Pretty much every major shopping website has terrible search functionality.
I usually want something very specific, for example 60w dimmable e12 frosted warm led bulb. I have not found a single shopping website that won’t show me results without many of these terms in the description. I don’t want to see listings that say 40w and don’t say 60w anywhere, and it isn’t hard to filter them out!
Are these shopping websites bad on purpose? What’s in it for them?
I have found that for certain things like this, if you can find a part number it’s better to use that to get more refined results. It definitely won’t help for everything (clothing, groceries, etc). But it does help for tech things especially.
I mean, you’re not wrong, but it seems like a shopping website that refuses to show you the thing that you are looking for doesn’t want your business.
Amazon is incredibly bad about this. If I did not have to use it for work, I would not use it at all. I deactivated my prime account 5 years ago and I have not regretted it one second.
Now though, eBay is doing the same thing and that really sucks. AliExpress also does this. It’s getting to the point where you simply cannot find what you are looking for unless you are so specific that whatever search algorithm they are using simply cannot choose to show you something else about directly explicitly lying to your face.
And I don’t think that using a third party search engine to find the specific part number of the item you’re looking for so that you can find it on the shopping website that makes its money by selling you the things that you want to buy is a good solution.
Oh, this wasn’t me saying they don’t suck and aren’t actively getting worse. I just default to trying to be helpful.
I agree with you. Search in general is actively getting worse and worse.