Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by Xamayon » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 11:26 PM UTC

starpilot wrote: post #50

jacobkg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Accuracy is mostly fine in my experience, but the battery life is often poor and they tend to be relatively loud. I like quiet, so the noise is more than enough reason to swap the movement when easy imho.

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

#62

Post by bjornjaja » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 11:27 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #59

I'm thinking this will be one of the ways that Amazon can be "disrupted." If Walmart (for example) re-tooled their online platform such that they kept counterfeits out and rapidly identified bad actors, the trust in their platform could grow against the name recognition of Amazon. At that point Amazon would be stuck playing catch up and that makes it hard to innovate. Also, its possible a completely new brand could b…

I think they should be disrupted with a decentralized solution where people buy and produce locally. None of this garbage sold en masse

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

#63

Post by the8472 » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 11:39 PM UTC

melzarei wrote: post #15

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

Is this relevant to the EU? I see lots of complaints about amazon on the HN frontpage but they mostly focus on the US. I assume tighter regulation and import tariffs on the other side of the atlantic would result in amazon's product selection looking different and perhaps getting counterfeits in is more onerous.

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

#64

Post by azinman2 » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 11:39 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #60

destitude wrote: post #39

Amazon has caused this to itself in order to maximize its own short-term profits. In the past 1-3 years their goal has been to reduce their own inventory by shifting it to 3rd party sellers and let them deal with the overhead of inventory. This is why counterfeits and crappy products have been proliferating on Amazon and why I have started to avoid purchasing from Amazon all-together. I wonder if they realize how muc…

In a few years, Alibaba will have a better reputation than Amazon.

Based on what? No name brands, just loads and loads of direct from factory crapware and knock offs in all shapes and sizes.

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

#65

Post by BeetleB » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 11:41 PM UTC

occamrazor wrote: post #30

lotsofpulp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

At least in the US, Amazon comingles new products unless the seller requests them not to. So if you buy something shipped and sold by Amazon.com, you may be getting the one vendor ABC had shipped to Amazon's warehouses.

Agree with GP. If they cared, they wouldn't comingle. Comingling saves Amazon money, though, as they don't have to track whose goods are in which warehouses.

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

#66

Post by taurath » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 11:44 PM UTC

destitude wrote: post #39

Amazon has caused this to itself in order to maximize its own short-term profits. In the past 1-3 years their goal has been to reduce their own inventory by shifting it to 3rd party sellers and let them deal with the overhead of inventory. This is why counterfeits and crappy products have been proliferating on Amazon and why I have started to avoid purchasing from Amazon all-together. I wonder if they realize how muc…

They’re too being being customer obsessed to fix these sorts of problems, now that businesses are the customer.

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

#67

Post by ecommerceguy » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 11:44 PM UTC

>>In a statement on its website, Amazon also said its employees “work hard every day to help ensure all products offered in our store are safe and authentic.”

Bullshit. The front line employees that receive inbound product don't enforce any policy and actually Amazon encourages to deal with disputes only after a product is sold, shipped and a customer complains. That's the Bezos way. Fact. Let's discuss grocery products in glass containers real quick if anyone wants to argue...

I admit, we'd sell counterfeit products if I didn't have morals. We push all the AMZ limits we can. I could write a book on this subject.

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

#68

Post by oh_sigh » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 11:46 PM UTC

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's true because they want to make sure they follow European laws, even if they don't understand them fully.

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

#69

Post by BowBun » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 11:52 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #64

amelius wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a few years, Alibaba will have a better reputation than Amazon.

Based on what? No name brands, just loads and loads of direct from factory crapware and knock offs in all shapes and sizes.

Unless you only buy hand-crafted goods (do hand-crafted laptops exist?), most of what we consume is direct from factory crapware anyway. I'd rather get it straight from the factory...

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

#70

Post by ekianjo » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 11:55 PM UTC

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…

> A pharmacy gives the illusion of hundreds of different cold medicines, painkillers, and antacids, but it's the same few drugs packaged in hundreds of different ways.

Technically no. Event generics have different excipients and excipients give them a slightly different profile.