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Comment by rchaud | Hacker News Reader

Amazon has used 3rd parties for a long time, but they weren't shoved in your face as "Sponsored Results" until maybe a year or so ago?

Honestly, it makes shopping on Amazon feel more and more like a flea market. I especially don't like how Amazon now obscures the source of the product by emphasizing the "Prime Shipping Available". I find myself having to manually look to see if the product is sold by Amazon, or merely "Fulfilled by Amazon".

It's honestly an ugly experience these days. Is it worth bringing down your UX to Ebay/AliExpress levels for a little more growth?

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> Is it worth bringing down your UX to Ebay/AliExpress levels for a little more growth?

That's exactly my thoughts on this. Ever since the marketplace opened up it's just become more and more like eBay/AliExpress, flooded with cheap knock-offs and dubious products.

I still have Prime for regular purchases, but find myself buying special items from specialized sellers (car parts, gym equipment, etc.)

That's not a fair assessment. Ebay doesn't bait & switch fast/free shipping or swap vendors when you add an item to your cart. I am frequently disappointed by ebay's lack of polish, but I have never gotten the impression that ebay was actively trying to defraud buyers or enable such behavior from third parties. Amazon, on the other hand, is 100% guilty on both counts.

Fair point. My comment about Ebay had more to do with the weird split they had between "Bid Now" and "Buy it Now", and the confusion I faced when searching for a product and having to look at both the price AND shipping.

This was because Ebay took their cut off the sale price, not the shipping cost. So sellers would reduce the sale price and jack up the shipping rate, which is where they made their margins.

Haven't bought anything on Ebay in years, so I don't know if they cracked down on that practice.

eBay introduced sorting options such as "Lowest Price + Postage" which undermined sellers trying to slip-in excessive shipping costs.

Plus on eBay the shipping charged by each seller is clearly listed on the Checkout page. Amazon just lists a total shipping cost for the order and I have to remove and readd items to find the culprit charging too much.

Well, 'had' to. Now I just avoid Amazon and its dark patterns. eBay is still rather Wild West but it's sellers trying to rip me off, not the platform.

Sounds like this is a great opportunity for a small browser plugin/custom CSS to show a big red flag on products sold by third parties.

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