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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

#31
post #14

Shopping on amazon is really an awful experience nowdays. I really do not want to search through 40 pages of water kettles of really dubious brands. It is so anxiety inducing and unpleasant.

I think amazon has jumped the shark[1] There is no practical way to buy a reputable/brand name on amazon. Some brand names are "available", but it seems not officially and people are buying them at a store and shipping them to customers. Other brand names are available, but the search results are paid (and manipulated) so they get crowded off the page by sponsored and "5 star (2)" results. and so amazon as a brand is…

You sometimes can't even get the right thing from official brand stores. I bought a thermal paste product from the official Amazon ThermalGrizzly store (I did check) but Amazon delivered me a fake. Amazon co-mingles inventory.

The only reason I could quickly tell it was fake is because ThermalGrizzly provides an online serial number verification system, which isn't very common among most products. I'm not sure I'd trust Amazon for anything.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#32
post #14

Shopping on amazon is really an awful experience nowdays. I really do not want to search through 40 pages of water kettles of really dubious brands. It is so anxiety inducing and unpleasant.

I think amazon has jumped the shark[1] There is no practical way to buy a reputable/brand name on amazon. Some brand names are "available", but it seems not officially and people are buying them at a store and shipping them to customers. Other brand names are available, but the search results are paid (and manipulated) so they get crowded off the page by sponsored and "5 star (2)" results. and so amazon as a brand is…

A couple of weeks ago, I wanted to order a couple of pairs of Levis jeans.

There was no way I'd do that on Amazon.

I got them from Costco, instead.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#33
The author writes:

> how can you protect yourself as a consumer?

Followed by a tedious list of hoops to jump through around verifying authenticity to a point where you might not get stung.

At this point, is it not better to just give up on Amazon and use a retailer that takes its product sourcing more seriously?

Continuing to use Amazon when you know how full to the brim of scams it is, just seems to me like rewarding them for bad behaviour.

Take your money elsewhere, with everyone else, and let the invisible hand of the market give Amazon a bloody good slap.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#34
Its funny how much less online shopping Im doing these days specifically because of my bad experiences ordering from Amazon.

I feel super old school going into stores, and even my girlfriend complains about it, but I no longer will risk the annoyance of delivery times and returns processes - nor the risky health effects of buying food online or clothing or kitchen ware that I'll interact with often.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#35

Amazon "... is turning their marketplace into a flea market of total junk." Man if this isn't the dead-on honest truth. Amazon is so garbage now that Walmart.com is a trusted supplier by comparison. I can't believe Amazon gets away with the crap they do. They so obviously turn a blind eye to constant, serious anti-consumer crap from Chinese sellers. Why? And why doesn't the FTC or any other department do anything?

On the other hand, much of what passes for "reputable" brands is just reselling the crap from the same sellers, but with a "trusted" name on it.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#36
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.

All this cheap junk follows a fairly reliable markup scheme: Factory sells for 1x Taobao sells for 2x Aliexpress sells for 3-4x (2x Taobao) Ebay sells for 8-10x. (~2x Aliexpress)

I think Aliexpress is usually about 20% of the Amazon price, but depending on the item I agree that it can be 10%.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#37

Everyone who does anything online should be required to hang out on some black hat internet forums and marketplaces. It really opens up your eyes to the sheer size of the fake account and bot traffic, market. It makes you skeptical of everything you see online. You can buy verified Twitter accounts, blue check mark accounts, Facebook ad accounts, Google AdSense/AdWords accounts, Amazon accounts, and more bot traffic…

> I wonder what the internet would really look like if there was no bot traffic, fake clicks, and fake accounts. In an economy where the only thing that matters is actual money there wouldn't be any bots - after all I don't see bots queuing up to buy stuff. This is a problem the bullshit advertising and "growth & engagement" industry brought on themselves. If you pay people to click on stuff, they're gonna click it,…

There are definitely bots to buy things. Finance alone does a fuck ton of automation to buy things at far faster reaction speeds than possible and then there’s the eBay/Amazon/whatever online retail bots that exist to scoop up in demand items to then flip

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#39

Unless I missed it, he didn't really talk about why these names exist, other than to suggest it might be a troll? Related, I don't understand twitter as a place for long form content. It's difficult to read and it can't be easy to post.

The idea is that these names are generated pseudo-randomly or arbitrarily because they have no brand value. Sellers that use them run through "companies" quickly as they get banned for forbidden practice or because their reputation tanks. Then they create the next seller account with another name.
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