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Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M

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Re: Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M

#21

Post by meritt »

ikeboy wrote: post #11

Not sure about that number - they give no details on how it's calculated and anyways it's presented as being sales, not profits. Edit: https://www.marketplace.org/2019/11/18/how-amazons-counterfe... has more details and is where OP ironically appears to be ripping off from. Says 1.5 million is 4% of sales, so they did around 37 million in sales.

> Not sure about that number

Based on what? Why would your gut reaction to this entire story be "I'm suspicious of that dollar amount" [1]?. The fact that it's revenue and not sales doesn't somehow make the headline false. It's still a loss of revenue.

The broader point of this story and others is that Amazon has a rampant counterfeit goods problem and they do little to nothing to ensure authenticity for consumers.

> where OP ironically appears to be ripping off from

It's a local news station. Watch the video. They interviewed the manufacturer. They likely read the original story and decided to bring additional attention to a local business.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality

Re: Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M

#22

Post by taxidump »

jackyinger wrote: post #3

Hey, this title could be easily misconstrued given the prominent US politician. Assuming this is an innocent accident and only pointing it out because I’d misinterpreted it to be a conflict of interest expose.

The title is pretty descriptive, you're only seeing this because your mind wants to. It's a sign.

Fixed spelling

Re: Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M

#23

Post by dba7dba »

Zenst wrote: post #19

Fakes/copies have always been an issue for companies, but with the move towards digital platforms, we find we have this odd situation in which we have a legit company umbrellaring fake/copy sellers and able to profit from such sales and yet appear totally immune from any repercussions. But more so, all these transactions are documented, not cash in hand style transactions. So, will we see some company who sells a bra…

we find we have this odd situation in which we have a legit company umbrellaring fake/copy sellers and able to profit from such sales and yet appear totally immune from any repercussions.

I've known of many small apparel maker/distributor/seller based out of Los Angeles. Over the years, I heard/read/saw so many Police/Marshall personnel raid these businesses to confiscate fake merchandise as if raiding an illegal drug dealer and treat the owner/workers as if they were drug dealers. Ok, well it doesn't happen every week/month but still a regular occurrence.

They were breaking the law and so yes police was sent in. But these law enforcement resource was basically acting on the behest of large businesses like Nike/Gucci/etc.

And now, we have Amazon (even bigger than all other businesses) basically enabling fake merchandise sellers to sell fake merchandise (hurting other legitimate businesses) while Amazon gets a cut.

But there is no business more powerful than Amazon to force law enforcement to act and raid warehouses and HQ of Amazon.

Isn't capitalism wonderful?

Re: Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M

#24

Post by erik_seaberg »

creato wrote: post #7
Jaygles wrote: post #2

I wonder if this is an oversight by Amazon on failing to scale its anti-counterfeit measures. Maybe they didn't appropriately evaluate how large the issue would become and they're stuck with trying to amend a system that wasn't designed to combat the issue at the scale they are operating at. I'm interested in what sort of solution will eventually be effective at stopping this. Hopefully for Amazon it won't be inspect…

The problem is the long tail of sellers operating on the marketplace. With a long tail of sellers, you get a long tail of fraud and bullshit too. When you search on Amazon for random basic goods, you'll get thousands of results from insane numbers of gibberish sounding sellers. But there might be only a few dozen unique results. It's going to be basically impossible to combat fraud when this is allowed. I'd even cons…

This. As a buyer I only ever want Amazon sending me stock they got directly from the OEM, because they're so often better at fulfillment and defect returns.

Re: Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M

#25

Post by ikeboy »

meritt wrote: post #21
ikeboy wrote: post #11

Not sure about that number - they give no details on how it's calculated and anyways it's presented as being sales, not profits. Edit: https://www.marketplace.org/2019/11/18/how-amazons-counterfe... has more details and is where OP ironically appears to be ripping off from. Says 1.5 million is 4% of sales, so they did around 37 million in sales.

