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Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#61

Post by aidenn0 »

nequo wrote: post #39
d23 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can be relatively sure I'm not getting ripped off by more than +/- 25% I think this is the only thing keeping them afloat. How are you so sure you’re not getting ripped off? Did you know counterfeits can be sold under the “sold by anazon.com” branding because of co-mingling? I used to have the same view as you until I started getting shoddy products consistently from brands that were otherwise high quality if I p…

> Did you know counterfeits can be sold under the “sold by anazon.com” branding because of co-mingling? I have also had a bad experience with "Sold by Amazon.com" so I'm not questioning the veracity of what you are saying. But how does this work? How can someone get a counterfeit product under this umbrella?

My understanding is, if I sell an item with a SKU[1] 123456, and use "fulfillment by Amazon" it goes in an Amazon warehouse in a bucket with all the other items of the same SKU using Amazon's shipping. Then my inventory becomes just a number in a database.

People selling DVDs on Amazon were complaining about bad reviews because someone bought from them, but got a counterfeit sold by someone else.

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_keeping_unit

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#62

Post by CPLX »

verdverm wrote: post #28
aslilac wrote: post #2

Amazon is unusable at this point, and I don’t get how they have so many customers. Free and fast shipping is no longer exclusive to them, and there are others out there with far nicer websites and no shitty ad listings.

tbh, just used Newegg this week... 2 day shipping costs more, they didn't even get it here in 2 days, they split my order into 8 orders, each tracked and emailed separately. I've been boycotting Amazon almost 5 years, but their competition really sucks to the point I'm thinking of going back. At least I've been able to avoid a lot of frivolous purchases for a while...

Newegg has cloned the Amazon strategy. They also do marketplace stuff. It’s really just another example of the same thing.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#63

Post by nottorp »

That's funny. I was scrolling down and after a while the article got covered by a popup ad with something about black friday! subscribe now!

And back to Amazon, i just don't search for generic products name on there. I just go to check if they have a specific product.

Same for the iOS app store etc. You just can't trust them.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#64

Post by mk89 »

Search engines have overall become terrible due to ads. Amazon is finally a search engine with the extra step of selling a material good.

I have to admit that it has become difficult also for me to find a simple item without too much bias on Amazon. Last search I did a few days ago was for some beard balms and things like that. Finally, for some items I bought a known "safe" brand, while for other things I couldn't decide on I chose a local shop nearby. Yes, this exclusively because of the issue described in the article.

So it seems: if you don't know ahead what to buy, Amazon is not a good place to search for things. On the other hand, it's convenient for subscriptions to items you know you want and need (pampers, toilet paper, etc.)

...and don't get me started on "let's search for products made in XYZ" to narrow down the search. It's just impossible.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#65

Post by ilyt »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #49
UltraViolence wrote: post #35

The article speaks of a tipping point and has aided in pulling it forward. Unlimited greed is what eventually sinks a company. We saw it with AltaVista in the '90's (when the search results were all ads) and Google is slowly repeating this opening a space for a competitor to jump into.

> Unlimited greed is what eventually sinks a company. We saw it with AltaVista in the '90's (when the search results were all ads) and Google is slowly repeating this opening a space for a competitor to jump into. I'm not sure this is a helpful characterization. Greed is also what helped the same companies get where they were before they went to shit. The problem is that you can only grow so far in a market before th…

Well, the difference would be "we find a niche and make a bank on it by being best at it" vs "we make a ton of money on the niche, how we can make even more?". I.e. being happy that you "made it" and continue to make the as good product vs trying to squeeze everything out of it to deliver investor returns.

Theoretically being too greedy like that should open niche for competition with better product that's less exploitative but that is really hard if the near-monopolist on market is big enough or the product is hard enough.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#66

Post by Cloudef »

moolcool wrote: post #42

It runs deeper than just everything being an ad. It's also completely flooded with rebadged junk from dropshippers. A few weeks ago, I was looking for a new whetstone, and this is what I got when I searched Amazon https://i.imgur.com/1Utp2dF.png The results keep going like that. You see constant repetition of the exact same units with slightly different branding, often with the same stock photography, repeated for pa…

There's lots of these scams where they sell some non-branded goods with lots of reviews (with videos) from paid SNS influencers. Sometimes they may sell something completely else but change the listing completely (becomes obvious from the reviews again). When you see a lot of similar listing for the same product or from same store, it's giant red flag to not buy it.

Sometimes these goods may be good, but often or not they are low quality, have obvious defects or break down after few weeks / months of use.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#67

Post by ilyt »

groestl wrote: post #36
d23 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can be relatively sure I'm not getting ripped off by more than +/- 25% I think this is the only thing keeping them afloat. How are you so sure you’re not getting ripped off? Did you know counterfeits can be sold under the “sold by anazon.com” branding because of co-mingling? I used to have the same view as you until I started getting shoddy products consistently from brands that were otherwise high quality if I p…

> How are you so sure you’re not getting ripped off? If you do not _feel_ you've been ripped off, does it matter?

Yes, as it is preying on the clueless

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#68

Post by dna_polymerase »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #57
moolcool wrote: post #42

It runs deeper than just everything being an ad. It's also completely flooded with rebadged junk from dropshippers. A few weeks ago, I was looking for a new whetstone, and this is what I got when I searched Amazon https://i.imgur.com/1Utp2dF.png The results keep going like that. You see constant repetition of the exact same units with slightly different branding, often with the same stock photography, repeated for pa…

That King whetstone is good, I have it and use it.

I trust this comment more than 100% of Amazon reviews. Go figure.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#69

Post by simonsarris »

moolcool wrote: post #42

It runs deeper than just everything being an ad. It's also completely flooded with rebadged junk from dropshippers. A few weeks ago, I was looking for a new whetstone, and this is what I got when I searched Amazon https://i.imgur.com/1Utp2dF.png The results keep going like that. You see constant repetition of the exact same units with slightly different branding, often with the same stock photography, repeated for pa…

Highly recommend Shapton stones and buying them from Lee Valley

https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/tools/shapton-sharpening-sto...

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