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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

#171

Post by dpcan »

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 just went through and clicked on months of past orders, lots of electronics, odds and ends types of things. This isn't true for a single product I clicked on.

How is this happening so much for you?

Do you have screenshots or examples?

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

#172

Post by JohnFen »

novaRom wrote: post #150
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…

Exactly to the point! It's a recent phenomenon, I still remember I could find anything of a decent quality on Amazon like 5 years ago, but not anymore. Review system is now totally broken, most products are cheap crap. I don't even try anymore. Amazon is good only for books and probably cables.

> Amazon is good only for books and probably cables.

I've had good luck with CDs, too. Digital downloads are pretty hit-or-miss, though.

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

#173

Post by JohnFen »

ikeboy wrote: post #70
w457uiw4gftyi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the difficult part is that the seller just returns under a different name. Enough complaints have come in about marketplace seller GreatElectronics4U? OK, Amazon bans/suspends GreatElectronics4U and the guy behind it starts selling stuff as AllTheBestElectronics4U. Rinse and repeat. This isn't like the old days when a ban on doing business under your current name would be a death blow ... start a new seller acc…

What exactly is the proposed solution? Amazon already requires ID verification to open new accounts, and will ban accounts that they can link to old banned accounts.

> What exactly is the proposed solution?

Start requiring taxpayer IDs?

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

#175

Post by privateSFacct »

siruncledrew wrote: post #127
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…

Amazon's active "solution" is customer service to address these problems. "Oh jeez, you ordered a GoPro and got a "YiGorProHD" knockoff. Here, we'll credit your Amazon account with a gift card or try to resend you the item again. Thanks so much for your patience, I'm so sorry for the error." Amazon doesn't give a shit about everything being sold on the marketplace. They aren't going to track down who put the rotten e…

What's interesting is they often don't even have you return the item.

While not cost effective, I think having you return item, verify it's a knock off, then take some action would be better long run. Apple products had TONS of fake chargers on Amazon for a while.

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

#176

Post by JohnFen »

skuthus wrote: post #42
finolex1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I had not heard of Mouser until this moment - thank you!

Mouser (and Digikey) are both really excellent. They aren't cheap, but that's probably part of why they're excellent.

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

#177

Post by privateSFacct »

w457uiw4gftyi wrote: post #66
ikeboy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Caught selling garbage (product marked new actually used, totaly fake junk) enough times -> gone from marketplace and hard to get back in. This is what they have now. Many sellers get suspended over used sold as new and inauthentic complaints. They also have velocity reviews; if your sales increase too quickly you may get suspended for a bit.

Yeah, the difficult part is that the seller just returns under a different name. Enough complaints have come in about marketplace seller GreatElectronics4U? OK, Amazon bans/suspends GreatElectronics4U and the guy behind it starts selling stuff as AllTheBestElectronics4U. Rinse and repeat. This isn't like the old days when a ban on doing business under your current name would be a death blow ... start a new seller acc…

That's why I'm saying have folks put-up $2,500 when you sell more than 10-20 items per year. It won't be perfect, but it puts a big speedbump there for folks who want to rinse and repeat. A lot of overseas sellers have very low labor costs, so new accounts are cheap from a person perspective but $2,500 is not cheap overseas - so the accounts paying this would be ideally be then really cared for.

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

#178

Post by ikeboy »

JohnFen wrote: post #173
ikeboy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is the proposed solution? Amazon already requires ID verification to open new accounts, and will ban accounts that they can link to old banned accounts.

> What exactly is the proposed solution? Start requiring taxpayer IDs?

They do. Have you ever tried to sign up for an account?

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

#179

Post by JohnFen »

swiley wrote: post #55
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…

Ebay still exists and is way better for niche stuff anyway.

Yes. I have decided to change my buying priority. When I need something, I first look to local businesses. If I can't find what I want there, I look to manufacturer websites. If that fails, I used to go to Amazon, followed by eBay.

I think I need to just go to eBay at that stage, and drop Amazon entirely.

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

#180

Post by privateSFacct »

ikeboy wrote: post #70
w457uiw4gftyi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the difficult part is that the seller just returns under a different name. Enough complaints have come in about marketplace seller GreatElectronics4U? OK, Amazon bans/suspends GreatElectronics4U and the guy behind it starts selling stuff as AllTheBestElectronics4U. Rinse and repeat. This isn't like the old days when a ban on doing business under your current name would be a death blow ... start a new seller acc…

What exactly is the proposed solution? Amazon already requires ID verification to open new accounts, and will ban accounts that they can link to old banned accounts.

Money. Charge or require even a deposit of $2,500 on a credit card in your name.

Sure, you can continue to was accounts (and even legit business may decide to invest in 3-4 different names to cover different segments / backup protection). But right now the scam seller cost / pain is so low for bad behavior (other than in time which they have lots of) that something needs to change at least a bit.

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