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Amazon seller reveals glimpse of shadow bribery market

latimes.com

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Re: Amazon seller reveals glimpse of shadow bribery market

#11

Post by cmiles8 »

Loughla wrote: post #8
macintux wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do my best to find a local or online shop that actually knows & understands what they sell. Getting harder, but for more expensive items definitely achievable.

I have yet to find something on Amazon that I couldn't find at a local shop for within 5% of the Amazon price. I live in a very rural area, so I have to imagine that it's easier if you live near a city. Or maybe my sample size of 1 person isn't enough.

A lot of things are actually LESS expensive in stores. All that speedy delivery adds a lot to costs that are baked in. Sometimes things on Amazon are 50+% more. You have to know your prices to know what’s a good deal vs what’s a total ripoff.

IE folks will take a 4 pack of something that sells for $20 and sell each bottle individually for $10 each.

Re: Amazon seller reveals glimpse of shadow bribery market

#16

Post by nomel »

tenpoundhammer wrote: post #13

"This item will arrive tomorrow at 9 AM" -> Pay -> "Sorry this item can't be delivered by tomorrow will be delivered 2 days later" -> Next day -> "This item will be delivered 3 weeks from now"

I think Amazon is catching on. I had this happen last week, and after the 2 days late, Amazon sent an automated apology with the option to cancel if it didn't show up after the third day.

Re: Amazon seller reveals glimpse of shadow bribery market

#18

Post by jonhohle »

smallerfish wrote: post #14
gertrunde wrote: post #10

I tend to find ebay less shady than Amazon these days, which is a bit disapointing really.

AliExpress is less shady. If only they had customer service and a decent UI.

I recently dealt with a merchant in Aliexpress who was intentionally selling things well below market price, not to build their storefront reputation, but to collect sales and then ask the customer to cancel. I forced them to cancel the order, which harms their rep.

Literally every unmanaged, user content controlled platform devolves into the basest scams, thuggery, and unpleasantness. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Re: Amazon seller reveals glimpse of shadow bribery market

#19

Post by jonhohle »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #15
showerst wrote: post #4

Amazon, Walmart, Etsy... my kingdom for a marketplace that doesn't become just a dumping ground for shady fly-by-night dropshippers.

Don't allow 3rd party sellers?

But then how could you skim off the top of other people’s work?

Re: Amazon seller reveals glimpse of shadow bribery market

#20

Post by jonhohle »

cmiles8 wrote: post #2

Still use Amazon for certain items because of fast delivery but the site is a complete mess. At some point Amazon leadership failed to understand that there’s a lot more to a good customer experience than “selection size.” If I search for X I’d vastly prefer a few simple options that aren’t counterfeit or junk vs here’s 150 variants of your thing, most of which are junk but hey look at the size of our selection!

10 years ago I was working on this problem at Amazon. We were developing methods to normalize all the crap listings and methods 3ᴿᴰ party sellers used to get unique listings when consolidating them was known to drive down prices, which was the original goal.

I had some interesting insights (vendors want to be unique, but need to keep products visible in search, so they typically use a common transformation within their own listings to satisfy both properties), but left before implementation rolled out. Based on current search results, either they failed or the project was abandoned.

I’m shocked at how some categories just contain junk from random brands with unpronounceable names. Want a music player by Sony or even RCA? Those brands have left that market completely for B2B products or are a licensed name on top of some garbage. Now you can get a Zaqe, Picxiul, Lwyinp, Globluum, or Swofy!

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