A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing • Hacker News Board

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#521

Post by TameAntelope » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

abawany wrote: post #513

fma wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy a lot from Walmart now, to drive business away from Amazon (I would never have typed these words a few years ago...). First thing I do is click Retailer = Walmart.com.

Remember that Walmart and Best Buy also sell a lot of 3rd-party stuff now. I find it strange that on their site I always have to filter by Retailer=Walmart.com to get their listings and even then, it sometimes filters out some of their own listings.

They did this to directly compete with Amazon, I'm constantly baffled as to why they persist with this design.

Every time you hear, " sold on Walmart website!" it's always a reseller, not directly from them.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#522

Post by mmastrac » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

atatatat wrote: post #384

mmastrac wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AliExpress can be pretty brutal. I went looking for a lithium power pack and it was clear that almost all the listings were the same crap with differently inflated capacities that were physically impossible.

Where did you end up?

I found a manufacturer that seemed legit and orders a suitcase of LiFePO batteries. Will take about 60 days to arrive via ship but it was a huge pain to sort through the fake sellers.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#523

Post by mmastrac » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

quickthrowman wrote: post #436

atatatat wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like where?

I buy all my 18650 cells from https://illumn.com

I think it's a lot easier in the states to find high energy chemistry than it is here in Canada. Prices are much higher because the market is much smaller.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#524

Post by FridayoLeary » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #351

FridayoLeary wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how did you do that?

Something like http://www.eeemo.net/

Thanks for that helpful answer. Big no thanks to those people who downvoted a genuine curious question. I'm allowed to not know something.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#525

Post by sethhochberg » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

jonahhorowitz wrote: post #492

fma wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy a lot from Walmart now, to drive business away from Amazon (I would never have typed these words a few years ago...). First thing I do is click Retailer = Walmart.com.

I used to hate Best Buy because I had some poor return experiences back in the 90s, but now it's my first choice for online shopping because they only sell first-party items and they have control over their supply chain. This is particularly important for frequently-counterfeited products like SD cards.

Sometimes it makes me feel like a crazy person - I bought some new headphones a few months ago, and walked to a physical Best Buy store to make the purchase, because I had no confidence any online retailer wasn't going to sell me counterfeits, and the manufacturer was selling at full MSRP instead of the slightly-cheaper usual going rate for them.

And for what its worth, the store experience was totally fine. I'll give them my money again next time I need something tech related.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#526

Post by freeopinion » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

hhh wrote: post #389

blairanderson wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Cliff, I'm an independent amazon consultant. Your Amazon problems would be solved with a regular USPTO trademark. They don't recognize common-law trademarks because they are heavily arguable in litigation. USPTO is a database of trademarks already scrutinized by trademark attorneys and government. It's not perfect, but it is a collection that Amazon recognizes. You can do this for $2000-ish and never think about i…

While this would probably work , it seems insane to me that this would be the only thing to protect his listing from a completely different category of product being merged with another.

Let's say that Acme is a low-down, dirty-rotten, rip-off con who has been usurping somebody else's trademark to make a quick buck with counterfeit merchandise.

Why would Amazon merge the reviews of that product with the reviews of the authentic, high-quality, reputable Chinese vendor's actual product?

Why does Amazon allow a "color" to point to a product from a completely different seller? Why does Amazon allow product aliases at all?

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#527

Post by naga_n » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:44 PM UTC

Great to see news of Cliff here. I have his hardbound book autograpged when I met him in a conference in Berkeley about 10 years ago. I read the book almost 25 years ago..

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#528

Post by gwittel » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:44 PM UTC

abawany wrote: post #513

fma wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy a lot from Walmart now, to drive business away from Amazon (I would never have typed these words a few years ago...). First thing I do is click Retailer = Walmart.com.

Remember that Walmart and Best Buy also sell a lot of 3rd-party stuff now. I find it strange that on their site I always have to filter by Retailer=Walmart.com to get their listings and even then, it sometimes filters out some of their own listings.

Target has started this as well. It’s baffling that companies will so willingly work to destroy consumer trust.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#529

Post by SomewhatLikely » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

mrandish wrote: post #428

blairanderson wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Cliff, I'm an independent amazon consultant. Your Amazon problems would be solved with a regular USPTO trademark. They don't recognize common-law trademarks because they are heavily arguable in litigation. USPTO is a database of trademarks already scrutinized by trademark attorneys and government. It's not perfect, but it is a collection that Amazon recognizes. You can do this for $2000-ish and never think about i…

It's a shame that a small-time reseller like Cliff has to go to the trouble and expense to register a trademark to protect his listing (which I doubt Cliff will bother with). Until about 5-6 years ago the changes Amazon made almost universally made their service better and more pro-user convenience/efficiency. Since then it's really become a nightmare. I realize they are being abused by scammers who are scheming ever…

When you scroll tho y the end of the reviews they have a link that says something like show reviews from other countries. If the reviews for different versions worked this way it might cut down on some of the version scamming.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#530

Post by lazyant » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #314

CliffStoll wrote: post #116

Guess I'd better say a few things. First, I deeply appreciate that so many on Hacker News have come out for this. Enough to awaken me from a sound sleep on a Tuesday evening! I don't really care that much about selling Klein bottles over Amazon - it's mainly to reach parents over the holidays. But I do wish that Amazon would do something about this kind of thing. Finally, I"m very low on stocks of glass Klein bottles…

There was a story about a guy who had a self published book. He was the only person printing / selling his book. Until someone showed up on amazon and sold it too, they just copied it and printed it themselves. The copied book is identical, cover and all, images in the Amazon listing too ... Amazon chose to do nothing.

I have a similar issue; I have a $10 self published book on Amazon and somebody re-listed with an earlier (like 1900!) publication date, so it shows up first when looking for it and it's listed at like $100.

I don't know who can fall for this in my case but I'm sure if they can they have probably done this at scale. When I search in Amazon I see a lot of results with wide range of prices so I'm sure some people are just counting on showing up on results, users being "lazy" and arbitraging the difference between their listing and the cheapest vendor.