![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Amazon.com's Sorting Issues...
Sep. 16th, 2007 01:49 pmSo I was looking for vacuum cleaners online. I checked Overstock.com, and then went to Amazon.com. I found the categories I wanted at Amazon (Upright Vacuums and Canister Vacuums). I knew about the price range I wanted, so I sorted based on price, from low to high. Two issues become quickly evident.
1) Amazon's categories are not always even close to correct. Canister vacuums have almost two pages of range pans and oven elements.
2) "Sorting" is a rough estimate. For a long time I thought that the sort was based not on Amazon's price, but on the silly "Used & new" price they also list. If I am going to Amazon's site it is because I have purchased through them, I trust them as a merchant, and I want to buy from them. No where in my preferences does it have a checkmark for "Never show me used and non-Amazon merchants". If I wanted that, I would be looking at eBay.
Look at this picture, though. Note in the top right it is sorted low to high, and then tell me how the items numbered 51, 52, and 53 are in some sort of order.
As a result of all of this I generally end up using Amazon to order exact items I know I want. When "browsing" for an item, though, I get frustrated and usually end up buying elsewhere.
1) Amazon's categories are not always even close to correct. Canister vacuums have almost two pages of range pans and oven elements.
2) "Sorting" is a rough estimate. For a long time I thought that the sort was based not on Amazon's price, but on the silly "Used & new" price they also list. If I am going to Amazon's site it is because I have purchased through them, I trust them as a merchant, and I want to buy from them. No where in my preferences does it have a checkmark for "Never show me used and non-Amazon merchants". If I wanted that, I would be looking at eBay.
Look at this picture, though. Note in the top right it is sorted low to high, and then tell me how the items numbered 51, 52, and 53 are in some sort of order.
As a result of all of this I generally end up using Amazon to order exact items I know I want. When "browsing" for an item, though, I get frustrated and usually end up buying elsewhere.
