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

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

#71

Post by cogman10 »

hotpotamus wrote: post #60
samwillis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yep, I relatively recently learned about Aliexpress and it seems like most American retailers are just a local cache for them. But if I can order sketchy Chinese knick-knacks directly and skip the markup at the cost of a bit more waiting time, I'd just as soon do that. I've also found the Chinese customer service speaks English just fine and have been great whenever I've had to deal with them.

It's gotten really bad, particularly on amazon.

Search for anything and you are likely to find the same item with 50 different brand names but all essentially the same garbage from aliexpress/wish.

For example, here's a search for "bike trainer" [1]

[1] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bike+trainer&crid=KCCRWTVZHHQ7&sp...

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

#72

Post by lotsofpulp »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #69
lotsofpulp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a baseline expecting of quality, because Walmart would not be expected to buy from counterfeiters. For example, if I buy 3 mule team borax from Walmart, I expect it to come via official sources. If I buy 3 mule team borax from a Walmart reseller, I have no idea where it is sourced from or how much those entities care about reputation. It could be from 3 mule team, it could be counterfeit.

Branded borax ? It's a mineral, coming out of the same mines no matter what brand you buy.

I do not have the equipment or expertise required to confirm it. So I rely on a combination of a reputable businesses who would care to verify it is whatever percent and quality borax it should be because they (presumably) have something to lose if it comes out that it is not.

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

#73

Post by inasio »

hotpotamus wrote: post #60
samwillis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yep, I relatively recently learned about Aliexpress and it seems like most American retailers are just a local cache for them. But if I can order sketchy Chinese knick-knacks directly and skip the markup at the cost of a bit more waiting time, I'd just as soon do that. I've also found the Chinese customer service speaks English just fine and have been great whenever I've had to deal with them.

There's a story in the news this week about an undercover Russian spy that had a jewelry shop/brand in Italy [0], one funny detail about the story is that the jewelry was actually sourced from Aliexpress

[0] https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1563060250269589505

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

#74

Post by hbn »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #19
pupppet wrote: post #12

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the meeting when reputable businesses decided it was in their best interests to sell random garbage they couldn't vouch for.

Probably something like this: Amazon is earning a huge profit margin with no liability by letting random entities sell using their website. Do we want to earn more money too? Yes.

"What if it hurts our reputation? Customers might flock to a competitor!"

"Competitor?"

entire board room bursts into laughter

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

#75

Post by cogman10 »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #69
lotsofpulp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a baseline expecting of quality, because Walmart would not be expected to buy from counterfeiters. For example, if I buy 3 mule team borax from Walmart, I expect it to come via official sources. If I buy 3 mule team borax from a Walmart reseller, I have no idea where it is sourced from or how much those entities care about reputation. It could be from 3 mule team, it could be counterfeit.

Branded borax ? It's a mineral, coming out of the same mines no matter what brand you buy.

You'd think. But really the issue is that you can't trust that you are actually getting borax and not something completely different (and cheaper).

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

#76

Post by lotsofpulp »

hbn wrote: post #74
lotsofpulp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably something like this: Amazon is earning a huge profit margin with no liability by letting random entities sell using their website. Do we want to earn more money too? Yes.

"What if it hurts our reputation? Customers might flock to a competitor!" "Competitor?" entire board room bursts into laughter

I did stop using Amazon years ago except as an Aliexpress alternative after I found out about commingling. I moved my business to Best Buy/Costco/Target/Walmart/Home Depot/Staples/etc.

But the reason Amazon probably does not care about that because they have much better profit margin opportunities (AWS, Prime Video and Music, warehouse infrastructure as a service and delivery as a service).

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

#78

Post by MarkusWandel »

hotpotamus wrote: post #60
samwillis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yep, I relatively recently learned about Aliexpress and it seems like most American retailers are just a local cache for them. But if I can order sketchy Chinese knick-knacks directly and skip the markup at the cost of a bit more waiting time, I'd just as soon do that. I've also found the Chinese customer service speaks English just fine and have been great whenever I've had to deal with them.

A facebook friend posted a picture of a bangle that she'd bought off an e-commerce site in the neighbourhood of $20 that was disappointing. I simply did a google image search on the picture (the e-commerce site's listing) and sure enough, it hit on Ali Express for something in the neighbourhood of $1.80, free shipping.

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

#79

Post by SoftTalker »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #18
SoftTalker wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just what I was about to say. Guess I'll cross Walmart.com off my online retailer list. Sorry Walmart, if you let your brand get polluted with 3rd parties selling garbage you will quickly start to lose whatever brand loyalty you have. I never expected top end merchandise from Walmart. They are a discount retailer and that's fine. But I do expect to get genuine merchandise that is as advertised, not counterfeit or fra…

They have hosted third party sellers for... at least 3-5 years. If you didnt know this already you wernt a customer. They lost 0 in revenue from when they opened their site up to third party sellers and gained lots of revenue from those third party sellers. I dont like third party sellers either but obviously it makes financial sense for these companies to do this.

I did know they had 3rd parties but thought they were somewhat better vetted than Amazon.

And regardless, I'm on walmart.com so it reflects on them when some third party seller sends me shit.

It is true that I am not a frequent shopper there.

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

#80

Post by Rapzid »

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…

Are sold by "Amazon", "Walmart", "NewEgg" not curated? Amazon also has multiple curated store fronts, or collections, to my knowledge.

In 2022 if you aren't buying "Sold by " on one of these market places then I think you should know what you are getting into.

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