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

washingtonpost.com

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

#301

Post by phren0logy »

egdod wrote: post #252
mmanfrin wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But of course now Ubiquiti has silently added a “feature” that phones home with telemetry data. Does that count as a bait and switch?

After much outcry they have reversed this decision, but it’s not encouraging. One of the employees was very dismissive of concerns on the Ubiquiti subreddit.

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

#302

Post by erichocean »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #215
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

Amazon.cn has been shut down.[0]

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/amazon-china-marketplace-clo...

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

#303

Post by [deleted] »

ikeboy wrote: post #34
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…

>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.

[deleted]

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

#304

Post by _jal »

dannyw wrote: post #272
cm2187 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And most reviews aren’t seller specific. What I see is reviews for a product, but some of the sellers for that product will sell a counterfeit version (Intel NIC in my case). The top (default) seller when the reviews were written may be replaced by a bad actor a couple of years later.

That’s because picking by Amazon is not seller specific. You get something in that tray; it can be from any seller.

It is truly remarkable - Amazon appears to want to track everything about their operation _except_ inventory provenance.

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

#305

Post by Marsymars »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #135
siruncledrew wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 2-day shipping time is not an important factor, then what I've started to do is just buy items from AliExpress and DHGate based on looking at # of orders and customer reviews. The vast majority of stuff on Amazon could be found on AliExpress, DHGate, Alibaba, Tmall.com, JD.com, and Taobao. At this point, I just gave up and decided to buy items I don't care about that much from their 'source' for less money in exch…

>So many of the "brands" on Amazon are not even brands, it's just made up words next to a generic imported product. Like "iGoEnergeeFan" or something similarly stupid. Indeed, or the recent trend of naming your generic company with an ALL CAPS name, "VECTROMOX", as if that's somehow effective at differentiating your obviously fly-by-night operation. >Those good ole' "produce cheaply overseas and markup in our stores"…

> It takes a non-trivial amount of extra time and work to do that though, especially on Amazon.

Probably the easiest/fastest way is to just default to brands that are known for enforcing supply chain standards, which mostly won't be available on Amazon anyway.

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

#306

Post by Frost1x »

Retric wrote: post #17
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #10

I think this article seems like a good example of editorial independence. Even though both Amazon and the Washington Post are pretty much owned by the same person, the Washington Post has published a pretty negative article about Amazon.

Not to question their independence, but it seems to have a very positive spin for a negative article. Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products... Former executives say e-commerce giant, which last year spent $400 million fighting fraud and abuse is kind of saying well their trying really really hard, honest. I suspect this has less to do with the Amazon relationship than the tendency to give similar weight to both s…

I was actually surprised the WP even wrote this much. I read the title and saw it was a WP article and was immediately intrigued--not so much by the article contents but how the journalism would play out given the tight relationship.

To me, it almost feels like damage control and saving face with all the given FTC investigations on current market monopolies.

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

#307

Post by Marsymars »

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 was cool for the four years they operated in Canada before imploding. I guess we've got Giant Tiger still.

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

#308

Post by Marsymars »

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.

Anker availability in Canada is weird. There seems to be no pattern as to whether a particular item won't be available on amazon.ca, and whether the amazon.com listing will be eligible for shipping to Canada. I've contacted Anker a couple times about specific items, and they've just given non-answers both times.

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

#309

Post by codyb »

bamboozled wrote: post #287
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…

It's true that is' really hard to find things on there now. You have to be very specific about what you want, even then it's not easy to find a legitimate seller who ships on time (unless it's something very popular and standard). I often find things at super cheap prices which makes me skeptical about the authenticity to be honest. I find there are an abundant number of online specialty stores for things I'm looking…

Yea I like shopping in person. Just gets me out of the house (especially key when you work from home), I get to examine things before I buy them, get some social interaction, and support local businesses.

Looks like similar 8 inch cake pans to what I purchases from Sur La Table recently are about 14 dollars on Amazon, compared to what I paid which was 20.

There’s also 10 dollar versions similar to the 15 dollar ones at Sur La Table.

But Amazon wasn’t going to deliver me the six miles of walking I did in the city I love that day :-).

Generally if I’m ordering something I’ll do B&H for electronics/photography equipment, REI for outdoor gear, Barnes and Noble for books, and Paizo for tabletop RPG dice and game manuals if I’m not going to a brick and mortar.

Works well enough for me, haven’t ordered off Amazon in ages.

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

#310

Post by ericb »

amznthrowaway4 wrote: post #237
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

pssht. I emailed jeff@amazon.com to complain about the general problem of counterfeit BeyBlades and provided links to scam items. Rather than take down the scam links, or even acknowledge the problem which was causing my inability to trust amazon for these purchases, the response was that they could refund any specific items I bought that were scams.

Welcome to Day Two

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