Things Amazon Could Do Better
I’m a big fan of Amazon.com. It is far and away my online retailer of choice. I’ve been a Prime member since they launched the program in 2005. Books, computers, videogames, RAM, speakers, … you name it, I’ve probably bought it at Amazon.
But it’s time for some tough love. Amazon, your web site is in dire need of improvements. Here’s how you can make it better.
Don’t forget where I was when I turn on 1-click.
When I’m on an item page and want to make a quick purchase, the 1-click button only appears if I am signed in. Otherwise I am prompted to click “sign in to turn on 1-click.” When I click that link, I am brought to a separate page telling me that I have successfully signed in and enabled 1-click. But now I’m no longer looking at the item I want to buy. This redirection is unnecessary. Instead, send me back to the item page. The new big button that says “Buy with 1-click” is sufficient notice that I’ve turned it on.
Give me a real faceted search.
I want to drill down by several search criteria, and I want to do it quickly. Here’s a search I’d like to execute: show me all of your coffee makers made by Cuisinart or Mr. Coffee that are priced under $50 and available with Amazon Prime shipping. Right now this search takes four back and forths to execute, and I can only see one particular brand at a time.
Eliminate two thirds of your “departments.”
Departments on Amazon are highly ambiguous and this makes things difficult to find. If I want a USB wall charger, where should I look? “Electronics” seems like an appropriate department. But what if it’s typically used with a cell phone? Better check “Cell Phones & Service,” too. And is that where I’d find a MicroSD memory card? Or would that be with “Camera & Photo?” Because there is no consistency over where a product type is placed, I better check that “Everything Else” department, too. Thank God you have a separate department for “VHS.” I’m sure that pleased both of the people who bought VHS tapes this year. Other examples of high-level categories that can be merged: “Toys and Games” and “Videogames”; “Grocery” and “Gourmet Food”; “Shoes” and “Clothing”.
Show me lists I care about.
If I search for the book Assassination Vacation, an appropriate list to show me might be “Historical Books.” Instead, you’re showing me “Books I read in 2007″ by Lindsay L. Miller. I don’t care what Lindsay read in 2007. Sorry Lindsay, it’s nothing personal.
Stop shoving the Kindle down my throat.
I get it. You really want me to buy a Kindle. I know this because every time I look at a book, you put this at the top of the page:
Assassination Vacation and over 360,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device. Learn more
and this thing on the side:
This is particularly frustrating because I already own a Kindle! And I know you know that, because you sold it to me!
Kill the “Robby’s Amazon.com” link.
My Amazon.com should be at http://www.amazon.com. You’ve already portalized this page to show me the things I’ve looked at recently and the things you think I might like. Creating a second portal-like page just confuses me. Which one am I supposed to shop from?
Ask me if I have a Blu Ray player.
And when I tell you that I do, remember it. Then when I search for movies, show me the Blu Ray editions before the DVD editions.
When I look at a product, tell me everything you know about the product…
…instead of making me click to get the information I need. For example, here is a Nikon lens I’m interested in. But if I want the “technical details”, I have to click and go to a separate page. You are wasting a lot of space showing me related items, sponsored links, user-made lists and user-made guides, instead of showing me information about the item I’m looking at.
Do not default my search to be within a particular department.
I often have a list of unrelated things to buy. For instance, after I’m done looking at the camera lens, I may want to search for a book. What do you think is going to happen when I click “Go” here?
It turns out your search is pretty good. When it doesn’t find any “War and Peace” items in “Electronics,” it will give me the top 3 results from other departments. So you’re almost off the hook. But you get the idea. This is not ideal. I will not get the full search results that I expect. It doesn’t make sense for you to coerce me into searching within one particular department, especially in light of complaint #3.
Simplify your navigation.
These things all go to the same place. Why are there three routes to get there from the home page? It’s cluttering and overwhelming. Pick one.
Oh, Robby, if you only knew…
I interviewed at Amazon once. It was a horrible experience. The people were obviously in over their heads, and not very good engineers (for the most part). They actually flew me up to interview, had me start in the morning, and then AT LUNCH told me the job had been filled. Apparently they’d offered it internally some months back and the guy hemmed and hawed about it UNTIL he heard someone had flown in, and then he took it. They let me hang all morning pretending we were actually talking about something material when we weren’t, and then insisted I finish out the day so they had “good info” on me “in case something came up.” From what I saw, their systems had grown far too large far too fast, and and it was a DAILY thing that they felt lucky when some major system didn’t break down. I was really glad in the end I never got an offer. No way I wanted to live in Seattle THAT badly.
Soon after, a longtime engineer friend told me he was looking into Amazon. I tried to warn him off, but he accused me of being over-sensitive, thinking maybe I’d had an off day. HIS interview experience was so bad that he swore off ever USING Amazon for life, and got his family to do the same. From what I know, they STILL all refuse to shop there. (This guy is an extremely solid engineer, and moreover, much more personable — and forgiving — than I am. It was huge that this was his experience and reaction).
Fast forward another year or two, and another engineer friend of mine not only said he’d interviewed there, but he was taking the job. Again, I tried to present a warning. He told me he had good feelings. Two years later as he left, he told me about what a mess they are, both the people and the systems (they’re actually racist anti-white in the organization, according to him). He felt he’d grown from the experience, but in a “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” sense only. He really felt a chunk of his soul went away during that period of his employment.
That said, they’re the ONLY place to get certain books, especially programming books, any more, and I personally do still buy some stuff from them.
But good luck getting them to improve. They have a huge system that grew from nothing in no time, no good way to QA anything, and they’re basically running as fast as they can to catch up. Actually instituting logical features at this point would be a pipe dream. Imagine a certain legacy software module that you and I have both worked on (and I continue to), and I think you might start to get an inkling about what I mean.
Yikes, Joshua. Sorry to hear about that experience. I’ve heard about Amazon being stingy with developers but nothing beyond that.
I actually made this blog post not to bash them but with the hope that they might see it and incorporate the feedback. I have always been a big fan of Amazon as a consumer. My experience has been great prices and great service.
Yikes, Joshua. Sorry to hear about that experience. I've heard about Amazon being stingy with developers but nothing beyond that.
I actually made this blog post not to bash them but with the hope that they might see it and incorporate the feedback. I have always been a big fan of Amazon as a consumer. My experience has been great prices and great service.
Yikes, Joshua. Sorry to hear about that experience.
I actually made this blog post not to bash them but with the hope that they might see it and incorporate the feedback. I have always been a big fan of Amazon as a consumer. My experience has been great prices and great service.