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I'm proposing that Amazon merges the products, and for new products the sellers would be forced to tie it to the existing product. Amazon can enforce this with

I'm proposing that Amazon merges the products, and for new products the sellers would be forced to tie it to the existing product. Amazon can enforce this without too much work, I'd think. Just do some image comparisons, have a "report duplicate" button, and a small team of people monitoring.

seanp2k2 10y ago
Yep, this is why I get lots of stuff from Anker. They originally seemed to be selling white label Chinese commodity stuff where it's not worth it to buy a 10x priced version from BigBox down the street, but I actually found that they have good versions of whatever cable or USB hub or backup battery I need. I found this basically by accident, and now I swear by their products, but it was tough to find on Amazon with the hundreds of look-a likes which don't function the same.
- tracker1 10y ago
  Exactly... Anker is generally pretty good, I've had a couple issues. After the report of a Google employeee reviewing various USB3 cables, I actually tested (just via an app on my phone at the time) all the cables/chargers I had... Amazing how much difference a cable can make... wound up getting a bunch of new cables, and replacing half my chargers. To this day I'm amazed at how relatively badly the "Amazon Basics" usb cables worked.
- hexane360 10y ago
  Aukey is also very good. Whenever I need hubs/chargers/power packs/etc. I go to them or Amazon Basics.
vidarh 10y ago
It's tricky, though. How big do the changes need to be before you accept them as separate? In the UK store at least, a good portion of the ice machines sold appears to be the same design, but there are subtle and not so subtle differences, but many of the not-so-subtle differences are tweaks of the exterior plastic. About 2/3 of them appears to have internals of the same broken design (plastic cam on the ice tray coupled with lack of a sensor to determine when it has rotated all the way back, causes it to twist and eventually crack), but it's not clear if all of the nearly identical versions are even from the same manufacturer. Some of the non-broken ones are still clearly based on the same design too, but changing the plastic cam for metal and adding extra sensors. (I learned this after my second one broke, and I dismantled it and looked through drawings and pictures before ordering my next one).
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  >the same broken design // Any reason to think this isn't the intended function by the manufacturers. In my experience lots of products have really simply low cost changes that would make them last much longer (eg fill this 1cm^3 area of the injection mould instead of hollowing it) such that the product will fail after a year or so. Even my IKEA armchair has a beam where a 1 or 2cm extension on either end would give the chair much more strength - before seeing that I thought IKEA was good-but-cheap, now I see them as much closer to just cheap.
brianwawok 10y ago
Amazon has to have over a billion products in the catalog, with literally millions added every day. How do you propose this is done ;)

seanp2k2 10y ago

Yep, this is why I get lots of stuff from Anker. They originally seemed to be selling white label Chinese commodity stuff where it's not worth it to buy a 10x priced version from BigBox down the street, but I actually found that they have good versions of whatever cable or USB hub or backup battery I need. I found this basically by accident, and now I swear by their products, but it was tough to find on Amazon with the hundreds of look-a likes which don't function the same.

tracker1 10y ago
Exactly... Anker is generally pretty good, I've had a couple issues. After the report of a Google employeee reviewing various USB3 cables, I actually tested (just via an app on my phone at the time) all the cables/chargers I had... Amazing how much difference a cable can make... wound up getting a bunch of new cables, and replacing half my chargers. To this day I'm amazed at how relatively badly the "Amazon Basics" usb cables worked.
hexane360 10y ago
Aukey is also very good. Whenever I need hubs/chargers/power packs/etc. I go to them or Amazon Basics.

vidarh 10y ago

It's tricky, though. How big do the changes need to be before you accept them as separate? In the UK store at least, a good portion of the ice machines sold appears to be the same design, but there are subtle and not so subtle differences, but many of the not-so-subtle differences are tweaks of the exterior plastic. About 2/3 of them appears to have internals of the same broken design (plastic cam on the ice tray coupled with lack of a sensor to determine when it has rotated all the way back, causes it to twist and eventually crack), but it's not clear if all of the nearly identical versions are even from the same manufacturer. Some of the non-broken ones are still clearly based on the same design too, but changing the plastic cam for metal and adding extra sensors. (I learned this after my second one broke, and I dismantled it and looked through drawings and pictures before ordering my next one).

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
>the same broken design // Any reason to think this isn't the intended function by the manufacturers. In my experience lots of products have really simply low cost changes that would make them last much longer (eg fill this 1cm^3 area of the injection mould instead of hollowing it) such that the product will fail after a year or so. Even my IKEA armchair has a beam where a 1 or 2cm extension on either end would give the chair much more strength - before seeing that I thought IKEA was good-but-cheap, now I see them as much closer to just cheap.

brianwawok 10y ago

Amazon has to have over a billion products in the catalog, with literally millions added every day. How do you propose this is done ;)