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Comment by larzang | Hacker News Reader

But you just bought a toilet seat, surely you want five more toilet seats, you toilet seat enthusiast you.

Frequently purchased together: toilet seat, and the exact same toilet seat from a duplicate listing at $20 higher price

I bought a new phone in a store, then bought a cover and a screen protecton on amazon. It sent me a notification: "We think you might be interested in a new phone".

It's pretty obvious that people don't go around shopping for screen protectors and then buy phones to match.

Just realized all the info I’m giving Amazon by using the app. Time to change up habits for 2020

I do all my product searching in incognito mode

I've always assumed that was an artifact of free returns; if you bought one thing, maybe you're actually still shopping and want to know other options. I've noticed when I get these they're frequently more expensive than the one I already bought.

I've always assumed it was repairmen. Some people really do need to buy toilet seats again, and again, and again, each time they do a job that requires replacing one (without ever needing a bulk order of 100.) They also might switch brands depending on whichever one is cheapest at the time; or order several different ones for different concurrent jobs to see which turns out best (like Backblaze does with hard drives.)

I have this experience every time I buy something. Monitor? Needs more monitors. Yoga mats? Clearly opening a studio. Trash bags? This man hasn't learned about dumpsters. Of course this pays off eventually, but it seems like they could come up with a better strategy when they have a bunch of purchase history.

Nope. The fact is after you purchase something you are still in market for that product. So keeping you in a marketing segment will always be more profitable to the advertising team. Yes, you might be finished shopping now that you have finally decided on the best toilet seat, but the marketing segment that you fall into will always convert higher than a control group. There is just way too much data to confirm this.

It may make sense statistically, but for an individual customer it's just a strange experience. Look around this thread for all the comments pointing out the same thing, and wonder if a shopping app that was truly good would have all that people pointing out such strange behavior

And this is one of the hundreds of things that are very, very wrong with marketing these days.

They stopped free returns on Prime a long time ago. Now only a few select items offer it.

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.

what are you talking about. i buy things from amazon weekly and i have never once received something in paper wrap with no padding and have never paid for a return.

Ordered an alarm keypad it came in a box with zero padding.. just sliding around. A lot of my wife’s orders have been in blue bubble wrapped packaging

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..

Source? Literally everything I've returned on Amazon over the last couple years has had at least one free return option (usually via UPS / Amazon Hub dropoff).

Clothing comes to mind, that's also the only case I've ever received something in just a white plastic bag.

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.

Ha, for me it was hammocks.. for years!

Just call me The Hammock Man!

Matter of fact, they're all in the same complex; it's the hammock complex on third.

That's over by Spatula City right?

No, the Hammock District.

Upvote for a random Simpson's reference.

When I was in college Amazon was perpetually convinced I would want multiple different textbooks for the same subject.

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