First, a question for readers. Does anybody have a screenshot of an Amazon product page from the 1990′s they can send me?
Update: Bryan came through with the following Internet Archive record from 1999, it pays to have a Geek reading the blog:-)
Amazon product page from 1999
The reason I asked for a 1990′s Amazon screen shot was that I remembered the publisher, page count, and other book details, once appeared above the fold, just below the book cover image on Amazon.
My own Internet Archive search had only reached back as far as 2004, when Amazon had already moved the Sales Rank and publisher info into a section called Product Details, below the Also Bought. But for a while, Amazon kept a hyperlink for “see more product details” right below the cover images and editions listing, above Better Together.
In recent months, Amazon has been experimenting with moving the Product Details for books below the featured customer reviews. This pushes the publisher name and other “details” well below the halfway point on the page for most books I checked, lower if there are long editorial reviews or other descriptive material in the top section of the page.
This new order has been stable the last couple weeks when visiting Amazon using the FireFox or Chrome browsers, it’s been flipping back and forth when using Internet Explorer. On my Kindle Fire, where I first noticed the move, the Product Details are back up above the Customer Reviews.
So what difference does it make? As a self publisher, I have little objection to seeing the publisher brand devalued, but it must be a hard pill to swallow for trade publishers whose logo appears on the spine of the book, up in the spotlights with the title and the author’s name on a bookstore shelve. Now it’s a mere detail that the vast majority of Amazon shoppers will likely never even scroll past. There’s really no book related information left below the Product Details on the new Amazon page design at this point. All that remains are sponsored link, suggestions for other books, and a page full of Amazon corporate information, if you scroll to the very bottom.
I doubt Amazon would ever remove Product Details from the page entirely, as some shoppers might want to know how many pages are in the book, who published it, and whether it’s a paperback or a hard cover. There may even be some dinosaurs searching for books by ISBN using search engines, who wouldn’t find them without the Product Details. But Amazon’s testing must have shown that shoppers care more customer reviews and information about similar books than they do about what I once would have considered critical information. And there’s nothing wrong with that, I just find it interesting.
Hi Morris,
Internet archive is your buddy (www.archive.org)
1999 amazon product page
http://web.archive.org/web/19991012034556/http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0842329161
At the rate of speed that technology is changing today, how long before Amazon becomes obsolete? The traditional publishers appear to be headed the way of the dinosaur (though I doubt they will disappear as quickly as some forecast).
Will there be a standard reading device and authors sell their books directly to their readers?
I realize PDF books worked this way, but will there be a further evolution in the sales process of ebooks?
Bryan,
Link didn’t work for me, but maybe the Archive site is overloaded. I know whenever I tried pulling Amazon pages from before 2003, it actually redirected to newer Amazon pages, from 2011 or later. I assumed it had to do with a change in how Amazon served pages back then, which is why I was looking for a screen shot. But I’ll try again later.
Morris
Kevin,
I think Amazon has the brand for the time being, lots of lock-in going on with devices, with Prime, with trusted customer support, etc. Of course nothing is forever, and few things are even for decades, but it may takes a lot to overcome branding and habits. Look how Google still dominates search with useless results.
Morris
I wasn’t thinking in terms of a few years, but rather a few decades. As a history teacher we call it “change over time.” It’s like a force of nature. Steam power was a key to industrialization. Now we live in a post-industrial world. When was the last time you saw a steam powered locomotive that was not on a tourist railroad or in a museum?
No, I was thinking in terms of Amazon post Jeff Bezos. Will there be a CEO who has his vision for domination of the market and the smarts to drag the company where it needs to go.
In the post Bezos era, how long before another visionary entrepreneur comes along and targets Amazon like he has targeted his competitors?
Bryan,
The link worked this morning, I added the screen shot to the post and changed the text to remove my uncertainty, altering my own history.
Kevin,
I agree that Bezos has that domination vision, maybe that’s why “Fifty Shades of Grey” did so well on Amazon:-)
I think as the giant retailer that they are, there’s no reason Amazon shouldn’t hold on until a displacement technology or legislative change (ie, nobody can buy things that aren’t produced in their state or something) comes along. Keep in mind that Sears was the best known mail-order seller for nearly a century, and their customer lock-in was limited to discounts for picking up at a store, lay-away, and a big paper book! One of the great ironies of the Internet age is that Sears folded their catalog division just a year or two before Amazon came on the scene, because mail-order was perceived as an old-fashioned business. If they had hung on a little longer and made the transition to the web, they could have owned the space.
As a book and content seller, I think Amazon has more at risk in the near future due to devices. If the general equivalent of and iPad or Fire costs less than $100 (in today’s money) ten years from now, and if privacy advocates succeed in launching an anonymous Internet currency that actually gets used, Amazon could lose a lot of their market share in digital goods. A lot depends on the evolution of piracy laws as well. And of course, somebody might come up with a better device than the current crop of tablets. I say “might” because the basic PC and laptop designs still fill their niches with very little change over the last 30 years.
Morris
Well, I just stumbled on this news story. Granted, it is not an American retailer, but still.
http://www.businessinsider.com/tesco-will-go-head-to-head-against-amazon-2013-3#ixzz2MaYSI1Ah
Somebody is planning to take on Amazon in the ebook market.
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