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Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

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Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#31

Post by reaperducer »

strictnein wrote: post #15
rootusrootus wrote: post #13

As proof that I am clearly not qualified to run a nearly trillion-dollar company, I offer this advice to Amazon -- ditch the marketplace. No more third party sellers. I have been a reliable Amazon Prime consumer for years, but I have begun making purchases elsewhere because I can not even trust "Ships from and sold by Amazon" any more. At the very least, quite intermingling stock. And at this point you're going to ha…

And the prices on some of the stuff is just weird, with a lot of the Amazon provided stuff now stuck behind Amazon Prime Pantry. I used to order a lot of our daily household stuff from Amazon: cleaners, dish soap, detergent, etc. So much of that stuff now is priced just horribly. $4 for a bottle from Amazon, but it's just from Prime Pantry so you have to order a bunch of stuff or be stuck with a high shipping cost. I…

Perhaps I spent too much of my youth watching supermarket-themed game shows, but I'm very much in tune with how much things should cost in supermarkets, and how they vary from chain to chain and region to region.

It was for that reason I started buying my household stuff at Amazon — because I could save a buck or two, per item, which adds up.

Then — as you pointed out — stuff got weird. Amazon's prices became consistently higher than the supermarkets.

Then the third-party sellers started using "AI" pricing, so that a package of soap bars that is $3.59 at Safeway is $61 on Amazon.

Then the counterfeits arrived, and now my family has a policy of not buying anything from Amazon that goes on, or in, our bodies.

These days there are bargains to be had through Amazon, but only through the two-hour shipping from Whole Foods. At least in my market. (A particular cheese that is $15/pound at Kroger is $5/pound when I get it delivered from my local Whole Foods.)

It's not too late to Amazon to regain trust. But it's not going to be a quick or easy process.

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#32

Post by wnkrshm »

rchaud wrote: post #24

One of the first things I remember about moving to a rich country was the absence of knockoff products sold in retail stores. It seemed amazing to me that companies would deal only with authorized distributors. These days, I feel like I'm in a twilight zone where 'wealth creation' is happening by putting a fresh face on 3rd-world country business models. First it was Uber with the "hire a random guy off the street to…

> These days, I feel like I'm in a twilight zone where 'wealth creation' is happening by putting a fresh face on 3rd-world country business models.

Or maybe making those that scale well more accessible and socially accepted in the service economy. Is there maybe some source that you've read, someone who has analyzed that statement (3rd-world country business models = gig economy) in more detail? I don't have much time to dig but if there was a thesis or article about this I'd be super interested in reading it.

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#33

Post by PhasmaFelis »

jmcgough wrote: post #12
deegles wrote: post #10

(Please hold your pitchforks) Since a lot of these scams come from Chinese sellers, I wonder if Amazon could talk to the Chinese government about interfacing with their new social-credit system... you can't sell on the platform if your score is below XYZ, and reports of fraud affect them directly. Obviously this would lead to a lot of sellers mysteriously relocating to other countries, and there would be a lot of pat…

The much talked about social credit score doesn't really exist yet https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/16/chinas-orwellian-social...

So, only most of its features are real, and most of the rest are planned for the next couple of years? That's not really reassuring.

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#34

Post by Wowfunhappy »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #27
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you go with one of the other sellers, the prices are frequently 2-3x normal retail, I guess preying on the fact that people don't realize they're getting ripped off. And as a result, I've become much more careful about checking prices on Amazon, which can't be good for Amazon overall. By contrast, when I go to the grocery store, I generally assume the amount I'm paying is more-or-less the same as what I would pay…

Yeah, there's a lot of specific products that are always wildly overpriced on Amazon. Mostly anything that is out of print/out of production, no matter how recently it went out or how easy it is to find, but I recently ran into it with Hanes underwear of all things--there wasn't a single seller that wasn't asking at least 50% over Target's online price. For out-of-print books/toys/games/etc., eBay is usually your bes…

I expect out of print stuff to fetch a high price, I'm more talking about standard grocery items. I've seen ridiculous markups on penne pasta, diet soda, certain brands of hand-soap, etc etc.

Some of these items, like the pasta, are things I'd previously ordered from Amazon for a fraction of the current price. Which, again, has caused me to be much more cautious—every time I reorder something nowadays, I have to check whether the price has changed. How does Amazon expect people to use stuff like the dash button when prices can vary this much?

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#35

Post by reaperducer »

decebalus1 wrote: post #28
rchaud wrote: post #24

One of the first things I remember about moving to a rich country was the absence of knockoff products sold in retail stores. It seemed amazing to me that companies would deal only with authorized distributors. These days, I feel like I'm in a twilight zone where 'wealth creation' is happening by putting a fresh face on 3rd-world country business models. First it was Uber with the "hire a random guy off the street to…

> These days, I feel like I'm in a twilight zone where 'wealth creation' is happening by putting a fresh face on 3rd-world country business models. It's not a secret that lots of business models coming out of Silicon Valley are just regulatory workarounds/loopholes. It's a matter of chance that they coincide with some 3rd world country models as the latter's fuels are survival/corruption/perceived lawlessness while o…

"Disruption" is SV for "Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission."

