What If Amazon.com Actually Is a Horrible Website?(buzzfeednews.com)
buzzfeednews.com
What If Amazon.com Actually Is a Horrible Website?
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/amazon-website-sucks
140 comments
Can't speak to AWS, but I know that the e-commerce side of Amazon.com is A/B tested to within an inch of its life. They test absolutely everything, including colors, size, layout, spacing, etc to check for the best conversion rate. They have a huge team of developers and designers working just on this site optimization and they're constantly running experiments.
It may not be good UX as measured by some aesthetic standard or set of best practices, but the site is accomplishing its goal for Amazon and arguably the consumers who use it.
It may not be good UX as measured by some aesthetic standard or set of best practices, but the site is accomplishing its goal for Amazon and arguably the consumers who use it.
that seems like the google way of building product. you test all these micro changes but miss out on the macro changes the site actually needs, which doesn't really work out. no one can argue that amazon has good ux. from product to product and day to day the website layout changes. each product site has just a ton of data thrown up on it. it has horrible tracking of product purchases. for example, if looking at a paperback book, it gives no indication that you may have purchased the hardcover. it has terrible management of books that may have multiple editions. buying older books takes some time because they'll often have multiple pages for the exact same book. pre-ordering is a mess. i have been sent two video games before because i pre-ordered a game super early which then apparently got a new product page. i thought i had never pre-ordered it some time later and amazon didn't mention it, so i ordered it again since it gave no indication i had ordered that exact product. the search is not great either. comparing products is non-existent. just cycling through various options like color can be a chore just to see a different price.
just because they have a process doesn't mean it works. but yea, like someone said, i guess the general user doesn't care. i know it has lessened my use of the site.
just because they have a process doesn't mean it works. but yea, like someone said, i guess the general user doesn't care. i know it has lessened my use of the site.
And there might have well reason to change the small things only, but nothing fundamentel. People hate change. If they start to turn the website upside down, their customers would start to whine, and cry, and complain. A lot of wasted time they could spend with buying stuff.
So, it ugly and bad as hell, but everybody is trained and accustomed to it. Why risking confusing customers without need?
So, it ugly and bad as hell, but everybody is trained and accustomed to it. Why risking confusing customers without need?
True that. Just two thoughts on it:
1) You can A/B test yourself into a corner. They are definitely doing it right, whether it is the right thing to do is a different question.
2) Having some process insight into the operations / logistics side I can confirm that everything thing is connected to the webside one way or the other. That is what gives Amazon its huge operational advantage. Downside is, with everything developed in-house, this approach can end up as a motely collection of legacy systems. And that makes changing things difficult and had the potential to become a major pain in the ass long term.
1) You can A/B test yourself into a corner. They are definitely doing it right, whether it is the right thing to do is a different question.
2) Having some process insight into the operations / logistics side I can confirm that everything thing is connected to the webside one way or the other. That is what gives Amazon its huge operational advantage. Downside is, with everything developed in-house, this approach can end up as a motely collection of legacy systems. And that makes changing things difficult and had the potential to become a major pain in the ass long term.
Ex amazonian here, all of the internal systems have well defined API interfaces. So long as you don't blow up the API's you can replace any legacy system you want because it doesn't have tendrils that reach into 50 other systems.
Maybe they are A/B testing in a local maximum
> They have a huge team of developers and designers working just on this site optimization
Maybe they should A/B test this team and go with the other one.
Maybe they should A/B test this team and go with the other one.
Pretty doesn’t necessarily mean effective at converting. I think Amazon’s team is perfectly competent at testing whether one design makes more money than another — and I think they’re competent enough to go with the one that makes more money.
I have a suspicion they A/B test the little things, like is it better to show the price in dollars or the local currency, and is it better to have a 'add to cart' or 'buy it now' button.
They miss the big changes like 'shall we show all the products in a 3d immersive VR gallery' or 'make a site which downloads all data and works entirely offline'.
Those big changes might usually fail, but if you never try any of them, you'll end up with a site that looks and behaves like it's from the 1990's, while the rest of the world has moved on.
They miss the big changes like 'shall we show all the products in a 3d immersive VR gallery' or 'make a site which downloads all data and works entirely offline'.
Those big changes might usually fail, but if you never try any of them, you'll end up with a site that looks and behaves like it's from the 1990's, while the rest of the world has moved on.
They do try those things too. You under estimate how much experimentation goes on in Amazon.
Giraffe was also A/B tested to within an inch of life:
https://i.imgur.com/NP50sD1.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/NP50sD1.jpg
If they are always testing why does it seem like the UI never changes? Because the changes are so incremental?
Sounds like they are stuck in a local optimum with their site.
> and arguably the consumers who use it
The consumers who use it have no goal other than getting stuff they think they need, faster.
The consumers who use it have no goal other than getting stuff they think they need, faster.
This is a shallow view of AWS and Amazon.
Amazon is successful because it has mostly everything in stock and can get most of it to you in 2 days. Amazon is logistics and trust. The trust is eroding and the logistics is worse because they're delivering things themselves, but still that is why it is.
AWS has more than Azure and GCP.
Appearances and experience aren't the whole of a product. Overfocus on them as a producer or consumer is a problem.
Amazon is successful because it has mostly everything in stock and can get most of it to you in 2 days. Amazon is logistics and trust. The trust is eroding and the logistics is worse because they're delivering things themselves, but still that is why it is.
AWS has more than Azure and GCP.
Appearances and experience aren't the whole of a product. Overfocus on them as a producer or consumer is a problem.
That's the thing, it largely _doesn't_ have more than Azure or GCP these days. And for 80%, maybe 90% of all use cases in existence, AWS v Azure v GCP from a pure catalog offering perspective is identical. And when that compounds with other factors, it falls far behind.
Obviously Amazon.com is different and it's mostly about logistics, inventory and reduced buyer friction among some other things.
Obviously Amazon.com is different and it's mostly about logistics, inventory and reduced buyer friction among some other things.
I would go on a limb and say that Amazon doesn’t invest in better UX because that’s not what most of their customers care about. Someone at that company has already done the math and decided investing in Amazon Go or 1 hour delivery or Whole Foods is a far better return than investing in UI improvement.
I do think people in this discussion are looking at this from a developer or designer point of view. I read some article a while ago about how Amazon saw a increase in sales from millisecond level improvement in page loads. I bet that’s what they optimize for, and less so on how pretty the UX is.
That all being said, I think Amazon is turning into EBay with all the garbage ads I see on the website, just trying to buy replacement toothbrush heads, but that’s an entirely different discussion.
I do think people in this discussion are looking at this from a developer or designer point of view. I read some article a while ago about how Amazon saw a increase in sales from millisecond level improvement in page loads. I bet that’s what they optimize for, and less so on how pretty the UX is.
That all being said, I think Amazon is turning into EBay with all the garbage ads I see on the website, just trying to buy replacement toothbrush heads, but that’s an entirely different discussion.
> I would go on a limb and say that Amazon doesn’t invest in better UX because that’s not what most of their customers care about. Someone at that company has already done the math and decided investing in Amazon Go or 1 hour delivery or Whole Foods is a far better return than investing in UI improvement.
