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Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

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Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#101

Post by kbd »

Happy to see this discussed on HN because I've constantly been stressing about this whenever I shop on Amazon. "All these brands are Chinese with random combinations of characters for a name"

I've looked at laptop cases. Here is a sampling of brand names: Lacdo, Voova, KINGSLONG, NIDOO, tomtoc, MOSISO, INVZI, XMBFZ, Arvok, Kinmac, Londo...

I've bought cases for my ipad and work laptop from Lacdo and one for my upcoming MBA from Voova. They're actually great, but I worry they're made with Uighur slave labor or toxic materials or something.

I'd prefer not to support Amazon, but where else am I supposed to find stuff like this? Do I buy my electronics (eg. Hue lights recently) from Best Buy instead, which has a worse return policy and whose Geek Squad worked with the FBI to violate customers' rights?

Edit: Also, a few days ago I went on a search for a desktop organizer. Here are some brand names: DALTACK, ARCOBIS, DEZZIE, Hossejoy, Greenco, AMERIERGO, SONGMICS, X-cosrack, Marbrasse, Citmage, Samstar, Beiz. It goes on forever.

I checked Walmart and Target too, but wound up buying this one from "Lavatino" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PL59RL6 The product is actually awesome. The compartments are the perfect size to hold my coasters and I organized everything that was loose on my desk with room to spare.

So, it feels great to get something I needed, but the whole process still feels bad somehow.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#102

Post by AlexandrB »

Booktrope wrote: post #35
metalliqaz wrote: post #5

Amazon "... is turning their marketplace into a flea market of total junk." Man if this isn't the dead-on honest truth. Amazon is so garbage now that Walmart.com is a trusted supplier by comparison. I can't believe Amazon gets away with the crap they do. They so obviously turn a blind eye to constant, serious anti-consumer crap from Chinese sellers. Why? And why doesn't the FTC or any other department do anything?

On the other hand, much of what passes for "reputable" brands is just reselling the crap from the same sellers, but with a "trusted" name on it.

See also this blog post on USB-C hubs: https://overengineer.dev/blog/2021/04/25/usb-c-hub-madness.h...

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#103

Post by Nexxxeh »

bee_rider wrote: post #98
tryptophan wrote: post #8

Shopping on amazon is really an awful experience nowdays. I really do not want to search through 40 pages of water kettles of really dubious brands. It is so anxiety inducing and unpleasant.

It is fine for, like, getting an HDMI cable. I would never buy something from Amazon that touched my food. Electronics more complicated than a cable require some review, figuring out if there's a reputable brand underneath, etc.

>It is fine for, like, getting an HDMI cable.

Only true for what are, now, low-end HDMI cables. Really difficult to get a good one that's actually within spec for high-bandwidth applications.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#104

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

themacguffinman wrote: post #31
m463 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think amazon has jumped the shark[1] There is no practical way to buy a reputable/brand name on amazon. Some brand names are "available", but it seems not officially and people are buying them at a store and shipping them to customers. Other brand names are available, but the search results are paid (and manipulated) so they get crowded off the page by sponsored and "5 star (2)" results. and so amazon as a brand is…

You sometimes can't even get the right thing from official brand stores. I bought a thermal paste product from the official Amazon ThermalGrizzly store (I did check) but Amazon delivered me a fake. Amazon co-mingles inventory. The only reason I could quickly tell it was fake is because ThermalGrizzly provides an online serial number verification system, which isn't very common among most products. I'm not sure I'd tr…

You have to evaluate if a product is worth counterfeiting. For many goods the clone factories aren't going to bother. Amazon is also a convenient onshore gateway to Aliexpress resellers with less shipping ambiguity.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#105

Post by protastus »

I no longer have the patience to navigate Amazon's terrible search results and have lost trust in the quality of their inventory.

Nowadays I only order from Amazon if the order is a time critical item that only they can deliver on time for a reasonable price. That's less than 5% of my purchases in dollar amount.

