Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#61

Post by dharmon » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

t34543 wrote: post #49

I never had a problem (that I know of) with fakes on Amazon. I did cancel my prime membership and switched to Walmart. I feel like prices went up and quality went down. I wish I could move stuff away at work, we spend millions each month on AWS.

Its not always fakes. Some sellers sell factory seconds and refurbished items as new.

Just save yourself the headaches and skip Amazon, where you have no recourse, for Home Depot, Best Buy, Target, and even Wal-Mart. Everybody does price matching these days.

If you're buying something you know is cheap junk, then just cut out the middle man and again skip Amazon for Ali express or Alibaba like the parent mentioned.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#62

Post by CaptainZapp » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #34

This among many reasons is is why I cancelled my prime membership. The quality control is abysmal. It's become an eBay, but without a proper dispute system, and crazy prices. Many goods get listed at multiples of the price available elsewhere and if you're not paying attention you can get screwed. It's totally buyer beware. The trust that Amazon established over the years has been lost. I ordered something on Amazon…

And then you stumble over stories like this[1].

In a way it's her own damn fault. If I invest a significant amout of money into a branded product I'd probably visit the store of the brand, or a reseller licensed by the brand.

But I sure as hell wouldn't order a $1000 coat from Amazon. That just yells: RIP ME OFF!

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/count...

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#63

Post by AFascistWorld » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

MentallyRetired wrote: post #4

Anyone else think this is on purpose? Now they can remove all third party sellers from their platform and cite a trust & safety risk. They've been neglecting sellers on the platform for a decade. Why else would the API be absolutely ancient? A huge change is coming.

Third party sellers are cash cows once you finish monoplising the market, sellers will be begging to give Amazon more and more marketing money to move their products.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#64

Post by AlexandrB » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

Their shipping practices have also degraded. Amazon usually ships anything they can in bubble-padded envelopes. This is ok for many things, but for books it's a disaster - softcovers almost always end up with damaged covers, hardcovers get dented corners from being dropped without any protection. I've also received movies and video games with cases damaged worse than what you'd see in a second-hand store. The (supremely ironic) result is that Amazon is now my last choice for buying books.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#65

Post by leemcalilly » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

t34543 wrote: post #49

I never had a problem (that I know of) with fakes on Amazon. I did cancel my prime membership and switched to Walmart. I feel like prices went up and quality went down. I wish I could move stuff away at work, we spend millions each month on AWS.

Every other time I buy a specific brand of cotton canvas (James Thompson), it’s fake on Amazon but close enough that it’s not worth the effort to file a complaint. And this is a brand that is supposed to be verified by Amazon’s brand registry.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#66

Post by savrajsingh » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

It seems like the best way to get stuff changed at Amazon is to have the Wall Street Journal send them feedback. WSJ is essentially doing free work for amazon - “hey these products are not legit” “oh shucks, our bad, let’s remove those, yea” “hey they reappeared,” “oh our bad let’s remove them again sry”. clearly it’s not a priority for amazon...

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#67

Post by cal5k » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

martythemaniak wrote: post #30

I wonder if Amazon won't somehow kill itself with poor quality. I needed a bunch of LED bulbs recently and I knew exactly what I was looking for - about a dozen 40W eq, two 60w eq and two 100w eq, all in 2700K and two 100w in 3000K. Amazon was a mess - prices were all over the place, exact products were hard to find, etc. Dollarama had them all for $2.50, $3.50 and $4.00 a piece, usually in all three flavours (2700,…

I thought I was alone on this! I ended up going to a local hardware store instead because I couldn't figure out what was trustworthy.

These days I typically do product research off-Amazon, not on Amazon itself.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#68

Post by CaptainZapp » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

stanski wrote: post #24

They were sued for the recklessly mislabeled helmet and still didn't take the posting down? Even if they could've argued that they themselves were fooled by the seller initially, not following up after the guy was killed points to a much bigger issue. Basically they just don't give a shit. Side note: I'm filled with dread just thinking about buying a motorcycle helmet from amazon.

Side note: I'm filled with dread just thinking about buying a motorcycle helmet from amazon.

Buy it from a reputable source? There are specialist stores herearound, which sell nothing but helmets and have staff on payroll with an actual clue.

Sure, you actually have to leave the house. In return you get the possibility to actually try the helmets on display.

If price is the issue I think it's exactly that general attitude, which triggered that downward spiral in quality we're observing in the last few years.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#69

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

martythemaniak wrote: post #30

I wonder if Amazon won't somehow kill itself with poor quality. I needed a bunch of LED bulbs recently and I knew exactly what I was looking for - about a dozen 40W eq, two 60w eq and two 100w eq, all in 2700K and two 100w in 3000K. Amazon was a mess - prices were all over the place, exact products were hard to find, etc. Dollarama had them all for $2.50, $3.50 and $4.00 a piece, usually in all three flavours (2700,…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#70

Post by coldpie » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

MentallyRetired wrote: post #4

Anyone else think this is on purpose? Now they can remove all third party sellers from their platform and cite a trust & safety risk. They've been neglecting sellers on the platform for a decade. Why else would the API be absolutely ancient? A huge change is coming.

> Now they can remove all third party sellers from their platform and cite a trust & safety risk.

If they remove third party sellers from their platform, I might go back to buying things on Amazon.