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The two Amazons

W

Wabbit

New Member
I have noticed that there are differences between the British and the American Amazon web sites. Of the two, I much prefer the UK version of Amazon.

There are two faults I personally find with the U.S version: It keeps trying to sell you things. Alright you say, it's supposed to! :D Yes, but it keeps trying to sell you things OTHER than what you are searching for, and it's annoying. It just serves to clutter up the search page with junk and very loudly try to direct you to other sites. The other issue is the clutter. Amazon UK is much cleaner and streamlined. It's not full of advertisements and links.

Let's for my example take the book that I am reading right now which is Jonathan strange and Mr norrell

Searching for this book on both sites:

US search page

It shows you the book you wanted. It also shows you a lot of other junk by totally different authors whose books are unrelated. It also throws a big advertisement for a web site in the middle of the search page. I find it harder to find what I want on the site.

UK search page

Cleaner. Only showing the books you actually wanted in different formats. It also features the great listomania feature at the side :)

Once you get to the actual pages:

US page

UK page

Again I find the UK version much cleaner and helpful. I like the layout much better.

Of course, all this is personal preference. It's interesting they are different!

- Martin
 
While I agree that Amazon has cluttered the page more and more in the ten years I have used it, especially when they expanded to merchandise beyond books, the search links in your post don't work for me. My guess is that an Amazon search set up in the UK doesn't tanslate across the Pond, or something like that.
 
Amazon.ca isn't too bad I guess. Personally I only use Amazon as an information resource. I buy from local stores, or in the very least Canadian owned stores.
 
eliott said:
While I agree that Amazon has cluttered the page more and more in the ten years I have used it, especially when they expanded to merchandise beyond books, the search links in your post don't work for me. My guess is that an Amazon search set up in the UK doesn't tanslate across the Pond, or something like that.
Click to expand...

How strange... at first I thought I had maybe made an error. But I have tired and still get the "browser bug" How crap of Amazon. I tried both UK and US search pages from the link and just get the "browser bug" page. Strange.
 
ions said:
Amazon.ca isn't too bad I guess. Personally I only use Amazon as an information resource. I buy from local stores, or in the very least Canadian owned stores.
Click to expand...

Yeah, looks very similar in layout to the UK version :)
 
The US version has just recently made another change that is really annoying me. All that information on the left in the UK version has now disappeared and been integrated into the main page. I suppose it really isn't that big of a deal except that I had grown accustomed to the side bar, so it seems I am having to readjust to the site, which is making me less likely to use it.
 
I've never bought anything off Amazon. I've mainly used it to get the cover pictures of books... or to read the "preview" of a book, and then I'll go reserve it at the library. The UK version doesn't have the extract option (which is fun, until you read the first six pages, want to read the rest and realise that the library's lost their copy or something... very maddening) but I've noticed that it'll have books that you can't get on the US version...
 
Yeah the UK version does have it :)

It's just less in your face and is normally somewhere down the page.

Amazing is great for reading reviews and getting a synopsis for a book!
 
Anyone tried the "Search Inside" feature at Amazon? You type in your search term and it comes up with the usual results, but you can then also click on the Search Inside link, and it finds your search term within the text of books and shows you the relevant text. It might be useful in finding a forgotten book.
 
lies said:
Because that way you wouldn't discriminate. The two amazons. Pfah!
Click to expand...

And how am I?

When did I say there was not more than 2 amazons? I'm fully aware that there are other flavours of Amazon as I'm sure are most others. Since I don't oder from Japan I'm not interested in that site nor any other language i don't speak.

My point was to compare the U.S version with the U.K version as I have ordered from both.
 
I think the feature that irritates me the most about Amazon.com is the "search within the book" feature when you enter a keyword. It comes back with a list of quotes from books that have NOTHING to do with the title you're looking for. The only reason they appear is because the books contain the words you entered into the search field.

For instance, if you enter "Dog in the Nighttime" you get "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" but you also get a list of dog obedience books. In this example it's okay because the book you want displays first. However, if it were a more obscure title you would have gotten all the dog obedience books first, and would have had to scroll through page after page after page of unrelated titles to find the book you were looking for. The list displays in order of which books are most often requested.

It was much better when it tried to match the keywords to the book's actual title, in my opinion, NOT to words the book contains.
 
Funny namedujour, I think that feature is very useful.

When I find a book that I am looking for, I usually like to explore into it.

I read the few pages that amazon lets me read and get a fair idea about how the book is.

Well, people differ, don't they :)
 
Are we talking about the same thing? I'm not complaining about the feature that lets you explore the contents of a book. I'm complaining about a search engine that displays off-topic titles you don't want simply because they contain the words you typed into the search field somewhere in their 300 or so pages.

If you're requesting A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, you don't want a tour guide of Brooklyn or a horticulture book about trees. You would hope the search engine would display the literal title first, and then go through a list of alternates. It does this with better-known titles, but if you're looking for something obscure, you pretty much need to enter the author's name, as well as the title, in order to find it.

If you're looking for a specific title and just want to go to that page, the feature gets in your way. It gives you way more than you need or want, and most of what it gives you is unrelated to what you're requesting. If you want to read "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" the chances are slim that you're more interested in training your dog than in finding "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time."

It sounds like you're just browsing through the shelves - which might make the feature useful. Or you don't mind getting sidetracked when you have a mission.

I just want to get what I want to get when I want to get it. To me, the feature is a lot like spam interspersed with my personal emails.
 
Oh I am sorry. I misinterpreted your post.

No, I was not talking about the 'take-this-too;you-might-be-interested' feature. I was talking about exploring the book feature. And I agree with you the former feature can be really annoying.
 
Just saw your post, Wabbit. Can't agree more. The US site is not nearly as intuitive and easy to use as the Canadian or UK one. I don't understand why they're different at all... very odd.
 
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