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#36

Post by antjanus »

rootusrootus wrote: post #13

As proof that I am clearly not qualified to run a nearly trillion-dollar company, I offer this advice to Amazon -- ditch the marketplace. No more third party sellers. I have been a reliable Amazon Prime consumer for years, but I have begun making purchases elsewhere because I can not even trust "Ships from and sold by Amazon" any more. At the very least, quite intermingling stock. And at this point you're going to ha…

I had the same issue. And ordering the same product (even from the same "seller") is hit or miss.

It's a weird story but I ordered a kids plate from Amazon. I ordered 2 that were totally fine but when I ordered a 3rd one, it was completely different quality, seemed to be a different material, and had a weird smell to it. It was "Prime" but almost immediately, you could tell it was a different product.

This has happened to me a bunch and I've heard crazier stories about people ordering supplements/vitamins and getting fake bottles :(

I don't trust Amazon as much either outside of a few products I trust + majority of common electronics. I wouldn't buy an HDD from Amazon for instance due to their crazy shipping shit.

Also, their shipping is so fucking unreliable. I get delays on my packages at least twice a month, and they've lost packages before :(

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#37

Post by reaperducer »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #27
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you go with one of the other sellers, the prices are frequently 2-3x normal retail, I guess preying on the fact that people don't realize they're getting ripped off. And as a result, I've become much more careful about checking prices on Amazon, which can't be good for Amazon overall. By contrast, when I go to the grocery store, I generally assume the amount I'm paying is more-or-less the same as what I would pay…

Yeah, there's a lot of specific products that are always wildly overpriced on Amazon. Mostly anything that is out of print/out of production, no matter how recently it went out or how easy it is to find, but I recently ran into it with Hanes underwear of all things--there wasn't a single seller that wasn't asking at least 50% over Target's online price. For out-of-print books/toys/games/etc., eBay is usually your bes…

I've mentioned elsewhere that I dropped eBay because of a series of bad experiences with sellers. I switched to Goodwill, which was OK, but sometimes you just want to buy something used actually that works and doesn't smell like cat vomit.

Last week I tried Mercari, and it was... OK. Better selection than Goodwill. The shippers don't seem to be in a hurry to get things out. Both sellers offered excuses when they missed Mercari's three day window. But the stuff finally got here.

Can anyone recommend another marketplace? Something not Alibaba or DX.com?

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#38

Post by AndrewHampton »

rootusrootus wrote: post #13

As proof that I am clearly not qualified to run a nearly trillion-dollar company, I offer this advice to Amazon -- ditch the marketplace. No more third party sellers. I have been a reliable Amazon Prime consumer for years, but I have begun making purchases elsewhere because I can not even trust "Ships from and sold by Amazon" any more. At the very least, quite intermingling stock. And at this point you're going to ha…

In case you're interested, Steve Yegge had a recent post about the origin of the marketplace: https://medium.com/s/story/jeff-bezos-jack-ma-and-the-quest-...

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#39

Post by roymurdock »

decebalus1 wrote: post #28
rchaud wrote: post #24

One of the first things I remember about moving to a rich country was the absence of knockoff products sold in retail stores. It seemed amazing to me that companies would deal only with authorized distributors. These days, I feel like I'm in a twilight zone where 'wealth creation' is happening by putting a fresh face on 3rd-world country business models. First it was Uber with the "hire a random guy off the street to…

> These days, I feel like I'm in a twilight zone where 'wealth creation' is happening by putting a fresh face on 3rd-world country business models. It's not a secret that lots of business models coming out of Silicon Valley are just regulatory workarounds/loopholes. It's a matter of chance that they coincide with some 3rd world country models as the latter's fuels are survival/corruption/perceived lawlessness while o…

cost savings/increased efficiency is the name of the game, and first world regulations are costs SV can ignore. sometimes the quasi employees suffer the burden (but get increased flexibility), sometimes the consumer suffers (lower price but increased variance in quality of goods/service)

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#40

Post by reaperducer »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #34
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there's a lot of specific products that are always wildly overpriced on Amazon. Mostly anything that is out of print/out of production, no matter how recently it went out or how easy it is to find, but I recently ran into it with Hanes underwear of all things--there wasn't a single seller that wasn't asking at least 50% over Target's online price. For out-of-print books/toys/games/etc., eBay is usually your bes…

I expect out of print stuff to fetch a high price, I'm more talking about standard grocery items. I've seen ridiculous markups on penne pasta, diet soda, certain brands of hand-soap, etc etc. Some of these items, like the pasta, are things I'd previously ordered from Amazon for a fraction of the current price. Which, again, has caused me to be much more cautious—every time I reorder something nowadays, I have to chec…

How does Amazon expect people to use stuff like the dash button when prices can vary this much?

I have a couple of Dash buttons for Gatorade and pistachios and such. I stopped using them because I couldn't be certain of a reasonable price, or that the products wouldn't be fakes.

Safety > price > convenience, Amazon.

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