[luminousbit]

It's important to note that at least some of this problem is the fault of traditional retail. Aveeno MAKES all these ridiculous size and quantity combinations (at least some of these multipacks are shrink wrapped together). When a store stocks them, they choose to stock only a few. But Amazon is giving you GLOBAL insight into all available options Aveeno makes from any distributor who has access to them.

It would be nice if Amazon could make the comparison easier for us. But in this case most of the problem is that it's simply exposing the underlying wholesale/distributor model directly to the consumer.

[cdubzzz]

Yes, that's very true. Even in brick and mortar stores, single manufacturers may provide multiple types and the retails often provide confusing information for comparing them. E.g. an 18 oz. Aveeno bottle with a price tag that shows $0.42/oz and a two-pack of the same bottle that shows 7.99/unit - and then perhaps a "SALE" tag attached that displays a different overall price and no further information.

[s0rce]

For largely B2B McMaster Carr seems to have solved this. I can easily select items, the sizes, quantities and prices are all obvious. Amazon should strive for this level of simplicity for more of it's items. Especially compare the Amazon supply/small parts items to McMaster options. Did like the lotion described in the article is even worse.

[sjburt]

I think a big part of McMaster's model is to be able to put a very high price on things, knowing that for business customers the time saved by having such a well-organized inventory is more than worth it.

They also white-label almost everything so that it's hard to go directly to their suppliers.

I'm guessing that that level of curation comes at a high cost to add new SKUs to the catalog; they go as far as to commission artwork and provide CAD models. It would be really hard for Amazon to approach that while striving for minimal margins and letting 3rd parties add SKUs in huge quantities.

[Washuu]

Having the CAD models is amazing. Being able to drop their ready made models into my projects for verification before ordering the parts is worth it.

[dboreham]

Also amazing is that McMaster has been like this since the beginning of time. Or at least 2001 when I began ordering from them. I've been waiting 16 years for Amazon to achieve similar fidelity in their parts catalog but it has actually become significantly worse in recent years.

[Washuu]

However, with McMaster Carr they do not show the shipping charge until it is packaged and shipped. That can lead to sometimes surprising high shipping charges.

[petra]

This is a part of a big problem in consumer products - a tons of confusing or missing data. Prices are hidden. A lot of the specification isn't shown(what's the wind strength of that fan in cfm, vs noise in db ? no i don't need marketing terms like "strong"), it's hard to compare by spec, and we don't know anything about long term reliability.

On the other hand, many b2b markets have that, because the buyers there demand it, and usually only buy a product with a spec.

Maybe there's some solution to that problem. But i do wonder, if it exists, would consumers use it to purchase stuff?