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Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

arstechnica.com

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Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#121

Post by pr0zac »

capitainenemo wrote: post #104
searchableguy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if Amazon won't police (and they have problems with commingling counterfeit brands, too) then Walmart and Target will jump ahead. I think they are solving this differently. Amazon introduced their own brands for almost all daily necessities. Amazon basic, amazon pharmacy, amazon fashion, amazon elements, amazon pantry, amazon echo and few more. They generally have average or above average products at an affordable…

The last time I bought a "new" phone "Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC" it arrived several weeks late, with a burned in screen, scuff marks, and randomly rebooting. My impression is they did not have the item they were selling, and were relying on some presumably "trusted" reseller to provide it. I ended up purchasing a used one in much better condition on eBay for several hundred dollars less where the condition at…

Be careful using eBay, a rather scary number of listings on there are people just relisting items from Amazon at a higher price and reshipping (or just ordering with your shipping address, I had one eBay purchase come directly from Amazon).

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#122

Post by hanklazard »

fuball63 wrote: post #117
bombcar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly enough if you trace the history of brand names ... this is why they started! And this is the strength that the major retailers have against Amazon - if Amazon won't police (and they have problems with commingling counterfeit brands, too) then Walmart and Target will jump ahead.

I was of a similar mind this year, but when I went to Walmart's website, they had 3rd party sellers on there too. It is really annoying, especially with the pandemic, trying to sift through all the trash online. I ended up buying we webcam from BestBuy.com, because a webcam I got from Amazon was pay-for-review and was utter garbage. Just more evidence, to me, that the era of internet business models being "get everyt…

I've also found myself buying a lot of things from Best Buy, something I would have scoffed at 5-7 years ago. These days, I just want to know that I'm getting a genuine (vs replica) product and most of the time I can go pick-up my purchase same day, solving the "fast shipping" problem.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#123

Post by solarkraft »

dopylitty wrote: post #65
TravisLS wrote: post #18

There's a somewhat pervasive idea that advertising and brand recognition are coercive tools that will ultimately die out, replaced by better objective information about products. I'm kind of partial to this idea myself. But increasingly we seem a long way from achieving this. Amazon reviews have become such garbage, I've fallen back to pretty much relying on name brands as my placeholder for product quality. There's…

Brands aren't perfect either. For example Volvo had a reputation for making great safe cars. The brand is now owned by a company with a reputation for making cars that disintegrate and obliterate the occupants in crash tests. The same is true of Arc'teryx, Jaguar, and many other well known brands that have been sold off to companies with terrible reputations for quality. Ultimately the only way to guarantee quality w…

> The brand is now owned by a company with a reputation for making cars that disintegrate and obliterate the occupants in crash tests.

In China. From what I've heard the products are also still completely on the same level because it's not like Geely just started selling their cars with the Volvo brand, but they keep the company doing what it's good at.

A counter-example is the German car brand Opel that was recently sold from GM to french PSA. Because the car manufacturer attached to the brand was already largely dismantled all Opel cars are now PSA models - which is rather well known by people who care and also affects the brand.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#124

Post by baryphonic »

mason55 wrote: post #58
TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I myself am convinced that brand recognition is on borrowed time - that is, recognition of old brands may still work as useful filter, but new quality brands will be near-impossible to establish. The reason for that: we're being DDoSed with brands on e-commerce sites. For an increasing amount of product categories, you're going to find 10+ "brands" on Amazon that are selling the same white-label garbage class product…

What you’re describing is exactly how brands work. The garbage brands will continue to cycle because there’s no reason to keep the brand name (in fact it’s better to change it so that people who got burned don’t know it’s the same). But the good brands are investing in the brand name and so they will stick around and you’ll start to recognize them. Look at a company like Anker. They operate in spaces filled with garb…

This is on point. When I first ordered something from Anker (a USB-C dongle IIRC), I was worried it'd be knock-off trash. Their brand hadn't been established long enough for me to evaluate their reputation. But the quality was high and now I trust it. I was happy to pick up one of their MacBook Pro USB-C hubs on Prime Day, and would happily buy more Anker supplies in the future.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#125

