10 ms·

I might be shunned for beating the dead horse, but while he talks about 'True Customer Obsession', he allows counterfeit goods erode his customer's trust in Ama

by x2f10 10y ago

I might be shunned for beating the dead horse, but while he talks about 'True Customer Obsession', he allows counterfeit goods erode his customer's trust in Amazon. I'd argue Amazon's 'process as proxy' in dealing with counterfeits is the careless return process. 'Oh, it's counterfeit? We're sorry! Here's your money back!' does not solve the issue. Sure, thanks for the $10 back, but now I must think twice (or thrice!) before ordering from Amazon. Once my Prime membership lapses, I will not renew. The 'process' for dealing with counterfeits is broken. When the customer has to think about "the chances of counterfeit" or dealing with the return of counterfeit products, it's NOT customer obsession. I respect Jeff, TONS, but come on. You're talking the talk, but you're not walking the walk.

tryitnow 10y ago
Exactly. I'm not going to cancel my Prime membership, but I do make it a habit of buying certain products on other sites now. Another pet peeve: product descriptions are frequently insufficient to inform a purchase decision. I recently had to resort to using jet.com for some under-the-sofa storage boxes and amazon just did not have sufficient product description detail to make me confident in the purchase. I am assuming they now this and figure that the costs of fixing this problem outweigh the benefits they'll experience from fixing it.
nebabyte 10y ago
Why would Amazon have an interest in dealing with counterfeits? It just primes the market for them moving in with their brand of the thing.
- Androider 10y ago
  Because it used to be a no-brainer to buy things on Amazon, one click and done. Now I have to very carefully vet the listing before buying, inspect the product once received etc. Certain categories of items I would now never buy from Amazon in its current state (vitamins, fish oil etc.) Amazon has built a great reputation and trust with their customers, and they're going to lose it the way they're going.
  - nebabyte 10y ago
    What you're essentially describing is the blind trust people think they can put in a brand name, applied to a store. I like and use Safeway, but I would hardly fault them if they carried something I didn't thoroughly check out if it turned out to be a shitty brand. > Now I have to very carefully vet the listing before buying, inspect the product once received etc. Did you not research products before you bought them traditionally? That just sounds like you were happy you used to be able to 'get away with' irresponsible buying because a store 'was limited' to niche (thus generally quality) sellers, but not now now that it's open to everyone. It's not a platform's job to do your research for you. They enable buyers, sellers, reviews and so on to do that amongst each other, as would any other storefront.
    - MarkMc 10y ago
      > I like and use Safeway, but I would hardly fault them if they carried something I didn't thoroughly check out if it turned out to be a shitty brand. Isn't it much easier for Safeway to answer the question, "Are we buying these earphones from Apple?" than it is for a shopper to answer, "Are these genuine Apple earphones"? > It's not a platform's job to do your research for you A platform can choose to do whatever job it wants. If Platform A sells significant fewer counterfeit goods than Platform B then customers will prefer Platform A.
    - Androider 10y ago
      You're talking about researching a product in general, I'm talking about buying a SanDisk brand SD card and receiving a cheap knockoff with SanDisk poorly printed on it and totally different specs. I do think it is Amazon's responsibility to not sell fake stuff. Even buying only Amazon shipped and fulfilled products does not help, as all the inventory is co-mingled by the product ID. They've taken the poor approach of not sanitizing their inputs, and now their product inventory & database is corrupt, and it's going to be really hard to fix.
- fbonetti 10y ago
  Because it erodes trust in the platform, obviously. Would you buy something from a website if you were concerned it might be counterfeit? That being said, I've been a prime customer for years and I've never encountered this issue. I'm actually surprised to hear that's even a thing.
  - nebabyte 10y ago
    > Because it erodes trust in the platform, obviously. Would you buy something from a website if you were concerned it might be counterfeit? It just seems like it'd lead to exactly this kind of effect (quoting another user from above): > I frequently purchase from Amazon, and haven't(to my knowledge) received counterfeit goods. Generally I stick to "fufilled by Amazon" or otherwise first-party sellers, so that may have something to do with it. Trust in the platform entails "the buttons worked as expected (i.e. didn't glitch me out of my money)". Trust in the product and sellers can be eroded, but that just makes it more likely that users would next time look for more trustworthy sellers. I suppose you meant a trust in the ecosystem, but that wouldn't necessarily be eroded either as people would tend to assume that as long as you're smart about it you're fine. (e.g. people get mugged in shady alleys, but this doesn't erode trust in city living - people just learn not to go down those alleys.)
- gpawl 10y ago
  it Primes the market?
rubicon33 10y ago
Agreed. As a long time prime user, it's been the rise in counterfeit goods that has really shook my unwavering loyalty to Amazon. I used to order everything on there, without thinking twice. Now, I'm much more careful about what I buy on there, and often just avoid purchasing on Amazon entirely.
- knowaveragejoe 10y ago
  I'm mystified by this personally. I frequently purchase from Amazon, and haven't(to my knowledge) received counterfeit goods. Generally I stick to "fufilled by Amazon" or otherwise first-party sellers, so that may have something to do with it. Maybe I'm not purchasing niche enough products to run into this issue.
  - jerdfelt 10y ago
    Unfortunately, Amazon does not appear to keep different sellers products separate in the warehouse. All it takes is one seller sending counterfeit products to the warehouse for their inventory to be contaminated by counterfeits. This makes "fulfilled by Amazon" more risky in some respects.
