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Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

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Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#91

Post by AmVess »

AlexandrB wrote: post #11

Amazon's fulfilment has also become shockingly bad. Most items are shipped in lightly-padded manila envelopes resulting in high percentage of damaged goods if you order books[1], CDs/DVDs/BluRays, video games, or anything else where the packaging is part of the product. eBay is a much better experience in this regard. [1] In an ironic twist, I absolutely refuse to buy books from Amazon anymore.

I received two nvme ssd's in a padded envelope. They could easily have been destroyed. They delivered a $500 video card by slapping a shipping sticker on the product box and shipping it that way.

On the other hand, I received a $12 box of wet wipes that came in a giant, nicely padded box. The product itself was in a sturdy box. $400 dollars worth of computer storage was shipped improperly, but Amazon made sure I got my box of wet wipes safe and sound!

More often than not, I receive small items in giant boxes. Amazon used to ship one order in one box, now they ship one order in many boxes.

I don't know how much waste Amazon generates with lazy packaging, but it must be a colossal amount.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#92

Post by heavyset_go »

Glyptodon wrote: post #64

Forget counterfeits for a second. Even trying to find something like an ultrasonic cleaner on Amazon is like straight going through AliExpress. But wait! Unless you're buying a very very expensive lab model all the "name brands" look to be sourcing the same way and adding a label too. So the name brands are AliExpress with maybe better QC and 200% markup. But wait! Even looking everywhere else it's the same situation…

> But wait! Even looking everywhere else it's the same situation as Amazon!

It isn't a problem on Walmart or Target's websites, because they don't allow white-label Chinese goods to be sold on them.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#93

Post by joemi »

dwoozle wrote: post #31
privateSFacct wrote: post #22

All the ballyhoo about Amazon Transparency and UUID per item. This is a relatively well solved issue in other areas. Make become a seller a bit more difficult with some skin in the game ($2,500 deposit if you sell more than 15 items per year? In person identity verification?). Sellers used to meet with buyers agents (cost money and added identities). Caught selling garbage (product marked new actually used, totaly fa…

The market opportunity is already occupied by Target! Great products, shipped to you or delivered to your car in the parking lot. I’ve shifted at least 50% of my Amazon spend to Target. I won’t buy anything that I eat, that touches my children’s skin, that plugs in, or that has a Li-Ion battery from Amazon.

Target doesn't have nearly the same amount of products as Amazon, even if you don't count the junk on Amazon.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#94

Post by AmVess »

nikolay wrote: post #35

Except that Amazon is no longer the cheapest source for many products. Their outrageous storage and fulfillment fees make most of their pricing higher than local store deals or even manufacturer's own websites.

Amazon isn't close to being cheapest. Now, many of the things I shop for are twice the price of other internet businesses. Some of those businesses charge for shipping, but they are still cheaper than Amazon.

Amazon has really lost their way this year. I won't be buying a single thing for Xmas from them.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#95

Post by Havoc »

habosa wrote: post #77

My favorite Amazon scam is the Amazon Ship of Theseus[0]. You sell a product, normally a cheap electronic, and build up a decent corpus of positive reviews. A good example is a USB-C cable or something. Then you decide you want to sell a new product in a more competitive subcategory, like Bluetooth Headphones. You then take the _existing_ listing and change it piece by piece. First the pictures, then the title, then…

>Until you have a listing for your headphones that comes with 5,000 pre-made positive reviews!

Fk. That's possible? How has Amazon not done anything about that?

Like I can get keeping fake stuff out is a losing battle, but that seems like a rather significant design flaw if you can "transfer" reviews like that.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#96

Post by heavyset_go »

If you receive a counterfeit item sold by Amazon, make sure to report it to the company whose product was counterfeited.

When I went to return a counterfeit item to Amazon, I made it very clear that the item I received was fake. Amazon decided claim that the reason for the return was because it was damaged, not counterfeited. That's pretty shady in my book.

There's liability for selling counterfeited goods, especially if your customers tell you that the products you stock are counterfeited and you continue to sell them anyway.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#97

Post by alacombe »

finolex1 wrote: post #30
privateSFacct wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to generate choices / alternatives. If you go the government involvement route you ossify industries and actually can make it harder for folks to compete. Funeral home chains were famous for pushing for lots of crazy regs that only a system with big economies of scale could meet to push out smaller independents. In some cities like SF zoning hoops mean that only folks with HUGE pockets / attorneys and lo…

There are lots of alternatives for each category of products - Zappos for shoes/clothes, Mouser for electrical components, etc. though there is no one competitor to Amazon that is as comprehensive as it is. Edit: Turns out Zappos is owned by Amazon. But my point still stands if we replace it with something else.

Mouser / digikey generally have inflated prices, and shipping on top of the order. I only go there for specific components, for day-to-day components Amazon is just fine.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#98

Post by Glyptodon »

post_break wrote: post #90
Glyptodon wrote: post #64

Forget counterfeits for a second. Even trying to find something like an ultrasonic cleaner on Amazon is like straight going through AliExpress. But wait! Unless you're buying a very very expensive lab model all the "name brands" look to be sourcing the same way and adding a label too. So the name brands are AliExpress with maybe better QC and 200% markup. But wait! Even looking everywhere else it's the same situation…

An ultrasonic cleaner is like a hair dyer though. It's not rocket science it's like banging rocks together. My $100 ultrasonic cleaner I have for cleaning brass that is for reloading ammo probably does the same work as the cheap no name brands just with different settings. My no name chinese ozone machine works great for detailing cars. If you're going to bring this up stick with a product that is actually going to b…

I actually think the hair dryer comparison is fairly apt, but not in the way you describe.

Everyone wants their hair dryer to be decent, last a good while, and not cost an arm and a leg. You also really don't want one that will start a fire, sound louder than a jet engine, take forever to heat up, etc. When you have a lousy one it's miserable. So you want there to be a quality baseline and then know what's reasonable past that baseline.

It's pretty much the same as an ultrasonic cleaner. It's not rocket science, but you don't want one where the ultrasonic elements vibrate themselves off, the electronics go bad in a couple months, it leaks cleaning solution somehow, etc. Just like with hair dryers being no-name is fine, but being below a certain quality threshold is extremely miserable.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#100

Post by freeAgent »

habosa wrote: post #77

My favorite Amazon scam is the Amazon Ship of Theseus[0]. You sell a product, normally a cheap electronic, and build up a decent corpus of positive reviews. A good example is a USB-C cable or something. Then you decide you want to sell a new product in a more competitive subcategory, like Bluetooth Headphones. You then take the _existing_ listing and change it piece by piece. First the pictures, then the title, then…

I reported a specific instance of this to Amazon before and they declined to take any action to police it. In the case I reported, it was a more subtle change. I had purchased some replacement brush heads for a Philips Sonicare toothbrush in the past which worked well for me. When I went to re-order them, I was shipped a completely different design and brand of brush head which was terrible and immediately started to deteriorate due to poor quality materials. Of course, all the thousands of positive reviews for this product referred to something that was no longer being sold through that listing.

I found it hard to believe that Amazon would allow this to stand, but here we are.

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