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Amazon Marketplace Flaws and Problems

by admin on May 9, 2011

Now that I’ve pointed out Google Product Search flaws, it’s time to take a shot at another major internet company. Anyone who’s ever used Amazon Marketplace is aware of the major problems and flaws in not just the Amazon system, but also in tech supports ability to logically answer questions.

Match This

Matching product in Amazon Marketplace is the most frustrating, time consuming, down-right painful experience in the history of internet marketing (ok maybe save selling on eBay…but that’s a story of its own). If you’ve ever tried to do an Amazon feed, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Why is it a problem matching products….let me count the ways. UPC’s, as with Google Product Search, are a big part of the formula for matching on Amazon. What happens when you have multiple ASIN’s (Amazon’s product identifiers) with the same UPC? If there’s two UPC’s, which means the same product with two separate listings, Amazon will almost always reject the product and not list it on either. Amazon then leaves it up to the retailer to completely change their data, whether it’s product name, description, etc., to try to match to one product or the other. Needless to say, Amazon should be fixing their product listings, not forcing a retailer to fit high quality product information to bad data.

Variation Breakage

The variation feature is great when it’s working but pretty bad when not. For those of you familiar with variations, Amazon allows you to add color, count, size, and other options which will all be listed on one ASIN. It seems some departments in Amazon Marketplace work very well with variations so if you have your feed set up correctly, you should see little problem getting it to work. Other departments though seem to be broken with variations matching on wrong products or in some cases; the variation seems to break the feed.

I’ve been told the same UPC can’t have multiple variations, i.e. 1 bottle of shampoo should have a UPC and 2 bottles of the same shampoo should have its own unique UPC. Most manufacturers (or if a retailer does a custom pack size) won’t have unique UPC’s for the same product in a different quantity pack size. Variation count should take over in this instance but Amazon won’t always let that be the case. Color variations can also have these issues with some manufacturers using the same UPC for one product and not every color of the same product.

Product Information

If matching products isn’t bad enough, another problem at Amazon is incorrect data. Amazon Marketplace is rife with old pictures, wrong UPC’s on products, bad product descriptions, and incorrect specifications. A search doesn’t take long to find refurbished product listed with full manufacturer warranties (normally reserved for new product), consumer products with old packaging for the picture, or almost any other type of merchandising issue. You would think Amazon, the king of internet retailing, would have enough department managers or merchandising management, who would be able to keep their site clean.

Tech Support

Don’t get me wrong, Amazon support is good to great 95% of the time but it seems when you have an advanced problem, they crumble under the pressure, or worse, don’t seem to care. Anytime an issue escalates beyond a simple fix, i.e. general feed issues, small matching problems, etc., it seems Amazon tech support has a problem getting the problem solved.

They’re especially troublesome when you point out flaws in their system. On more than a few occasions, Amazon support has been shown a flaw in how feeds are matched to products in various categories and on nearly every occasion, the tech(s) replied with generic responses that in no way made sense in response to the facts presented.

At the end of the day, Amazon Marketplace is a good place to be if you have the margin or aren’t concerned with Amazon borrowing your sales data to enhance their own product lineup but be aware of the many headaches that will arise with getting your products into their system.

P.S. It’s not a great new client acquisition vehicle either since you can’t market to Amazon customers so really it’s an expensive sales driver but at least it’s not a joke like Groupon, Living Social, and other social shopping/daily deals sites.

 

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Google Product Search Problems

by admin on April 26, 2011

Google Product Search has been around in various forms including Froogle to the GPS that’s currently in place. The newest changes, including the required inclusion of UPC’s, deserves a rant.

UPC’s in GPS – Bad Idea

Let’s start with the UPC requirement since that appears to be the biggest issue at the moment (UPC’s are required after May 3rd 2011). Requiring UPC’s to be included in Google Product Search is an awful idea. For one, there are a lot of small manufacturer’s out there that don’t have UPC codes on their products for whatever reason. Sure they allow you to request an exemption but with the lack of internet expertise among most small retailers and/or manufacturers, it will still lead to the exclusion of quite a few good products.

Requiring UPC’s shows Google’s lack of experience in retail. While I’m sure their reasoning for the requirements is related to them more easily matching retailers on one product, it probably won’t help them at all (ask Amazon Marketplace…but that’s a rant for another day). And why would they want to match all retailers on one product? It’s only going to cause a rash of cheating in how prices are displayed which they can barely control now…let alone when they turn it into a price war.

Quite a few major retailers use their own UPC’s so now smaller retailers will be forced to try to match their products to major retailers UPC codes to be included near the top of search results.  Not only that, but Google doesn’t seem to do a very good job of matching to UPC’s as it is. Do a simple search on GPS and it won’t take long to see products with the same UPC from different retailers not being paired.

Google says a retailer can send a parent/child feed to take into account variations with the same UPC but that’s not always true and in some cases, will get the feed or a large part of the feed rejected.

GPS and AdWords = Fail

Now that UPC’s are out of the way, let’s examine some of the major flaws in Google Product Search starting with Google Merchant Center’s integration with AdWords. It’s bad…really bad. Maybe it’s a problem with AdWords more than Google Merchant Center but is it possible the products being shown in Adwords can be so far off the requested search? They’re average on “brand + keyword” searches with some products showing correctly. They’re borderline bad on some general searches bringing up all kinds of products that advertisers probably don’t want showing.

Nearby Store Results Aren’t That Nearby

One of the newest features, “nearby results”, seems to be a list of major retailers within 30 miles of your perceived location. They don’t offer an easy way for small and mid-size retailers to show up in those results. Price and availability can’t be included either and “call for price and availability” seems like something a data feed affiliate site would show. If local is going to be a big focus of their results, it would seem allowing actual local retailers to show they have a product in-stock at $X is a must-have feature. Most major retailers don’t have half the product in-store that they include in their Google Product Search feed so why allow their locations to show when it’s probably not there? I know there’s no way to police the local inventory but if you can’t have a legitimate near-by search, why have it?

Google Nearby Stores - Awful Results

Guess who doesn’t have this product in-stock nearby? Good Guess…

How Is That Related?

The related items section is another area that needs work. On most products, it appears Google returns a bunch of products with similar keywords in the title and not a legitimate “related item.” Is a “portable air conditioner” really related to a “window air conditioner?” In some regards but most people (and by most I mean everyone because I’m a mind reader) in the market for a portable air conditioner aren’t looking for the window version or they would have done a “window” related search.

If Google is going to push Google Product Search on those doing product research or price comparison, they need to make major changes so it’s the “most relevant” result. Otherwise, they need to do an algo change to show niche comparison shopping engines and sites dedicated to various product lines that happen to know the product and what people want and need.

 

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