One annoying aspect of B&N’S search bar is that the default search category is “Books”. In comparison, Amazon’s default search category is everything — “Amazon.com”. B&N users are automatically restricted in their searching. Amazon has left the default search at a broad level, and lets the user restrict the search as necessary. Amazon’s search is more versatile — it allows you to search by ALL categories at once. B&N doesn’t even let you do that — as far as I know. It may be a minor point, but it amounts to obfuscation on the part of the seller. The quicker customers can find what they’re looking for, the more likely they are actually stay and purchase and not surf away to other sites. Amazon knows this. Barnes and Noble is beginning to find this out.

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