Comments on: Big Impact, Small Changes on Amazon

By: What you should know about AB Testing | custardfish: Web Designers in Ipswich, Suffolk.

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:00:50 +0000

[...] Scannable ContentYour online copy should be formatted so its easy to digest online. Even big companies get it wrong. See Amazon’s userbility changes. [...]

By: Optimizing Website & Landing Page Copy - A 10 Step Process | FutureNow's GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog

Fri, 22 May 2009 16:12:35 +0000

[...] Your online copy must be formatted to make it easy to digest online. You want to maximize skimming and scanning just the way Amazon reformatted their page. [...]

By: Dare

Dare — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:00:38 +0000

They were split testing. This is now part of their site. Glad I found this blog it contains very useful resources.

By: Corbin

Corbin — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:11:25 +0000

Oddly, as of today (two weeks later), I’m not seeing the changes anywhere on Amazon (even on “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!”). I’m still seeing the before picture. I wonder if they are still split testing or if they rolled back to the previous version.

By: Stephen Burns

Stephen Burns — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:12:59 +0000

I believe you that they have a culture of optimization, but to be honest those changes were kind of no-brainers if you ask me. No brainers that I assume were tested and verified, but no brainers none the less.

By: Todd Follansbee

Todd Follansbee — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:08:50 +0000

I hope we haven’t overlooked other changes! I continue to be impressed by Amazon’s culture of optimization (as you wisely called it) and I regularly look to Amazon for more great examples of an innovative and effective persuasive user experience in my consulting.

By: UniqLooks - Cashmere Scarves

UniqLooks - Cashmere Scarves — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:36:28 +0000

Daniel, thanks for sharing. For small sites like ours, this kind of information really helps us improve things and test them.

By: Bloggers Digest - 4/4/08 » Ecommerce Blog

Bloggers Digest - 4/4/08 » Ecommerce Blog — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:43:22 +0000

[...] Daniel McGuigan spotted design tweaks on Amazon product pages that improve scannability – a very important element in web [...]

By: Daniel McGuigan

Daniel McGuigan — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:37:01 +0000

David-Sorry, I could have made it clearer, but I was referring to the “Availability”, which Amazon has taken out in the second description.

Mark- Thanks. Making small changes can be really useful in redesigning, especially if you’re testing those changes.

By: Marc Fr

Marc Fr — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:14:06 +0000

Hi,

Great analyse, we are actualy focusing on those little changes on our websites. It’s encouraging to see that this kind of approach can bring a lot and gives us more confidence to go forward.

By: David Guido

David Guido — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:05:30 +0000

This is a great example of how font size and visual contrast can make a difference. However, I don’t think they’ve “edited out unnecessary words” in the book title, at least not in this example. It simply looks like a different book.

By: James Paden

James Paden — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:02:59 +0000

Well, Bryan did not tell my boss first and that’s what counts I will put Amazon on my daily list so next time I can beat Bryan to the punch.

I was honestly afraid they made the changes weeks ago and I just didn’t notice. I was glad to see that I picked up it quickly and kudos to Bryan and the rest of the team for noticing even “small” changes such as these.

By: Robert Gorell

Robert Gorell — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:21:42 +0000

James,

Bryan noticed this four days ago and emailed Dan and me. But since we put up the post today, I guess you two will have to arm wrestle for usability geek bragging rights at some point.

Regardless, it’s not really a fair contest for us mortals. (The optimization thing, that is, not arm wrestling — you may have a shot at that.) Sometimes it seems Bryan has every e-commerce site on the Web cached somewhere in his brain. He tends to notice things before Google. It’s scary.

Glad to see you’re paying attention! Just goes to show that it might pay to read GrokDotCom.

-Editor

By: James Paden

James Paden — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:48:44 +0000

I noticed this yesterday, got big points with the boss for pointing it out before Grok!

By: Brick Marketing

Brick Marketing — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:38:40 +0000

Enjoy seeing the two different comparisons. Funny how a small change or two can completely impact a site and their marketing/sales efforts.