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Comment by ohnope | Hacker News Reader

If I were an evil decision maker at Amazon, I would have the algorithm pick products that are well rated with low return rate, but have high inventory that doesn't clear fast enough. Easy way to free up space in the warehouse. Because why call out actual crowd favorites if they are already "organically" selling well?

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My friend works at a liquor store. His boss one day told him to label the poorly-selling wines as "Staff Picks". So your fear isn't exactly unfounded :P

We did exactly this with some stock that was about to expire (and no one drank) at our college bar during freshers’ week - we made a ‘college special’ cocktail containing it and advertised it on the first night. Backfired as it proved immensely popular and I had to buy hundreds of pounds more of it from the wholesaler the next day and pick it up ourselves as delivery wasn’t for another week...

I guess that isn't wrong, your boss is part of the staff and they have "picked" the poorly selling wines to highlight. It didn't say "Staff Recommended" or "Staff Favorites"

I think the average shopper would interpret "Staff Picks" as meaning "wine that the staff recommends" instead of "wine the store is hoping to sell." It's disingenuous at best.

For the record, my friend initially refused, and then compromised by labeling them "[Manager name]'s Picks".

I was being facetious. It definitely is extremely misleading based on any common understanding of what a “pick” implies in terms of quality or attributes of a product.

> It's disingenuous at best.

Not the only thing retail stores do. It saddens me that this kind of dishonesty is actually a standard operating practice in retail.

How is that evil?

Because it dresses up fully for profit-motives as pro-customer?

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