I imagine a company like Amazon has the resources to do both.
> I do think people in this discussion are looking at this from a developer or designer point of view. I read some article a while ago about how Amazon saw a increase in sales from millisecond level improvement in page loads. I bet that’s what they optimize for, and less so on how pretty the UX is.
Same point. These features, performance and an attractive user interface, aren't mutually exclusive. I'd argue that in fact both are tightly coupled and are part of what makes the design and user experience.
I imagine a company like Amazon has the resources to do both.
> I do think people in this discussion are looking at this from a developer or designer point of view. I read some article a while ago about how Amazon saw a increase in sales from millisecond level improvement in page loads. I bet that’s what they optimize for, and less so on how pretty the UX is.
Same point. These features, performance and an attractive user interface, aren't mutually exclusive. I'd argue that in fact both are tightly coupled and are part of what makes the design and user experience.
I’m a developer and I play the resident certified AWS Architect when necessary. For me, the “interface” that I use every day is not the website. It’s either the CLI, Boto3 (Python), or the C# SDK.
One of the reasons Amazon has been able to achieve so much diversity around what you can do with their cloud systems is because they allow the individual teams to build and manage their own services.
I'd argue that if they were building towards one, big, consistent UX (a UX they'd prefer to use the APIs and command-line tools directly anyway, rather than the GUI), that they wouldn't have the amount of functionality, breadth-of-coverage or marketshare they have today.
I'd argue that if they were building towards one, big, consistent UX (a UX they'd prefer to use the APIs and command-line tools directly anyway, rather than the GUI), that they wouldn't have the amount of functionality, breadth-of-coverage or marketshare they have today.
AWS’s user interface is inconsistent, and as someone who uses most of the different services in a given week - the DevOps, NetOps, and developer portions - I just don’t use the website that often during a given day, I’m almost exclusively either using one of the SDKs or the CLI.
Out of all the things I care about, the user interface is not one.
Out of all the things I care about, the user interface is not one.
This was going to be my point. AWS delivers a minimum viable product and heavily iterates on it. Usually features are prioritized over "upgrade the piece of shit angular app we use for the console."
I might run through the console to learn how something works, but in general I'm interacting with AWS through a terminal, and doing so that way is generally quite enjoyable.
I agree that GCP at least is a better experience for me as a developer, but I'm not sure if that translates directly into better anything for a customer of mine.
I might run through the console to learn how something works, but in general I'm interacting with AWS through a terminal, and doing so that way is generally quite enjoyable.
I agree that GCP at least is a better experience for me as a developer, but I'm not sure if that translates directly into better anything for a customer of mine.
Can you offer more specifics about what you think is so terrible about its UX?
To me it's rather simple and clean, and I would expect that they have a vast team of UX experts testing their site to make sure it meets their overall product goals.
Besides, what you might find aesthetically pleasing is not necessarily pleasing to a global population of users with varied backgrounds/diverse age groups -- e.g. older generations might prefer the super simple fonts and general design standards that were more prevalent one or two decades ago.
To me it's rather simple and clean, and I would expect that they have a vast team of UX experts testing their site to make sure it meets their overall product goals.
Besides, what you might find aesthetically pleasing is not necessarily pleasing to a global population of users with varied backgrounds/diverse age groups -- e.g. older generations might prefer the super simple fonts and general design standards that were more prevalent one or two decades ago.
Some product pages have images that zoom when you hover them, some instead have images that pop open in a (terrible) lightbox. No rhyme or reason as far as I can tell why some are one way and some are the other.
Especially for electronics or computer parts, if you don't know _exactly_ what you're looking for down to the part/model number, you're not going to get any help on amazon.com. I get the feeling they don't do any actual categorization (like say newegg seems to do) and instead you're actually getting just full-text search on product descriptions.
If you really want the part soon, you'd be fine with either "Prime" or "Prime FREE One-Day", right? But you can't search for both at the same time, for some reason they are mutually exclusive. So you duplicate the browser tab and search for "Prime" options in one and "Free One-Day" options in the other, like a caveman banging two tabs^W rocks together. I just noticed there's yet another option, a checkbox under "Delivery day" reading "Get It by Tomorrow".
If you _do_ know exactly what you want, good luck getting it because of the whole similar products from different sources getting intermingled in inventory.
I'm frankly blown away by how user-hostile the whole thing is. Prime shipping buys a lot of goodwill, it seems.
Especially for electronics or computer parts, if you don't know _exactly_ what you're looking for down to the part/model number, you're not going to get any help on amazon.com. I get the feeling they don't do any actual categorization (like say newegg seems to do) and instead you're actually getting just full-text search on product descriptions.
If you really want the part soon, you'd be fine with either "Prime" or "Prime FREE One-Day", right? But you can't search for both at the same time, for some reason they are mutually exclusive. So you duplicate the browser tab and search for "Prime" options in one and "Free One-Day" options in the other, like a caveman banging two tabs^W rocks together. I just noticed there's yet another option, a checkbox under "Delivery day" reading "Get It by Tomorrow".
If you _do_ know exactly what you want, good luck getting it because of the whole similar products from different sources getting intermingled in inventory.
I'm frankly blown away by how user-hostile the whole thing is. Prime shipping buys a lot of goodwill, it seems.
Up until two or three ywars ago Amazon did a tremendous job on catalogue data. Then the catalogue started to show the first issues of bad master data. It is hard work to maintain such large set of product master data, sure. But in the end I had the feeling that quality decreased. Add marketplace and third parties to the mix and it is a complex problem that needs constant maintenance directly impacting CX.
I think it mattered originally, when they were one of many. But once you are on the website the reliability of shipping, and simply the fact they already have my credit card is a major factor in repeat business.
It was probably much more important in the early days than it is now.
It was probably much more important in the early days than it is now.
AWS's biggest customers are and always have been enterprises who have existing ops teams and existing data-centres, and are trying to "add cloud" or "migrate to cloud" the services that are running on those data centres, without either breaking SLAs with customers, or disrupting the workflows of those existing enterprise ops staff.
There is no reason to use AWS for green-field software development. But who's even doing that, these days, anyway?
There is no reason to use AWS for green-field software development. But who's even doing that, these days, anyway?
> There is no reason to use AWS for green-field software development. But who's even doing that, these days, anyway?
I mean, lots of people are, right? I'm not myself, so I guess I don't really know, but surely lots of people are still making green-field software (if not, I think our industry is in some trouble...) and presumably a reasonably high proportion of those people are using the current #1 cloud hosting provider. Which part of this is wrong?
I mean, lots of people are, right? I'm not myself, so I guess I don't really know, but surely lots of people are still making green-field software (if not, I think our industry is in some trouble...) and presumably a reasonably high proportion of those people are using the current #1 cloud hosting provider. Which part of this is wrong?
By definition if you are doing stuff on prem and then you start using AWS’s products like lambda, SQS, Fargate, etc you are doing green field projects.
> I have actively stayed away from AWS in the past few years b/c it has such a bad UX/DX and yet....it grows.
