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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

#231

Post by specialp »

sp332 wrote: post #221
jandrese wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has basically turned itself into eBay but without a way to check the reputation of a seller.

Right under the "Buy it now" button, it says "sold by X and fulfilled by Amazon", or "ships from and sold by X". If you click on X it shows you seller feedback. It's an extra click compared to eBay and it's not ideal, but it's hardly impossible.

Yeah but that's the issue. On eBay the seller has their feedback rating displayed prominently. On Amazon it is sold by "company" that nobody pays attention to as the ratings are on the product, and it indicates that the product you will get doesn't depend on who sells it really. It is also fulfilled by Amazon so you know you will get it fast. So the consumer basically considers the seller as a wholesaler (which they essentially are in this arrangement, and don't care.

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

#232

Post by agentdrtran »

download13 wrote: post #210
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…

There's also a more subtle version of this, where the seller leaves the listing the same, but once enough positive reviews have accumulated they move production to a cheaper factory and use cheaper materials. So you might see older reviews for a pair of boots that say they're made from sturdy materials with good stitching, followed by later reviews saying that they didn't match the advertised sizing and pictures, or…

I've actually had this happen to stuff I bought, it's extremely shady and should be illegal.

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

#233

Post by behringer »

jedieaston wrote: post #154
behringer wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon thinks it can automate itself out of these problems

It could, by saying that the category for a product in the store is immutable and that if you want to change it, you must create a new item. If that doesn't work, extend it to the item's title and removing any of the pictures of the product (you can add more, but it's append only). Should work fine to prevent this.

That requires programming it... I mean amazon literally wants to automate these issues without actually programming it.

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

#234

Post by menacingly »

I'm surprised Amazon hasn't taken action on the dicey quality problems, because I've watched it grow from obscure topic of online conversation to complaints from people I know personally who aren't particularly picky. This must be costing them money, and it isn't getting smaller.

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

#235

Post by noir_lord »

dv_dt wrote: post #228
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.

Think about all the AI/Machine learning work going on. I really think it's not a losing battle, that if Amazon really cared, they could train and maintain a "product listing integrity" AI fairly easily. That they don't already have such a thing to dissuade the gaming going on to dissuade the sketchy practices essentially means to me Amazon condones the behavior.

I'm going to be kind to them and assume they are using the AI to augment the obviously simple "rating delta over time" I'd do as the first pass solution.

Like "Over a 3 month period this product reviewed at 3.7 and the next 2.1" maybe look into why.

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

#236

Post by samstave »

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…

You know what AliExpress service I actually want.

I want to pick a quarterly amount that I would like to pay for a "surprise box" of curated items within a few categories that I select.

So, lets say, I want to spend $100/qtr. And I say I want my grab-bag to come from categories/interests (max 3) XYZ.

Then I get a box every quarter with surprise stuff.

Start the service small. two verticals "things" and "projects"

I can select one or the other.

Then Start small and select one from three categories in each vertical.

Then the service will curate a "things" grab bag in the three categories. for each tier that the user selected. $100 $200 or $300 per quarter.

Then each grab bag will be sent to each user in each tier per vertical based on category.

I'd rather do that than scroll through billions of products on Alibaba/express.

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

#237

Post by amznthrowaway4 »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #166
behringer wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon thinks it can automate itself out of these problems

No, it thinks it can get away with turning a blind eye to these problems.

There are literally several thousand people who work on marketplace fraud and quality issues. It's a huge concern.

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

#238

Post by noir_lord »

jarjoura wrote: post #208
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…

Yup, I use Best Buy for all electronic purchases now. They have a great return policy and I enjoy that most things I could want are available same day. I pretty much only rely on Amazon for Kindle purchases now or to read reviews on big ticket items that I'm curious about.

I went back to argos (UK retailer) for small stuff and ebuyer/aria for everything else tech related - they have the same range as amazon (in their domains), the same returns ease (better in the case of ebuyer in practive).

I buy very little from Amazon, enough that I'm going to cancel prime since the only thing of theirs I still use is is Amazon Prime TV and well..its OK but not enough to justify it.

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

#239

Post by Havoc »

AlexandrB wrote: post #203
Havoc wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>power cables, replacement chargers and batteries being the biggest offenders. I've found Anker gear to be consistently solid on all three counts & frankly I trust it more than store bought. If I could even get it - wouldn't know where to start buying a 60W USB hub in a brick & mortar.

I wish Anker sold direct on their site (and shipped to Canada) because searching for Anker products on Amazon almost invariably turns up a sponsored, cheap knock off and an "Amazon Basics" product as the #1 and #2 results. I can't imagine they're happy about that either.

>I wish Anker sold direct on their site

Haven't seen any fakes thus far?

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

#240

Post by jcrites »

mikepurvis wrote: post #194
sithadmin wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's nuts that this is possible— I mean, it's obvious looking at just a handful of the reviews on either page that they're for a totally different product. I wonder if there's some shady marketplace where positive-review Amazon product pages are bought and sold, so that the scammer can grab a bunch of them all ready to go (say, from a merchant closing up shop), rather than having to play the long game upfront.

I agree. Seeing this garbage makes me angry. I've reported the products mentioned in this thread that look suspicious for further investigation.

This appears to be listing abuse and I'd encourage people to report it: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/200444420

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