    - ethbro 10y ago
      If this is true (and I suppose Amazon's the only one who really knows, absent a supplier orchestrating a test), then I can't believe there wouldn't be grounds for a class action lawsuit. Because, crucial, Amazon also comingles reviews for the same product. I'd assume they have boilerplate in their legal agreements that waive rights to do so. But it seems blatantly obvious that if I put a novel item on Amazon, attract great reviews for its high quality, get comingled with counterfeits, have my reviews bombed by pissed off customers, Amazon has materially injured my business through no fault of my own.
      - throwaway55523 10y ago
        This has been discussed here in the past. If you look at the FBA program they explicitly charge extra to not co-mingle your inventory.
plandis 10y ago
You're 1.) implying that Amazon isn't actively trying to fix it (otherwise they would be "walking the walk") and 2.) that it's a widespread issue (all I've heard about counterfeit products are from a few HNers)
- FreakyT 10y ago
  Same here -- I've seen a lot of comment sections upset about it, but I haven't encountered the issue myself yet. I'm sure it's a problem, and I certainly hope Amazon is trying to fix it, but I don't think it's the massive company-destroying thing that people are making it out to be.
- veidr 10y ago
  It's absolutely a widespread issue. I know it happens repeatedly to me, and every Amazon user I know well enough to have ever discussed this issue with, but don't take our word for it: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=amazon+counterfeit&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=amazon+... (I do think this is probably a hard problem, however, so I don't necessarily accept that Amazon isn't working hard on it...)
- ctdonath 10y ago
  Oh, it's an issue. You just may not have gone after high-value easy-to-copy products as others have. I haven't had a problem with top products being counterfeit, but maybe because I tend to buy them directly from the manufacturer (Apple) or from brick-and-mortar stores where I have the goods in-hand before purchase (Nikon); I'm willing to pay a more those ways for the assurance that I'm getting what I think I'm getting. The bigger problem I've found is counterfeit & knock-off accessories. Once I've paid US$X,000 for a products, I can't trust Amazon to show me suitable batteries, chargers, lenses, etc - there's so much money in selling those things, and it's so easy to make crap that ...works... but which is problematic somehow (dangerous knock-off chargers, batteries that swell or die, etc). Amazon is great for stuff that nobody would seriously try to copy & undercut in a deceitful manner. Yes, you can get great deals on stuff people would seriously try to deceitfully copy & undercut, but with enough money riding on it working right, I'll spend a few bucks more elsewhere to be sure I'm getting the real thing.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
creaghpatr 10y ago
The counterfeiters are also Bezos' customers he has to show them some true customer love too /s
dmode 10y ago
I once tried to purchase a pair of sunglasses from Amazon. That space is littered with counterfeits. The product page proudly proclaimed "Sold by Prada", but if you look carefully it is fulfilled by some shady company. Then you read the comments and realize that this item is not a original Prada item.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  > Then you read the comments and realize that this item is not a original Prada item. There is a very interesting discussion in Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah of how major fashion brands produce clothing: First, the brand (e.g. "Calvin Klein") decides what they want - color, cut, material. They go to a bunch of shady Italian clothing manufacturers (the book is about the Italian mafia) and hold an auction to determine the price they'll pay for finished clothes and the amount they'll receive. Once that auction completes, giving a price, quantity, and deadline, every manufacturer is permitted to accept the terms. Those who do are given the materials (cloth) at Calvin Klein's expense. Every manufacturer who accepted the terms is then in a race to deliver. The first one to do so is paid. Everyone else is left with what would have been high-priced clothing if they'd finished making it a little faster; that stuff, obviously, often meets with an illegitimate branding tag and sells in counterfeit markets. So my question to you is: suppose I go to an underground Italian market and buy a shirt made to Calvin Klein's exact specifications from material provided by Calvin Klein. Also, the branding tag on the shirt saying "Calvin Klein" is used without permission. Have I been cheated? Of what?
  - bmelton 10y ago
    > Have I been cheated? Of what? In theory, you've been cheated of the certainties that tend to go along with brand identity. Calvin Klein, as a brand, is associated with a certain amount of quality, of durability, of accuracy in fit, etc. You've been theoretically cheated of those assurances. In practice, you may not have been cheated of anything. Generally speaking, the trendline for clothing manufacturers is a rise towards a peak, and then a gradual descent from there. Looping back around to the article, Bezos would refer to them as "Day 1" companies while they're still proving themselves, ensuring quality and fitness, and "Day 2" companies thereafter, once they've attained enough brand recognition that they can coast on their laurels. In many cases, quality goes down, fit and finish suffer, and, of course, margins go up.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
petra 10y ago
But Amazon isn't "customer focused" when it comes to strategic threats - for example Android - and Amazon's response - the Fire phone, Their App Store. So the question is - are low cost goods, coming pretty directly from chinese manufacturers, often counterfeited and sold at a low price a strategic threat to Amazon ? They might, if you look at alibaba, but also on the tendency of capitalistic markets to stabilize on focusing on crap: just look at the quality of white goods, planned obsolescence, the security of the consumer IOT, etc etc.