A lot of people are probably using something like puppet/chef/ansible/terraform and don’t encounter the web console very often.
A lot of people are probably using something like puppet/chef/ansible/terraform and don’t encounter the web console very often.
IMO using the web console for your cloud development sounds like your a tiny shop. Your infrastructure and all that configuration should be in code and version control.
I think CloudFormation is difficult to use and could be much easier, but ops rant about the AWS UI being unfriendly makes it sound like he’s not really the kind of customer AWS is really after.
I think CloudFormation is difficult to use and could be much easier, but ops rant about the AWS UI being unfriendly makes it sound like he’s not really the kind of customer AWS is really after.
We are a tiny shop and I use ansible whenever possible. Even managing two or three ec2 instances with the UI is a nightmare. IMO that's a feature - you should start with a cms when small. Not bolt it on when it is too late. I'm looking into terraform though. Ansible's aws support is fairly limited.
You will love Terraform. I highly recommend it over Cloudformation or any configuration management cloud-specific extensions.
The reason that you should use CloudFormation is that if you are working for a business, they most likely have a business support agreement with AWS. If you ever come across an issue, you have an easy button - AWS’s excellent support.
I've found Hashicorp's support to be superior to paid AWS support. YMMV.
I had an issue with a CF template caused by property not being the correct case and the error message made no sense.
I started a chat with AWS after giving them the ARN of the template. He looked through my CloudTrail logs and the documentation and couldn’t figure it out either. He said he would get back to me....
He created a simplified CF template that reproduced the problem, talked to an CF developer, he said the developer looked through the code of the API call that CF was attempting and they found that the property was case sensitive. The guys at Hashicorp couldnt do that.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Hashicorp fanboy when it comes to onpremise implementations. I developed a system around Consul, Nomad, and Vault with a helping of Fabio.
I started a chat with AWS after giving them the ARN of the template. He looked through my CloudTrail logs and the documentation and couldn’t figure it out either. He said he would get back to me....
He created a simplified CF template that reproduced the problem, talked to an CF developer, he said the developer looked through the code of the API call that CF was attempting and they found that the property was case sensitive. The guys at Hashicorp couldnt do that.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Hashicorp fanboy when it comes to onpremise implementations. I developed a system around Consul, Nomad, and Vault with a helping of Fabio.
I don't think you really get why enterprises buy managed cloud services, or why consumers buy in general. Your purchasing criteria seems out of tune with what consumers care the most about: selection, price, service.
I'd agree with this for amazon.com and consumers.
That still doesn't explain AWS v Azure or GCP which have similar (or better) services, more than competitive pricing and in Azure's case, waaaaay better support.
In fact, everything about AWS is typically worse. Perhaps AWS entered the 'no one ever got fired for buying AWS territory' even when there are a ton of better options out there. If that's the case, kinda sucks for devs who are stuck using their crappy services when so many others exist.
That still doesn't explain AWS v Azure or GCP which have similar (or better) services, more than competitive pricing and in Azure's case, waaaaay better support.
In fact, everything about AWS is typically worse. Perhaps AWS entered the 'no one ever got fired for buying AWS territory' even when there are a ton of better options out there. If that's the case, kinda sucks for devs who are stuck using their crappy services when so many others exist.
It would be hard for me to imagine better support than we get from AWS support. Yes, we're paying for enterprise support and that's not inexpensive, but the support itself is phenomenal.
We literally have AWS technical generalists on-site once a week and they bring in subject matter experts on specific topics/services as-needed, sometimes on-site, sometimes via video.
We literally have AWS technical generalists on-site once a week and they bring in subject matter experts on specific topics/services as-needed, sometimes on-site, sometimes via video.
I think part of it is AWS still has the broadest feature set. Also, the "dev ex" part gets easier especially if you are using AWS services through its CLI, and not through the console.
Agreed that the console's UX violates almost every UX principle in terms of its use of signifiers, etc.
Agreed that the console's UX violates almost every UX principle in terms of its use of signifiers, etc.
I can’t speak to Azure, but GCP is backed by Google, and Google has a long history of killing off products. That’s not something I’d like to base my business on.
AWS in general feels like an undead survivor of 90's enterprise java websites.
In India, we have Flipkart which is bigger than Amazon. I recently went back to using it and realized that their UX is so much cleaner and better looking than Amazon. Images are uniform, the text is well formatted, the colors aren't just a jumble of grays and the odd orange
> And DX doesn't matter to most developers?
I'm a developer and don't know what that is.
I'm a developer and don't know what that is.
Presumably developer experience, the developers experience working with a particular project, tool or whatever.
Sometimes referred to as "dev x".
Sometimes referred to as "dev x".
Developer UX.
See Richard P. Gabriel's essay http://dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html
Newer the product, more likely they will learn and build a better product. AWS console is very old. That said, most developers do not use the console.
If DX mattered to developers then we'd all still be using Rails. But generally the reaction I get when I highlight DX as a reason to pick technology is a misguided and masochistic "pick the right tool for the job" mentality.
I would love to see developers prioritizing themselves better. But they don't, themselves, do this.
I would love to see developers prioritizing themselves better. But they don't, themselves, do this.
Since when were developers clicking around on a website to develop?
DX? This is new to me, and search finds nothing enlightening or seems like it might be relevant. "Deus ex machina" perhaps? :)
Presumably 'developer experience', given how it's used in conjunction with 'user experience' for a developer-focused product :)
Admittedly not the most easily understood acronym, and I'm sort of guessing.
Admittedly not the most easily understood acronym, and I'm sort of guessing.
Thanks. Of course now it seems obvious enough in context that I should have inferred this. Oh well. :)
If you search for
UX DX
you will find lots of hits about.
UX DX
you will find lots of hits about.
Dev ex machina :)
I find amazon.com functional in a lot of ways, but it's definitely ugly and inconsistent and sometimes quite difficult to use. That aside though can you imagine if they did a significant reskin? Better or worse they would get torn to shreds. I bet that's at least a factor in what they decide to do.
I think in the case of amazon.com, the people who go there usually know what they want, they go, they search and the results they get are good enough.
It's actually a terrible site to "browse" if you're looking for something but not really sure what, but if you know roughly what you want it works fine.
It's actually a terrible site to "browse" if you're looking for something but not really sure what, but if you know roughly what you want it works fine.
Maybe AWS's web console was ugly.
Their CLI app, APIs, SDKs definitely aren't.
I don’t use Amazon for the website, I use it because it brings shit to my house in a day or two. Companies with tremendous market power often have shitty customer experiences.
Alternative title: "Amazon's web marketplace is so complex that it sometimes makes unexpected automated up-sell recommendations"
There's not really any news here, other than the fact that managing such a huge _and extremely effective_ commercial website is difficult even for one of the most well-resourced tech companies in the world.
If the purpose of an website-that-sells-things is to have carefully tuned UX for every product page, Amazon.com has some small (although hardly 'horrible') UX problems. If the purpose is to sell stuff, the article makes it very clear that for an arbitrarily specific product (bassoon straps), you're extremely likely to be able to buy one quickly and easily from Amazon.
