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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

#241

Post by aendruk »

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).

It’s disappointing. I’m all too familiar with the phenomenon of marketplace spam by seemingly nonsense all-caps brand names, and have been curious about the reasoning behind the names. How are they chosen? Is it really nonsense or just a language I don’t know? Are there patterns to it? Plausible influences?

I waded through Twitter’s hostile interface only to be made a fool of by hostile content.

Update: At least the title here has been changed now to remove the trick lede.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#242

Post by oceanplexian »

derefr wrote: post #226
travem wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.) N…

Conspiracy Theory: Maybe the sellers aren’t human but actually an ML model run amok

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#243

Post by jonas21 »

derefr wrote: post #179
thirtyseven wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s hard to believe about several thousand sellers all copying each other’s homework?

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…

Ah, but if you both learned to write from the same person, then you would expect the handwriting to look similar (even if you didn't let them see your notes).

And I think that might be going on here. Take a look at a Chinese-language web site, like http://news.baidu.com

You'll see that it has the "niche" punctuation you mentioned, lots of point form descriptions with emoji bullets, and nearly all the latin script on the page is composed of short strings of all-caps text (many of which are acronyms like "IPO" or "AEX" that would be nonsensical if you didn't already know what they meant).

Some of these stylistic elements are naturally going to bleed over into Amazon listings too.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#244

Post by trasz »

Sebb767 wrote: post #186
samstave wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I KNEW people would ask this ; it was a major aspect of the story for some reason. They kept making reference to how these "ultra orthodox jews in brooklyn" were doing some revolutionary marketing/profiteering on the interenet/amazon specifically and how they were making a fortune doing so... It was _fundamental_ to whomever wrote the piece... So I mentioned it here. Sorry I failed your "anti-semetic triggers" - FFS.

Well, to be fair, if "these scammers are ultra orthodox Jews" was central to the piece "for some reason", the author might've been a tad on the antisemitic side. At least your (in this context overstated and seemingly unnecessary) mention of their religion makes it sound like it.

He specifically mentioned Brooklyn though, so to me that sounds more like starting the story with a general feeling of the place.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#245

Post by the_gipsy »

derefr wrote: post #226
travem wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.) N…

Maybe amazon cracked down on those weird barckets, just for cleanliness sake.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#247

Post by trasz »

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…

I'm eagerly waiting for an option in Safari to translate text automatically, without having to click every time.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#248

Post by htrp »

stuff4ben wrote: post #57

Imagine if Amazon dedicated some human effort and time to curate their catalog and reviews instead of their legion of engineers trying to automate the solution and continually failing. Hire a bunch of college interns every semester and they'd have this problem solved. EDIT: I actually forgot they have this already in Amazon Mechanical Turk!

mturk might be legit worse

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#249

Post by dspillett »

DaveExeter wrote: post #74
geerlingguy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately with 500% of the shipping time (most of the time) :(

Aliexpress is getting better on shipping times! I placed an order June 30, it arrived July 17.

That is likely luck: if your order makes a nice round truck full, and that truck full makes a nice round container full at the next stage, and the container is one of the last loaded onto a ship that is due to leave soon, you'll get the best delivery time. The next order will get the worst or close to.

As some of the recent supply chain issues are easing off things will be feeling better when they are in fact moving back in the direction of what was normal.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#250

Post by intrasight »

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

It would violate their terms-of-service and they'd unplug you in a heartbeat - or after you'd sold a million dollar of stuff, and they'd keep your affiliate cut
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