- jonnathanson 10y ago
  As consumers we also have to acknowledge some complicity here. In most categories of products, time and again, American consumers have chosen price and convenience over quality.
  - panarky 10y ago
    Preferring convenience and low prices != complicity
  - petra 10y ago
    Not so sure: When buying something(say a white good) - how do i know how long it would last and whether it's worth the price ? And that's information companies hold, but don't share. And it's intentional. And if Americans could have found product with double the life and only 30% increase in costs - it's a great deal. And it's definitely techically possible, for many products.
xster 10y ago
> I respect Jeff, TONS, but come on. You're talking the talk, but you're not walking the walk. iunno man, I took a peek inside his mind via the Washington Post and it's dark
ninv 10y ago
Amazon charges sellers 8-15% per each sale in addition to FBA Fees so only way a seller can make money is by selling counterfeit. Amazon is getting greedy, sellers are cutting corner and customers are paying price.
donw 10y ago
This is an especially big problem for people buying precision tools. I've been looking at picking up some Mitsutoyo calipers, and the overall consensus is that if you buy from Amazon, you'll likely end up with a well-executed counterfeit that has all the right markings, but for obvious reasons won't be as precise, nor will it be warrantied or serviced by Mitsutoyo. This is a very real problem. Imagine that you wanted to buy, say, an Omega Seamaster as a special gift. For most people, myself included, three thousand dollars is a ludicrous amount to spend on a wristwatch. Imagine how pissed off you would be to order said watch, have it delivered, give it to your significant other, and then learn a year or two down the road that what you really got was a well-executed fake that could be bought for 1/10 the price.
carl689 10y ago
A little behind the scenes info, I work for a pretty good sized seller on Amazon. If a customer who purchased an item reports it as counterfeit * All items we sell of that brand are taken down * We are required to email a copy of an invoice of between us and that vendor. I think there is a date requirement here also * We are not permitted to ship comingled FBA shipments for that brand until resolved If the manufacturer is participating in the counterfeit program, they can whitelist sellers who are permitted to sell their goods and avoid the above.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  If someone bought something from your listing but the item that shipped was actually commingled from another seller, who gets the ding and the report? You or the other seller?
  - carl689 10y ago
    That's an excellent question, and honestly, I am not sure. I know we have been asked to send invoices not attached to a customer order AND only one listing was taken down (as opposed to the entire brand), so perhaps it's all suppliers that have contributed qty to that pick location go through a similar different workflow? While I know they have the audit info to do this, I am ultimately guessing on this scenario.
jjeaff 10y ago
The most frustrating part as a seller on Amazon is that they are taking severe action against sellers that receive complaints. I just got through a month long process of getting my account reopened after a suspension. All it took was a few complaints from a vindictive competitor. While they are harrasing long time sellers with years of positive feedback, they allow Indian and Chinese sellers to open accounts way faster than they can be closed for selling counterfeits. The model from the perspective of the counterfeiters is easy. Simply open an account, sell as much counterfeit goods as you can then get closed down due to complaints. Amazon then holds your money for 90 days in order to pay for any returns that may show up, but a good percentage of buyers will never know any better or won't bother to return. At the end of the 90 days, you collect the money that is left. In the mean time, you can open several seller accounts to keep the process rolling. If a part time Amazon seller can see exactly what is happening. There is no way that at least middle management at Amazon doesn't know exactly what is going on and that they are profiting immensely from it. Many scam sellers are extremely obvious. Why would Amazon allow Indian sellers to list hundreds of American textbooks for sale that ship from Amazon? The most frustrating part is to be harrassed incessantly by the half wits in their "seller quality" department when all this is going on.
6stringmerc 10y ago
I don't respect Jeff because of exactly the reasons you point out. He's a smart fella. He's not out of the loop about this shit unless he chooses to be. A fish rots from the head down. Even as a customer of sorts via Amazon Story Writer, I still think Jeff is essentially a Robber Baron in new clothes unless he finds humanity like Gates did and tries to use his war chest for good.
kriro 10y ago
There's also massive sales tax fraud that is at least tolerated by Amazon. I 'm pretty sure there are some (silent) investigations of this in Germany. Basically container, usually from China->Amazon warehouse; fulfilled by Amazon; sales tax never applied. To make matters worse these sellers have crowded out people that pay the sales tax in many categories because it's usually stuff that is 90% bought on price and well there's an automatic discount of 15%. I vaguely remember a report on TV of some small stores being slowly bled to death because their margins are below the sales tax percentage and the competition often just passes on 90% of the tax "savings" to dominate categories on price. Iirc. Britain has made some sort of deal or passed some sort of law to control this explicitly.
doorty 10y ago
But you also want the lowest price? Multiple sellers compete on a product page to sell you the product by being the seller in the "buy "box"--the seller with the lowest price. The alternative solution would be to only allow the product owner or licensed seller to sell the product, but that would require a LOT of manual labor for verification. But they will do this for big, important brands.
murtnowski 10y ago
How would you fix it?

