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Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

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Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#261

Post by a3n »

dwoozle wrote: post #31
privateSFacct wrote: post #22

All the ballyhoo about Amazon Transparency and UUID per item. This is a relatively well solved issue in other areas. Make become a seller a bit more difficult with some skin in the game ($2,500 deposit if you sell more than 15 items per year? In person identity verification?). Sellers used to meet with buyers agents (cost money and added identities). Caught selling garbage (product marked new actually used, totaly fa…

The market opportunity is already occupied by Target! Great products, shipped to you or delivered to your car in the parking lot. I’ve shifted at least 50% of my Amazon spend to Target. I won’t buy anything that I eat, that touches my children’s skin, that plugs in, or that has a Li-Ion battery from Amazon.

And they have great connectivity between their HVAC and POS systems!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_chain_attack#Target

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#262

Post by agumonkey »

a3n wrote: post #256
agumonkey wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an accelerated variant of typical business evolution. How many high grade brands are now cashing on their name subtly. Seduction etc

Like a box that remains the same size over the years, but the contents are gradually reduced. I would love to have "that much" Mike and Ike's, but it's never in there.

This is a fitting description of audio devices. What used to fill a box is now a 5mm chipset. The perverse effect is that the chip has 20x more options than the original device, so it looks better, but the quality and longevity may very well be degraded in disguise.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#263

Post by avip »

headmelted wrote: post #197
habosa wrote: post #77

My favorite Amazon scam is the Amazon Ship of Theseus[0]. You sell a product, normally a cheap electronic, and build up a decent corpus of positive reviews. A good example is a USB-C cable or something. Then you decide you want to sell a new product in a more competitive subcategory, like Bluetooth Headphones. You then take the _existing_ listing and change it piece by piece. First the pictures, then the title, then…

I tend to buy from Amazon whenever I can for the pain-free returns. You’re not wrong - the reviews are utter trash and have no credibility at all anymore - so I look elsewhere for reviews on what I’m buying. I mostly avoid the counterfeiting problem by sticking to branded goods that aren’t easy to convincingly fake. Any problems and it goes back for Amazon to deal with.

>branded goods that aren’t easy to convincingly fake

s.a Apple power adapters?

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#264

Post by Glyptodon »

post_break wrote: post #162
Glyptodon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think the hair dryer comparison is fairly apt, but not in the way you describe. Everyone wants their hair dryer to be decent, last a good while, and not cost an arm and a leg. You also really don't want one that will start a fire, sound louder than a jet engine, take forever to heat up, etc. When you have a lousy one it's miserable. So you want there to be a quality baseline and then know what's reasonable…

So now the difference is it has to last long? My $80 ozone machine has been going for 2 years straight now without issue. The whole point of my comment is that just because it's no name doesn't mean it's junk, and we should be so lucky to get some choice. I can get it delivered to my door tomorrow. Hell go back 20 years and I wouldn't even know where to buy an ozone machine or ultrasonic cleaner like I have now.

I'm not saying things need to last a lifetime, but that I have no way to tell what might last two or three years vs zero. Or what "works" rather than works. I'm all for choice, but choice that's just rolling expensive dice isn't really choice. It's buying your $80 ozone machine and getting a lottery ticket instead. Will you win the grand prize and have something that lasts 10 years or will you get something that "works" and lasts 7 months?

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#265

Post by yabadabadoes »

caro_douglos wrote: post #167
amznthrowaway4 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What team did those people work for?

The one that contacts you and wants to “help you sell more”. The point is that each of these types of teams has no insight into the underlying structure of how Amazon actually works. As a business you are forced to buy into the racket in the hopes that you are not accused of being an IP infringer...try hiring a decent law firm to help you get out of this debacle....oh wait they all can’t help because they work for Am…

States attorney or class action? Going after Amazon for structuring a system enabling fraud on purchases they get a commission on sounds like a good position for anyone able to represent consumers in bulk.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#266

Post by chihuahua »

blunte wrote: post #105

Bezos is famous for being a micromanager to the extreme (and a very good one reportedly, if rather tyrannical). So there is no question about whether he has been personally aware of this situation for years. This follows a similar pattern (MS/Gates) where very unscrupulous business practices are employed until the company becomes a juggernaut and can do anything it wants, and the top executives become fabulously weal…

What's funny about this article is that it's Bezos' own newspaper that's calling him out

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#267

Post by _wldu »

habosa wrote: post #77

My favorite Amazon scam is the Amazon Ship of Theseus[0]. You sell a product, normally a cheap electronic, and build up a decent corpus of positive reviews. A good example is a USB-C cable or something. Then you decide you want to sell a new product in a more competitive subcategory, like Bluetooth Headphones. You then take the _existing_ listing and change it piece by piece. First the pictures, then the title, then…

+1 for Walmart. They will ship it to the store closest to you and it's the real deal (not a fake). I've done this a lot.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#268

Post by [deleted] »

owenmarshall wrote: post #198
nlfwhulsdhouv wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favourite example of this are cheap digital PH meters: https://www.amazon.com/Accuracy-Measuring-Household-Drinking... If you can find any listings with real reviews, it turns out that these are pretty terrible, usually floating around 2-3 stars. Magically, there are consistently listings with 4.5+ stars and thousands of reviews for a relatively niche, barely functional product.

Based on uploaded photos that product seems to have a past life as a cutting board, a drying rack, a canopy for a kids bed, some type of dagger (letter opener?) and a lancet. That’s incredible , and the fact that someone hasn’t seen that inside Amazon and said “we have a huge problem” makes me suspect Amazon doesn’t regard it as a problem at all.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#269

Post by jcrites »

owenmarshall wrote: post #198
nlfwhulsdhouv wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favourite example of this are cheap digital PH meters: https://www.amazon.com/Accuracy-Measuring-Household-Drinking... If you can find any listings with real reviews, it turns out that these are pretty terrible, usually floating around 2-3 stars. Magically, there are consistently listings with 4.5+ stars and thousands of reviews for a relatively niche, barely functional product.

Based on uploaded photos that product seems to have a past life as a cutting board, a drying rack, a canopy for a kids bed, some type of dagger (letter opener?) and a lancet. That’s incredible , and the fact that someone hasn’t seen that inside Amazon and said “we have a huge problem” makes me suspect Amazon doesn’t regard it as a problem at all.

I consider it a problem. This appears to be an instance of listing abuse. I'd encourage people to report listing abuse if they come across it. I believe these are the correct instructions: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/200444420

Situations where you're fighting against financially-motivated human adversaries are always difficult.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#270

Post by Spooky23 »

Nasrudith wrote: post #245
Spooky23 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it is not. Why would you socialize a problem by requiring the government to spend taxpayer resources and slowing down shipping with inspections in a stream of hundreds of millions of packages? It would be much easier to empower states to enforce existing concepts like the warranty of merchantability in interstate settings or have a regulatory framework that would allow predatory platforms like Amazon to be held ac…

Umm the state ia the government. It is socialized by definition already on every level.

No, due to federal rules Amazon has an edge over normal retailers for following basic laws.
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