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WSJ: Amazon changed search results to boost profits despite internal dissent
Amazon changed its search algorithm in ways that boost its own products despite concerns raised by employees who opposed the move, The Wall Street Journal reported today.
The change was made late last year and was "contested internally," the WSJ reported. People who worked on the project told the WSJ that "Amazon optimized the secret algorithm that ranks listings so that instead of showing customers mainly the most-relevant and best-selling listings when they search—as it had for more than a decade—the site also gives a boost to items that are more profitable for the company."
The goal was to favor Amazon-made products as well as third-party products that rank high in "what the company calls 'contribution profit,' considered a better measure of a product's profitability because it factors in non-fixed expenses such as shipping and advertising, leaving the amount left over to cover Amazon's fixed costs," the WSJ said.
Amazon made the change indirectly, the WSJ reported. Instead of adding profitability into the algorithm itself, Amazon changed the algorithm to prioritize factors that correlate with profitability, the article said.
When contacted by Ars, Amazon said it does not optimize the ranking of its search results for profitability.
In a statement, Amazon said:
The Wall Street Journal has it wrong. We explained at length that their 'scoop' from unnamed sources was not factually accurate, but they went ahead with the story anyway. The fact is that we have not changed the criteria we use to rank search results to include profitability. We feature the products customers will want, regardless of whether they are our own brands or products offered by our selling partners. As any store would do, we consider the profitability of the products we list and feature on the site, but it is just one metric and not in any way a key driver of what we show customers.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:47AM (4 children)
for predicting the future.
Now that you are all locked in and there is nowhere else to even by a book without amazon knowing about it(almost), you get to see how they use this power to 'manipulate search results.'
Yet another case of Slimy Abusive Lateral Power Grabbing!
You thought they just wanted to be a free marketplace of everything you could buy, but NO, that's not enough for them, they want to control who can find what and when.
It's like they are a ghost in a huge mansion and everyone is looking for a flashlight, but the ghost sets all manner of random things where the people will look first, vibrators, razor blades, things that will get you put on a watchlist, the ghost is manipulating all of the searching so he can customize a way to bother everyone.
Does this sound like a trustworthy organization to host with? Now we know they jigger with things behind the scenes, why would you trust them with your hardware layer? Would amazon intentionally break your work if it didn't like you? If amazon will help reroute your packages for hardware comprimise, really what possible other line could we conceivably expect them to draw?
Any suggestions for alternative book dealers will be appreciated.
thesesystemsarefailing.net
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 19 2019, @01:16PM
Just like betting on stocks: no prize for predicting the obvious.
Anyone using a shopping site's own search function MUST understand that the search designers are incentivized to make the most money possible for the site. If this means: showing you the best deals on what you are looking for so you will patronize their site in preference to others who try to extract more profits from you... then, great, win-win. When the site is a virtual monopoly, I'd call that virtually naive to believe they will continue to do that.
Wal Mart's low price guarantee doesn't prevent them from charging double and more for common products in their rural stores compared to what Wal Mart charges in competitive urban markets. Don't like it? Drive into town, take photos of the shelf tags, then drive back to your rural store and demand your $2 discount on the products - their low price guarantee means they'll give YOU that discount, but anyone else who hasn't invested $20 in fuel and hours of their time won't be getting the lower prices.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 19 2019, @01:25PM (1 child)
K-mart did this first (or most conspicuously early...) Big store with EVERYTHING from daily needs through clothing and capital purchases like appliances. Floor layout specifically designed to make most common shopping trips pass by as much high-profit goods as possible. It's like taking the "foot traffic" metric used to determine the value of small retail shops captive and making your beer and cigarette customers walk by the rifles and fishing gear every damn single time they walk in to pick up somethin'.
