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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

#41

Post by brianwawok »

jacobkg wrote: post #37
alister wrote: post #31

Along with counterfeits, another issue that makes shopping unpleasant is that many products are superfically different but underneath are the same thing. You can see this most clearly in a retail store when the products are side by side. Walmart might have 30 kinds of wall clocks with wood vs plastic frame, with or without Roman numerals, but the actual clock mechanism on the back is the same cheap black box. Home De…

Fun aside, if you buy a cheap wall clock from a big box store, you can often swap out the clock movement with a vastly superior one for very little money. A nice Seiko movement with a sweep second hand can be had for under $20.

But why would you want a nice movement on a cardboard clock? At that point you spend another few dollars for a nicer package.

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

#44

Post by teblaskan »

warent wrote: post #33
alister wrote: post #31

Along with counterfeits, another issue that makes shopping unpleasant is that many products are superfically different but underneath are the same thing. You can see this most clearly in a retail store when the products are side by side. Walmart might have 30 kinds of wall clocks with wood vs plastic frame, with or without Roman numerals, but the actual clock mechanism on the back is the same cheap black box. Home De…

The solution starts with manually verifying products. I'm not convinced that it's impossible for Amazon or other stores to have a quality verification system where they have people hired specifically for this purpose. Maybe even a third party could specifically do this. You don't have to do it for every single item, just do it once whenever someone wants to list a product on the platform. Whenever reviews start compl…

some hunch tells me this would put them out of business

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

#45

Post by ikeboy »

alister wrote: post #31

Along with counterfeits, another issue that makes shopping unpleasant is that many products are superfically different but underneath are the same thing. You can see this most clearly in a retail store when the products are side by side. Walmart might have 30 kinds of wall clocks with wood vs plastic frame, with or without Roman numerals, but the actual clock mechanism on the back is the same cheap black box. Home De…

It's that competition that brings down prices. If there was only one unique brand per product, they'd charge much more.

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

#47

Post by ikeboy »

meritt wrote: post #32
ikeboy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Yes I'm aware of your case [1]. You sold non-retail unpackaged electronics on Amazon, you are not an authorized reseller, and were accused of selling counterfeit goods. TP-Link got you banned from Amazon. Now you're suing TP-Link for $5M-10M because you lost ~$100k/mo profit. But the story above is about actual counterfeit goods. Not people reselling wholesale goods for below MAPs to retail customers. [1] https://pdf…

>You sold non-retail unpackaged electronics on Amazon

Just to clarify: some goods were repacked in polybags, and labeled as such. This is explicitly permitted by Amazon's ToS for the cell phone category:

"Amazon product detail page requirements: All non-retail packaging requires a separate detail page. All non-retail packaging requires either "[Non-Retail Packaging]" or "[Carrier Packaging]" in the title. For example: Motorola H12 Bluetooth Headset [Non-Retail Packaging] Motorola H12 Bluetooth Headset [Carrier Packaging]"

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/200785030?...

This was for other products, not the tp-link products, which were all in retail packaging.

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

#48

Post by themagician »

m0zg wrote: post #46

The most surprising part of this story to me is that someone manages to make millions of dollars on bird feeders.

Revenue, not profit.

You can make millions on just about anything. It’s not hard. Making a healthy margin is something else entirely.

3P sellers don’t really care. If they make $5,000 on $1.5m in revenue it’s fine. They don’t do any real work. They are just middle men. They just try to do as much as possible. The item doesn’t matter, the customer doesn’t matter. If their is a listing and they can sell against it and make a few cents per sale that’s good enough.

Amazon has created a horrible race to the bottom model and they don’t care either because they benefit as well.

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

#49

Post by thaumasiotes »

tobr wrote: post #42
melzarei wrote: post #15

Link for EU https://outline.com/zCuTHm

”Our European visitors are important to us.” I’m trying to imagine how they decided to go with this headline for the screen that tells European visitors to get lost.

It sounds better than "we don't like your kind here, piss off".

Compare this parodic press release: http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2017/12/07/improvements/

> In our quest to improve our service for you, the user, we're making it worse.

If you're doing something good, you announce that you're doing something good. If you're doing something bad, you announce you're doing something good.

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

#50

Post by starpilot »

jacobkg wrote: post #37
alister wrote: post #31

Along with counterfeits, another issue that makes shopping unpleasant is that many products are superfically different but underneath are the same thing. You can see this most clearly in a retail store when the products are side by side. Walmart might have 30 kinds of wall clocks with wood vs plastic frame, with or without Roman numerals, but the actual clock mechanism on the back is the same cheap black box. Home De…

Fun aside, if you buy a cheap wall clock from a big box store, you can often swap out the clock movement with a vastly superior one for very little money. A nice Seiko movement with a sweep second hand can be had for under $20.

Is the cheap quartz movement that it comes with insufficiently accurate?
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