Amazon Prime has over 200 million subscribers globally. In India, it has practically 22.3 million subscribers.
Many streaming companies had teething troubles like unhealthy interfaces or a poor search engine. Over time, these OTT platforms iron out the kinks. Surprisingly, this doesn’t seem to be the case for Amazon, one of many greatest corporations on this planet with limitless sources at its disposal.
An software engineer at Oracle, AB Satyaprakash, identified the shortcomings of Prime Video’s search perform.
Apparently, Amazon accounts for 54 % of all product searches on the web and has among the best suggestion programs and serps within the enterprise. Nonetheless, Amazon Prime Video–accessible in practically 200 international locations– has a nasty search engine. To make issues worse, Prime Video’s clunky UI is an actual ache within the neck.
Priorities
The Prime mannequin is exclusive and, in some ways, arduous to emulate. Amazon has really constructed a moat with its loyalty programme. The OTT platform is part of the larger providing; Prime subscribers additionally get entry to a music streaming service and one-day supply at a throwaway value.
For Amazon, the entire concept of Prime may very well be buyer retention. In 2016, greater than 90 % of Amazon’s Prime subscribers within the US renewed for a second 12 months. For an e-commerce firm, a retention fee of greater than 30 % is top-drawer. In different phrases, Amazon can afford to miss the complaints in regards to the horrible search engine on Prime video.
In the meantime, for an organization like Netflix, providing subscribers a very good search expertise is essential to its enterprise: A nasty search expertise may result in the subscriber not renewing their account, and drive the churn fee.
Algorithm
Jeff Bezos as soon as mentioned that if now we have 4.5 million prospects, we shouldn’t have one however 4.5 million shops. Translation: Delivering extremely personalised and curated services based mostly on the customers’ tastes and preferences is the utmost precedence for Amazon.
Nonetheless, it could be incorrect to say that Amazon shouldn’t be bothered. Quite the opposite, numerous work has been performed through the years, and Amazon has spent some huge cash on enhancing its suggestion engine. In reality, Amazon has been utilizing algorithms for suggestions since 1998.
Round 35 % of Amazon’s gross sales are pushed by its suggestion engine. Nonetheless, the algorithm behind Amazon Prime Video is by some means lower than scratch. And that’s not a current pattern. Customers have been citing the problem for some time now on social media and Amazon boards.
Algorithms play an essential function in conserving the viewers hooked. The success of corporations similar to Netflix and Spotify is pushed by their superior suggestion engines.
Yearly, Netflix saves billions of {dollars} by recommending the suitable content material. In 2006, Netflix provided prize cash of £1 million to anybody who may enhance their algorithm.
Each algorithm is completely different, and never all suggestion algorithms are the identical. For instance, Netflix makes use of a distinct methodology to advocate films and TV exhibits to its customers in comparison with Amazon. Netflix makes use of fuzzy matching, which suggests incorrectly spelt queries won’t impression the outcomes a lot. Fuzzy matching makes the consumer’s search expertise extra intuitive. That doesn’t appear to be the case for Amazon Prime Video.
Content material overload?
The content material on Netflix is correctly categorised and tagged based on its style, casts, administrators and so forth. In the meantime, Amazon Prime leaves a nasty impression. Although Prime has extra content material than Netflix, Amazon has not been in a position to leverage it due to its poor UX, UI and search options.
Amazon Prime has one of many largest streaming libraries. It should come as a shock for a lot of, however a lot of the content material on Amazon Prime is consumer uploaded. So anyone who owns the distribution proper to a movie would be capable of add it on Prime free of charge. In accordance with a 2020 report by the Wallstreet Journal, nearly two-thirds of the titles on Amazon Prime Video are uploaded by customers.
The content material on Prime is considerably greater than on Netflix, Hulu or HBO Max. As of December 2019, Amazon Prime had 65,504 distinct titles on its platform, in comparison with Netflix’s 7177. The content material overload may very well be another excuse for the unhealthy search experiences.
