Why Amazon Is a Great Online Shopping Mall

¶ … Amazon Shopping

Amazon.com is a great website for finding and purchasing consumer items that you used to have to leave the house to get. It is especially helpful for locating and perusing books before you buy them. Amazon typically allows users to "look inside" a book that is available for purchase from its website: this is like being in a book store and skimming a book to see whether or not you want to buy it ("The Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing -- Second Edition"). But Amazon allows you to do a lot more than just locate the item you want: it allows you to find the best price available, from various distributors, of the item you want, new or used. You can shop first-hand or second-hand products. You can stream movies. You can even sell your own items. Amazon is a one-stop website for anyone looking to get into the marketplace without having to leave the comfort of your own home. For this review, I decided to look for the book They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. A quick Google search gave me the option of locating the book at Amazon.com. A click of the link and I was on my way to not only learning more about this paperback but also more about Amazon.com.

Amazon.com is truly a virtual marketplace that caters to you and your own purchasing traits. You can specialize your "store," shop by various departments, read reviews, leave reviews, comment on reviews, rate items and distributors, and find the best deals available. Amazon is a comprehensive site for all one's shopping needs, whether one is looking for an obscure appliance part replacement or a popular novel.

The design of the website is very user-friendly. The tabs at the top of the page allow for quick access to any popular section of a department in which one is shopping. The search bar allows the user to search any department by product. In the tool bar one can also easily access one's own account, in which searches and products can be saved for later viewing as well as a purchase history. One can access Amazon Prime, one's Wish List or go straight to one's shopping cart. The page layout underneath the tool bar is simple and straight-forward, with an image of the product displayed on the left, a description underneath, sellers to the right (and their prices), and alternative items for consideration below. One needs only to point and click with the mouse to make shopping so much easier than ever before. There is no clutter. The screen is very readable. Descriptions are concise and to the point, and reviews are both short and long (long ones can be collapsed or expanded at will). The site is also helpful for pointing shoppers to newer and better items. For instance, for my search of They Say, I Say, Amazon notes, "There is a newer edition of this item" and below provides a link to the 3rd edition of this book ("The Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing -- Second Edition").

The navigation of the site is exceptionable, as already indicated. The tool bar and search bar make navigating the site easy. The alternative product options make the experience very similar to browsing an aisle at a store, where similar items will often be bunched together. The links are work as they should and never does the site fail to take one where it should. Even if one does not know what one is looking for, a quick key word search will help to eliminate choices and generate new ones in order to allow the user to refine his search.