Products · Broad category
Online stores
Raised as a usability problem by 29 people on Hacker News over 18 years (2009–2026), in 27 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
People raised many different problems with Online stores, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 30 complaints
- Bot-blocking walls stop real logged-in customers from loading shop pages, with false positives2026-10-14
- Changing filters or categories forces a full page reload and refetch, slowing browsing2025-07-25
- Screen reader users cannot tell cart contents, payment options, navigation links, or images2024-09-13
- Subscriptions were hidden at the bottom of the cart, so buyers signed up by accident2024-07-18
- Full-page popup forces email signup to access the page, feels like opting in against one's will2023-10-31
- Can't tell where packages ship from, so can't work out EU import taxes2023-07-10
- Middle-clicking to open a new tab also navigates the current page away2022-10-12
- Product covers link back to product page, so user can't reach checkout2022-08-31
- Submit button broken by a license check, forcing user to hack around it2022-07-12
- Apply button is off-screen on long filter lists, so users can't find it2022-05-10
- Puerto Rico missing from state drop-down, forcing devtools hacks to order2022-03-17
- Only dismiss option is a guilt-trip link, pushing users to sign up2021-11-05
- Most stores offer poor search and only basic category or price filtering2021-10-18
- Site search is made terrible, so users struggle to find things2021-06-28
- Scarcity banner claims only 27 copies left, which is misleading2021-05-24
- Product search returns irrelevant results, e.g. not 10TB external hard drives2021-04-04
- Must dismiss one or two pop-ups and a cookie bar on every page2020-12-18
- Pressing back after adding to cart breaks the session, forcing a re-login2019-08-13
- Search misses products when spelling varies between "canceling" and "cancelling"2019-04-01
- Can't search bags by dimensions; many bag pages omit pocket sizes or pocket counts2019-01-08
- Shop now button is too small and shop page items are hard to see on mobile2016-12-22
- Can't find products; categories lead to empty or 'coming soon' pages2015-08-06
- Inconsistent category names and counts make sofa filters confusing when browsing2015-08-06
- Buying and playing legitimate movies or games takes more steps than pirating them2012-03-09
- Forgets the product category the shopper is browsing2011-07-22
- Sort labels like Default and Relevant are meaningless; filters are missing for shoppers2011-07-22
- Category sub menu is longer than the page, forcing awkward scrolling2011-07-22
- Confusing labels and brands, and must buy a month's supply to try one2011-07-04
- Add to Cart button is incredibly hard to find on product pages2010-10-28
- Search for "netbook" returns no results with no helpful guidance2009-06-13