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Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

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Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#271

Post by fitzroy »

larntz wrote: post #145
Darmody wrote: post #13

Amazon overall quality has droped in recent years. I use to buy from Amazon because I knew I was buying original brands and no chinese cheap copies. Well, that changed a lot. There are specific things that I still buy from Amazon but on most things there's almost no difference between they and Aliexpress. I can buy the same products from Aliexpress way cheaper and have them delivered in 2-3 days. Thankfully there are…

Exactly. For a while Amazon was the first place I'd look to shop online. They had legit stuff and it was super convenient. The last year, maybe two, it's become such an unpleasant experience that Amazon has become a last resort. Free fast shipping is awesome, but I'll be patient or pay more to avoid Amazon these days. I don't trust the products, and I'm done wasting time returning things.

It also seems like Amazon now holds shipments until the last possible moment if you don't pay for Prime.

Meanwhile, my Target orders often arrive in 2 days or even overnight (in NYC) for free. Wal-Mart's prices for most items I reorder regularly are almost always lower than Amazon and the shipments regularly arrive in 3 days even though they estimate up to a week. The unfortunate thing about Wal-Mart is that they seem to be adopting a lot of the website clutter that has made Amazon so frustrating (e.g. 3rd party listings with shipping/pricing all over the map, and aggressive recommendations on product pages).

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#272

Post by holy_city »

greenail wrote: post #211
duxup wrote: post #46

That and they've gone the wall-mart route of actually PUSHING anything / the lowest price possible. I get stuff that's like 5% cheaper but quality looks to be about 50% the quality pushed on me all the time on Amazon now. I went to Amazon originally to find QUALITY products that my local stores didn't carry because of price pressures. Now Amazon seems to be switching to just being ... wall-mart and that's already nea…

The 2 amazon mantras that apply here are; more selection is good, customers will never complain about a lower price. If the selection is huge then they need to make recommendations to help people find products. I don't think many users will scroll through more than a page or two of options. The integrity of reviews makes a big impact here in how you are likely to make a choice on those first few pages. 3rd party sell…

> I don't think many users will scroll through more than a page or two of options.

I don't use Amazon for product discovery so I don't scroll through it at all.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#273

Post by ljm »

Darmody wrote: post #13

Amazon overall quality has droped in recent years. I use to buy from Amazon because I knew I was buying original brands and no chinese cheap copies. Well, that changed a lot. There are specific things that I still buy from Amazon but on most things there's almost no difference between they and Aliexpress. I can buy the same products from Aliexpress way cheaper and have them delivered in 2-3 days. Thankfully there are…

I’ve started to become suspicious of Amazon too, and I have a feeling that Prime isn’t helping because it places instant gratification above quality or authenticity.

The reason I say it is that I’ve ordered several books from Amazon, with no indication of them being supplied by a third party seller, and I’ve always picked next day with Prime above any other option.

In almost every situation the book has arrived in a cheap, non-Amazon jiffy bag (like a book needs to be bubble wrapped?) and the quality of the paper and print has felt a bit off. And it makes me think that I’m unwittingly buying counterfeit books that might have been run through amazon’s publishing program.

What really made me think that was when I bought a copy of House of Leaves, which is suppose to be printed in colour. The entire book was black and white, which meant it stopped making sense when trying to discuss the content with others (who consider the colours significant).

The same with an O’Reilly book that I recently ordered. The screenshots were really poorly printed, no publisher with a reputation would be happy with the quality of that.

Did I get get a dodgy, possibly pirate, print just because I wanted cheap and fast?

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#274

Post by cr0sh »

w8rbt wrote: post #182
thinkmassive wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on my limited experience of visiting Walmart, I think most of their low end products are of significantly better quality than low end products from Amazon.

Agreed. I get cheap Stanley tools at Walmart that have a no questions asked lifetime replacement. Walmart is still cheap, but becoming more like Sears once was in quality (on some items). As for Amazon, I like them too. I know they have a lot of cheap Asian stuff. But sometimes, that is exactly what I want (cheap but good DC stick welders). I guess the issue is with the knock-offs and dangerous items on Amazon. That'…

> As for Amazon, I like them too. I know they have a lot of cheap Asian stuff. But sometimes, that is exactly what I want (cheap but good DC stick welders).

I'm of the same mind - sometimes (ok, a lot of times) I want the cheap stuff from China; in many cases, it's the only way to get it at a reasonable price.

I could buy a 40A Bosch relay from China for $1.00 (if that) - or I can go to AutoZone and buy the -exact- same relay (because guess where AutoZone sources it from?) for $15.00. Now - why should I do that?

Multiply that out to a ton of other products.

