> and marrying that to what Amazon already knows about you.
Amazon is always putting up ads for me based on my purchase history, but they're never what I wind up buying. I have no explanation for what is wrong with their algorithm.
Amazon is always putting up ads for me based on my purchase history, but they're never what I wind up buying. I have no explanation for what is wrong with their algorithm.
Just call me The Hammock Man!
This was about the same time they stopped shipping things in cardboard boxes and went with bubble packs, and most recently, paper wrap with no padding whatsoever.
Basically, you choose why you're returning. In some cases if you say something other than "the item was defective", it'll only have options that cost money.
It's super rare, but I've seen it before.
Other things however come just as you would expect (paper wrapping or bubble wrapped). So it all depends on the amazon worker doing his or her job..
It's pretty obvious that people don't go around shopping for screen protectors and then buy phones to match.
Turns out people who have just purchased something are far more likely to purchase that thing again than a random person.
This makes them the perfect person to advertise to.
Even if the percentage is quite low this can be better than advertising to the general population. Say the numbers were 1 in 10 000 impressions leads to a toilet seat sale, but 1 in 1000 people who have just bought a toilet seat buy another one soon after (first one was broken/distributor/toilet seat collector/remodelling whole home/etc).
If those were the numbers it would be silly to not advertise to recent buyers.
Essentially, the self selection of 'I just bought <x>' very often puts you in a category that is far more likely to buy <x> again than almost anyone else.
But I wonder why they don't just flip the prediction? If you bought X, then advertise anything but X.
Like if you bought a toilet seat, they might advertise toilet paper instead (which would be good, because all the stores around here just ran out...)
Very helpful for identifying what’s hot and releasing your own version. Figuring out seasonal trends. Or getting competitive price information to match/beet. Walmart brags about their ability to presciently stock stores, which keeps turnover & capital efficiency high.
Or maybe showing a wild selection of weird products results in people "brainstorm" other shopping needs, as a kind of anchoring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring#Anchoring_in_negotia...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...
I wonder if their creepy surveillance tech knows I said it. I was going there to pick up my brother's medicine from the pharmacy. It's a real shame. I used to LOVE shopping at Target. But the dang store has gotten greedier and super obnoxious over the years.
I was positive they used to use their tracking data to design store layouts with minimal clashing, such that they distribute the shoppers across the store. It seemed to really work, too.
In their newer layouts, I dunno what it is, but everything seems crammed together all in the same spot. They replaced the popcorn, icees, and hot dogs, with food I don't like that costs too much. They got rid of the handbasket things that were handy and all over the store, and got rid of the benches too. Then they sold their pharmacy to CVS.. which immediately threw out the kickass containers Target used to use and added a super obnoxious phone system.
Just overall, I hate shopping at Target now.