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Comment by barik | Hacker News Reader

The article is a bit too fluffy for my taste, but in observing my own online behavior, I think that this part is key:

> People are searching for products on Amazon, rather than using Google.

My own habits suggest that I have a "looking for something to buy mode" and "looking for information mode". When I want to buy something, I go straight to Amazon (and sometimes New Egg). When I want to look for information, I use Google. These two modes don't seem to intersect very frequently, if at all.

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The top keywords, by the price Google charges to advertise on, are: insurance, loans, mortgage, attorney, credit, lawyer, donate, degree, hosting, claim, conference call, trading, software, recovery, transfer, electricity, classes, rehab, treatment, and cord blood.

None of those are the sort of term you type into Amazon.

Give Bezos time.

cord blood? Who buys ads around that, and for what?

Edit- Apparently cord blood banking is a thing.

But what percentage of income do those keywords add up to? Eating away at the bottom can still cause quite a bit of loss.

Those are bigger ticket items with bigger margins than, say, a pair of sneakers so it makes sense for the market to command a higher price for those ads. Would be better to see total amount spent on ads for different categories, trended over the last 10 years.

I feel like I'm in a thread from 2007.

People go to Amazon to search when they want to buy something? What a new trend!

Think back to when this started for you. I bet you quite a bit it wasn't recently.

Just to give context (it's easy to forget how quickly time goes by): Amazon Prime is turning a decade old this year.

This implies you don't do any research for products other than amazon reviews and official marketing material. I think this is typical for some kinds of products, but not necessarily typical overall.

That's a good point, but from my own behavior: when I'm ready to buy, I go search for that product on Amazon. My general thinking is "Well, now I'm ready to get a better deal on this thing."

And if people aren't clicking "buy" through Google's ads, then that's really... not good.

> I think this is typical for some kinds of products, but not necessarily typical overall.

I think it's typical for most products people buy. I'll do research and compare products/vendors when I'm purchasing a TV, but if I need sponges for the kitchen I'm just going to type "sponges" on Amazon and [most likely] purchase something from the first page of results.

We all purchase a lot more sponge-like products than TV-like ones.

True, but more advertising dollars are spent on TV-like products.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I would totally look for sponge reviews before buying them.

You can read the sponge reviews on Amazon:)

Google is scared shitless of Amazon for e-tail (from my discussion with people at Google) and at first this notion didn't make sense to me. Dig further and you'll realize the following: as more and more people rely on Amazon to buy physical things, they'll eventually rely on Amazon to buy everything. Google is one step removed from people's online purchasing behavior.

Im the same way. I think, in my 14 years of using google, I clicked through for one ad on a laptop charger. Their revenue...I still just dont get it.

My mom makes this spinach lasagna. I emailed her asking for the recipe, and she sent back "Just google spinach lasagna and click the first link". It was an ad from Kraft's website. She's probably clicked it dozens of times.

Ditto except I've recently begun opening a new tab and googling the product (once found) to price compare.

I prefer amazon for ease of use (prime, trust & not having to key my personal info) and security (less footprint giving my credit card out)

^This. Until I read this comment I hadn't consciously realised that's what I was doing, and I'm not sure I know when the division came as I used to use Google for everything.

Can you remember when you split into the two different modes?

Edit: Spelling.

When they broke Shopping is when I switched.

You know, that's probably it. It used to be so useful, and with Amazon getting stronger I can't see a good reason why they would have b0rked it so much.

Anybody got any ideas why Google Shopping isn't getting more love?

because Google always likes to do things the most difficult way possible. They've screwed over too many products over a long period of time for it to be surprising anymore.

Because they transitioned to paid inclusion so the prices and objectivity of the results are not as reliable.

Weird. I'm pretty sure my usage of Amazon predates Google Shopping.

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