Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
I'm pretty sure that Amazon doesn't have that information either. At least not 2, 3,5,6 or 7. You also have a lot of inference there. For example, price rarely comes into play when I chose to buy a book. So trying to mine my browsing habits for price data will give you a lot of bogus information. I might have clicked on a book, looked at it and decided I didn't want it for all sorts of different reasons, or I might have clicked on the book by mistake when my cat bumped my arm or I might have misremembered the title of the book that I was looking for. You can't know just by mining the server logs.
|
Yes, they know all of this, by aggregating those browsing habits. Their data guys were hired for a reason, and it is because they know how to compensate for this inaccuracy by looking for trends. And viewing a book then deciding "for all sorts of different reasons" is exactly what they are looking for as per 2), because nobody other than you said that Amazon assumes the only reason is price. Again, that is what trends are for.
Quote:
|
True market research involves a lot of talking to the end customers to understand what they like and don't like and what is important to them. Publishers do a lot more market research than you think. They do research into things like book covers, book titles and price points.
|
As hrafn said, you are randomly assuming:
Quote:
|
That asking buyers questions will reveal more about their buying habits than about the buying habits they think they should have. Finding out what actually makes them put down their money is almost certainly more useful.
|