Info 202 Fall 2011

    After learning concepts of information organization and retrieval, I have come up with a question: how Amazon shopping experience for baby products can be improved by applying them?

    Amazon is the world's largest online retailer, and also for new mothers, the most popular shopping mall due to its competitive prices, delivery discount model, and wide variety
of products. But, especially for the purchase of baby products, it is not as convenient and helpful to shop as other dedicated online baby shopping.

    Therefore, I’d like to review what aspects of Amazon are lacking or week in terms of i202 concepts, and suggest how Amazon can provide a better shopping experience for their customers, in other words parents of baby.
   
    Amazon review is a powerful tool to share customers’ real information so that other customers often make a decision to purchase based on the reviews and ratings. However, they are narrative style: they are long and redundant. The problem is mothers – especially new mothers – don’t have enough time to read all the reviews and extract what they really need. If the reviews have higher “information IQ”, in other words, they become more structured and processable, customers can understand overall opinions at a glance. For example, ProductWiki service illustrates how reviews could be more condensed and comprehensive resources.
   
    Amazon product search is another useful tool to find a specific item when a customer knows the exact name of the item or have some keywords for the item. Amazon also provides category navigation tools to navigate products from various aspects such as best sellers, rankings, theme, brand, price range, seller, and so on.
     
    However, Amazon search and navigation tools are weak in case a mother does not know what to buy. One of the most common questions of mothers of baby is “what to buy for a certain age of baby?” Though Amazon provides age-based search and navigation for toys and clothes, they are not comprehensive. Customers can search the individual category like “toys for six-month-old”, but they cannot get the complete set of products for six-month-old. Thus, mothers should search each category respectively for gears, feedings, nursery, toys, health, and safety products. If Amazon apply “Age” facet to its baby products, it would be more helpful for mothers to reduce their shopping time.
     
    Another useful facet category for baby products is “eco-friendly.” Since mothers are more careful to choose products for their baby,  “PVC free” and “Bisphenol-A free” terms for plastic products are marketing buzzwords. For example, because many mothers want to know whether plastic cups and spoons include potentially harmful chemicals, they read product descriptions to find out the “PVC-free” terms in them. In contrast with Amazon, Diapers.com provides an explicit “green baby” category for organic or eco-friendly products. Mothers therefore easily find more safe products under the category.
   
    If Amazon embodies more transactional features in customer reviews and includes “age” and “green” aspects in its category, baby parents can spend more time with their baby rather than spend on buying baby products because they could find products they need more quickly.