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Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

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Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#341

Post by BiteCode_dev »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #337
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A acquaintance of mine recently told me he was going to start his own rock climbing clothes brand. Naively, I though he was trying to make well designed clothes for rock climbers. As a geek, I though he was trying to solve a problem. No. He just bought Chinese low quality t-shirts, and sticked logos on that and spent all his energy developing the brand itself: communication, aesthetic, mentality, target, etc. I could…

It works both ways. If I know that a company is basically selling Chinese t-shirts with their logo and their markup price, might as well just buy directly from China and skip the middleman.

If.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#342

Post by rezgi »

fma wrote: post #95
joshgachnang wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has been about the same for me. I went from total Google fanboy to migrating a lot of my life away from them and advising others to do the same.

Thinking about doing the same to diversify where my private info gets sucked up. Who do you use for email?

https://startmail.com is pretty decent, affordable, and based in the Netherlands (so, better privacy than US/5 eyes countries)

Too bad they don't offer calendar services with their email though. It's really a choice I can't fathom.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#343

Post by pas »

amylene wrote: post #253
pas wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly are they adding in value compared to any regular webshop? It's just as incomprehensibly bad as the standard run of the mill default PrestaShop. At least Shopify is a real platform you can build stuff on. Amazon is just this giant bullying machine. The Dalek of retail.

Huge selection, great customer service, saved credentials, 5% back on purchases, most stuff is one day shipping for me. I also know they fix problems pretty rapidly. I get a ton of entertainment from prime video. Those are all things difficult to get consistently from a random web store.

> Huge selection

Agreed. The problem is that generally the descriptions are so useless it's hard to know what's actually what. (For example recently I ordered a case for a Kobo Forma e-reader, and it was impossible to know how it would actually fold, because there were a few pictures, no video, no schematics, nothing. And the description was similarly unhelpful. It worked out okay though.)

> great customer service

I found it impossible to even get in touch with them :o (I wanted to ask where my package is, but they just kept naming the shipping vendor - "Deutsche Post", no tracking ID, no link, no actual contact to the relevant department.)

> saved credentials

Every webshop so far does it, and usually smaller ones provide ability to use PayPal.

> 5% back on purchases

How does that work? It's either priced into the price of everything or others pay for it, no?

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#344

Post by benhurmarcel »

IshKebab wrote: post #327
miked85 wrote: post #6

I have started buying most products directly from manufacturer's websites or in physical stores now. The amount of fake products on Amazon is appalling, I wonder why they don't put effort into stopping this.

Is this an American problem? As far as I know I've never received a fake product from Amazon in the UK.

I have received fake products from Amazon in France and Spain. It's not just the US.

But what's more common from Amazon is to receive an obviously refurbished product as new. The products people return are just sent to the next buyer, without check or cleaning.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#345

Post by Kliment »

iainmerrick wrote: post #332
undersuit wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's because of this that I wish Apple† would go back into some of the product lines it has abandoned. Related: I try to buy Amazon Basics for a lot of items.

Isn’t Amazon Basics just paid product placement?

That's "Amazon's Choice", which is a label you pay for that gets plopped on random bullshit. Amazon Basics is a brand that Amazon itself has had people design and manufacture for them. Not the same thing at all.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#346

Post by mrweasel »

philshem wrote: post #336

Nitpicking, but... the original article title is "I Bought These Things From Amazon Prime. Can You Tell Which Ones Are Real?". The current HN title is "Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?" The current HN title would be improved by replacing "real" with "authentic". With "real", I started the article assuming that the Ove-Glove was a fictitious product created by a designer or artist. It took some time to…

It also doesn't matter that it's Amazon Prime, the Prime part has no influence on whether or not you risk buying fakes.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#347

Post by mrweasel »

miked85 wrote: post #6

I have started buying most products directly from manufacturer's websites or in physical stores now. The amount of fake products on Amazon is appalling, I wonder why they don't put effort into stopping this.

I honestly don't think Amazon really care, unless you sell fake Amazon branded products.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#348

Post by Shivetya »

squarefoot wrote: post #45

Fake 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.”

Well when Amazon takes steps to reduce fraud people scream to high hell about how unfair it is to the small business trying to sell product. Take the case of Apple and Amazon working a deal where Apple products can only be sold by Apple or whom Apple authorizes.

I know the headache of trying to find a Silpat cooking mat, the number of look alike fakes is astounding and worse they use the name brand when they clearly are not that manufacturer.

So the only recourse is to have a setup similar to the Amazon and Apple deal. Anyone wishing to sell a branded product must provide proof to Amazon which includes the manufacturer backing the claim that they are authorized to sell that product. Not line, by product.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#349

Post by mikorym »

smnrchrds wrote: post #284
reaperducer wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I find that I rely more and more on brands to decide which things I buy I do the same. I wish I didn't, but I don't know what the practical alternative is. I guess it's the whole reason that brands were created in the first place. I do source some of my stuff from smaller brands and shops, whenever I can. But that's not always an option. When it comes to software, I'm not entirely satisfied with Apple's "walled g…

> ... I generally don't have to worry. Emphasis on generally . Apple still sells many (most?) of its iMacs with spinning rust drives. Just picking up something from Apple Store and paying tons for it does not guarantee it meets minimum quality standards one might expect.

What do you mean by that? That the quality is not good or that the stock is old?

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#350

Post by professorTuring »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #88

It's funny: I always thought the Internet and platforms like Amazon with the collaborative reviewing system would make brands more and more obsolete, because you could just pick high-quality products from smaller manufacturers by looking at user reviews. Now I find that I rely more and more on brands to decide which things I buy, because I simply cannot trust user reviews in most of the cases. Recently there are more…

That is exactly what I feel.

More and more I find Amazon to be closer and closer to a Chinese Bazar of cheap quality items (kind of an AliExpress or dx but with a different perceived quality).

I believe they will gain a lot of customers among people who just want cheap stuff (or don't care if it is original as long as the brand is clearly visible and is cheaper) but definitely they will lose customers that use Amazon for convenience (more or less the same price, better refund policies, availability of products...)

It's a pity. Hopefully others will fill that space.

In Spain, El Corte Inglés with its new on-line platform is getting closer and closer.

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