I don't have access to any data that supports my vibes, but it just feels like any business that sells stuff has very little incentive to actually give you what you're searching for.

I can't think of a single online store that's good at search and it seems like it's because the thought is "don't miss anything that might come close to the search terms".

Whether it's Amazon, IKEA, the supermarkets where I live, etc, any search I make comes back with what looks like spray and pray SEO.

Maybe it's actually a hard problem to solve, or maybe the goal is "sell anything!" (including better placement the seller pays for) rather than "give the user what they want".

Probably the virtual variant of the Gruen effect in action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruen_transfer

Fortunately we still have Geizhals in AT[0]/DE[1]/PL[2]/UK[3] to work around that.

[0]: https://geizhals.at/

[1]: https://geizhals.de/

[2]: https://cenowarka.pl/

[3]: https://skinflint.co.uk/

Important addition: Geizhals for the entire EU [1], not just focused on Germany, Austria, or the UK.

[1] https://geizhals.eu/

Yeah. I kinda regret my comment 'cause it's not like I've stumbled into some discovery of human behavior no one else thought about. :)

I just felt a little tangy/pontificaty.

Ikea is different though: they only sell their own products so there's so earning incentives from paid product placement. Of course they want to improve their own sales but I feel that's a very different, less nefarious goal.

I think it's ultimately the same, though: they're not optimizing for you to get what you're looking for.

At the same time, I know it's a hard problem to solve. Users also aren't good at finding what they want either.

It's the "sell anything" goal, which is a direct result of the larger "growth at all costs" goal, the cancer that is enshittifying everything.

Searching for anything really on amazon is... an experience. 15 sponsored vs nothing of substance. And there is no way to know that a given, say, boardgame is not even available on Amazon.

In fact, the results are so bad that most of the time I go through Google.

Every Amazon product page has a unique identifying number within the URL that can be used to relocate that exact product again if it is still online later.

If you copy & save the whole URL it works as expected when you paste it into a browser next time, unless that page is gone for good.

But if you just read the ID number to somebody and they type it into the search box, the product will appear as a tile surrounded by a few related product tiles and the rest unrelated. Completely outnumbered, and intentionally crafted to make it easier to buy some other product besides the exact one desired.

And that's when you already know exactly what you want.

Only if you then click on the correct one will it take you back to the exact same product page.

I avoid using the Amazon app exactly because of this. Firefox with uBlock makes it a lot better, and you can still switch to the app after finding the product if that's better for finishing the purchase.