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Amazon has completely lost control of their own marketplace for electronics and accessories, as I suspect nearly every HN reader has noticed. Perhaps being hel

by CPLX 10y ago

Amazon has completely lost control of their own marketplace for electronics and accessories, as I suspect nearly every HN reader has noticed. Perhaps being held accountable for it will cause a change in policy. It's about time.

chx 10y ago
We absolutely noticed. An Ethernet cable is being sold as 45000+ different products because it is uploaded as "Ethernet cable for HP X" "Ethernet cable for IBM Y" and so forth. It's incredible. I won't link the company but their name is like the "run command as root" command with the first vowel changed to be the same as the last. There are other cases, this is the most egregious I am aware of.
- Nition 10y ago
  I just looked them up. Searched ethernet in their product listing. Five pages of results all with the same image! But actually that's nothing. Searching "cable" gives me 40 pages of results all with the same basic jug plug image.
spacehacker 10y ago
I've also been annoyed by Amazon lately. I am not sure it has gotten worse over the time, but I am sure that there is a lot of potential for improvement. The product sites are horribly cluttered and often even load slowly (on a 5 year old laptop). The home page is 6 MB in size! The product descriptions are also typically bad and it is often surprisingly difficult to find what you want (e.g. a laptop with specific specs). I always have the feeling there is some dark matter/inventory of things that no one considers, and hence no one writes reviews for, simply because the inventory is so poorly structured and the items have poor descriptions.
- swozey 10y ago
  You missed the part where sellers misrepresent sizes on their products, so you expect to order a human sized rack shelf (usually due to misrepresentative pictures) but it's the size of your foot.
  - chx 10y ago
    I have found 1000+ pound LCD monitors, messenger bags that would fit the Big Friendly Giant and who knows what else.
- user5994461 10y ago
  IMO. Amazon marketplace is a disaster. What brought me to use Amazon a long time ago was that they were selling themselves. It was one of the first reputable seller on the internet, that soon sold all kind of stuff. It was much better than buying from a dozen of unknown weird sites (depending on the product) for which I didn't have an account. Now it's mayhem. There is no guarantee who is selling the thing, where it's coming from or what is the product I'm buying BUT everything is advertised as AMAZON.com. I might as well buy stuff on eBay. At least it's clear who's selling.

by CPLX 10y ago

chx 10y ago

We absolutely noticed. An Ethernet cable is being sold as 45000+ different products because it is uploaded as "Ethernet cable for HP X" "Ethernet cable for IBM Y" and so forth. It's incredible. I won't link the company but their name is like the "run command as root" command with the first vowel changed to be the same as the last. There are other cases, this is the most egregious I am aware of.

Nition 10y ago
I just looked them up. Searched ethernet in their product listing. Five pages of results all with the same image! But actually that's nothing. Searching "cable" gives me 40 pages of results all with the same basic jug plug image.

spacehacker 10y ago

I've also been annoyed by Amazon lately. I am not sure it has gotten worse over the time, but I am sure that there is a lot of potential for improvement. The product sites are horribly cluttered and often even load slowly (on a 5 year old laptop). The home page is 6 MB in size! The product descriptions are also typically bad and it is often surprisingly difficult to find what you want (e.g. a laptop with specific specs). I always have the feeling there is some dark matter/inventory of things that no one considers, and hence no one writes reviews for, simply because the inventory is so poorly structured and the items have poor descriptions.

swozey 10y ago
You missed the part where sellers misrepresent sizes on their products, so you expect to order a human sized rack shelf (usually due to misrepresentative pictures) but it's the size of your foot.
- chx 10y ago
  I have found 1000+ pound LCD monitors, messenger bags that would fit the Big Friendly Giant and who knows what else.
user5994461 10y ago
IMO. Amazon marketplace is a disaster. What brought me to use Amazon a long time ago was that they were selling themselves. It was one of the first reputable seller on the internet, that soon sold all kind of stuff. It was much better than buying from a dozen of unknown weird sites (depending on the product) for which I didn't have an account. Now it's mayhem. There is no guarantee who is selling the thing, where it's coming from or what is the product I'm buying BUT everything is advertised as AMAZON.com. I might as well buy stuff on eBay. At least it's clear who's selling.