Post by jniedrauer »

dopylitty wrote: post #65
TravisLS wrote: post #18

There's a somewhat pervasive idea that advertising and brand recognition are coercive tools that will ultimately die out, replaced by better objective information about products. I'm kind of partial to this idea myself. But increasingly we seem a long way from achieving this. Amazon reviews have become such garbage, I've fallen back to pretty much relying on name brands as my placeholder for product quality. There's…

Brands aren't perfect either. For example Volvo had a reputation for making great safe cars. The brand is now owned by a company with a reputation for making cars that disintegrate and obliterate the occupants in crash tests. The same is true of Arc'teryx, Jaguar, and many other well known brands that have been sold off to companies with terrible reputations for quality. Ultimately the only way to guarantee quality w…

> The same is true of Arc'teryx

Can you expound on this? The same parent company (Amer Sports) also owns Salomon/Atomic and several other well regarded brands. I wasn't aware that something had changed recently. Are you talking about the Anta Sports buyout? People use these brands for life-critical applications in the backcountry, so this is certainly concerning to hear.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#126

Post by ve55 »

>Clicking on the names of these "brands" takes you to a search result with no additional information on who made these products.

This in particular bugs me quite a bit on Amazon. The link for the 'brand' appears as if you can click it and then see information about who you are buying from, but instead it just performs a search for the word and you often get zero useful results.

Instead I'd like to see basic information about the seller: what items do they sell, how many have they sold, what country are they based in, what is their average review, and so on.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#127

Post by jniedrauer »

14 wrote: post #68
Pxtl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately Amazon's UI is actually pretty hostile to this, too. I was trying to buy simple USB cables... After a pair of tablets were destroyed by a bad USB cable, I'm picky about usb micro cables. So I tried to search on Amazon for usb a to micro cables... And the brand filter didn't list many of the brands I was seeing in the resultset. Like, I know you have Monoprice and Belkin cables, I'm looking right at them…

This comment caught my attention are bad cables really destroying your tablets? I ask because I literally power all my phones and tablets with cords I bought at the dollar store. Never had any problems. Have I just been lucky?

I used an off-brand USB cable for my Garmin watch once, and it wouldn't power on for a week afterwords. I have no idea what strange software/hardware fault could explain that, but it spontaneously recovered after a week of being dead. I'm not willing to risk using off-brand cables since then.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#128

Post by SoSoRoCoCo »

Here's one solution: don't buy cheap garbage.

Yes, someone makes a $23 drone. It is cheap plastic shit from China. Do you really need to buy it, and then throw it in landfill a week (or two days) later after it breaks?

Did OP reeeeeally expect a $23 drone to be on the up-and-up and NOT end up as landfill? OP is a bit oblivious to his impact on the environment.

This race to the bottom for the cheapest crap is what inspires these tactics.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#129

Post by SilasX »

bombcar wrote: post #32
TravisLS wrote: post #18

There's a somewhat pervasive idea that advertising and brand recognition are coercive tools that will ultimately die out, replaced by better objective information about products. I'm kind of partial to this idea myself. But increasingly we seem a long way from achieving this. Amazon reviews have become such garbage, I've fallen back to pretty much relying on name brands as my placeholder for product quality. There's…

Amusingly enough if you trace the history of brand names ... this is why they started! And this is the strength that the major retailers have against Amazon - if Amazon won't police (and they have problems with commingling counterfeit brands, too) then Walmart and Target will jump ahead.

Semi-related: there's that 4000 year old clay tablet recording a customer service complaint, so ... old problem, reliably signaling product quality.

https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-writings/4...

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#130

Post by coldpie »

CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #111
TravisLS wrote: post #18

There's a somewhat pervasive idea that advertising and brand recognition are coercive tools that will ultimately die out, replaced by better objective information about products. I'm kind of partial to this idea myself. But increasingly we seem a long way from achieving this. Amazon reviews have become such garbage, I've fallen back to pretty much relying on name brands as my placeholder for product quality. There's…

I know my comment will be lost in a sea of voices, but I need to share my experience _somewhere_ else other than amazon reviews. I got my fiancé two Christmas presents this year - both bought off Amazon. One was an electronic keyboard that was dead on arrival, the other was a snuggie type blanket that started falling apart yesterday. Both items had thousands of 5 star reviews. I usually go somewhere (anywhere) else b…

I've completely stopped ordering from Amazon, for three reasons: they have too much market power, they have serious ethics problems, and their 3rd party seller program has made the buying experience garbage. Welcome to the club.
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