Who cares what department it’s in? If you do care why?
Working on my phone searching electronics organizer it was the seventh result.
I’m glad you were able to find a product by searching for its name. Unfortunately this is of no use when you don’t have a specific item in mind. As has been mentioned above, choosing a department is the first step in refining search results, including sorting and filtering.
I am finding Amazon progressively harder to use.
Stuff is scattered among a bewildering set of categories.
The left side submenu selections don’t work. E.g., I was shopping for a leaf blower. I picked “gas powered” on the left. 5 out of the first 6 listed were electric. I have come close a lot of times to buying something that I thought had feature “X” based on the menus and didn’t. And actually did buy an item that had to be returned because it was listed under a submenu for a feature but in fact didn’t have it.
A lot of searches for non-book items return books with no seeming resemblance to the item. And, again, you can’t just pick “a” department to narrow it down to get rid of those mis-hits since the item might be listed in just one of a dozen different sub-categories.
Trying to pick stuff based on Amazon Prime or Free Supersaving Shipping is random. Stuff I know qualifies won’t show up, stuff I know doesn’t will.
The worst: If I type in a partial name of a product (brand and item description) it might not show up. E.g., “MegaWow DVD player”. But if I type in the model number it will. And the item is labeled as “MegaWow DVD player”. Their search engine doesn’t include the item label???
So I have sometimes resorted to Google site search to search Amazon.
Oh, and they are now shipping as “new” items in obviously opened/returned boxes. Not just affiliates, Amazon itself.
Not quite- you can do a lot of filtering and sorting without choosing a department. You just get more choices if you do. Just out of curiosity, what was your search query for that item? I’m curious what the list of results looked like, before choosing a department.
I didn’t search by name. I want something to organize my electronic doodads in my briefcase. Now what search term should I use?
I know this is going out on a limb but how about I search “electronics organizer” Or does that make too much sense?
The fact that the example you chose had that exact name is immaterial. I was not searching by name, but rather description of its function.
My major issue with buying on Amazon is buying books from within a series. I’ve been reading the Chronicles of Elantra on my Kindle, buying them as I go, but it’s virtually impossible within Amazon to discover which book is the next in series - I’ve been checking in with wikipedia to find out.
- 1 For each point you make.
Amazon is growing to big, to fast for it’s own good.
Delivery by drone is going to be their ‘jumping the shark’. Can you say; ‘unintended consequences’??
Same here and although Amazon.uk is my default site I have bought stuff from Amazon .fr, .jp and .com. Never any problems other than I don’t manage French or Japanese but managed to overcome that with a little difficulty.
That was a publicity stunt.
Now this I agree with. I wish they listed the books in order.
Ditto. I’ve found that a problem on iBooks, Nook and through Amazon as well.
Agree wholeheartedly and they used to have that listed once upon a time. When they did the big site revamp a couple of years ago that wonderful little bit of information disappeared. It used to be shown in the Product Details area that “so-and-so” the book was #5 in the Realm of Whodunnit series. I was disappointed when that tidbit vanished and also use Wikipedia to find the info now.
My latest gripe is the way they’re listing the available formats. It used to be a lot easier to find the bargain books. Now you have to click on that “See all formats and editions” arrow to actually see all the formats and editions. When I’m digging through a list of hundreds of books, it gets tedious.
FWIW:
Electronics › Computers & Accessories › Laptop & Netbook Computer Accessories › Bags & Cases › “Monoprice Mini Universal Electronics Travel Organizer (110074)”
It’s in some others too … if you search for this item by name, the department filter is the first one on the left side …
Amazon is getting worse, with stuff like sponsored ads to throw you off. I also find their search is a little too eager to give you something that might not be what you want, even if you entered a specific model number.
But generally as an Amazon Prime customer most stuff I order with free Prime shipping is just a one-click order, that’s where the real easy to use happens.
Here’s something that bugs me about Amazon–I sometimes buy dog food, because it can be cheaper and I hate going to PetCo anyway. But there are many different prices and sizes for the brand I buy. It would be really nice if they provided price per pound for each seller. If that price per pound included shipping cost it would be awesome. As it is, I’m stuck doing math 
I searched for electronics case. I can’t seem to do any sorting at all without choosing a department, and this seems to fit several departments: Electronics, Computers & Accessories, and Luggage & Bags. How can I find the cheapest items that fit this description?
Hmm thanks, this actually answered my question. At least now I know how to check the department.
I’m glad to see Americans find Amazon’s system to be poor as well, because as a foreigner it is actually one of the most frustrating sites I’ve used.
Many sellers have shipping restrictions, so (as a foreigner) if you find one who actually ships to your country it can be handy to see what else they offer.
Which leads straight to my number one quibble, which has already been raised - the inability to return to your cart once you’ve started the checkout process. This is absolutely idiotic when you consider the fact that (as a non-American) you can place non-shippable items in your cart but won’t know about it until checkout (it will list a completely irrelevant and non-applicable shipping cost until then, making you think everything is fine). Only in checkout do you get a page with the items listed that can’t be shipped, and no way to return to the cart.