I've been a customer since 1997. Amazon has impressed me with their ability to play the long game, and I don't understand the long term incentives favoring Amazon here.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#106

Post by sofixa »

ant6n wrote: post #49
m463 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think amazon has jumped the shark[1] There is no practical way to buy a reputable/brand name on amazon. Some brand names are "available", but it seems not officially and people are buying them at a store and shipping them to customers. Other brand names are available, but the search results are paid (and manipulated) so they get crowded off the page by sponsored and "5 star (2)" results. and so amazon as a brand is…

The problem I’m having in Germany ist that only Amazon reliable delivers to my door, usually next day. Every other store ships with DHL, which after several days pretends that they ring you, when they don’t, and then u can go pick it up at the DHL store a day later. That’s their moat.

I think most of the complaints are directed at the amazon.com. They do not at all reflect my experience with amazon.fr - yes there's no name crap but there's also lots of legit stuff, and it's the majority that comes up in search results (confirmed through third parties recommending the same legit stuff with amazon links).

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#107

Post by samstave »

callahad wrote: post #20

The New York Times did some decent reporting into the pseudo-brands which comes closer to answering the question in the title: having a registered trademark unlocks a lot of on-platform seller tools (predictive analytics, early review program, etc.), and the easiest path to a trademark is to have an utterly unique, nonsense name. Some Chinese municipalities were also offering cash incentives for citizens who obtained…

There was an amazing radio piece a while back about an outfit in NYC of a guy who had a very lucrative Aamazon copy-cat service: it was run by a family of Hassidic(sp?) Jews in (brooklyn?) -- and what they did was have a bunch of them scour Amazon for top rated items - then have their connections do quick knock-off and sell them. it was a fascinating story... Ill see if I can find it.

They were on the early side of this phenom as it was a few years ago...

But this model is with pretty much everything these days Etsy, Amazon, Alibabba-importers etc...

Consumerism is cancer.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#108

Post by alangibson »

callahad wrote: post #20

The New York Times did some decent reporting into the pseudo-brands which comes closer to answering the question in the title: having a registered trademark unlocks a lot of on-platform seller tools (predictive analytics, early review program, etc.), and the easiest path to a trademark is to have an utterly unique, nonsense name. Some Chinese municipalities were also offering cash incentives for citizens who obtained…

I've listed a few things on Amazon. This is very much true. If you don't have a registered trademark youre a second class citizen. You can't upload a video, for example.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#109

Post by ev1 »

wizofaus wrote: post #84
rahimnathwani wrote: post #42

One of the posts contains a screenshot of a vendor's company name and address. The company name (and words in th address) may look really long and suspicious, but it's just because it's transliterated from Chinese. OP says these are all 'shell companies', but AFAIK it's more onerous and costly to register and maintain a company in China, than in many states in the US.

There was one that conceivably could have been a bad OCR attempt to read Chinese characters using a Latin alphabet which is weird, but some of them do also look like bad/non-standard Romanisation attempts (with an odd lack of spaces etc.). Odd because I'd think technology to accurately generate standard (pinyin) romanisation must be reasonably good by now.

The lack of spaces is somewhat normal if you assume that chinese doesn't use spaces when writing, like a name is just the glyphs combined together in one word, while in English normally there is a space between F+L.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#110

Post by eslaught »

Is it correct to say that when you get something "shipped and sold by Amazon.com", it really comes from them? It's the "fulfilled by Amazon" (the infamous FBA) that you need to watch out for.

It's a bit screwy, but you can filter by seller by clicking into a specific product category, and then selecting Amazon.com in the bar on the left. Then all the items should be "shipped and sold by Amazon.com".

But I've been sort of shocked to find recently that Amazon's prices, even with free shipping, are often not competitive with buying first-party, even with paying the shipping. For a lot of products these days, if there's a recognizable name brand associated with it, I just by first-party. You get it slower, but you know what you're getting, and probably end up giving more money to the seller too.

I would not have seen myself doing this ten years ago.

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