What if BuzzFeedNews.com is actually... trolling its audience?
There's not really any news here, other than the fact that managing such a huge _and extremely effective_ commercial website is difficult even for one of the most well-resourced tech companies in the world.
If the purpose of an website-that-sells-things is to have carefully tuned UX for every product page, Amazon.com has some small (although hardly 'horrible') UX problems. If the purpose is to sell stuff, the article makes it very clear that for an arbitrarily specific product (bassoon straps), you're extremely likely to be able to buy one quickly and easily from Amazon.
What if BuzzFeedNews.com is actually... trolling its audience?
> What if BuzzFeedNews.com is actually... trolling its audience?
Couldn't agree more. Buzzfeed always makes me cringe. Even when an article sounds genuinely interesting and less click baity, I can't bring myself to visit the site.
Couldn't agree more. Buzzfeed always makes me cringe. Even when an article sounds genuinely interesting and less click baity, I can't bring myself to visit the site.
Buzzfeed and Buzzfeed News are completely different products with different quality levels and goals
I've stopped shopping at Amazon for most of the day to day things that I need for exactly the reasons the author brings up. Paper towels? I'll pay the extra $1.20 to know that I'm not accidentally buying a 500 pack or ordering from China and it'll take nine weeks.
The toothbrushes I'm buying on Amazon might be $4 with free shipping but I immediately question its authenticity. I've bought enough junk that's turned out to be a scam[0] that it's just easier to buy the same thing in a store. At least 15% of my one-off purchases have turned out to be regrettable. Hell, I even poked my head into one of the Facebook groups of sellers and "buyers" gaming the algorithm to see what it's about, and couldn't be more astounded to find that _everything_ on Amazon is being gamed. Everything you can buy is being replaced with knock-off junk.
Amazon's greatest asset, its convenience, has become outweighed by its low quality bar for me. It's a real disappointment. The massive influx of utter garbage has made everyday purchases risky, and it's an easy risk to avoid.
[0] I once bought a shirt that was physically impossible to put on for any human being with a head diameter greater than 10cm.
The toothbrushes I'm buying on Amazon might be $4 with free shipping but I immediately question its authenticity. I've bought enough junk that's turned out to be a scam[0] that it's just easier to buy the same thing in a store. At least 15% of my one-off purchases have turned out to be regrettable. Hell, I even poked my head into one of the Facebook groups of sellers and "buyers" gaming the algorithm to see what it's about, and couldn't be more astounded to find that _everything_ on Amazon is being gamed. Everything you can buy is being replaced with knock-off junk.
Amazon's greatest asset, its convenience, has become outweighed by its low quality bar for me. It's a real disappointment. The massive influx of utter garbage has made everyday purchases risky, and it's an easy risk to avoid.
[0] I once bought a shirt that was physically impossible to put on for any human being with a head diameter greater than 10cm.
I think the inherent problem is that no site should be as big as Amazon is current. It just has insane mindshare. There is a shop 3 miles from the Buzzfeed offices that has one listed on their website for 37 cents more than Amazon charges, it seems absurd to me not to go to actual stores when buying in domains where the employees would have knowledge.
Two things are happening:
1.) There are probably millions of searches that don't work. These would work normally if you asked someone who worked at a brick and mortar store that had domain experience.
2.) Amazon has half of all online purchases but many of those are from customer loyalty that was earned in areas that do not constitute the absolute majority of purchases most people (at least on HN) make.
Also I went through two years of personal and business Amazon purchases and literally couldn't remember a time when I had an issue. Especially after the last HN discussion made about this I realized just how much I still buy in brick and mortar.
Also I went through two years of personal and business Amazon purchases and literally couldn't remember a time when I had an issue. Especially after the last HN discussion made about this I realized just how much I still buy in brick and mortar.
I'm just doing less online shopping in general. I realize I buy less crap and end up spending on better quality products if I go in store.
I see a lot of people talking about how the site sells stuff well, but nothing about how well it gets you what you want.
Ignore for the moment the counterfeit issues, because those are not a "site" problem.
I still routinely fail to get what I search for. And then find it i. The "also bought" of whatever they do send me. Shipping times either lie more often than not, or are "true" after a seemingly arbitrary number of days between now and when it ships.
Anything that is deeply categorized (prime day. Prime now, Restaurants, etc) loses your filtering all the time. This past prime day I had to search through their pages of deals by hand because their search just failed.
This might well sell a lot of stuff...but like a news article that 8s broken up into multiple pages to seve me more ads, it is not good at what I want. Other forces (network effect) keep me there.
Ignore for the moment the counterfeit issues, because those are not a "site" problem.
I still routinely fail to get what I search for. And then find it i. The "also bought" of whatever they do send me. Shipping times either lie more often than not, or are "true" after a seemingly arbitrary number of days between now and when it ships.
Anything that is deeply categorized (prime day. Prime now, Restaurants, etc) loses your filtering all the time. This past prime day I had to search through their pages of deals by hand because their search just failed.
This might well sell a lot of stuff...but like a news article that 8s broken up into multiple pages to seve me more ads, it is not good at what I want. Other forces (network effect) keep me there.
Somehow it must be profitable, and is presumably intentional as they obviously fail at the most basic stuff and have done for years. They didn't always though.
Search for a product, find 156 results. Sort by rating or price and it's now often something absurd like 6 results. Where did the rest go? No manager or dev ever noticed this when it's now impossible to shop there and not notice this? This seems like a great whiteboard interview question in our strange alternate timeline "how would you sort a list without losing well over 90% of the list?"
Go back to the original search, tediously wade through the crap and realise none at all of these are the actual item you tried to find. Randomly click around a few of the shitty products shown. Find the actual product, often from the actual manufacturer with thousands of reviews, in the "customers who viewed this also viewed" or "customers eventually bought" lists. Question your sanity. Go back and check search. Nope, the actual item isn't there in the primary search at all. Just the shit.
Fortunately for me at least, there aren't enough other forces to keep me there and I now mostly shop elsewhere. Sometimes it would be annoyingly easy to just Amazon it, but they're not even cheapest or fastest any more.
Search for a product, find 156 results. Sort by rating or price and it's now often something absurd like 6 results. Where did the rest go? No manager or dev ever noticed this when it's now impossible to shop there and not notice this? This seems like a great whiteboard interview question in our strange alternate timeline "how would you sort a list without losing well over 90% of the list?"
Go back to the original search, tediously wade through the crap and realise none at all of these are the actual item you tried to find. Randomly click around a few of the shitty products shown. Find the actual product, often from the actual manufacturer with thousands of reviews, in the "customers who viewed this also viewed" or "customers eventually bought" lists. Question your sanity. Go back and check search. Nope, the actual item isn't there in the primary search at all. Just the shit.
Fortunately for me at least, there aren't enough other forces to keep me there and I now mostly shop elsewhere. Sometimes it would be annoyingly easy to just Amazon it, but they're not even cheapest or fastest any more.
The network effect keeping people there is the key bit. Other websites might be easier to navigate but they don't have the range, don't have the reviews, often admit they have no stock, usually cost a little more... not to mention how many people are signed up for Prime.
