Saturday, January 19, 2013

Amazon's ineffective marketing

I don't get it. Amazon is the biggest, most successful online marketer. You'd think they'd have their act together by now. But a glance at their main page reveals something strange: they have no idea how to market goods.

Like you, I've been shopping at Amazon forever. But when I go to the site it shows me nothing I'm interested in. I'm sure you've noticed this. How can it be that they don't know what I like? Of all the sites in the online universe, Amazon should know my tastes as well as my friends do. But they don't.

For one thing, they have this utterly useless idea that if you buy something, they should continue to show that class of items to you for the rest of your life. Now, I'm not talking about physics or atheist books; they're good about showing me books I might like. But say I buy a coffee pot. For the next few months after the purchase, they show me...coffee pots. Duh. I already bought that item. So of all the items they could show me, a coffee pot should be at the very bottom of the list. Not so. They're gonna show me coffee pots for months or years. What a waste of space.

And the Kindle ad at the top of the page! Oy. Amazon, if you've been showing me a Kindle for several years and I haven't bought it, chances are I'm not interested. Doesn't matter to Amazon. They're going to donate a full third of my home page space to the Kindle for the rest of my life. Amazon, I don't want a Kindle. Get over it.

Seriously, shouldn't Amazon be gold for all of us? Knowing our buying patterns so well, shouldn't Amazon be almost magical in its ability to show me what I want? I don't get it.