Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 403 posts

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

#51

Post by zepto »

finolex1 wrote: post #30
privateSFacct wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to generate choices / alternatives. If you go the government involvement route you ossify industries and actually can make it harder for folks to compete. Funeral home chains were famous for pushing for lots of crazy regs that only a system with big economies of scale could meet to push out smaller independents. In some cities like SF zoning hoops mean that only folks with HUGE pockets / attorneys and lo…

There are lots of alternatives for each category of products - Zappos for shoes/clothes, Mouser for electrical components, etc. though there is no one competitor to Amazon that is as comprehensive as it is. Edit: Turns out Zappos is owned by Amazon. But my point still stands if we replace it with something else.

Zappos is part of Amazon.

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

#52

Post by blairanderson »

I've been a consultant for Amazon suppliers since 2009 and seen tons of junk come onto the market.

Every retailer in the world (besides Amazon) has incredibly strict supplier verification because if someone dies from a toaster fire, extension cord shortage, etc. then everyone sues everyone.

Amazon DNGAF because the risk is on the "seller". Just like TAX RISK is on the "seller".

People are importing shit from their basement, trying to get rich, with no clue about product risk when it should be slightly harder.

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

#53

Post by rbarnes01 »

ilamont wrote: post #40
bloopernova wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon created the problem, and now they're selling a service to fix the problem. That they created. Heckuva business model.

And charging vendors for it. You have to buy the codes (5 cents per, no volume discounts) and then pay one of their preferred printers up to 15 cents per Transparency sticker.

You don't need to use their preferred printers.

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

#54

Post by adrianmonk »

Jestar342 wrote: post #5

Amazon probably don't care about the authenticity of the items, only that _they_ are fulfilling and shipping them.

What I think, and what Amazon doesn't seem to get, is that these two things are inextricably linked.

Buyers don't want counterfeit crap. To the extent that authenticity is in question, people are discouraged from buying, and if people don't buy, then you can't fulfill and ship.

Of course, you can argue that it must not matter that much because, right now, Amazon is certainly fulfilling and shipping a lot. The real question is whether they could fulfill and ship more if they had different practices in this area. Personally I think yes.

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

#55

Post by swiley »

privateSFacct wrote: post #29
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish somebody would straight compete with them rather than all the complaining to politicians. One doesn't exclude the other.

The point is to generate choices / alternatives. If you go the government involvement route you ossify industries and actually can make it harder for folks to compete. Funeral home chains were famous for pushing for lots of crazy regs that only a system with big economies of scale could meet to push out smaller independents. In some cities like SF zoning hoops mean that only folks with HUGE pockets / attorneys and lo…

Ebay still exists and is way better for niche stuff anyway.

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

#56

Post by rbarnes01 »

Why not give the brand owners control of the product pages? They can decide to allow distributors and block counterfeits.

Use eBay if you want to take advantage of the first sale doctrine. At this point it's not worth the risk to Amazon's credibility.

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

#57

Post by fenwick67 »

dangus wrote: post #48
izzydata wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've received many damaged books from Amazon. Whenever I report the items as being damaged I am prepared with photographs of the damaged goods as proof, but they always send me another one without caring. It just feels so wasteful to save money by mishandling everything to the point where it doesn't even matter if stuff breaks because it is cheaper to try a 2nd time.

But you don't actually know that this practice is wasteful. That all depends on the numbers. Let's say that Amazon sends out 100 books, and 1 or 2 get damaged. But if they add some extra bit of packaging to every single one of those 100 books, zero will get damaged. Did this save cost or materials? I don't know, it depends on how much extra packaging was needed, whether the damage was serious enough to initiate a ref…

I think the poster may have meant "a waste of a good book" not "a waste of money".

It's like how throwing produce away at the grocery store is "a waste" but the system is cost-effective.

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

#58

Post by privateSFacct »

Spooky23 wrote: post #46
privateSFacct wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to generate choices / alternatives. If you go the government involvement route you ossify industries and actually can make it harder for folks to compete. Funeral home chains were famous for pushing for lots of crazy regs that only a system with big economies of scale could meet to push out smaller independents. In some cities like SF zoning hoops mean that only folks with HUGE pockets / attorneys and lo…

Regulating that a retailer selling genuine products is nothing at all like zoning or funeral homes. We need to empower states to regulate Amazon like any other retailer or have reasonable federal standards. In some cases states can apply the death penalty to retailers (revoking sales tax license) if they are perpetuating a fraud. You need regulators with teeth to compel positive behavior from a company are large as A…

It is the same.

If the only folks who can sell products are ones who have a deal with the rightholder and can prove they have the rights to sell - obviously the big players will be the ones able to do the deals with Nike, Apple, etc and little guys will not.

If the federal government actually cared they can ALREADY intercept and even destroy imported counterfeit products - they do not because it's a bit time consuming and hard and they also don't care.

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

#59

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

rbritton wrote: post #38
AlexandrB wrote: post #11

Amazon's fulfilment has also become shockingly bad. Most items are shipped in lightly-padded manila envelopes resulting in high percentage of damaged goods if you order books[1], CDs/DVDs/BluRays, video games, or anything else where the packaging is part of the product. eBay is a much better experience in this regard. [1] In an ironic twist, I absolutely refuse to buy books from Amazon anymore.

eBay has become my first stop for many categories of goods. It's not always the best choice, but it is often enough that it's worth checking. For example, both of my carbon monoxide detectors expired at the same time, and Amazon and local box stores wanted something like $70 each for replacements. On eBay I found the same model new in box for half of that from what I think was a fire system installation company.

Sellers are fleeing eBay in droves because eBay and PayPal always side with the customer, even in blatantly fraudulent cases.

More than half of the orders I've placed on eBay in the past year have been cancelled by eBay or PayPal because they detected fraud from the seller. I can't be bothered to keep wasting my time and money on a site that is hardly even a shadow of what it used to be.

Amazon suffers the same,but slightly different problems.

As such I've had no choice but to revert back to shopping in person, or in many cars simply skip out on purchasing things I could have readily found on eBay or Amazon five years ago for good prices without hassle. Somewhere eBay and Amazon have completely dropped the ball. I hope it effects their bottom line soon because the second hand stores near me are junk.

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

#60

Post by privateSFacct »

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.

I'll try them, though I just did some searches for some random categories like sailboat products and got nothing back. We have switched a lot of our home goods shopping to them (in person).
Post reply on HN