It's not just suboptimal search and categorization, which is a difficult problem across a product range as large and changing as Amazon's (but would be considered intolerably bad on virtually any other ecommerce platform, except possibly eBay). It's also deliberately making choices other websites could never get away with, like sticking banner ads for a third party website right above its additional product recommendations. Someone will have done the calculations on that and figured they make more from the clicks than they lose from people not coming back to Amazon though. Probably the same goes for any product page refresh/reorganization clean enough to make users wonder if they're still on Amazon...
It's not just suboptimal search and categorization, which is a difficult problem across a product range as large and changing as Amazon's (but would be considered intolerably bad on virtually any other ecommerce platform, except possibly eBay). It's also deliberately making choices other websites could never get away with, like sticking banner ads for a third party website right above its additional product recommendations. Someone will have done the calculations on that and figured they make more from the clicks than they lose from people not coming back to Amazon though. Probably the same goes for any product page refresh/reorganization clean enough to make users wonder if they're still on Amazon...
I've come to the realization that Amazon is very good at optimizing, but what they're optimizing for is not what I would optimize for and may be less than obvious. Sort by price for example clearly does something, but it's not sorting by price, especially if you've filtered down to a single merchant already.
I think that price, in the context of a site like Amazon's, deserves one of those "Wrong things developers believe about X" pages.
Any given item in Amazon's database (where 'item' == 'something that has its own page') can have multiple variants on color, size, and other varieties. Each variant may have its own price. So if you want to sort items by price, which price do you use?
Any given item in Amazon's database (where 'item' == 'something that has its own page') can have multiple variants on color, size, and other varieties. Each variant may have its own price. So if you want to sort items by price, which price do you use?
Ideally, I'd like it to sort based on the options I've narrowed by. I've come to realize it usually sorts based on the lowest used price for something that bins into the same item. Which is fairly unhelpful most of the time -- sort low to high results in either things that are generally less expensive, or things that are generally subject to super sketchy price manipulation by 3rd party sellers, even when I've declared I want to buy new, from amazon only.
> Any given item in Amazon's database (where 'item' == 'something that has its own page') can have multiple variants on color, size, and other varieties. Each variant may have its own price. So if you want to sort items by price, which price do you use?
Use the lowest price, but include filtering options to exclude items based on the criteria that makes them different (e.g. show only Small shirts that are Pink or Yellow), and use the lowest price of the items matching the filters.
Use the lowest price, but include filtering options to exclude items based on the criteria that makes them different (e.g. show only Small shirts that are Pink or Yellow), and use the lowest price of the items matching the filters.
Cheapest usable variation that satisfies the query.
E.g. if I search for a computer it should pick the variation with the cheapest cpu, not the one with bring-your-own-cpu
E.g. if I search for a computer it should pick the variation with the cheapest cpu, not the one with bring-your-own-cpu
You assume that the system has a notion of 'a computer', let alone 'a cpu'.
I occasionally dealt with the Amazon catalogue. It's a great example of 'garbage in, garbage out'.
This is also the reason I never bought computer parts on Amazon, even when I got a staff discount.
I occasionally dealt with the Amazon catalogue. It's a great example of 'garbage in, garbage out'.
This is also the reason I never bought computer parts on Amazon, even when I got a staff discount.
I believe the road to UX hell is paved with "we want to be a marketplace".
Even for a single SKU, Amazon will often stock the same item as new/used/refurb, from several sellers, at a whole galaxy of prices. This means there is no lone price to sort by, because you can't start with asking the user "Are you okay with a used one? Will you trust Acme Reseller Ltd as a merchant?".
Even for a single SKU, Amazon will often stock the same item as new/used/refurb, from several sellers, at a whole galaxy of prices. This means there is no lone price to sort by, because you can't start with asking the user "Are you okay with a used one? Will you trust Acme Reseller Ltd as a merchant?".
Not to mention the continuing lack of a decent weighted "order results by by user rating."
One thing I really like about Amazon is that they're not pushy about their mobile app. Anything I can do on my laptop, I can do on mobile web without them prompting me to download/use their app. Reddit is one of the worst offenders for this issue.
reddit's mobile site makes me actively want to not use reddit. it's enraging
The main reason I've stopped shopping on Amazon so often: Counterfeits.
I'm still a loyal Audible user, I might end up cancelling Prime soon, since I no longer order from Amazon enough to justify it. I've been a Prime user since 2009, since they were giving for free to students around that time. Now I'll just walk into Target or Walmart, or if I'm buying a PC/game/console getting it straight from the OEM such as Microsoft.
I'm still a loyal Audible user, I might end up cancelling Prime soon, since I no longer order from Amazon enough to justify it. I've been a Prime user since 2009, since they were giving for free to students around that time. Now I'll just walk into Target or Walmart, or if I'm buying a PC/game/console getting it straight from the OEM such as Microsoft.
Seems like it is impossible to buy a genuine PS3 controller on Amazon these days. Amazon is great for delivery, but lacks the tools needed to determine if a product is genuine or not. It aggregates hundreds of sellers for one product page, meaning going back and buying the same item from your history may result in a counterfeit the second time.
Prime now is great for stuff like this, although has to be available in your area. But yeah I agree, I'd never order an SD card off of Amazon.
Well, I think there are three things to consider here, which explain how Amazon does so well despite having made some questionable UI/UX decisions in the past.
1. Most of the changes/extra features were added piecemeal over the decades, with the basic site look not really changing all that much in the meantime.
So a lot of the awkward/poorly thought out/non integrated features are there because that's where it was practical to add them.
2. Obviously it's a large brand, so people are more forgiving of the design issues compared to a lesser known competitor. That's why copying the market leader may not always be the best idea, since the leader can do a lot of questionable things/make a lot of questionable design/content/whatever decisions and still have millions of people using their services, whereas a small company/site with these frustrations will just go ignored/unused.
3. They A/B test everything, and what the data says is most effective is not always what a designer would think looks/feels best. Look at some of the best performing landing pages; many look outright hideous yet convert really well.
1. Most of the changes/extra features were added piecemeal over the decades, with the basic site look not really changing all that much in the meantime.
So a lot of the awkward/poorly thought out/non integrated features are there because that's where it was practical to add them.
2. Obviously it's a large brand, so people are more forgiving of the design issues compared to a lesser known competitor. That's why copying the market leader may not always be the best idea, since the leader can do a lot of questionable things/make a lot of questionable design/content/whatever decisions and still have millions of people using their services, whereas a small company/site with these frustrations will just go ignored/unused.
3. They A/B test everything, and what the data says is most effective is not always what a designer would think looks/feels best. Look at some of the best performing landing pages; many look outright hideous yet convert really well.
What if?!
As a customer, I find that Amazon has some of the worst usability of a shopping site that I have run across in a while. I think amazon is successful in /spite/ of their design, certainly not /because/ of it.
As a customer, I find that Amazon has some of the worst usability of a shopping site that I have run across in a while. I think amazon is successful in /spite/ of their design, certainly not /because/ of it.
