I’ve noticed this on many shopping sites, but I’ll use etsy as an example, since that’s my most recent encounter with this problem.
I’ll search something like “car magnet,” and most of the results are for stickers and have “magnet” nowhere in the title or description. Then I’ll try the syntax “car magnet -sticker,” which seems non-functional since I will still get back results including stickers.
I’ve had this problem time and time again. Ebay seems to at least specify which items don’t fit all my search terms, but etsy, Amazon, NewEgg, and nearly every other shopping site I’ve ever used causes me to throw my hands up in despair. (Looking at Walmart too, for giving my celiac ass gluten-containing products in a “gluten free foods” search.)
How do people find what they’re looking for? How do you get back the results you want?
I’ve got the same problem. my impression is that the recommender systems are built in such a way that they report any match regardless of how far removed it is from the intent of the user. i guess it’s the same reason why boolean operator don’t work anymore in google etc. makes sense from a business perspective i guess but the user experience is just horrible
Very horrible experience indeed. In fact, I usually end up giving up and not buying anything at all when this happens, but it must work since they keep doing it.
it’s sad really. on the other hand it feels like a throwback in time. going to dedicated forums, asking around, something like that. perhaps now it’s just becoming more obvious that the “recommended” (ahem amazon) options have always been little more than a scam.
This is true. I always appreciate recommendations from real humans tbh. There was a period of time when everyone seemed to have the attitude “why not just search it,” and I feel now like we’re starting to value the human aspect of these exchanges more and more.