Nothing new, nothing even that clever - and so much cheaper to implement in software than brick and mortar, but valuable enough that brick and mortar was doing it 40 years before there was a Google.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @06:47PM
Exactly. If you don't put the product in the customer's face, they won't ever give it a chance. Profits are driven by volume for lower-margin retail stuff so it's a must that you get people into the store with a good deal and push something new onto them every step they take.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thanar on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:51PM
When I am looking for the best deal on a particular book, I use BookFinder [bookfinder.com] which is a meta-search engine that gives you price-(including shipping)-sorted results for both new and used versions of the book. The book sites that most often have the best deals are sites like AbeBooks [abebooks.com] ThriftBooks [thriftbooks.com] BookDepository [bookdepository.com] Biblio [biblio.com].
ThriftBooks often has good combo deals and a points system for free books. Other sites that are good for finding used books in particular: Alibris [alibris.com] and Better World Books [betterworldbooks.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @11:03AM (1 child)
Did I say shocked? I meant choked...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @04:54PM
It's nothing new. I tried to get management to sell a needed service that would result in a $100 profit by making a single phone call... Nope. The profit margin wasn't wide enough so customer has to go elsewhere.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Thursday September 19 2019, @11:30AM (1 child)
It sounds anti-competitive to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @03:26PM
Before you ask that, you need to ask whether it is true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @01:52PM (2 children)
15 years ago, "focus relentlessly on our customers" was one of their core values. Now, much like Google's "don't be evil," it's gone completely by the wayside. Tech companies used to be well liked because they had earned trust, but now they have earned distrust.
Even this statement is garbage. "This isn't true! Well, it's true, but anyone in our position would do it, so that makes it OK."
facepalm.gif
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:59PM
They used to have to win over customers/users.
Now they are such big monopolies, they don't have to. They can be big assholes and not pay a price for it.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 19 2019, @09:16PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 19 2019, @04:31PM (5 children)
Rupert's Rag in a turf war with Bezos's Blog.
Would it really be abnormal for a store to put its own brand up front? Where are they going with this? Aside from high drama?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @06:29PM
"Bezos's Blog."
the washington post?
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday September 20 2019, @02:27AM (3 children)
"Would it really be abnormal for a store to put its own brand up front?"
Yes, it would be. Grocery stores, for example. Even a behemoth like Walmart is careful not to overshadow the popular name products area with its own house brands.
No one encroaches on Coke's or PepsiCo's little fiefdom areas of shelves. The house brand chips are well segregated from the bastion of Frito Lay.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday September 20 2019, @02:54AM (2 children)
Is not Amazon subject to the same pressure?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday September 20 2019, @03:07AM (1 child)
Yes, for those with similar clout to what the mega consumer brands have. And in time it may have an impact.
But "late last year" may not have been long enough for that sort of feedback to occur. Also, it's a lot harder to gauge search results (which may vary from user to user in our day of web tracking) than it is to walk into a store and look at the displays and detect that it's happening. You have to go off of sales decreases which may be due to many other factors.
In the grocery store business, display prominence and such is monitored often by the large consumer products companies.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday September 20 2019, @03:25AM
Heh, retail is very gansta...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday September 19 2019, @07:19PM (1 child)
Having said that, Amazon's search was always shitty. I usually find what I want using other methods and then find the thing on Amazon. Even then, when the exact name it typed, the crooks manage to return it on second-third page sometimes.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:20PM
In the past year it has got *WAY* worse.
I have not really bought anything lately on amazon. Cash is a bit tight. But I decided I would 'splurge' and buy a bluray. First page was pretty much all prime videos and 'sponsored ads'. The second page was 'region free' items at 15 dollars more than anywhere else. Even then I still did not find the right one I think I finally found it on page 3. I went to another online store and got it there. First result on their page and 15 dollars less. 2-3 years ago that disc would have been at least in the top 3. But holy molly has it got worse.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday September 20 2019, @02:37AM
The front page that mostly shows pictures only, and when you mouse over it invites you for a "quick look" and doesn't even tell you what the damn thing is or any description at all until you click on it and thus invest time in it.
I've lost count of the times I've specifically bought something from another online merchant because that's ticked me off so much. And this is coming from a Prime member (I buy enough the shipping pretty much pays for it) who's been buying at Amazon since 1999 and who uses Amazon for much of my work purchasing when they haven't completely alienated me with that nonsense.
Are you listening Amazon? Your bullshit trick is lowering your sales.