Amazon removed sort prices low to high from on-kindle store

[Pjama]

I just noticed some changes when browsing the store from my kindle. One, the font is much bigger! But, most importantly, especially if you are searching for free books (I was searching for Trilby by George du Maurier), the option to sort prices from low to high has gone, replaced by date of release and other such useless options.

I’m sure the prices were also displayed beside each of the books in the list, but now, the space beside each book is blank and you have to click on each individual book cover to find out the price.

In other words, they are making it as difficult as possible for people to compare prices. Naughty, naughty.

Anyway, I downloaded the book from Project Gutenberg in the end, so no big deal, but a change for the worse (for the customer) and for the better for Amazon's bottom line, presumably.

[John F]

The sort by price is still there for me. This was on a tablet in desktop mode.

Edit: oops, missed that this was on the Kindle.

[WestCactus]

I miss sort by price drop that they removed years ago on the web site.

[Paperbackstash]

Originally Posted by Pjama

I just noticed some changes when browsing the store from my kindle. One, the font is much bigger! But, most importantly, especially if you are searching for free books (I was searching for Trilby by George du Maurier), the option to sort prices from low to high has gone, replaced by date of release and other such useless options.

I’m sure the prices were also displayed beside each of the books in the list, but now, the space beside each book is blank and you have to click on each individual book cover to find out the price.

In other words, they are making it as difficult as possible for people to compare prices. Naughty, naughty.

Anyway, I downloaded the book from Project Gutenberg in the end, so no big deal, but a change for the worse (for the customer) and for the better for Amazon's bottom line, presumably.

Goodreads has been revamping their book data page with a horrible beta as well, that went fully live for me yesterday. Amazon is also doing a similar book page with changes I've noticed. The search feature is horrible now, which I and hundreds of others use often for Goodreads based challenges when we have to find the sentence and location for certain words. Now the search feature with the newly designed book pages show only search for usually the first four chapters of the book, and don't always display the sentence or the page number. I don't like the changes on either site.

[drofgnal]

I've had trouble finding the freebie versions of classics on Amazon. Seems the paid versions always pop up first. Sometimes sorting doesn't fix that. I've resorted to finding freebies elsewhere, like here in the Patricia Clarke Memorial Library then using calibre to load the books on my kindle.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

I've had trouble finding the freebie versions of classics on Amazon. Seems the paid versions always pop up first. Sometimes sorting doesn't fix that. I've resorted to finding freebies elsewhere, like here in the Patricia Clarke Memorial Library then using calibre to load the books on my kindle.

English translations of non English classics that are on sale can also be difficult to locate on amazon.

[binaryhermit]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

I've had trouble finding the freebie versions of classics on Amazon. Seems the paid versions always pop up first.

Amazon's search at some point decided it'll do whatever the heck it wants, like inserting non-free books between free books when sorting by price, years ago.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

Amazon's search at some point decided it'll do whatever the heck it wants.

I have trouble believing it could be any worse than Kobo's alleged 'search' function. One area in which I would have preferred Kobo not try so hard to ape Amazon.

[tomsem]

I would recommend ereaderiq.com to track prices of specific books.

They also have listing of free books, and books with price drops, but it’s not something I’m particularly interested in; free ebooks are usually outside my areas of interest, as are 99% of books with price drops.

Fire tablet still has sorting by Price.

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by Pjama

I just noticed some changes when browsing the store from my kindle. One, the font is much bigger! But, most importantly, especially if you are searching for free books (I was searching for Trilby by George du Maurier), the option to sort prices from low to high has gone, replaced by date of release and other such useless options.

I’m seeing this, too, on my Paperwhite 4 running 5.13.5. Looking for a public domain version is exactly the same reason I use this feature. I wonder why corporations make these sorts of choices. Does the average consumer truly resign themselves to paying top dollar for a free book, or do they just stop using the bookstore?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I have trouble believing it could be any worse than Kobo's alleged 'search' function. One area in which I would have preferred Kobo not try so hard to ape Amazon.

At this point, I would say that Kobo is doing a better job since the price sort (low to high or high to low) seems to work without tossing in pages of advertisements.

OTOH, both companies recommendations still suck big time. I read mostly science fiction and fantasy so I keep getting recommendations for "I was an alien shifter's kidnapped mate". If nothing else, the chances of having enough genetic material in common to allow reproduction is minuscule at best.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by DNSB

At this point, I would say that Kobo is doing a better job since the price sort (low to high or high to low) seems to work without tossing in pages of advertisements.

OTOH, both companies recommendations still suck big time. I read mostly science fiction and fantasy so I keep getting recommendations for "I was an alien shifter's kidnapped mate". If nothing else, the chances of having enough genetic material in common to allow reproduction is minuscule at best.

I feel your pain, although for me, its the fact SF and Fantasy are effectively considered the same thing, and finding SF without Fantasy is harder than finding unanimity in an MR thread.

[binaryhermit]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I keep getting recommendations for "I was an alien shifter's kidnapped mate". If nothing else, the chances of having enough genetic material in common to allow reproduction is minuscule at best.

It's called "suspending disbelief"

[Paperbackstash]

Originally Posted by DNSB

OTOH, both companies recommendations still suck big time. I read mostly science fiction and fantasy so I keep getting recommendations for "I was an alien shifter's kidnapped mate". If nothing else, the chances of having enough genetic material in common to allow reproduction is minuscule at best.

At least some of the recommendations can be humorous. The same thing happened to me with Goodreads - the suggestion was 'Because you read the Exorcist', we think you'd enjoy Hell Cop - erotic demon M/M anthology. The Exorcist doesn't get me into that kind of mood, but okay...

My status updates on Goodreads, the truly memorable ones need snapshots
https://www.goodreads.com/user_status/show/246903843
https://www.goodreads.com/user_status/show/246566510
https://www.goodreads.com/user_status/show/66292765
https://www.goodreads.com/user_status/show/88025630 , the comment discussion was particularly fun with this one

[issybird]

Originally Posted by DNSB

OTOH, both companies recommendations still suck big time. I read mostly science fiction and fantasy so I keep getting recommendations for "I was an alien shifter's kidnapped mate". If nothing else, the chances of having enough genetic material in common to allow reproduction is minuscule at best.

My Goodreads recommendations are always romance or romantic suspense. There’s nothing remotely like that in the close to 3,000 books I’ve got listed there. I suspect in part it’s gender bias; my GR friend whose likes dovetail closest to mine is a man and I’d be willing to bet serious money that he’s not getting romance recommendations.