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

Selling Lemons

frankchimero.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 122 posts

Re: Selling Lemons

#21

Post by Workaccount2 »

jstanley wrote: post #6
jp57 wrote: post #4

... [W]hile shopping online for a sleep mask. Brands like MZOO, YFONG, WAOAW popped up, .... The long tail of generic brands on e-commerce platforms is a textbook lemons market: good products get drowned out by these alphabet soup products. I've found the emergence of these anti-brands to be fascinating, if also annoying. They are not really brands at all. The purpose of a brand is to signal something about who made…

The reason this phenomenon exists is because Amazon tried to block generic products from their site by saying the product must feature the seller's brand name. Solution: make millions of brand names and write them on the product. It's slightly more annoying and expensive for everyone involved, but it circumvents Amazon's policy.

There is slightly more nuance than that, the brand had to be trademarked, and the fastest way to get trademark approval is to use an unambiguously bad/random name.

It also means that people have no brand recognition, and junk brands just blend in, or if you have to discharge your brand for some reason, nothing is lost.

Re: Selling Lemons

#22

Post by mwkaufma »

somenameforme wrote: post #18
reactordev wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. I went to school for this very purpose. It led me down a maze of software engineering jobs and eventually prof serv that I'm in now. (Yey?) The ability for anyone to learn Photoshop or learn how to create a website, create a game, create anything, content or otherwise, and sell it on the marketplace for a quick cash grab has never been easier. I think most people set out to try with their best intentions…

Reviews are the filter. They can be gamed, and that's a real issue, but it's combatable. And in any case even if you get the market down to just 'thing with good reviews' and 'thing with good [fake] reviews' that's much more manageable. So for a developer perspective all you need to achieve is that critical mass of early positive reviews, and that's not especially difficult if you have something half decent.

Speaking as an independent gamedev: review-based storefronts (e.g. steam, egs, etc) select for the 1% of hits, but offers no pathway for the midrange -- everyone else gets lumped in with the slop.

Re: Selling Lemons

#23

Post by Gooblebrai »

reactordev wrote: post #9
james_marks wrote: post #2

The rise of graphic design tools and digital printing play an interesting role in this. 20 years ago, existing as a brand required an effort and resources threshold. Even to have a logo took some level of commitment and skill. Minimum production runs on trivial things like the box insert meant there were stakes to bringing a product to market. With those barriers gone, we have more brands than ever, and they mean rel…

Can confirm. I went to school for this very purpose. It led me down a maze of software engineering jobs and eventually prof serv that I'm in now. (Yey?) The ability for anyone to learn Photoshop or learn how to create a website, create a game, create anything, content or otherwise, and sell it on the marketplace for a quick cash grab has never been easier. I think most people set out to try with their best intentions…

Would you say software still has this gate / barrier or is it disappearing? From my experience looking at bootcamp students, grasping programming is still nothing short of a mind switch that some are unable to do (regardless of if they have an LLM to assist, that tends to make it worse)

Re: Selling Lemons

#24

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

Not just The Internet. All of tech, and likely, other industries, as well.

I was told that this was what happened to Etsy.

When it first came out, people with real skills, sold real, handmade goods, at fairly high prices.

Then, the mass-produced knockoffs flooded the site, priced way-lo.

The legit stuff couldn't keep up; in price or in scale.

I see this happening everywhere.

Re: Selling Lemons

#25

Post by rchaud »

james_marks wrote: post #2

The rise of graphic design tools and digital printing play an interesting role in this. 20 years ago, existing as a brand required an effort and resources threshold. Even to have a logo took some level of commitment and skill. Minimum production runs on trivial things like the box insert meant there were stakes to bringing a product to market. With those barriers gone, we have more brands than ever, and they mean rel…

I think you'd have to go back further than 20 years. That's only 2005, and you absolutely could buy generic design assets on CDs, or get a local signage company to do it for cheap back then. If you were cheap enough, you could get a whole website made through an overseas agency for maybe $300.

Re: Selling Lemons

#26

Post by spongebobstoes »

gmueckl wrote: post #15

Who here remembers those old 1000+ pages thick mail-order shopping catalogues? This was a (more or less) carefully curated collection of items because the catalogs could only have a finite number of pages. When Amazon started to accept virtually unvetted product listings from third parties, they opened the floodgates for lemons. It's kind of a real world ACME equivalent now. I'm surprised that I don't make that duped…

what makes you think 1000 pages of catalog 2x per year is carefully curated? my experience is that it was also filled with random junk

I'd rather rely on online reviews. I'm pretty good at buying quality products sight unseen at this point. And with free returns, the risk is even lower.

Re: Selling Lemons

#28

Post by gdulli »

gmueckl wrote: post #15

Who here remembers those old 1000+ pages thick mail-order shopping catalogues? This was a (more or less) carefully curated collection of items because the catalogs could only have a finite number of pages. When Amazon started to accept virtually unvetted product listings from third parties, they opened the floodgates for lemons. It's kind of a real world ACME equivalent now. I'm surprised that I don't make that duped…

> The other part of the story is that a lot of formerly respectable quality brands now sell much poorer quality goods.

I've felt this. A few years ago I bought Eddie Bauer sheets online and they pilled up so badly after one washing that I couldn't use them anymore.

I can see how they'd be willing to ship off cheap crap to Amazon whereas they'd be more protective of what they sell in their stores.

Amazon didn't even let me leave a negative review, some AI model must have decided I'm fraudulent. That would be especially ironic if the reason for my bad experience had been counterfeit products commingled with real ones.

Re: Selling Lemons

#29

Post by trenchpilgrim »

jamestimmins wrote: post #12

I actually have the Mzoo sleep mask he mentioned and I quite like it. Wirecutter recommends it and Reddit seems to agree. Doesn't negate the article, but just clarifying for anyone in the market who thinks it's a lemon.

In one of my niche hobbies I run a product recommendations website based on buying stuff with our own money to separate crap from good stuff.

One of our recommended products is made by a brand called DIWANGUS, which always gets a giggle. But they're good!

Re: Selling Lemons

#30

Post by gitpusher »

spongebobstoes wrote: post #26
gmueckl wrote: post #15

Who here remembers those old 1000+ pages thick mail-order shopping catalogues? This was a (more or less) carefully curated collection of items because the catalogs could only have a finite number of pages. When Amazon started to accept virtually unvetted product listings from third parties, they opened the floodgates for lemons. It's kind of a real world ACME equivalent now. I'm surprised that I don't make that duped…

what makes you think 1000 pages of catalog 2x per year is carefully curated? my experience is that it was also filled with random junk I'd rather rely on online reviews. I'm pretty good at buying quality products sight unseen at this point. And with free returns, the risk is even lower.

The people making those catalogs would've wet their pants with excitement if they could stuff 100x more crap in there. Lol
Post reply on HN