A few recent articles point to the arbitrariness and poor value of Amazon’s Choice, a rating the company uses to distinguish better value products, but that, apparently uses biased algorithms.
The growth of Amazon has turned its website into a huge panoply of products where brands fight to stand out and where users increasingly face the paradox of choice. Faced with this hyperabundance, Amazon’s Choice is a way of recommending a series of products to users in each category, usually products that are found in the company’s warehouses, in order to ensure a quick delivery, or which are regarded as offering the best value. The rating is delivered based on some type of algorithmic criteria using certain characteristics, but the company does not offer any information beyond “highly rated, well-priced products available for immediate delivery.” However, comparisons suggest that the label, which is decisive in many people’s decision making, in reality means little, and should not be interpreted meaning the product offers good value.
Amazon is now a monster that accounts for 49% of all e-commerce in the United States and around 5% of all retail spending. The company is increasingly copying the business model of traditional shops, selling more and more advertising on its pages in the same way that supermarkets and hypermarkets charge brands to advertise or to occupy certain spaces.
