July 14, 2005

Why the lack of attribute-based refinement at Amazon.com?

I find this puzzling. Amazon.com does a decent job of breaking its products into sub-categories, but they rarely refine by attributes, and when they do it tends to be haphazard.

Take a category that almost everyone does well, digital cameras. Amazon allows us to refine using a narrow (grrr!) range of megapixels, but where are the other attributes, even ones as basic as price?

Actually, price-refinement is available on the advanced search page, but this is divorced from the ability to select by megapixels. Right hand, left hand, you know the rest...

Perhaps Amazon does not mind letting other sites take the lead in the early stages of the buying process, because many people will have to go through them eventually for things like reviews and fulfillment?

Yet, if they are not into attributes, why do it at all, why do it so half-heartedly?

Maybe since their early products (books, music, videos) relied on recommendations more than attribute refinement, it is not in their DNA?

Why the lack of attribute-based refinement at Amazon.com? (1)
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on July 14, 2005 at 7:05 PM
Archived at Amazon.com | Feature Finders

Comments

Posted by Elliott Back at August 11, 2005 3:04 PM