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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

#281

Post by makeitdouble »

derefr wrote: post #126
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…

But why are so many of these pseudo-brands exactly 1. six characters long, 2. all caps, and have 3. point-form descriptions that 4. use some particular emoji as bullet-point symbols, and 5. give each point a separate, usually-capitalized "title" part, 6. enclosed in either square brackets or the even-more-niche punctuation【 】? To me, that reads either like these all being marques of one company; or there being some C…

> Either way, it seems like finding that entity, and preventing it from interacting with Amazon, would stop a majority of this in its tracks.

From the comments I was expecting a flood of knock-offs or really problematic products, but it seems the main argument is they’re cheap and delivery takes a boat trip across the globe.

Is there any solid reasons these vendors shouldn’t be on Amazon ?

The knock-offs on AliExpress look to me like a different problem.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#282

Post by mhh__ »

derefr wrote: post #126
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…

But why are so many of these pseudo-brands exactly 1. six characters long, 2. all caps, and have 3. point-form descriptions that 4. use some particular emoji as bullet-point symbols, and 5. give each point a separate, usually-capitalized "title" part, 6. enclosed in either square brackets or the even-more-niche punctuation【 】? To me, that reads either like these all being marques of one company; or there being some C…

There are some alleged frauds in the UK that rely on lots of small ephemeral businesses, one after the other, I could see that being an valid strategy here too

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#283

Post by xanaxagoras »

dylan604 wrote: post #237
xanaxagoras wrote: post #231

I stopped shopping at Amazon when they kicked Parler off of AWS. I don't understand how any self respecting liberal could celebrate a mega corp censoring the internet along idealogical lines, even those who drank the insurrection kool-aid.

This is why you have an issue with Amazon retail? Really? Sure, you can dislike a parent company, but the issues being discussed in TFA and this HN thread is about the shopping experience. Your desire to have a chat about your right wing beliefs have no place here.

I have no such desire.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#286

Post by somehnguy »

lph wrote: post #10

Pro tip: If you absolutely must buy the junk being sold by MOFFBUZW and other randomly generated drop-shipper brands, the exact same product is usually available on AliExpress for 10% the price.

Yup, excellent way to save money if you’re looking for a product that just seems to be cloned to death and without any big reputable brands having a superior version. I bought 3 automatic cat feeders from Ali for the same price as 1 from Amazon. Exact same product besides the logo being different.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#287

Post by ficklepickle »

kbd wrote: post #101

Happy to see this discussed on HN because I've constantly been stressing about this whenever I shop on Amazon. "All these brands are Chinese with random combinations of characters for a name" I've looked at laptop cases. Here is a sampling of brand names: Lacdo, Voova, KINGSLONG, NIDOO, tomtoc, MOSISO, INVZI, XMBFZ, Arvok, Kinmac, Londo... I've bought cases for my ipad and work laptop from Lacdo and one for my upcomi…

I bought a laptop case off Amazon with the brand name "unik" on it. I think it is supposed to read "unique" but I always see "eunuch".

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#288

Post by derefr »

makeitdouble wrote: post #281
derefr wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why are so many of these pseudo-brands exactly 1. six characters long, 2. all caps, and have 3. point-form descriptions that 4. use some particular emoji as bullet-point symbols, and 5. give each point a separate, usually-capitalized "title" part, 6. enclosed in either square brackets or the even-more-niche punctuation【 】? To me, that reads either like these all being marques of one company; or there being some C…

> Either way, it seems like finding that entity, and preventing it from interacting with Amazon, would stop a majority of this in its tracks. From the comments I was expecting a flood of knock-offs or really problematic products, but it seems the main argument is they’re cheap and delivery takes a boat trip across the globe. Is there any solid reasons these vendors shouldn’t be on Amazon ? The knock-offs on AliExpres…

There's nothing inherent to these vendors (as people) and/or (most of) their products that would mean that they shouldn't be allowed on Amazon, no.

The problem is instead with the shell game these vendors are playing — creating thousands of temporary brands, pumping them or "brushing" them with fake reviews, and then discarding those brands at a moment's notice when things go sour for them, only to replace them with another brand selling the same shitty products the next day, with the same people behind it.

Amazon's seller reputation system was designed to function under an assumption of "one persistent brand per group of people who work to sell a thing." But people noticed that Amazon uses "one legal company with a trademark" as a proxy for "one group of people"; and so have created thousands of distinct "legal companies with trademarks" with the same group of people behind them. Which Amazon's reputation system has no way of coping with.

If Amazon could deduplicate brands — i.e. require that the same group-of-people sticks to selling stuff under the same company/brand — then there'd be no problem, because then their reputation system would work: if the stuff was crap, the company/brand would get a bad reputation, and then nobody would buy their stuff any more.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#289

Post by spfzero »

makeitdouble wrote: post #281
derefr wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why are so many of these pseudo-brands exactly 1. six characters long, 2. all caps, and have 3. point-form descriptions that 4. use some particular emoji as bullet-point symbols, and 5. give each point a separate, usually-capitalized "title" part, 6. enclosed in either square brackets or the even-more-niche punctuation【 】? To me, that reads either like these all being marques of one company; or there being some C…

> Either way, it seems like finding that entity, and preventing it from interacting with Amazon, would stop a majority of this in its tracks. From the comments I was expecting a flood of knock-offs or really problematic products, but it seems the main argument is they’re cheap and delivery takes a boat trip across the globe. Is there any solid reasons these vendors shouldn’t be on Amazon ? The knock-offs on AliExpres…

The OA mentioned someone who lost an eye due to improper product design and the vendor was safely hidden behind several layers of false-front entities.

I don't know how common that is, but buyers should be aware that many Amazon sellers, including domestic ones, operate in the way the OA explains.

Biggest annoyance IMO is that they clog up the search results and make it harder to find products you'd actually buy. Many sell the exact same item, which you then have to skip over, over and over again. Someone at Amazon must be bonus'd on adding new vendors.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#290

Post by speakfreely »

wtallis wrote: post #125
mrguyorama wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the caveat that on ebay, you can usually find someone in the US wearhousing it for some reason with free 3 day shipping for the same price.

And quite often when ordering from an eBay seller with US stock, the package that arrives has an Amazon logo on the box.

That's just someone doing retail arbitrage: they take your eBay order and immediately have a bot (i.e. https://zincapi.com/) place an Amazon gift order to your address. Amazon does shut down buyer accounts for this but it's so rampant that it's more or less whack-a-mole.
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