Why is buying them with a Prime subscription relevant to the story?
The more crucial difference is that the products were sold by third party sellers. I'm assuming counterfeit goods are almost never a problem if the seller is Amazon.
Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?
51–60 of 429 posts
Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?
#52I really, really hate being a sucker so for me it's never worth it to buy from Amazon anymore. I'll pay a few dollars more to avoid the stress.
The good news is, it's not even necessarily true that you pay more when buying elsewhere anymore. Amazon is coasting on that reputation but they're no longer subsidizing customers like they used to.
Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?
#53Amazon became the first statistical store. You get what you want with a certain confidence interval.
Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?
#54You could tell by looking at the two gloves in the story that they were different, but the "fake" actually looked better to my eyes - the blue rubber appeared thicker and more pronounced. Which brings up a really interesting question about fakes - if they are as good or better than the products they are mocking, are they actually "fakes"? I fully recognize that there is a need to protect copyright / product dress / brand and that there is a distinct consumer interest in ensuring that products are safe / made from safe materials, BUT - so many of the products that are cloned on Amazon are only distinguishable by price anyway, and have no unique value proposition from one "brand" to the next.
Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disclaimer: I don’t own amazon directly but do own funds where Amazon is a significant chunk. I don’t agree with this kind of regulation. It’s simply not the governments role to decide. You as a seller are not forced to sell on Amazon. I say that as the spouse of a seller who owns a store on EBay that’s continued to be successful. We had a bad experience selling on Amazon and are better off without them. Of course th…
Serious question: What is the point of a “disclaimer” that applies to nearly everyone with a retirement account?
He's trying to sound sophisticated.
Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?
#56Fake reviews also contribute to more fake and low quality products being sold. It looks like Amazon simply doesn't care. https://thehustle.co/amazon-fake-reviews FTA: "One stay-at-home mom from Kentucky told me she makes $200-300 per month leaving positive reviews for things like sleep masks, light bulbs, and AV cables." “Do you actually like the products?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she wrote. “I never use them.”
I posted about this on HN recently[1]. Within the last month, I've been getting an increasing amount of native ads on different platforms for "Free [Product]!". If you engage the ad, you find out that the ad-purchaser wants you to buy the advertised product and leave a positive review for it on Amazon, after which they'll refund you for the cost of the product.
Some of these items have thousands of positive reviews[1], which is misleading to consumers who rely on honest reviews to guide their purchasing behavior. Also, it is almost comical how difficult it is to reach out to Amazon about this issue as a user.
In the end, I just contacted my state Attorney General's Consumer Protection division and the FTC.
Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?
#57Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?
#58I see the Amazon fake products problem as related to the social network fake news problem. In both cases you have a company that wants to both have it's platform cake and eat it's publisher cake at the same time. (Sorry for the bad spin on that phrase there.) One important part of our solution here has to be that we force these companies to take a position one way or the other. So in Amazon's case it would need to de…
>I see the Amazon fake products problem as related to the social network fake news problem. In both cases you have a company that wants to both have it's platform cake and eat it's publisher cake at the same time. (Sorry for the bad spin on that phrase there.) These companies innovate by showing off a layer of whiz-bang techy goodness so people don't notice that they've simply externalized all the responsibility and…
Wait, do you really believe that amazons retail business has had little or no significant innovation besides whiz bang tech goodness? I’m guessing you were exaggerating to make a more strong sounding statement, but if you meant it, then I strongly disagree.
Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?
#59I’ve been a Prime customer since it first came out in the early 2000’s, but I’m letting my subscription expire this year. Too much fake crap, and increasingly it’s hard to even find stuff that I’m looking for in the store. No thanks.
Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Serious question: What is the point of a “disclaimer” that applies to nearly everyone with a retirement account?
He's trying to sound sophisticated.
Minus the projection, I think all we can say is they were warning us to take their opinion with a grain of salt because they have an ostensible conflict of interest.