> Not sure about that number Based on what? Why would your gut reaction to this entire story be "I'm suspicious of that dollar amount" [1]?. The fact that it's revenue and not sales doesn't somehow make the headline false. It's still a loss of revenue. The broader point of this story and others is that Amazon has a rampant counterfeit goods problem and they do little to nothing to ensure authenticity for consumers. >…

>Why would your gut reaction to this entire story be "I'm suspicious of that dollar amount"

Because it's presented without any explanation or context, and it's difficult to see how it could be reasonably estimated. The headline is literally false. Losing revenue, even if that estimate is accurate, is not correctly described as losing money. It's kind of how cops inaccurately report "street value" of confiscated drugs - see e.g. https://www.cjr.org/analysis/drug_bust.php

>The broader point of this story and others is that Amazon has a rampant counterfeit goods problem and they do little to nothing to ensure authenticity for consumers.

And this point is wrong, of course. If anything, they go too far - I've seen many victims of their overzealous enforcement and am one myself. There's been many lawsuits by companies that have been blocked from selling despite selling only authentic products. That's hardly consistent with them doing little to nothing.

Re: Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M

#26

Post by Lammy »

creato wrote: post #7
Jaygles wrote: post #2

I wonder if this is an oversight by Amazon on failing to scale its anti-counterfeit measures. Maybe they didn't appropriately evaluate how large the issue would become and they're stuck with trying to amend a system that wasn't designed to combat the issue at the scale they are operating at. I'm interested in what sort of solution will eventually be effective at stopping this. Hopefully for Amazon it won't be inspect…

The problem is the long tail of sellers operating on the marketplace. With a long tail of sellers, you get a long tail of fraud and bullshit too. When you search on Amazon for random basic goods, you'll get thousands of results from insane numbers of gibberish sounding sellers. But there might be only a few dozen unique results. It's going to be basically impossible to combat fraud when this is allowed. I'd even cons…

These days when I end up on one of those Amazon search results filled with obviously-identical no-name goods it’s my cue to head over to Aliexpress instead. The product I’m getting is the same garbage, but at least I recalibrate my expectations and even save a few bucks by cutting out one layer of middleman.

Re: Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M

#27

Post by eddiethek »

Zenst wrote: post #19

Fakes/copies have always been an issue for companies, but with the move towards digital platforms, we find we have this odd situation in which we have a legit company umbrellaring fake/copy sellers and able to profit from such sales and yet appear totally immune from any repercussions. But more so, all these transactions are documented, not cash in hand style transactions. So, will we see some company who sells a bra…

Call me a snob;I don't care. When I see "there/ their" fail I go straight to Dunning-Krueger and discard the whole thing.

Re: Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M

#28

Post by eddiethek »

dba7dba wrote: post #23
Zenst wrote: post #19

Fakes/copies have always been an issue for companies, but with the move towards digital platforms, we find we have this odd situation in which we have a legit company umbrellaring fake/copy sellers and able to profit from such sales and yet appear totally immune from any repercussions. But more so, all these transactions are documented, not cash in hand style transactions. So, will we see some company who sells a bra…

we find we have this odd situation in which we have a legit company umbrellaring fake/copy sellers and able to profit from such sales and yet appear totally immune from any repercussions. I've known of many small apparel maker/distributor/seller based out of Los Angeles. Over the years, I heard/read/saw so many Police/Marshall personnel raid these businesses to confiscate fake merchandise as if raiding an illegal dru…

Yeah, we should try it!

Re: Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M

#29

Post by Ididntdothis »

Jaygles wrote: post #6
viburnum wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They know what they’re doing and don’t care because it’s working.

I think the viewpoint that Amazon doesn't care is too cynical. They probably do care but are stuck with the issue of looking at effective counter measures that are too expensive to consider. What is more realistic is that they are just stumped at this point.

I have seen it many times that companies can fix things rapidly if they really want to.

I think they don't care enough, as far as their revenues are going, things are fine, and there is is no easy way to fix this without making less money.

Re: Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M

#30

Post by occamrazor »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #9
Jaygles wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the viewpoint that Amazon doesn't care is too cynical. They probably do care but are stuck with the issue of looking at effective counter measures that are too expensive to consider. What is more realistic is that they are just stumped at this point.

If they cared, they would let you filter for items only sold by Amazon.com and not commingle inventory. What they really want is for others to take all the inventory risk and liability and take a 15% cut of all purchases. They used to let you filter for items sold by Amazon.com, but they removed it, so I think that clearly proves their goal of being a platform rather than a retailer one can rely on for quality goods,…

I can still filter by vendor, at least on the European websites.
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