Personally, I've never had a problem with Amazon's design (though AWS is another story).
If their design is actually "bad", then my only takeaway is that design isn't nearly as important as people claim (at least, for this particular industry).
If their design is actually "bad", then my only takeaway is that design isn't nearly as important as people claim (at least, for this particular industry).
The only time I've had to think about how to do something on the Amazon marketplace website is when trying to contact their support. I'm required to go through several prompts asking if one of their FAQs answers my questions, and of course they don't, though perhaps this is intentional to make their support more efficient.
95% of the time, everything works as I expect it to, which is about as good as it gets for me.
95% of the time, everything works as I expect it to, which is about as good as it gets for me.
Any particular gripes with AWS? Genuinely curious, not defending anything here.
I don't want to trigger a war - honestly, it's probably just personal preference (and I now almost exclusively work in Azure, so things may have changed in the last 12-18 months).
My gripe was mainly about the density of the UI elements - it always felt like there was a lot of text/images crammed into a small space, so I had to inspect every single option before I found the one I wanted.
People have made similar comments about the Azure portal, though, but I never felt the same, so YMMV. Like I said, personal preference.
My gripe was mainly about the density of the UI elements - it always felt like there was a lot of text/images crammed into a small space, so I had to inspect every single option before I found the one I wanted.
People have made similar comments about the Azure portal, though, but I never felt the same, so YMMV. Like I said, personal preference.
Or it's not their main priority. I think amazon's dominance comes from a lot of things other than their website design. Maybe they could make more money if they improved the UI, but the impetus isn't there because the focus is on improving their delivery network for example.
I actually think it's one of the better ones. Not because it's actually good, but because online shopping somehow remains persistently awful.
I've never considered it a great website but... it works. It sells everything to everybody. It's bound to become complex. At their scale, I'm afraid we don't have anything better to compare against (have you used AliExpress?).
I don't find it hard to identify what's so awful about amazon.com even if there's currently no other existing website to do the same job at the same scale:
- I think that Javascript is widely used needlessly forcing lots of unnecessary reflows and repaints; this slows down searching and using the site.
- I find the searches are broken to the point where it is easier for finding stuff using another search engine which indexes amazon.com's webpages.
- I don't like collapsing portions of the webpage (such as long reviews). I'd rather download simple static markup and scroll through reading what I want presented to me in the order I've chosen.
- I don't want to see JS-based image/movie previews; inline images and using a modern browser's built-in video is much better as those can be styled in the way the user wants and obey other user-centric preferences as the web ought to do.
So to me saying 'it works' is putting commercial interests above my user interface interests and interests I deem more important such as how Amazon treats its workers. At best I'd say this puts into perspective how overvalued website development really is for commercial interests and how wildly off the mark website development is at identifying and building on something simple and easy to use. I've also found that Amazon purchases are often misleading (selling used merchandise as new, selling USB keys that hold less than the advertised storage size, and more) which means more time and money spent not really knowing what's on offer and higher chance of returning bad merchandise. All of this taken together means I shop elsewhere.
- I think that Javascript is widely used needlessly forcing lots of unnecessary reflows and repaints; this slows down searching and using the site.
- I find the searches are broken to the point where it is easier for finding stuff using another search engine which indexes amazon.com's webpages.
- I don't like collapsing portions of the webpage (such as long reviews). I'd rather download simple static markup and scroll through reading what I want presented to me in the order I've chosen.
- I don't want to see JS-based image/movie previews; inline images and using a modern browser's built-in video is much better as those can be styled in the way the user wants and obey other user-centric preferences as the web ought to do.
So to me saying 'it works' is putting commercial interests above my user interface interests and interests I deem more important such as how Amazon treats its workers. At best I'd say this puts into perspective how overvalued website development really is for commercial interests and how wildly off the mark website development is at identifying and building on something simple and easy to use. I've also found that Amazon purchases are often misleading (selling used merchandise as new, selling USB keys that hold less than the advertised storage size, and more) which means more time and money spent not really knowing what's on offer and higher chance of returning bad merchandise. All of this taken together means I shop elsewhere.
Two things:
We had a lot of non web developers writing JavaScript. No idea if it's like that any more, but I can certainly say that that was responsible for some serious performance sins!
Modern browsers ... hahahahahahaha. I suspect parts of the website still fully support IE6.
We had a lot of non web developers writing JavaScript. No idea if it's like that any more, but I can certainly say that that was responsible for some serious performance sins!
Modern browsers ... hahahahahahaha. I suspect parts of the website still fully support IE6.
Flipkart? Not sure on the scale, but it has way better ui. I usually search in flipkart then buy in amazon unless it very low in flipkart. Amazon has very good service hence prefer to buy there.
I used to like the 'Customers who bough .. also bought' feature when browsing books, this has gone now and replaced by 'Sponsored products related to this item' which is less relevant, not only that its repeated down the page. The 'also bought' feature is available when you add to your wish list, but only contains a few items now. It does seem to be becoming less usable, which is a shame, its always been my go to for finding new reading. There's lots of other distracting chuff as well now which litters the page.
Is "customers who viewed this also viewed..." not good enough for you?
No, buying something is a much stronger signal than viewing something.
Amazon has picked exactly one low-hanging fruit for recommendations: it frequently recommends to me that I should buy an item from my wishlist. That was a good idea on Amazon's part.
But it also frequently recommends books to me based on a book that I purchased, read, and left a one-star review for. That seems like a pretty obvious mistake.
Amazon has picked exactly one low-hanging fruit for recommendations: it frequently recommends to me that I should buy an item from my wishlist. That was a good idea on Amazon's part.
But it also frequently recommends books to me based on a book that I purchased, read, and left a one-star review for. That seems like a pretty obvious mistake.
> But it also frequently recommends books to me based on a book that I purchased, read, and left a one-star review for. That seems like a pretty obvious mistake.
The reasoning might be that the bad-review signal means that you found the book to be a low-quality instance of its type, not that you discovered that you disliked all of that type.
Unless you're being recommended books by the same author, I suppose.
The reasoning might be that the bad-review signal means that you found the book to be a low-quality instance of its type, not that you discovered that you disliked all of that type.
Unless you're being recommended books by the same author, I suppose.
I am being recommended books by the same author.
> Is "customers who viewed this also viewed..." not good enough for you?
I don't get that either all I get is the 'Sponsored Products..' one, maybe I'm in some A/B test
I don't get that either all I get is the 'Sponsored Products..' one, maybe I'm in some A/B test
To quote @kibblesmith: "Amazon is a $250 billion dollar company that reacts to you buying a vacuum by going THIS GUY LOVES BUYING VACUUMS HERE ARE SOME MORE VACUUMS"
Sadly enough, I’ve bought four Roku TVs from Amazon. Three forcour house and one for my dad.
Thanks! (actual Roku TV software engineer)
Well, don’t take that as an unqualified endorsement of Roku...
The Roku software is top notch. It’s amazing what you all have done to optimize the software to run on really low end hardware. I’ve also heard good things about the SDK. I listened to a podcast interview of your CEO and he said that using low end hardware was a business decision to keep the cost down for the OEMs where the margins were already razor thin.
