Amazon Search Study

Installing the study extension — about 3 minutes

Before you start

You will need:

Keep your survey tab open. You will come back to it with a code at the end of these steps.

Step 1 — Download

↓ Download the extension

Once it has downloaded, unzip it. On Windows, right-click the file and choose Extract All. On a Mac, double-click it.

You should end up with a folder called amazon-search-study. Remember where it is — you will need to point Chrome at it in a moment. Do not move or delete this folder until the study is over.

Step 2 — Add it to Chrome

  1. Open the extensions page Copy chrome://extensions into Chrome's address bar and press Enter. (Clicking a link to it will not work — Chrome only allows this address to be typed or pasted.)
  2. Turn on "Developer mode" It is a switch in the top-right corner of that page. Switch it on. Three new buttons will appear.
  3. Click "Load unpacked" It is the first of the three new buttons, top-left.
  4. Select the amazon-search-study folder Find the folder you unzipped in Step 1, click it once to select it, and confirm.
    Select the folder itself — do not open it first and do not select an individual file inside it. If Chrome says it cannot find a manifest, you have selected the wrong folder. Go back one level and try the folder named amazon-search-study.
  5. Check it appeared You should now see Amazon Search Study listed on the page.

Step 3 — Sign in to Amazon

  1. Go to Amazon.com and sign in Please stay signed in for the rest of the study.
  2. Click the extension's icon in your Chrome toolbar It is up and to the right of the address bar. If you cannot see it, click the puzzle-piece icon and pick Amazon Search Study from the list.
  3. Copy your participant code The popup shows a short code, unique to you, in a box near the top. Use the Copy button next to it rather than retyping it.
  4. Paste it into the survey Go back to your survey tab and paste the code into the box.
Your code will only appear after you are signed in to Amazon. If the popup is still asking you to sign in, see "My code isn't showing up" below.

If something goes wrong

My code isn't showing up

The extension checks whether you are signed in by reading the Amazon page itself, so it needs to see a freshly loaded Amazon page after you signed in.

Go to Amazon.com, reload the page, then open the extension popup again and click Re-check. If your name appears in Amazon's top-right corner and the code still does not show, please message us through the study platform.

Chrome keeps warning me about "developer mode extensions"

This is normal and expected. Because the extension is not being distributed through the Chrome Web Store for this study, Chrome shows this notice each time it starts.

Please click Cancel or close the message — do not click "Disable", as that will switch the extension off and stop the study recording.

Chrome says it can't find a manifest file

The wrong folder was selected. Chrome needs the folder that directly contains a file called manifest.json — that is the one named amazon-search-study.

If you unzipped into a folder of the same name twice over, try going one level deeper.

The popup says it can't reach the study server

Check your internet connection and click Try again. The extension also keeps retrying on its own in the background, so waiting a minute and reopening the popup often resolves it.

I cleared my browser data, or I'm on a different computer

Open the extension popup and click "I already have a code", then enter the code you were given earlier — it is in your survey response. That reconnects the extension to your existing record.

Please do not start over with a new code; it splits your data in two.

I can't get this working at all

That is completely fine and it is not your fault. Please return the study on the platform rather than submitting an incomplete response, or message us if you would like help. You will not be penalised.

When you have finished

Please remove the extension. It will remind you when the study is over, but you can do it at any time once you have finished the survey:

  1. Open chrome://extensions again
  2. Click "Remove" on Amazon Search Study You can also switch Developer mode back off afterwards.

What the extension records

While you are on Amazon, and only on Amazon, it records:

It does not record your Amazon username, email or password, anything about your orders, payments or purchase history, or any activity outside Amazon. Checkout, cart, account and payment pages are excluded entirely.

Your data is linked only to the anonymous participant code above.