41–50 of 51 posts
Not sure why this is a problem. They could ONLY sell Amazon-branded items on their website if they really wanted to. It's their store.
Moreover, this is common practice for any offline retailers since retailing started.
This would apply better if retailers hid competing items on the back of shelves or in locations that can only be unlocked by 3rd parties (eg: using Google search to find product Amazon won't show you).
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100% agree. I used to avoid walmart or lowes for things that fit into the category of "I need something to do x, but don't have the time to research it properly" and instead use amazon as I would generally end up with a better product in the end. These days it's the opposite. Fakes, clones, and outright scams have taken over. For the products I do have intimate knowledge of (e.g. hand tools or cables) amazon routinel…
> amazon routinely buries the quality products and presents crap. Not just crap, crap w/ 4.5 star ratings - that when you check find it's 1 star after 1 star after 1 star.
I am sure Amazon executives don't care, because most consumers are price-motivated, not quality motivated, but I basically only buy things online directly from the manufacturer now or an authorized brick and mortar retailer I can call on the phone and get confirmation of the product before receiving it. Amazon is just full of garbage, mostly "brands" that are all the same Chinese junk off Alibaba, and if it is a major brand, it ends up often being counterfeit. Completely untrustworthy, and it makes me sad, because historically as a consumer I liked the experience of buying on Amazon.
What's more shocking is unprompted, my parents and siblings are also now avoiding Amazon. In many cases they've been buying through Walmart with in-store pickup, because that fits into their day-to-day life and has a much higher quality bar. Yes, Walmart quality is higher than Amazon quality in basically every product category.
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>What Amazon does is the equivalent of putting their products up front and the alternatives (even those that are better rated) in a back room. Is amazon burying results on the second or third page of the results or something? If it's one row down on the results page, it's closer to being one shelf down (which stores are known to do[1]), than "in a back room". [1] https://traxretail.com/blog/eye-level-buy-level-import…
When I go to the grocery store, for example, the items are side by side on the same shelf. GIF peanut butter is next to the store brand at the same eye level. When I look for something on Amazon the higher rated item is often below the fold. Being below the fold makes a huge difference to buyers. Sometimes I see it on the second page. These are two very different ways of displaying things.
That depends heavily on the type of product being sold. For small/low volume items, they'll be side by side as you mentioned, but for big/high volume items, they're definitely going to be placed on different levels. Overall, this behavior isn't because stores are fair or anything, but that they're subject to space constraints. Where space constraint isn't an issue (ie. for big/high volume items), brick and mortar retailers also engage in discrimination to make certain products more visible.
I'm skeptical that placing products "below the fold" is any worse than what brick and mortar retailers engage in. Isn't "the fold" just a row that's slightly higher than the organic results? I'm not sure how having to scroll a few more inches is any way comparable to having to go to the backroom.
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If I was to choose between Amazon and somewhat equal third party brand, I would pick Amazon brand every time. Reviews are manipulated all the time. When I buy amazon brand, I know that product has honest reviews and a seller that backs the quality guarantee. This is not a lie, that's the fact.
> When I buy amazon brand, I know that product has honest reviews and a seller that backs the quality guarantee. This is not a lie, that's the fact. I accept as fact that you believe it. As recently as yesterday, I found Amazon items w/ 4.5 * rating and topped with 1 * reviews. I find insufficient reason to trust anything on Amazon by default.
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When I go to the grocery store, for example, the items are side by side on the same shelf. GIF peanut butter is next to the store brand at the same eye level. When I look for something on Amazon the higher rated item is often below the fold. Being below the fold makes a huge difference to buyers. Sometimes I see it on the second page. These are two very different ways of displaying things.
> When I go to the grocery store, for example, the items are side by side on the same shelf. GIF peanut butter is next to the store brand at the same eye level. That depends heavily on the type of product being sold. For small/low volume items, they'll be side by side as you mentioned, but for big/high volume items, they're definitely going to be placed on different levels. Overall, this behavior isn't because stores…
With the fold on a web page you have to scroll and keep scrolling for something to come into the visible space. For shelves you can look at a wall and see, even if not at the focal point, other items.
In my personal experience, it's much easier to spot and look at the alternatives on store shelves than it is to navigate sites and look for comparable things.
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> When I buy amazon brand, I know that product has honest reviews and a seller that backs the quality guarantee. This is not a lie, that's the fact. I accept as fact that you believe it. As recently as yesterday, I found Amazon items w/ 4.5 * rating and topped with 1 * reviews. I find insufficient reason to trust anything on Amazon by default.
By default I trust that amazon product selling on amazon website is very unlikely to be fake, which I can not trust about third-party product selling on amazon site.
Authentic broken stuff doesn't bring a lot of comfort - and it's harder to avoid crap when 4.5 * review totals are actually dominated by 1 * reviews.
I get anxiety shopping on amazon now. I just can't deal with 50 pages of options, all from "different" brands, selling the same mass produced chineese shit. Will not be renewing prime. There is a real opportunity for focused web stores out there. Selling only 1 type of product, filtering out crap, having good search, etc...
Ironically this was a key differentiator that worked in favour of Amazon against EBay all those years ago.
Amazon went against the tide and introduced "Single Detail Page". An SKU was supposed to get exactly one page no matter how many sellers were selling them. That way customers would be assured of buying the right product they searched for.
As a customer, it's sad to see that principle being obliterated. Their catalog has become a cesspool of all sorts of knockoffs and fraudulent sellers.
So now we are back to square one hoping someone would do to Amazon what Amazon did to Ebay.
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By default I trust that amazon product selling on amazon website is very unlikely to be fake, which I can not trust about third-party product selling on amazon site.
I think the primary concern with goods from Amazon is quality. We're far, far, far more likely to buy stuff that breaks prematurely than wind up with some sort of counterfeit. Authentic broken stuff doesn't bring a lot of comfort - and it's harder to avoid crap when 4.5 * review totals are actually dominated by 1 * reviews.
Then, if it is Amazon branded and it's crap, you buy one and then you know to not buy this anymore. When you go over reviews, you can trust that these are genuine, not a bunch of paid shills pumping up +++++. You can make informed decision much more reliably. That's not the case with third-party products
And finally: if I was a store owner and allowed other people's goods to be sold, I too would put my own goods onto a much more attractive shelf. That is not a lie. When customer buys something and it's broken, he'll come after me. That's a hassle. When these are my goods, and I know where these goods came from, I would definitely want to promote them over third-party items. Maybe these items are as good as mine, maybe not - I don't know. Yes, I'd still sell them since they bring me extra profit, but since I'm on the hook for their quality and I have no control over their quality, that's much less attractive sale for me.
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This is a different investigation using scrapped data not internal documents?
Agreed. Can we axe the Dupe tag? The Reuters article and this one are two separate investigations, examining different sources. @dang (does this work? how does one summon dang?)