Amazon.com search/sort function is completely useless

[cbdo2007]

Why do they do this? They actually make it MORE difficulty to find items on their site!

I'm searching for some cheap, good wii games for my nephews. I enter "wii games" in the search box and then click on the Video Games category to pull up the 6,477 results.

Now, I click on some of the filter options on the left hand side of the page: 4 stars or higher, sold by Amazon.com, New condition, and come up with 354 search results.

Next I sort to put the lowest priced items at the top and these are the prices sorted from Low - High:

$9.82
$12.00
$9.99
$5.99
$19.42
$54.17

I'm no math expert but I CAN put prices in order from Low - High and I know that's not it!~!

Why do they do this? It's ridiculous!! I've contacted customer support at Amazon about this a couple of times and after the 4th email of them saying the search function works fine, they end up just not writing me back. Obviously it doesn't work fine!!! It doesn't work at all. It isn't sorting anything!!!

[gmoney]

1. I think the sort is based on Amazon price, but includes 3rd party sellers in list

So, the 3rd item on your list may be sold by Amazon at 12.99, but a 3rd party is offering it for $9.99.

Or something like that. It's a little confusing.

[gmoney]

2. Take that back... they sort by lowest available price, I think

so, if there's a used or 3rd party new price that's lower than Amazon's price, it will base the sort on the lowest of the three.

But it sucks that there's accessories FOR Wii games that are just garbage, mixed in with the games proper.

Same thing when you search for camera gear, or other stuff. They should let you choose a price range to limit the search, so you can exclude all the trinkets and trash... or recategorize the trinkets and trash.

[cbdo2007]

4. You can filter by price range on the left hand side.....and I don't mind going through some

useless accessories to find good game prices.

But, you're hitting the nail on the head with the 3rd party seller's price.

The problem with that is that I just want to buy from Amazon with their free shipping...so even if you sort by Amazon and filter by "Free Super Save Shipping" those other items pop up with a price of $3.99 and a shipping price of $6.99....so it's obviously going to put it in the wrong place. Many things are even listed sometimes at $.01 with a $19.99 shipping price, just cause they know it will go to the top of the search results.

Wouldn't Amazon get more money selling the item themselves rather than through a third party? That's what makes their search so dang goofy and dumb!!

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. Yeah, their sort is fucked up in every which way. Do a sort on "available by Amazon Prime"

and look at all the shit that shows up that isn't available by Amazon Prime.

Or I'll be a looking at page of stuff (let's say electric razors) and see a huge-ass list of stuff, including maybe 30 by Gillette. I see the Gillette stuff all gets good high marks, so I click on the "manufacturer" sort button off to the left on the Gillette option - and then, the 30 razors by Gillette that were in the last offering are now down to just six in the "sort by Gillette" window.

It's totally ludicrous the way it works or doesn't work.

Or the "sort by items in the $100-150 range" and it'll give shit ranging from a penny to $500.

[gmoney]

5. the 3rd Party listings are somewhat controlled by AI instead of people.

I helped someone list a few things through the "sellers" program, and you have to put the items in a spreadsheet and upload that. Well, even though there was a field for "Category" it ignores that, and evidently determines the category based on description "keywords". They can't even do a manual override if you get them on the phone! Your only hope is to edit your description so the AI figures out what category your item SHOULD be in.

[cbdo2007]

6. This is because they are trying to broaden ALL of our search results to as many

products as they can possibly find for some reason.

There is another example of what you describe when I search for "wii games". I then click on the "video games" category and it pulls up 6,000 some results.

Now look over on the left hand side of the screen under the "video games" heading and it shows the breakdown by category:

Wii (4,269)
Nintendo DS (56)
More Systems (230)
Playstation 3 (656)
Xbox 360 (657)
Playstation 2 (629)
PC Games (31)
Mac Games (14)
Sony PSP (9)

Ok, why the fruck are there PC Games listed when I search for "wii games"??? So I clicked on PC Games because that seemd unlikely to be related in any way to "wii games". First thing listed is a drum stool for the Rock Band type games. OK, I understand that one. Next one listed is Barbie Horse Adventures: Riding Camp - NOT even available on the Wii Platform!>!> Or maybe it is but this listing isn't, so why the fruck is it listed??

The searches are so convoluted that you can rarely find what you're actually looking for because they try to hard to get you to buy other stuff that you aren't searching for but run across. Obviously I'm not looking for Barbie Horse Adventures for my PC when I'm searching for Wii Games. Just show me the fruckin' wii games!!!

Sorry to vent/rant. I actually sent an email to Amazon's Web Director or somebody and they're "Looking into" the sorting function currently. Right...if they actually fix this it will be a Christmas miracle!!!