
Show HN: Rotten Tomatoes for Amazon products - pierc3
https://bestbestlist.com/#
======
chrisco255
One comment I've got is you might want to give users the option to receive
notifications and updates for when you add new product categories. Or write
frequent blog posts about it. I can see it being marginally entertaining to
read about various things I may / may not be in the market for. It's a clean
UI and much more pleasurable than browsing Amazon!

~~~
pierc3
Thanks for the kind words. When you say "when you add new product categories",
are you referring to the collections
([https://bestbestlist.com/collections](https://bestbestlist.com/collections))?

Or do you just mean new list pages in general? I'm trying to add new lists
pretty frequently so I would hate to flood someone with updates on a bunch of
things they may not care about (e.g. laundry detergent when maybe you don't do
your own laundry, kitchen tools if you don't cook).

~~~
chrisco255
Maybe notifications on collections, or give users the option to subscribe to
email updates / push notifications. I think what you've got here reminds me of
those SkyMall magazines they used to have on the planes that are sort of
interesting to read through in a way that browsing Amazon isn't. So, I really
think you can get a better visitor return rate if you keep people coming back
with updates.

------
pierc3
Hey HN,

I wanted to share a tool I built to scratch my own itch.

I call it Best Best List and the aim is to answer _" what product should I
buy?"_ in a similar way that Rotten Tomatoes answers _" what should I watch?"_
i.e. by summarizing the opinions of lots of other critics/websites.

[https://bestbestlist.com](https://bestbestlist.com)

It has been working really well for everyday, kind of "mundane" products that
you would get on Amazon. Say for instance you're looking for a small blender.
The way I would always go about it:

1\. search google for _" best small blender"_

2\. end up with 7 tabs open of various review sites

3\. spot the 5 or so models they recommend

4\. cross-check those products with their Amazon ratings/reviews/prices. I was
never really interested in spending hours reading long-form reviews.

I realized I could write code to do this for me... so I did! It's very much a
work in progress.

Based 100% on what the tool is spitting out, I've recently bought an EZ-curl
bar ([https://bestbestlist.com/best-ez-curl-
bar](https://bestbestlist.com/best-ez-curl-bar)) for my home gym, new tweezers
([https://bestbestlist.com/best-tweezers](https://bestbestlist.com/best-
tweezers)), a small blender ([https://bestbestlist.com/best-small-
blender](https://bestbestlist.com/best-small-blender)), and a cigar cutter
([https://bestbestlist.com/best-cigar-cutters](https://bestbestlist.com/best-
cigar-cutters)). I gotta say I've been extremely pleased with the
recommendations.

Caveats: It _might_ not be the best tool for very complicated items with tons
of specs (e.g. a TV) or emotional purchases with brand loyalty (e.g. a guitar)
- for those maybe you DO want to spend hours reading reviews. Also it's just
Amazon for now.

If you wanna put it to the test I can run the tool on something you're
thinking of buying, submit it here:
[https://bestbestlist.com/ask](https://bestbestlist.com/ask)

What do you think? Does this help make buying decisions a little easier?

~~~
techaddict009
So are your aggregating all these reviews manually? Or using some scripts to
aggregate them all?

And how are you updating the price? I have seen some affiliate program
guidelines that you can not show old the prices of the product. So are you
live updating them or how?

------
bradknowles
Except we can't trust any of the ratings on Amazon, so what are you going to
metafilter on?

~~~
pierc3
Interesting. What reviews do you personally find to be the most trustworthy?

~~~
bradknowles
ConsumerReports.com is reliable.

TheWireCutter.com is reasonably reliable and are up-front about their use of
affiliate links.

At least some of the mainstream consumer periodicals are reasonably reliable,
like PC World and MacWorld.

You could do a MetaFilter-like combination of those review sites.

But Amazon.com is notoriously unreliable for reviews. As is most any other
e-commerce platform or shopping site with integrated reviews.

------
ajeet_dhaliwal
Can’t seem to submit/search when using mobile safari on my iPhone X.

~~~
pierc3
Hmm thanks for the feedback. Can you tell me what happens when you try to
search? Are you able to tap on the search input to get the cursor in there?

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
My apologies, it does actually work now that I tried again, it’s just that the
‘no results’ text (if there are no results) is faint and I didn’t notice it
before.

~~~
pierc3
Cool. That makes sense, I think I need to tweak the whole UX for when there
are no results.

