Exploiting AI for consumers

One thing AI is good for is supplying words for more specific searches, when I don't know exactly what to search for. In that sense, I want it to dump stuff all over the place.

That can lean in interesting directions.

google's AI search is useful that way, in the first summary. You can ignore the junk below.

google AI says

Putting quotation marks around a word or phrase forces Google to return results containing that exact sequence of words. It is a powerful tool to narrow down results, though you should use it sparingly as it may cause you to overlook relevant variations or synonyms.

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Some sites still have 'advanced search' where you can make more specific search terms. eg on ebay you can do:

(any,one,of,these,words) +musthavethis -nothingwiththis "multi word string"

When you use an advanced search it turns off the fuzzy matching you normally get and you get just the specific terms.

Advanced searches are really handy when setting up alerts - eg I have alerts like:

makita (track,rail) adapter -router -jigsaw

so I only get emailed about things I actually want (I wanted saw track but not jigsaw or router track).

On Amazon, and probably others, the default 'relevance' search shows you the items that are more profitable for them, not for you. Also it's better for them to not say 'sorry, we couldn't find anything else' and once the real search hits are finished they start showing you vaguely related junk to fill up the space (and hope you'll buy it).

So I flip to 'sort by price'. I then tick 'Prime only' - even if you don't have Prime, it weeds out items shipped from China with postage that's not included in the sort. (In the UK, that's not entirely FBA items - some sellers can fulfill using Prime shipping too. Typically I'm only using Amazon because I'm in a hurry). Then I get a list of items related to my search term and work down them until I find something suitable.

Often, the same generic item is available from a new seller with no reviews at a lower price and another seller with reviews, so if you find something keep going until you also find a listing with reviews - then buy it from the cheaper no-reviews seller.

I think once you steer away from 'relevance' as a sorting criteria, those 'tenously related' items tend to appear less often.

I haven't cracked Aliexpress or Alibaba yet, whose search systems seem much more difficult to give specific search terms too. Possibly because listings are originally written in Chinese and auto-translated, I'm not sure. Alibaba makes a song and dance of having an AI 'analyse' your input text, something I haven't worked out how to bypass yet.

Theo

Try: "VGA to DP" (quoted) at various sites (Amazon, Target, DDG, etc.)

Target claims 300 results! Di I believe that? When the first results are: DP to VGA active adapter VGA Male-to-Male cable

Amazon claims "over 1000" results: DP to VGA cable DP to VGA adapter Adapter, DP to VGA DP to VGA 10 pack DP to VGA 4 pack DP to VGA 8 pack DP to VGA cable, 6 ft ...

DDG's results claim "VGA to DP" pages -- that are, in fact, DP to VGA...

etc.

As my above example illustrates, they don't even TRY to produce *a* result that fits my quoted search string. My strategy is to read results, from the top, until the first item that fails to meet my criteria -- then move to another site.

Amazon's results for "red banana": Cuban red banana tree sun dried whole bananas organic (yellow) banana red banana tree live plant starter

I expect a more explicit search to produce FEWER results. Instead, they seem to assume a more liberal interpretation of the criteria.

With that reasoning, a SINGLE WORD should produce the fewest results?? <rolls eyes>

Feel free to try my example.

Or: "6-in-1 crushed tomatoes" (the name of a very specific product)

Or: "10 ft VGA cable" (entertaining on Amazon when "by price")

eBay is problematic -- but, I attribute that to sellers not accurately describing their items.

I was hoping to leverage AIs to filter the results from the individual sites; to do what I have been doing in sorting through all of hte improper results.

No always. I select "UK only" for my eBay searches, most of the hits were from firms with Chinese addresses. Now more and more UK addresses are appearing which are just covers for Chinese traders - they can be spotted if you look up the address on Google Streetview and find it either doesn't exist or doesn't look like a business premises.

You can often tell from the "quantities available" that they are stores and not "one offs".

Or, someone who bought a shitload from an offshore supplier just to be able to advertise "local seller" or quicker deliveries (I don't think we've ever purchased anything directly from a chinese seller with the exception of a particular book, many years ago)

In the US, it's relatively easy to obtain "other" addresses (i.e., to do business under).

Your personal residence is readily available to damn near anyone so using it for anything important is silly (as now you have to WATCH incoming mail/deliveries AT that address!)

POBoxes that are used for businesses can be queried for the name (and address) of the "holder". So, that exposes TWO addresses that you now have to watch. Within days of opening my business, here, I was receiving all sorts of mail from folks wanting to sell me services -- janitorial, security, accounting, advertising, etc... despite being clueless of the NATURE of my business!

Lesson learned. Get rid of the "business use" POBox!

But, there are firms that allow you to rent their address and are not subject to the same regulations as the Post Office; so, your name and "real" address are obfuscated. And, there is nothing to stop you from making a personal arrangement with some other entity -- the Post Office will deliver to an address regardless of the entity being addressed, there.

These other addresses are less likely to have someone rifling through your mail in search of personal information, bank correspondence, etc. And, no worry about "porch pirates" removing "unprotected" deliveries.

I get that too. Although if the delivery times are 2-3 days then it must be local stock - they aren't dropshipping from China, even if the seller is Chinese they must be using UK warehousing to dispatch. Sometimes I'm fine buying a cheap piece of Chinesium from a Chinese seller with UK stock - there's not really much value that a UK company would add to the transaction although if there's a real UK company involved then that's preferable, especially if customer service might be required.

Sometimes I filter by condition: 'new (other)' or 'used', because Chinese sellers don't tend to sell used items.

Another trick to bypass the multi-item listings which are '99p to £999' where 99p is for one rusty nail and the rest of the items are much more expensive, is to sort by price from high to low and work down until you stop finding the thing you wanted, at which point everything below that is dross. Then start working back upwards in price.

Theo