That being said, I hate Roku’s business model. From the same interview he said that Roku isn’t in the hardware business or for that matter even in the software business. It’s business model is collecting user data to sell to advertising.
Everything about that business model is irritating to me - from the remote with hard coded buttons to services that no one would choose - like CBS News and the defunct Rdio service to the ad that takes up half the screen.
I have a 4K AppleTV connected to the one TV we use most frequently and I replaced the Roku stick I had in my home gym with another ATV 4K.
The Roku business model is everything I hate about the consumer electronics business model outside of Apple. I like simple transactions - I give the company enough money to profitably stay in business and they give me stuff.
That being said, if my other two non Roku TVs in my house ever need replacing, I would replace them with RokuTVs. The interface is great, the TCL Roku TVs are dirt cheap, the mobile apps are great and Roku has a history of keeping their software up to date. I couldn’t recommend that most people buy an $199 4K AppleTV box when you can buy a $399 55 inch Roku TV from Amazon.
The Roku software is top notch. It’s amazing what you all have done to optimize the software to run on really low end hardware. I’ve also heard good things about the SDK. I listened to a podcast interview of your CEO and he said that using low end hardware was a business decision to keep the cost down for the OEMs where the margins were already razor thin.
That being said, I hate Roku’s business model. From the same interview he said that Roku isn’t in the hardware business or for that matter even in the software business. It’s business model is collecting user data to sell to advertising.
Everything about that business model is irritating to me - from the remote with hard coded buttons to services that no one would choose - like CBS News and the defunct Rdio service to the ad that takes up half the screen.
I have a 4K AppleTV connected to the one TV we use most frequently and I replaced the Roku stick I had in my home gym with another ATV 4K.
The Roku business model is everything I hate about the consumer electronics business model outside of Apple. I like simple transactions - I give the company enough money to profitably stay in business and they give me stuff.
That being said, if my other two non Roku TVs in my house ever need replacing, I would replace them with RokuTVs. The interface is great, the TCL Roku TVs are dirt cheap, the mobile apps are great and Roku has a history of keeping their software up to date. I couldn’t recommend that most people buy an $199 4K AppleTV box when you can buy a $399 55 inch Roku TV from Amazon.
Amazon does extensive testing for the main retail site. If it seems counter intuitive I can still almost guarantee you it’s either a test to see if it increases revenue or has been shown to increase revenues.
Lots of things can bump short term revenues in an A/B test, but leave long term unhappiness.
The constant popups asking me to signup for Prime, with obvious dark patterns that twice tricked me into clicking 'ok' put me off buying from them altogether.
ublock and dark reader.
I am selling a product on Amazon that has two colors, black and white. Somehow the pictures got mixed up: the white version has pictures of the black version and vice versa. It was once correct, so I don't know what happened.
I've been fighting with seller support for about two weeks to get this fixed. First they said they need a link to the manufacturer's website for the product (!?) Then when I gave them the link they said I need to upload the new pictures myself (!?) So I did, I downloaded the pictures from the manufacturer website and uploaded the black pictures on the black version and the white pictures on the white version. Now they've just been sending me messages every few days saying "we are still working on this issue." This is for a real simple fix, not some sort of complicated issue, but it's a big issue if a customer doesn't know what they are getting, this should be priority one.
I've been fighting with seller support for about two weeks to get this fixed. First they said they need a link to the manufacturer's website for the product (!?) Then when I gave them the link they said I need to upload the new pictures myself (!?) So I did, I downloaded the pictures from the manufacturer website and uploaded the black pictures on the black version and the white pictures on the white version. Now they've just been sending me messages every few days saying "we are still working on this issue." This is for a real simple fix, not some sort of complicated issue, but it's a big issue if a customer doesn't know what they are getting, this should be priority one.
>This is for a real simple fix
How would you know? The result is "simple error", but the cause could be deep down in their backend.
How would you know? The result is "simple error", but the cause could be deep down in their backend.
There’s no “what if” about it. Amazon.com’s UX has always been chock full of dark design patterns and incongruous UI choices. The same is true to varying degrees for many of their platforms and products. It’s not really a huge deal, although it is one of the big reasons I don’t feel like Amazon is very trustworthy.
I find it very sad. I used to work on the team that rendered the front page 'customers also bought' ads, and we were incredibly serious about avoiding dark patterns. We even had a training programme to make sure we knew the personalization principles - erring on the side of over informing the customer, etc.
As a random dev in a different dept, I even got the first iteration of the Amazon app's notification ads pulled temporarily. They were badly implemented (they advertised a product, but linked to something different, and there was no obvious way to turn them off), I felt they reflected badly on the company, so I filed a ticket and it actually got listened to.
All that's gone out the window now. Every time I see the Prime clickthroughs, credit card deals, 'lightning deals' which are only about 20c off the normal discount, etc, it makes me grind my teeth.
As a random dev in a different dept, I even got the first iteration of the Amazon app's notification ads pulled temporarily. They were badly implemented (they advertised a product, but linked to something different, and there was no obvious way to turn them off), I felt they reflected badly on the company, so I filed a ticket and it actually got listened to.
All that's gone out the window now. Every time I see the Prime clickthroughs, credit card deals, 'lightning deals' which are only about 20c off the normal discount, etc, it makes me grind my teeth.
My favorite is the fake menu on the homepage: the Prime “menu”, ie word with arrow, always shows an ad, no matter if you’re a member or not.
The design becomes particularly frustrating if you're not in the country you're trying to buy from. They don't make it particularly easy to filter "will ship to my country" and more than one occasion I find myself clicking check out only to be told nope.
Yeah, likewise, the lack of arrival date filtering is pretty annoying.
This doesn't seem to be a complaint about Amazon's website exactly, but about buying options/shipping prices/etc being out of whack with the nature of the products. If the NY Times had an option to buy a single article for $1000, that's not an issue with their website, it's a mistake in pricing. Not to say that these aren't mistakes; they are. It's a reduction in the quality of their offering as a marketplace, reducing the signal:noise ratio by offering products/services that no sane person would want. The more things that you have to wade through that don't make sense, the more frustrating the shopping experience will be.
My 2 cents on the cloud front is that I never did learn to find my around GCP, and could not even find out how to sign up for Azure 2 years ago. AWS was easy to navigate, and the others were bewildering.
Maybe it would be different now that I know my way around these things, but the only really usable cloud services I've seen were DO & AWS (DO was the simplest).
edit - I wonder why my experience has felt so different from everyone else. I use AWS in part now because its so easy to work with (besides the billing page)
Maybe it would be different now that I know my way around these things, but the only really usable cloud services I've seen were DO & AWS (DO was the simplest).
edit - I wonder why my experience has felt so different from everyone else. I use AWS in part now because its so easy to work with (besides the billing page)
I dislike their video portion of their website. They have no history that I can ever find. And they don't have a recently watched section. If you don't finish a movie or show, or are watching a series, there is no easy way to get back to it without having to search for it. Hulu and Netflix both have a recently watched or continue watching section.