Now - some things I know I can "Buy USA" with - like DC gear motors. I can go on Amazon, and get a particular DC gear motor for say, $15.00 each. Or I can source something similar made by an American company (let's say Ametek), perhaps using DigiKey or Mouser - and for virtually the same motor, pay $100.00. Yeah - ok. I'll get right on that.

I was once trying to source new gears for a surplus Pittman gear motor I had purchased for a few dollars - the company wanted me to buy 50 pieces of the gear, at $2.50 each. I told 'em thanks but no thanks.

People wonder why parts are bought from China - well, there's your answer.

As individuals, You and I can purchase such items without running into the tariff issue - whether we go thru Amazon or AliExpress or some other direct-from-china method. Now, that doesn't work for businesses of course, so they have to use other methods.

My concern, though, is that we're going to end up in a world where if you are a consumer and not a business, you won't be allowed to purchase from overseas suppliers - due to either uproar over inferior products, or dangerous ingredients, or industry pressure. You'll only be able to shop at USA-only "consumer stores" - and forget about being able to get any of the "off-brand" or "strange" items only available in China (that aren't even carried on Amazon today - a lot of these, you have to dig thru AliExpress, or other direct-from-asia retailers - though the best way tends to be thru taobao and similar - but it's really easy to get hosed, too).

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#275

Post by cr0sh »

chenning wrote: post #214
Nasrudith wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the thing is "unfair working conditions" is subjective and lacks binding force unlike say illegal trade with a sanctioned country. So the consequences are "whatever the consumers decide".

That's the thing though. How subjective is "unfair working conditions" really? I ask that in all seriousness. At least in the US (my only frame of reference) there are fantastic arguments about minimum wage. Should it be raised to $15/hr? Maybe less? Maybe more? But no one is really arguing wether or not $1/day is a livable wage. I think most people with a pulse would say that $1/hr is not a livable wage. The questio…

> I think most people with a pulse would say that $1/hr is not a livable wage.

Depends on who is getting that $1 and where they are at in the world. I am certain there are places in the world where $1 an hour would be considered almost unheard of by the working class people in the country. Places where $1 a day is considered good money.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#276

Post by greenail »

0xffff2 wrote: post #245
greenail wrote: post #215

The simplest solution for the consumer is to just check the seller and to avoid buying from sellers other than Amazon. No one is forced to buy from an Amazon FBA or 3rd party seller. Amazon customer support generally has more levers to help you out if you do have a problem.

This isn't possible anymore either. There are numerous reports that add up to the fact that Amazon now co-mingles all inventory, theirs and third-party, for a single product into a single bin.

can you provide a source?

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#277

Post by floatingatoll »

Should Amazon be required to perform authenticity and safety on { none of, a few of, some of, a random sample of, all of } the items listed on their marketplace?

Whole Foods often (always?) audits the supply chain of their products. Farmers’ markets sometimes audit the supply chain of their booths. Flea markets and eBay never do.

What burden of audit should be placed upon Amazon?

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#278

Post by InitialLastName »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #226
astura wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, Amazon is so overrun with low quality products that I'd even go as far as saying the average Walmart product is better quality than the average Amazon product.

Amazon is AliExpress with a domestic retailer's markup. At least with Walmart I know that when they stock something on their shelves, they care about liability and bad PR.

This. At any brick-and-mortar store, the store itself takes some responsibility for the quality ("won't fail dangerously or slowly poison your children" quality, not "won't fall apart after a year of use" quality) of their products, if only because it's more clear that they'll catch some blowback from stocking illegal products in their stores.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#279

Post by 0xffff2 »

greenail wrote: post #276
0xffff2 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't possible anymore either. There are numerous reports that add up to the fact that Amazon now co-mingles all inventory, theirs and third-party, for a single product into a single bin.

can you provide a source?

From Amazon? Of course not. They haven't and likely won't admit to it. You can find 2-3 top level comments in this thread alone that cite their own examples of this happening. Similar stories crop up every single time anyone mentions the Amazon marketplace for at least a year now.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#280

Post by cr0sh »

jjoonathan wrote: post #93
AlexandrB wrote: post #64

Their shipping practices have also degraded. Amazon usually ships anything they can in bubble-padded envelopes. This is ok for many things, but for books it's a disaster - softcovers almost always end up with damaged covers, hardcovers get dented corners from being dropped without any protection. I've also received movies and video games with cases damaged worse than what you'd see in a second-hand store. The (suprem…

Another favorite: receiving your item freely bouncing around in a much larger box alongside a single bubble pack that neither tries to nor succeeds at filling any appreciable amount of the empty space available for said bouncing around.

I once ordered a really large socket (36mm for the axle nuts on my Jeep) from Amazon. I can't recall what they shipped it with, but I do recall the box was mostly empty, no padding, air bags, or whatnot.

But they wrapped that socket with bubble wrap nine ways from Sunday! It was like this ball of bubble wrap and tape, with this huge socket in the middle.

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