Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 234 posts

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#41

Post by wlesieutre »

mcronce wrote: post #31
kbos87 wrote: post #8

The marketplace-ization (is there a word for that?) of every retailer feels so short sighted. I’ll throw out an example I’ve noticed lately - furniture manufacturers. Search for any item on Crate & Barrel or West Elm’s website and you’ll first see a handful of exclusive pieces that are clearly built for the brand. Keep scrolling and the search results gradually become a bunch of generic third party items that you can…

> I get it, Crate & Barrel sees this as an opportunity to monetize their brand without having to do all that much. Unfortunately it leaves me with a lot less trust for a brand that used to represent a quality and reputation. It's essentially converting reputation to cash

Product brands have been doing it for ages, retailers are realizing they can do it too

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#42

Post by hedora »

According to Duck Duck Go, Amazon was selling a similar drive for $36.15 until recently. Sadly, the link is a 404 now:

https://www.amazon.com/Portable-External-high-Speed-Interfac...

> SSD Mobile Solid State Drive Mini Portable External Hard Drive high-Speed USB3.1 Type-C Interface Notebook PC Expansion Upgrade Hard Drive (Color : Red, Size : 30TB) Brand: Generic. $36.15 $ 36. 15. Coupon: Save an extra 10% when you apply this coupon. Terms. Capacity: 30TB . 1GB. 500GB. 1TB. 2TB. 4TB. 6TB. 8TB. 10TB. 12TB. 14TB. 16TB.

Even with the 10% off coupon, it was more than Walmart was charging. Gotta give Walmart credit where credit is due!

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#43

Post by jghn »

Someone1234 wrote: post #6
jonnycomputer wrote: post #3

There was a time that I turned to buying from walmart.com as alternative to amazon, precisely because it wasn't taking the 3rd-party seller approach; but then they decided they had to imitate Amazon. Well, no thanks.

I agree. One positive remains though: If you buy from Walmart you get it from Walmart and their supply chain. With Amazon because they "mingle" inventory from third parties, you can order shipped & sold by Amazon.com and still get a counterfeit product, because a third party slipped it in. And, yes, that has happened to me personally by the way.

It has happened to me a few times that I order from Walmart, see a shipment notification, that shipment "arrives" but definitely did not. However that day or the next I receive an Amazon package which I did not order containing my product.

So no, ordering from Walmart does not guarantee anything is going through their supply chain.

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#44

Post by heartbreak »

samwillis wrote: post #25
kbos87 wrote: post #8

The marketplace-ization (is there a word for that?) of every retailer feels so short sighted. I’ll throw out an example I’ve noticed lately - furniture manufacturers. Search for any item on Crate & Barrel or West Elm’s website and you’ll first see a handful of exclusive pieces that are clearly built for the brand. Keep scrolling and the search results gradually become a bunch of generic third party items that you can…

What I find particularly annoying is that these online “marketplaces” are not curated - they literally sell anything, probably drop shipped. It used to be that you would shop at a branded store, and there was a level of expectation that they had curated their collection so that it was of a quality that matched the stores brand. Some of their wares may be under their own branding, but they would sell other bands too t…

There is one notable exception. The third-party products sold on Apple’s online store are all vetted by Apple.

Apple, of course, are masters at guarding their reputation.

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#46

Post by paxys »

Walmart is a retailer. Do people really think they (or Amazon, or anyone else) test every single one of the hundreds of millions of products sold on their site?

If people choose to trust a hard drive made by "XGeek", well, that's on them. This is exactly why branding is a thing. Just stick to Seagate or WD next time.

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#47

Post by solveit »

nerdponx wrote: post #37
mcronce wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get it, Crate & Barrel sees this as an opportunity to monetize their brand without having to do all that much. Unfortunately it leaves me with a lot less trust for a brand that used to represent a quality and reputation. It's essentially converting reputation to cash

Is this the "It's my money, and I need it now" / "It's your money, use it when you need it!" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdPM6j1Q4sg ) of execs trying to cash out and bail before things go to shit? My question is, why is this happening now and why didn't it happen before? Is it because Amazon is simultaneously wildly popular and a total trash fire, so customers are becoming gradually inured to their bullshit an…

Many of these are no longer viable businesses, so they do what any nonviable business does and gradually shut down, liquidating all their assets in the process which in this case happens to include the reputation they've built up when they used to be a viable business?

So the answer to "why now?" would be, because they only recently began failing thanks to Amazon/COVID/insert your favourite recent civillisational change.

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#49

Post by shaftway »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #35
kbos87 wrote: post #8

The marketplace-ization (is there a word for that?) of every retailer feels so short sighted. I’ll throw out an example I’ve noticed lately - furniture manufacturers. Search for any item on Crate & Barrel or West Elm’s website and you’ll first see a handful of exclusive pieces that are clearly built for the brand. Keep scrolling and the search results gradually become a bunch of generic third party items that you can…

I think it is SEO driving this. They want to surface product pages for as much stuff as possible so they contract with some third party to also be a reseller of such goods because it probably requires little overhead. And if it brings traffic then they can try to push their own "sponsored" products. I think it dilutes a brand. I don't know that Walmart has any worthwhile reputation as a brand though (at least in my e…

It has some reputation as a brand. If I buy something from Walmart I generally don't expect it to be a quality product. It will fall apart very quickly and it'll probably have some unexpected issue with it. But I do expect that it won't be an *outright* scam.

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#50

Post by buscoquadnary »

You know it seems to me that we are going to eventually end up reinventing the idea of a brand.

As these massive online marketplaces continue to allow third party sellers their reputation will continue to suffer, people will be less and less likely to get what they ordered, and eventually look for a way to identify good products. Eventually some sellers and marketplaces will end up being identified as only having good quality products and people will start to buy from them.

Honestly a lot of the discussion around Amazon seems a lot like the arguments and discussions I heard around Wal-Mart in the early 20's like almost all the arguments are the exact same to a large degree, right down to the discussions of labor issues and the effect of their monopoly on smaller retailers.

It seems eventually Amazon, Wal-Mart and online marketplaces that allow third party sellers will end up like the Aldi's, Dollar Tree, Wal-Mart, type stores, with a cheaper price and expected quality, and people will know there are other online marketplaces to go to when they need quality or something that lasts.

Post reply on HN