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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

#411

Post by fmajid »

dylan604 wrote: post #234
fmajid wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I distrust Amazon for anything electrical or buy my electronics and optics from the fine folks at B&H Photo, which is owned by a (Satmar) Hasidic family. Sure, that means I can’t shop on Saturdays and have a much deeper knowledge of the Jewish high holidays calendar than I’d normally care to develop, but I don’t worry about a counterfeit battery blowing up in my face or a SSD upgrade for my computer being a 16G…

Even B&H was susceptible to knock-off batteries. Somewhere in the supply chain, fake batteries were introduced, but not found until sold to customers. B&H actually handled this in the only sane way vs the Amazon shrug of the shoulders. Supply chain attacks are real and even reputable vendors are susceptible. The difference is how the vendors react with their customers that separates the good vendor from the bad vendo…

The difference is Amazon only pretends to care, and only cares about enough plausible deniability to deflect lawsuits (the courts are catching on and this no longer works). Their practice of stickerless commingled inventory ensures that even buying from Amazon itself is no guarantee of not getting a counterfeit product.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#412

Post by flyaway123 »

derefr wrote: post #404
flyaway123 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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." You're assuming cause & effect here. To this point, imagine: - The crowd following the leader / a particular success story - Most individual sellers are not actually "individual": Same owner or network - "Educational" boot camps to…

To be clear, these three of your "alternatives": > Most individual sellers are not actually "individual": Same owner or network > Subscribed to update packages > Generator to fill forms ...are fully in line with my argument. My hypothesis wasn't specifically that this was a SaaS system doing this. Rather, my hypothesis was that there's a Single-Point-of-Failure entity or platform that these listings go through — a Bo…

> a possible mechanism for this [...] They promise to "take care of" every interaction with Amazon FBA that requires English knowledge, and to only bother the seller for things that are really important.

Very likely.

In my previous comment, I focused on the perspective of individual sellers (i.e. entrepreneurial) who have bulk contracts with the local manufacturers. They are the group who are unlikely to commit to "all-inclusive" packages, as they value financial cost overwhelmingly more than personal time, relative to other groups. Think college students, retirees, unemployed, people from poorer areas, etc. They are ubiquitously known as 'wang dai', literally online retailer or agent. These are the first wave of significant online retailing in China. As they want to expand abroad, those who gained some first experience are packaging courses at minimal entry fee (~10USD!). There were a long period where these courses are bombarded via WeChat. (There still are, but the trend has shifted to other topics)

Naturally, the manufacturers want a bigger piece of the cake and now dominates their own online presence in China. To further expand beyond abroad, as they probably do not have adequate language/platform in-house expertise. This is a perfect match to the services you described - outsourcing to e.g. Amazon/eBay specialists.

In either case the point still stands. There's a snowball effect of following the lead of whoever is known to be successful and became the 'authority'.

> you'd expect less than perfect 100% engagement

I agree imperfect engagement is expected on the whole, but how the 100% metric is derived can be misleading. Is it 100% of the top 100 items i.e. the cream of the crop? How different would it be if the procrastinators or failures or one-offs are also included?

Also, I don't think analogue activities like driving is, analogous. Probably closer to Pride Day / French Flag photo overlay across various social platforms. Or SEO.

> a Borg Queen that could be taken down

I think we are aligned that there's a Borg Queen, but not on the rigidness of the hierarchy.

I believe it's weakly/organically structured, unless there's a monopoly, that I'm not aware of, happened.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#413

Post by dylan604 »

fmajid wrote: post #411
dylan604 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even B&H was susceptible to knock-off batteries. Somewhere in the supply chain, fake batteries were introduced, but not found until sold to customers. B&H actually handled this in the only sane way vs the Amazon shrug of the shoulders. Supply chain attacks are real and even reputable vendors are susceptible. The difference is how the vendors react with their customers that separates the good vendor from the bad vendo…

The difference is Amazon only pretends to care, and only cares about enough plausible deniability to deflect lawsuits (the courts are catching on and this no longer works). Their practice of stickerless commingled inventory ensures that even buying from Amazon itself is no guarantee of not getting a counterfeit product.

You seem to be pretty generous in saying Amazon pretends. I thought they gave up all connotations of giving a shit long ago

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#415

Post by drewzero1 »

krallja wrote: post #213
wtallis wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This happened to me: I ordered a cheap UV EPROM eraser on eBay with three-day delivery. It was literally drop-shipped from Amazon, on an Amazon truck, in an Amazon bag. I could have gotten the same (crappy, simple) product on Amazon a day earlier for about a dollar less. But I was trying to avoid buying on Amazon, because of all the reasons posted in this comments section!

Same thing happened to me. I've been trying to avoid ordering work stuff on Amazon since they're technically a competitor, so I ordered a part on eBay. Coworkers commented on the Amazon package when it arrived, much to my confusion. It's happened a few times since then, I think they call it 'fulfilled by Amazon' or something like that.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#416

Post by bornfreddy »

astrange wrote: post #384
Analemma_ wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a hostage situation. This is how you can tell Amazon is a dangerous monopoly: when even the people they fuck over have no choice but to smile and say, "But we still love 'em!"

Amazon isn’t a monopoly, its competitors just don’t have good shipping or return policies. I got an empty box shipped to me instead of an SSD last week and got an instant refund for it.

I mean, sure, you got an instant refund... But, do you find it OK that you got an empty box shipped instead of an SSD? To me that is unacceptable.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#417

Post by bornfreddy »

Avamander wrote: post #405
SMAAART wrote: post #339

For certain categories Amazon is a mess. Case in point I recently got an iPad and I was looking for a rugged case, an alternative to OtterBox. It's a mess, with no real winners, and lots of questionable brands/products. It was suggested before, the time is ripe for a disruptor search engine, The Innovator's Dilemma style; starting with some segment of search.

Unfortunately, I suspect such a search engine would start getting lawsuits about being uncompetitive once they start excluding sellers/spammers. Even if bogus, it's gonna bog things down real bad. They're good at abuse, it'd not be surprising.

I don't think it needs to include everyone unless it is a monopoly? (IANAL)

Of course, it could be inclusive, but each seller must prove their worth, and longterm sellers are always preferred.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#418

Post by bornfreddy »

adaml_623 wrote: post #390
scottydelta wrote: post #372

I have a friend who works as a category manager at Amazon global and she gets frequent offers from shady people for "mutually beneficial partnership". Even the suspensions don't have alot of affect for these shady sellers. I have worked with a company that provides listing services on Amazon in the past. The owner once casually mentioned how they help these companies get out of suspensions for long enough to withdraw…

So is your friend contacted through LinkedIn or something similar? Because it would be terrible if these shady sellers bribed someone who had just set there company to Amazon but didn't really work there ...

Ha ha, brilliant idea! Let us know if it works. ;)

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#419

Post by JohnHaugeland »

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…

They're just standard features of the Chinese language

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#420

Post by JohnHaugeland »

derefr wrote: post #404
flyaway123 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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." You're assuming cause & effect here. To this point, imagine: - The crowd following the leader / a particular success story - Most individual sellers are not actually "individual": Same owner or network - "Educational" boot camps to…

To be clear, these three of your "alternatives": > Most individual sellers are not actually "individual": Same owner or network > Subscribed to update packages > Generator to fill forms ...are fully in line with my argument. My hypothesis wasn't specifically that this was a SaaS system doing this. Rather, my hypothesis was that there's a Single-Point-of-Failure entity or platform that these listings go through — a Bo…

> You'd expect some people to miss that news

Lots of them did

You're assuming coordination on the part of the sellers, but another possibility is that the Amazon search engine penalized that text

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