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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

#211

Post by AlexandrB »

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.

Even ignoring how badly they package books, Amazon has also had a counterfeit book problem for a while now[1]. Two years later, not much has changed[2].

[1] https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch...

[2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/amazo...

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

#212

Post by sjy »

marcosdumay wrote: post #169
uoaei wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What could the problem be, then? Do we point fingers at capitalism? As far as I see it, this is the logical conclusion to capitalism and free markets. Manufacturers produce a product and sell it to many suppliers who all rebrand and mark up in their own ways, competing with each other for market share. As consumers, we are presented with basically only this option because the suppliers have all won the race to the bo…

Those things are not commodities. Commodities can not crapify (loved that word), by definition. Capitalism has invented brands to fight this, and it worked for a long time. It's not really capitalism that is at fault, but the thing that changed in the 80's that turned the entire system upside down. It's hard to point at something specific, but markets used to be less transactional and less winner-takes-all.

Perhaps it's not fair to point to a 97-page article as "something specific," but "the thing that changed" was thoroughly explained in Amazon's Antitrust Paradox (2017) [1]. Specifically:

> In some ways, the story of Amazon's sustained and growing dominance is also the story of changes in our antitrust laws. Due to a change in legal thinking and practice in the 1970s and 1980s, antitrust law now assesses competition largely with an eye to the short-term interests of consumers, not producers or the health of the market as a whole; antitrust doctrine views low consumer prices, alone, to be evidence of sound competition.

[1]: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...

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

#213

Post by tombert »

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…

Not to mention that Walmart will very often have promotions with multiple different credit card companies to give you double (or sometimes even triple) points. When the prices are the same on Walmart or Amazon, I typically do Walmart now for that reason.

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

#214

Post by Pxtl »

mmanfrin wrote: post #131
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…

ASUS did this with their routers, and pooled reviews by making all of their routers different variants of each other, even if completely different. I was annoyed because I had an unbelievably shitty experience with one of their (very expensive prosumer) routers. The silver lining, for me, is that I was so fucking annoyed with ASUS support that I angrily shipped it back to Amazon, bought Ubiquiti equipment, and experi…

God damn. I'm disappointed because I went through a series of awful routers (TP-Link, D-Link, Netgear) and the Asus one is the first thing that actually works well. I've got some other Asus hardware I'm really happy with, so I was starting to warm up to them.

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

#215

Post by annoyingnoob »

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…

I have to agree with the first part, Amazon is very much like going to AliExpress lately. I search and all I find is cheap products from China - I don't find any brands I've heard of that I could get at any local retailer.

Its like Amazon.com is redirecting to Amazon.cn

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

#216

Post by Chris_Chambers »

freeAgent wrote: post #121
freeAgent wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Oh wow! I just checked the SAME listing again (that's in my order history) and they have changed it YET AGAIN so now it is a listing for a complete knock-off Philips Sonicare toothbrush...not just the brush heads, but the brush body itself. Of course, I still have an "order again" button in my order history. For reference, when I originally ordered the brush heads, they were $15.99. The brush in the listing now is $5…

What on earth? How are there HN people who still knowingly buy fake stuff on Amazon? This has been well understood by HN users for years at this point. What were you thinking? Not only that, but you put the things you received in your mouth? Can you explain why you did any of this?

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

#217

Post by nlfwhulsdhouv »

owenmarshall wrote: post #198
nlfwhulsdhouv wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Based on uploaded photos that product seems to have a past life as a cutting board, a drying rack, a canopy for a kids bed, some type of dagger (letter opener?) and a lancet. That’s incredible , and the fact that someone hasn’t seen that inside Amazon and said “we have a huge problem” makes me suspect Amazon doesn’t regard it as a problem at all.

Yeah, one of them was formerly a plant pot, an umbrella, and christmas lights. It's pretty funny but equally sad that Amazon doesn't care (or worse, is misincentivized) about fixing it.

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

#218

Post by milkanic »

behringer wrote: post #118
Havoc wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Amazon thinks it can automate itself out of these problems

Sounds like a great idea for a deep learning neural network...or just lock all the fields down after a product is created.

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

#219

Post by sjy »

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…

Has anyone actually tried and failed to hold Amazon accountable for a dangerous product? I don't think it would be obvious to the average person that they're not transacting with Amazon when they use the Amazon website, and if Amazon's legal strategy depends on that distinction being upheld in every country, it seems risky.

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

#220

Post by noonespecial »

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 always leave a review. I always name the product I bought in the text of the review. Now I'm thinking I should take a picture as well.
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