Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW • Hacker News Board

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#221

Post by helaoban » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 9:54 PM UTC

tylerrobinson wrote: post #164

alangibson wrote: post #112

I wonder if theres a business idea in here. Set up a site that looks better than Amazon (not hard) and only list reputable listings on Amazon. Collect affiliate revenue. Basically just filter out the crap and profit

Right? I had the same idea when I read this. If you're serious about it, reach out to my email in profile. I tried you at your @landshark.io email but it bounced back to me.

I've also mulled different iterations of this idea, specifically with some kind of "on-the-ground" verification of sellers / quality. I lived and worked in China for 8 years, with a small spell of that time in manufacturing QC. I know the country well and speak fluently. Feel free to reach out, email in profile, and GP is also welcome to get in touch if you read this!

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#222

Post by namdnay » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 9:54 PM UTC

rich_sasha wrote: post #172

Amazon carved a good niche for themselves by pretending you're not buying from them but rather some "vendor". That's not right IMHO. The seller is Amazon; where they source their stuff and what subcontractors they have is their business. It's like EBay takes more responsibility for products you buy, even though that is explicitly a site for matching random buyers and random sellers. Not that i use ebay much either.

It that were the case, Amazon would be setting the prices, not the contractors

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#223

Post by pbourke » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 9:55 PM UTC

throwway1490 wrote: post #128

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…

The New York Times doesn't answer if this is beneficial for consumers, which is obviously the thing smart people want to know. Like why does Amazon put up with this? Even if zero people bought these weird brand products, their existence causes prices to go down, because prices are at the margin, and that's why it pisses off our Tweeter. Because he has to sell for less profit.

My n=1 observation is that these bogus listings cause me to either find a well-known brand and/or go somewhere else that has more trustworthy listings.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#224

Post by josephh » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 9:56 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #159

> want to get in touch with DOTTAVR? > well, they're on Amazon... surely they are a legit company and Amazon is covering their bases... good luck! >> Business Address: >> longhuaqulonghuajiadaojinglongshequLONGHUANYILU jiruizongheyuanWULONGDASHA Bdong502 >> Shenzhenshi >> Guangdongsheng >> 518110 >> CN This is the second time I've seen someone complain about "obviously" illegitimate business information that appears…

Yeah, if that's the first thing that comes to their mind, then they need to look themselves in the mirror real hard and wonder whether they're the ones perpetuating xenophobia.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#225

Post by namdnay » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 9:57 PM UTC

yegle wrote: post #48

Amazon employees have a "perk" of a 10% off multi-use coupon, up to $1000. It applies to anything whose seller is Amazon (sold by amazon.com). In the last few years it's been extremely difficult to make full use of the "perk", simply because there aren't a lot of things that are sold by amazon.com anymore.

Maybe it’s different in each country? I’ve used Amazon in the UK and several European countries, and you can get tons of major brands sold by Amazon (Apple, Dell, Samsung, Gardena, Bosch etc)

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#226

Post by derefr » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 9:57 PM UTC

travem wrote: post #217

derefr wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's not just the big things that are the same; it's the little points of style that a "marketplace of ideas" wouldn't think to share or copy. You'd expect, if you allowed someone to study your notes before a test, that they'd possibly end up using similar turns-of-phrase to yours on the test. You wouldn't expect that they'd end up learning to perfectly duplicate your handwriting. It'd both be too hard, and n…

> You'd expect, if you allowed someone to study your notes before a test, that they'd possibly end up using similar turns-of-phrase to yours on the test. You wouldn't expect that they'd end up learning to perfectly duplicate your handwriting. Consider a foreign seller who perhaps doesn't have a great grasp of the English language or the cultural context of the US. When you add your own spin to someone else's idea you…

What I'm saying is that it would take an immense amount of effort, looking at literally tens of thousands of Amazon listings, to even realize that "this is what everyone else is doing." I noticed these patterns because I personally went through the top 100 items in every leaf-node category of the Amazon store a few months back (because I treat "finding obscure solutions to problems I didn't know I had" as a hobby.) No new Amazon seller is going to do that; and so no new Amazon seller is going to notice every detail of the pattern.

Or, to put that another way: if this were a "marketplace of ideas", there'd be a certain amount of mutation, of copying error, to be expected, from individual sellers not noticing all of the stylistic quirks other sellers use; and instead substituting something random.

But instead, what you see is perfect copying of style, with no mutation or variation, among what are ostensibly thousands of distinct sellers/brands. That's implausible.

(Also, for a bit of a knock-down argument I maybe should have pulled out sooner: when there's an update to the "optimal style" used by these brands? They all change. All at once. Thousands of different brands got rid of the 【】 — replacing it with [] — on the same day, some time last year. Real independent sellers, even if they notice tiny changes in popular style like that, can't react that fast, and don't have time to be constantly updating all their product listings. But a SaaS sales platform with a post-maintenance bot sure does!)

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#227

Post by woevdbz » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 9:59 PM UTC

0xfeba wrote: post #184

samstave wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Amazon itself does that with "Amazon's Choice" brand or whatever. They use the stats of top selling items, clone it for cheap, and take all the sales. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-i...

After a couple really bad experiences with product quality (think clothing items that don't last after a couple washes) I no longer buy Amazon branded items. It's going to play against them over time if they keep messing up on quality.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#228

Post by B1FF_PSUVM » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 9:59 PM UTC

MerelyMortal wrote: post #155

samstave wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I'm not sure what the family's religion has to do with anything, but I was curious about the spelling and put it in my search bar and it's spelled, 'Hasidic'.

> what the family's religion has to do with anything,

Back in the 1980s, NYC shops noticeably run by Hasidic jewish folk were famous for having the best deals in cameras and hifi.

It was not just local, there was a good amount of mail order business, and a large advertising footprint. I think it faded out in internet e-commerce boom, but for older shoppers the association may be relevant.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#229

Post by alibarber » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:00 PM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #196

The long twitter message list doesn't contain an actual answer to the question. Just a rant everyone likes to agree with and would like to see solved and that's why this is on the top 3 front page, no actual interesting content (stay for the discussion, though, but save some time reading the OP).

I thought the takeaway was ‘any suitable dictionary word would likely have been taken, or make as much sense as random nonsense anyway, and they’re creating so so many of these pump-and-dump brands hawking junk that it’s easier to just use a literal random character string’

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#230

Post by notahacker » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

ev1 wrote: post #80

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.

This is pretty much it. People always say it's random mess or fake, but "youxian gongsi" is literally "limited company" and based on Shenzhen. I do a lot of hardware ordering and speak none of the language and picked this up over time. Chinese company names are generally [location] [selected name] [what they do], like Baidu is Beijing + Baidu + Netcom Science Technology. The transliteration in the tweet: "shenzhenshi…

Same goes for brand names that are completely unpronounceable in English and the fondness for ALLCAPS. Of course people accustomed to a completely unrelated language and writing system are likely to come up with transliterated or synthetic brandnames or acronyms that seem bizarre to English speakers. Buyers make one-time-only purchases based on search result order, price and star ratings, so localising brandname to the market is well down the list of priorities below keyword stuffing and trimming the Alibaba images. Names which look as bizarre in ASCII as Huawei and Xiaomi have actually succeeded in becoming brands in the West anyway.

(Your comment should probably be the top comment for the thread)