Ask HN: Web search is broken. It does not work for making purchases?

1 points by maverick2 11 years ago | 2 comments

Web search (Google in particular) evolved and optimized over last decade. It has been optimized for users to search and find the most trustworthy sources of information in context of the query.

However as web evolved and economies evolved, a majority of web searches are to make a purchase(concert/bus/train/airline tickets, order food, buy anything off of amazon/ebay etc).

So for the times, when you know exactly what you are looking to buy. You are still sent of to different websites/app to look for best price. So there no knowledge graph like feature for shopping.

What if an app had your default shipping address, and knew all the card you have and then once you look up for an item it hunts the best price across all reputable sites and applies any discount codes. Also figures how you should pay depending on which card will get you maximum cash back.

Thoughts?

nostrademons 11 years ago |

Isn't that basically Amazon? They patented one-click ordering and shipping back in the late 90s, and now they've brought many smaller suppliers under their umbrella (that's the "X new and Y used from $PRICE_MUCH_LOWER_THAN_MSRP) blurb next to the product. They even sorta do the cashback thing - many credit cards offer "5% cashback on purchases at Amazon.com!"

maverick2 11 years ago | |

Good point. Amazon is kind of like it. But searching for a product on amazon is like searching of some info on wikipedia.

However, Google search spans a across all of web.

So, we do not have something that spans across all sites to hunt for the best airline ticket. Taking into account all of the preferences.