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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

#181

Post by gorpomon »

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 encountered this: a product with numerous reviews but many of them talking about a different item. I assumed it was some id getting migrated or not migrated and as a result reviews ending up on the wrong item-- it didn't even occur to me that it might be intentional.

As annoying as scams like these are, they really speak to the ingenuity that folks bring to software and their attacks of it. I already know to not trust most things on the internet, but I can't help but admire them either.

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

#182

Post by JohnFen »

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.

That can work, but it depends on what you're buying. Target doesn't carry about 99% of the sorts of things that I buy online. However, I have a physical Target just down the road from me, so I've probably already checked there before I even got on the internet.

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

#183

Post by JohnFen »

izzydata wrote: post #15
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've received many damaged books from Amazon. Whenever I report the items as being damaged I am prepared with photographs of the damaged goods as proof, but they always send me another one without caring. It just feels so wasteful to save money by mishandling everything to the point where it doesn't even matter if stuff breaks because it is cheaper to try a 2nd time.

To be honest, I've never received a damaged book or CD from Amazon in those padded envelopes. I really prefer them over the boxes, because they seem less wasteful.

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

#184

Post by JohnFen »

sp332 wrote: post #26
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.

> eBay is a much better experience Wouldn't this be down to the individual seller?

At least eBay will make you whole if you have a problem. Amazon won't, in my experience.

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

#185

Post by blairanderson »

baybal2 wrote: post #71
blairanderson wrote: post #52

I've been a consultant for Amazon suppliers since 2009 and seen tons of junk come onto the market. Every retailer in the world (besides Amazon) has incredibly strict supplier verification because if someone dies from a toaster fire, extension cord shortage, etc. then everyone sues everyone. Amazon DNGAF because the risk is on the "seller". Just like TAX RISK is on the "seller". People are importing shit from their ba…

Amazon consultant? How is it these days? I used to do gigs as a trade agent in parallel to my part time job in a trade company 10 years ago.

Business is good. Getting more and more crowded. We help companies that focus their sales team on brick & mortar accounts.

They can go from 0-to-60 with AMZ platform experience across purchase orders, merchandising, advertising, invoicing, etc.

Still tons of opportunity in strategy and digitizing catalogs for all manufacturers & importers in the country/world.

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

#186

Post by JohnFen »

iliketrains wrote: post #152

One of my Amazon orders was just re-ordered from Wallmart under my name and shipped by Wallmart to my address. I even got the Walmart receipt with the cheaper price in the package. I was not happy about that, esp. that some stranger is entering my shipping info to some other retailers DB. It is also clearly against Amazon ToS. I have contacted Amazon, citing the ToS violation and concern about my personal data and th…

Since Walmart is on my list of companies that I will never do business with, this would make me absolutely enraged. But then, I'm thinking that Amazon should be added to my "no business" list as well, so this may be a moot point.

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

#187

Post by blairanderson »

iliketrains wrote: post #152

One of my Amazon orders was just re-ordered from Wallmart under my name and shipped by Wallmart to my address. I even got the Walmart receipt with the cheaper price in the package. I was not happy about that, esp. that some stranger is entering my shipping info to some other retailers DB. It is also clearly against Amazon ToS. I have contacted Amazon, citing the ToS violation and concern about my personal data and th…

Was it a product review or seller review?

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

#188

Post by sithadmin »

dpcan wrote: post #171
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?

Two items in this order are now something totally different: https://i.imgur.com/EoJDqT0.png

USB C 3.0 cable is now: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0119EIHTG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

Other USB C cable is now: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0119OI9XU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

What's interesting is that both were originally sold by Anker's merchant account (relatively respectable brand), but now each listing is linking to a different merchant...

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

#189

Post by rwmurrayVT »

nlfwhulsdhouv wrote: post #147
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…

My favourite example of this are cheap digital PH meters: https://www.amazon.com/Accuracy-Measuring-Household-Drinking... If you can find any listings with real reviews, it turns out that these are pretty terrible, usually floating around 2-3 stars. Magically, there are consistently listings with 4.5+ stars and thousands of reviews for a relatively niche, barely functional product.

'I do have to oil it weekly, but it is attractive and very nice for the price.'

lmaoooooo and all the photos are for cutting boards or some strange hanging thing I can't describe.

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

#190

Post by criddell »

heavyset_go wrote: post #125
Glyptodon wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart has very similar results to Amazon, just not quite as much, and limiting results to Walmart.com helps a tiny bit more. So I don't agree there. You're mostly right about Target, they pretty much only sell stuff that they carry or brand themselves, but the other side to it for Target is that often you can't find what you want there at all - they have a pretty limited selection, and in any case the stuff they br…

Walmart partners with their suppliers because they have a direct liability for selling dangerous or counterfeit goods. Amazon's lawyers try their best to shift all liability from themselves to their suppliers. If I buy a product from Walmart that is faulty and injures me, liability falls on Walmart.

Walmart.com is basically the same as Amazon though, isn't? I thought anybody could sell their stuff there.
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