple of years. FTA: "An agency source said that while this bidding program ran briefly in 2017, Amazon rolled it back and Amazon’s Choice badges are now driven by Amazon’s algorithms."
[+] [-] sixothree|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jagat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notatoad|6 years ago|reply
i don't see anything wrong with this. Essentially, if multiple products in a category are all good enough to be recommended, amazon was selling the featured slot instead of picking one of the contenders randomly. They weren't selling the featured slot to undeserving products.
[+] [-] xbkingx|6 years ago|reply
Unless the product is failing in catastrophic ways that inspire loads of pissed off customers, 3 stars is the new 0 stars and be suspicious of anything with a high number of reviews. High review count means the seller had to stuff the ballot box to make up for lower score real reviews or a fake review battle with a competitor.
My latest way of weeding out the more egregious fakes (in addition to ReviewMeta and FakeSpot) is to look for customer pics that are either just pictures of the box, item not being used, or, to a lesser extent, promo styled (nice lighting and odd angles). Also, a quick scan of early reviews to see if there were more low ratings or mentions of a completely different product. Some sellers will pay for or get legit good reviews on an item, then swap the item number to a new item in the same category. Same goes for having multiple very different items in one listing as purchase options (4 options for a keyboard - red color, blue color, travel mouse, fishing lure set).
[+] [-] dubya|6 years ago|reply
(Though seriously, if anyone has a recommendation of a decent product to charge an iPhone and allow audio out at the same time, please post it)
[+] [-] lonelappde|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] esotericn|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wpietri|6 years ago|reply
One of the big problems with e-commerce is trust, and I could easily see some bright spark at Amazon saying, "What if we did extensive testing, found the best-value item in each category, and gave it our blessing? We could reduce decision fatigue, increase revenue, and strengthen our customer bond."
We see Wirecutter out there making good money on doing exactly that, so it's not crazy to think Amazon would just do that themselves.
[+] [-] joegahona|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dontbenebby|6 years ago|reply
"We said it was Amazon's choice, not the editor's choice. But here's a 5 dollar credit - we value your feedback at Amazon."
[+] [-] tfha|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lawlorino|6 years ago|reply
Not really. What's the point of this post, are you looking for someone to pat you on the back and tell you well done?
[+] [-] TheCowboy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spraak|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] all_blue_chucks|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dehrmann|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duxup|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cheeze|6 years ago|reply
Nowhere in that article is Amazon's choice mentioned.
Amazon has always taken a pretty libertarian stance on selling books. It's been a dilemma for the company since inception. What is and isn't okay to sell.
I agree there should be some moderation, but I don't see anything wrong with the article you posted.
[+] [-] java-man|6 years ago|reply
read the reviews instead.
[+] [-] jrockway|6 years ago|reply
Everything is some sort of hustle. Companies pay for reviews. Reviewers often have no idea how to use the product. All you can really do is be ready to throw what you get in the trash if you don't like it.
[+] [-] DHPersonal|6 years ago|reply
I have started to consider stores as “immediate delivery” over the two-ish day delivery of Amazon, and it has really helped me leave the Amazon machine. I never really needed all the impulse purchases from Amazon, and more standard purchases are far more convenient than any subscription or Dash purchase could ever be. And if the item is a dollar or two more? Oh, well; if I could upgrade my two-day shipping to “get it in 20 minutes” shipping for $2 more, then I’d probably do it.
You might have a different experience or a wider range of purchase history than me, but unsubscribing from Amazon Prime and driving to the store was a great choice for my shopping needs.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]