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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

#111

Post by cardamomo »

bjornjaja wrote: post #62
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

I agree that they should be be replaced by something like what you describe, but could they be disrupted that way in reality?

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

#112

Post by tartoran »

tomcam wrote: post #104
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.

Not trying to be snarky, genuinely interested: what are the advantages of the superior movement?

It lasts forever

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

#113

Post by Danieru »

tomcam wrote: post #104
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.

Not trying to be snarky, genuinely interested: what are the advantages of the superior movement?

Reading the sales data: no tick sounds. Presumably less drift as well.

That most people do not care about the quality of the movement is why Wal-Mart has lots of shells with the same movements.

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

#114

Post by ngorge »

tomcam wrote: post #104
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.

Not trying to be snarky, genuinely interested: what are the advantages of the superior movement?

The gears are manufactured to better tolerances. This means they make a lot less noise. A cheap movement can be heard across the room, a Seiko is silent.

Because the parts fit better, there is less friction. Less of a load on the motor means the battery lasts much longer in a Seiko.

They also keep time better.

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

#115

Post by ReverseCold »

erichurkman wrote: post #99

Their quality control, or lack thereof, also extends into Prime Now. It is now a game when I get a Prime Now delivery: what did they replace without telling me, what products did they get wrong, and most critically: what did they overbill me for? It's now to a point I weigh everything coming in, and over half of the items are off weight, some egregiously so (0.2 oz of jalapeno, but billed for 1 pound; .5 pound of chi…

> It's now to a point I weigh everything coming in

Instead of just not using the service? If it's not bad enough for you to stop then Amazon seems to be making a good business decision.

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

#116

Post by marcosdumay »

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.

Well, for a start, you can choose your supplier (yes, just like Ebay).

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

#117

Post by ng12 »

c2h5oh wrote: post #106
ng12 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a product on Amazon this Christmas that was completely fake. It was "sold by Amazon" but didn't even have the same label as the brand I had ordered. I complained to Amazon and they just gave me a refund without requiring that I return the product (I ended up just throwing it out). I suspect that they knew the inventory was tainted but figured the cost of dealing with noisy customers like me is less than the…

If multiple suppliers ship same product to Amazon warehouses Amazon will ship closest one to buyer regardless who supplied it. In fact if the seller requests their goods back they won't get the same ones they sent to Amazon - they are mixed together with others sharing ASIN There must have been an Amazon marketplace seller using same listing but shipping fakes. Or Amazon got duped.

What bothers me most is the fake was incredibly lazy. It came in a plain white box with the brand I ordered stamped on one corner. The product inside looked completely different and was from a "brand" that I can't find sold on any legitimate site. I suspect it didn't even include a functioning battery, I couldn't get it to hold a charge for more than a few seconds.

If Amazon got "duped" by this they could have gotten duped just as easily by a guy selling a box of old newspapers. I don't understand how it's not fraud to label it as "Sold by Amazon" when they don't have the slightest idea what they're shipping to me.

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

#118

Post by RandomTisk »

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.

I got my folks a bird feeder a few years ago when they bought a new house. I grew up a few miles from there, remembering only sparrows, blackbirds, robins, etc and on rare occasions a yellow bird, or a brown bird, or red-wing blackbird. But with a bird feeder, it was amazing to see the number of unique birds that show up now every few minutes, birds of all colors that I didn't even know lived in the area.

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

#119

Post by leoc »

masonic wrote: post #110
ecommerceguy wrote: post #67

>>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 produ…

The phrasing is a deviously clever way to try to foist some degree of blame on employees rather than policy.

Repeating myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19199343

> The classic "control fraud" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud strategy is to incentivise your subordinates to maximise revenues while "neglecting" to check that they aren't engaging in fraud to do it. Then you can protest your innocence when the fraud comes to light.

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

#120

Post by appleiigs »

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 is to buy local. That gives the Home Depot guy an opportunity to tell you, “you know, the internals are all the same”, and the pharmacists lady can say “the generic Tylenol/Advil is called this”.
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