Which Amazon features are the most effective in encouraging consumers to buy books? Many people say it’s book reviews and Search Inside the Book.
In a recent discussion, one publisher asserted that Search Inside is obviously Amazon’s most effective feature. It allows browsers to mimick the same thing they enjoy doing at a real bookstore — thumbing through pages.
What’s the proof? Just look at Amazon’s book detail pages, the publisher said:
Amazon has chosen to position Search Inside the Book at perhaps the single most prominent position on the book detail page, the top left corner. If it didn’t help sales significantly, it wouldn’t have that real estate.You should think of Amazon’s detail page as a huge, peer-reviewed, massively data-tested experiment in what content elements do the most to help book sales online. The evolution of the content and layout of the detail page reflects their learnings over time.
Take this one example: Tags and Categories. The Tags feature appears prominently on Amazon book detail pages, three levels above Amazon’s most popular feature, book reviews.
I’d bet far less than a half of one percent of Amazon customers know what a Tag is, and fewer have ever used the feature. Many consumers who have used Tags on Amazon have done it in a counterproductive way (such as tagging a book “Grandma’s Xmas present). The most prolific users of tags on Amazon are authors, who spam the feature with redundant or inappropriate tags. In my opinion, this feature’s utility for consumers is practically zero.
On the other hand, Categories are familiar to everyone who’s ever walked into a library or bookstore. But on Amazon this feature languishes near the bottom of detail pages, with many (perhaps most) books categorized incorrectly or incompletely.
Where are the Categories, such as Books > Fiction > Mystery? Scroll way, way, down near the bottom, past several advertisements and half-baked, unused features like Amapedia wikis and “Customer Discussions” and you’ll find Categories.
I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon, and I’d probably buy a lot more if Amazon invested more in classifying products into browsable categories so I could find what I want.
The Amazon employee who is in charge of the Tags feature would probably assert that customers will do a better job of classifying books using Tags than Amazon employees can by working in its catalog department. But at the rate it’s going, this could take 50 years.
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5 Comments
On pages I create myself on Amazon, it seems that the optional keyword fields are very helpful!
I was adding tags to the books for awhile, and that seemed like a good idea although I don't know how widely used they are.
Often, books seem to be bought because they are referenced elsewhere, for example they are listed on other websites as good references or because the author was on TV. I also think reviews are a big deciding after.
I like the Search Inside the Book feature, but on many of the books I sell that feature isn't available because the book is out-of-print.
This is an interesting topic!
H.B.
"Customer Reviews" and "Customers who bought this item also bought" are the probably the two most useful features for me.
The "also bought" feature leads me to books I haven't heard of and wouldn't otherwise have considered buying, but Customer Reviews are very important to whether I actually buy an item.
I love books, so good marketing can pique my interest in almost anything. Therefore to separate hype from fact, I depend on the opinions of other ordinary buyers.
Not coincidentally, Amazon's new page design seems to downplay Customer Reviews and make it a little more difficult for buyers to take advantage of other readers' experience and perspectives.
The single most decisive influence on my online purchasing decision are the reviews by other readers/buyers.
In addition to that, for music, the most important feature is to be able to briefly listen to each track. It often makes me pick one album over another by the same artist for example.
Until this post, I'd never heard of tags, and I've been selling used books on Amazon for several years. Even after reading about them, as a consumer, they don't really seem to offer a lot.
As a purchaser on Amazon's site, I rely heavily on 1.) consumer reviews and 2.) "Customers who bought this item also bought…" Even though I sometimes role my eyes at how up-sellish and corporate this feature seems, I have to admit I've added items to my Wishlist based on books and CDs marketed to me on this page.
The 'search inside the book' has caused me so much trouble I wish they would discontinue it!!! It seems to disrupt the search itself.