[readerbaza]

First the obvious: amazon is evil and the website is crap. Search is bad, filtering is bad, sorting is bad. All on purpose.

Here's some of my process when I don't know what I need exactly already. - try a few keywords first to find the right category - use the keywords to make the first search, depending on the item filter by 4 star and above, never by price - browse listings: - all caps BRANDNAME, skip - same picture or clearly same item from different brands, skip - listing has any badly photoshopped photo, skip Arrive at a few options: - there's customer photos/videos? check those (even if the review is fake, the photos are useful) - shipped by == amazon, if false skip - check 1 star reviews for delivery damage, if many skip or beware for delivery. amazon uses no padding most of the time. - check 3 star reviews (then 4) for sensible users making good points - always ignore reviews with "arrived fast/late" - always ignore reviews with "seller" is sold by == amazon Depending on item price, research product more and see suggested alternatives both on amazon and offsite - check reviews on those products too - check camelcamelcamel for price history - current price ok, buy - current price high, clear history of discounts, clean url from tracking and bookmark with price in the title (seldom open the bookmark, current price < bookmarked price? buy same or next day at most, price will likely increase after traffic)