I often find a random docu-series on Amazon and completely forget I was enjoying it or what the name was when I want to go re-find it.
I often find a random docu-series on Amazon and completely forget I was enjoying it or what the name was when I want to go re-find it.
I do agree that the page is terrible, but it clearly converts.
I often wonder if I made a good desicion after purchasing something. That doesn't happen with Amazon, instead I'm just happy that I don't have to use that shitty page more.
I often wonder if I made a good desicion after purchasing something. That doesn't happen with Amazon, instead I'm just happy that I don't have to use that shitty page more.
I'm pretty sure it just got worse over the years.
I was visiting amazon.de (not .com) yesterday and 50% of what I saw had article names/descriptions like eBay 10 years ago. "desk light white awesome whatever keyword buy". Then I looked at the Audio CDs and sorted by price, and everything was 0 - XX €, yeah - because I was logged in apparently some of the music I can stream for free. Totally interesting to me if I deliberately visit the AUDIO CD section. Also not sure if it still sorted by price or not, because for sure the first 3 pages were all 0.
I was visiting amazon.de (not .com) yesterday and 50% of what I saw had article names/descriptions like eBay 10 years ago. "desk light white awesome whatever keyword buy". Then I looked at the Audio CDs and sorted by price, and everything was 0 - XX €, yeah - because I was logged in apparently some of the music I can stream for free. Totally interesting to me if I deliberately visit the AUDIO CD section. Also not sure if it still sorted by price or not, because for sure the first 3 pages were all 0.
Maybe Amazon should let users opt in to “amazon labs” UX experiments around the core shopping experience. I’d love to be part of a trial which merged kindle store, physical books, a scanning service, a concierge “shop for hard to find books”, periodicals, and bespoke reports (and maybe my own business documents), all behind something like a next generation Goodreads. Similarly a vertical-focused camera or drone store, travel/services, etc.
The amazon website is horrible, but it's fast and they have the lowest prices (or at least they make it seem like so). Also, they show all the relevant information that you need to purchase different sorts of products. For example, let's say you search for a Fujifilm lens. When you open the product page, it instantly shows you a way to check if the lens will actually fit your camera, I love that stuff! ... and the reviews, how do they get people to write reviews for even the most obscure things?
Off topic: I watched[1] this recently where Larry Ellison talks about Amazon.com still using Oracle DB and that when they tried to stop using Oracle they had huge problems.
Anyone know to what extent Amazon.com still uses Oracle DB? I know they said they would be completely off Oracle by 2020. Is Oracle really that good for mission critical applications that no open source DB can match?
[1] https://youtu.be/xrzMYL901AQ
Anyone know to what extent Amazon.com still uses Oracle DB? I know they said they would be completely off Oracle by 2020. Is Oracle really that good for mission critical applications that no open source DB can match?
[1] https://youtu.be/xrzMYL901AQ
They recently migrated everything away from Oracle and have tools for others now.
The problems were mostly associated with Oracle specific syntax or implementations, nothing else
The problems were mostly associated with Oracle specific syntax or implementations, nothing else
Often the best way to find what I’m looking for is to google the product with “site:amazon.com”. That’s not a great endorsement of their search functionality.
You’d think they would have at least one smart person like you guys in their 300,000 employees to make these obvious fixes to solve all their problems.
Similar gripe: you want to buy a water bottle holder. You find one you like in terms of design and price. Comes in a two pack. A two pack. Of bicycle water bottle holders. Who the hell wants a two pack of bicycle water bottle holders? Amazingly I humorously griped about it in a group chat with friends and someone needed a water bottle holder. Two packs...
Most bikes have mounting points for two bottle holders. If you're going to be riding for over an hour you'll probably need two bottles unless you have somewhere to refill during the ride.
Their search results are horrendous.
In the past year, I've almost bought:
In the past year, I've almost bought:
- a USB-A cable instead of a USB-C cable
- a Pixel 2 XL case instead of a Pixel 2 case
- a sink strainer instead of a sink stopper
The one that gets me is that the "Add to list" button seems to be in three or four different places when you look at the page for an item, and I have to hunt for it. I tend to bookmark a lot of books and such with the wishlist, and go back when my Amazon Chase card has reward points built up.
It is the worst website that can successfully sell a lot of things to a lot of people.
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My biggest complaint with Amazon is the site is slow even on my powerful desktop.
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I found one of the linked articles more interesting than the main one. Ten years of changes in the retail sector by firm size:
http://digg.com/2017/amazon-vs-walmart-size
The pace and scale is even more dramatic than I thought.
Rising interest rates and a big jump in expiring retail sector bonds could make 2019 an especially difficult year:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-retail-debt/
The potential impacts are hard to fathom.
> The job losses in retail could have unexpected social and political consequences, as huge numbers of low-wage retail employees become economically unhinged, just as manufacturing workers did in recent decades. About one out of every 10 Americans works in retail.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/business/retail-industry....
That article makes it sound like all of suburbia is one giant manufacturing town, and the plant is about to close. The first link makes it look like we somehow decided to ditch the entire sector and just give it over entirely to Amazon and Walmart.
http://digg.com/2017/amazon-vs-walmart-size
The pace and scale is even more dramatic than I thought.
Rising interest rates and a big jump in expiring retail sector bonds could make 2019 an especially difficult year:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-retail-debt/
The potential impacts are hard to fathom.
> The job losses in retail could have unexpected social and political consequences, as huge numbers of low-wage retail employees become economically unhinged, just as manufacturing workers did in recent decades. About one out of every 10 Americans works in retail.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/business/retail-industry....
That article makes it sound like all of suburbia is one giant manufacturing town, and the plant is about to close. The first link makes it look like we somehow decided to ditch the entire sector and just give it over entirely to Amazon and Walmart.
We are left to consider that perhaps UX, particularly to the mass market, really doesn't matter. Or maybe that Amazon has such an entrenched lead, mindshare or other, it can weather some horrible, horrible experiences.
Considering that AWS is almost identical on the cloud front, I'm not sure really what to think here.
I'm a programmer. I use cloud services everyday. I have actively stayed away from AWS in the past few years b/c it has such a bad UX/DX and yet....it grows.
Azure is better. GCP is better. AWS, when compared to those two objectively, is downright terrible. Their services are disjoint. Their command lines don't work together. Their web console? Hooooooollllllly mother of god.....
I guess I don't know what to make of Amazon. Developers seem to fawn over things like Heroku, Zeit, GitHub and they are hugely successful in their own right....but still AWS is used by developers and, IMO, it shouldn't be anymore. It's 2018 and AWS is very clearly stuck in the 1970s/80s DX. They just don't get it, or maybe they do? And DX doesn't matter to most developers?
If we are honest with ourselves, AWS should be in third place in 2018. And it shouldn't even be close. Their services are comparable to the point of no real differentiation to their competition, and they have worse billing, worse experience, worse DX, worse support and overall worse nearly everything.
And yet they grow.
So yes, Amazon.com and AWS are terrible. And for some reason it doesn't seem to matter. I would like to live in a world where it does, particularly for developer tools where I hope that developers have more taste and sense than the choice of AWS shows.