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 work in a company that helps shop owners with their shops. Some shop software has bad search as a default. You need a skilled person to configure it. We do it for some, but others don’t care. And then there’s people who think they can do it better, with varying results.
I guess that’s why Amazon search is so bad. It really feels like some boss ordered his tech staff around to add too many things, like substitutions, translations etc., and now it’s crap.
I think Amazon search is intentionally “bad”, as it suggests unrelated items that the customer has a high chance of viewing and buying.
So it’s not so much of “search is bad” but “search is suggesting unrelated, but potentially interesting items” which leads to more sales.
Also this is why the item descriptions are such pain in the ass, to show them in as many searches as possible - sellers gaming the system.
The whole platform is designed to sell you as much shit as possible, usually on top of the item you actually wanted. This way you order your shit happily with some extra items in the cart
Amazon could make such a dramatic improvement by adding a simple “this item is not appropriate for this search” clickbox.
That way the users could force the sellers to correctly list their products or to face downranking in the search results.
Though then you have the specter of competitors clicking that.
Amazon search is so bad because we wind up having to doomscroll to find that damn thing we’re looking for. Like putting milk in the back of the grocery store. You can type ‘Adidas’ and wind up digging through Nikes