by x2f10 10y ago

tryitnow 10y ago

Exactly. I'm not going to cancel my Prime membership, but I do make it a habit of buying certain products on other sites now. Another pet peeve: product descriptions are frequently insufficient to inform a purchase decision. I recently had to resort to using jet.com for some under-the-sofa storage boxes and amazon just did not have sufficient product description detail to make me confident in the purchase. I am assuming they now this and figure that the costs of fixing this problem outweigh the benefits they'll experience from fixing it.

nebabyte 10y ago

Why would Amazon have an interest in dealing with counterfeits? It just primes the market for them moving in with their brand of the thing.

Androider 10y ago
Because it used to be a no-brainer to buy things on Amazon, one click and done. Now I have to very carefully vet the listing before buying, inspect the product once received etc. Certain categories of items I would now never buy from Amazon in its current state (vitamins, fish oil etc.) Amazon has built a great reputation and trust with their customers, and they're going to lose it the way they're going.
- nebabyte 10y ago
  What you're essentially describing is the blind trust people think they can put in a brand name, applied to a store. I like and use Safeway, but I would hardly fault them if they carried something I didn't thoroughly check out if it turned out to be a shitty brand. > Now I have to very carefully vet the listing before buying, inspect the product once received etc. Did you not research products before you bought them traditionally? That just sounds like you were happy you used to be able to 'get away with' irresponsible buying because a store 'was limited' to niche (thus generally quality) sellers, but not now now that it's open to everyone. It's not a platform's job to do your research for you. They enable buyers, sellers, reviews and so on to do that amongst each other, as would any other storefront.
  - MarkMc 10y ago
    > I like and use Safeway, but I would hardly fault them if they carried something I didn't thoroughly check out if it turned out to be a shitty brand. Isn't it much easier for Safeway to answer the question, "Are we buying these earphones from Apple?" than it is for a shopper to answer, "Are these genuine Apple earphones"? > It's not a platform's job to do your research for you A platform can choose to do whatever job it wants. If Platform A sells significant fewer counterfeit goods than Platform B then customers will prefer Platform A.
  - Androider 10y ago
    You're talking about researching a product in general, I'm talking about buying a SanDisk brand SD card and receiving a cheap knockoff with SanDisk poorly printed on it and totally different specs. I do think it is Amazon's responsibility to not sell fake stuff. Even buying only Amazon shipped and fulfilled products does not help, as all the inventory is co-mingled by the product ID. They've taken the poor approach of not sanitizing their inputs, and now their product inventory & database is corrupt, and it's going to be really hard to fix.
fbonetti 10y ago
Because it erodes trust in the platform, obviously. Would you buy something from a website if you were concerned it might be counterfeit? That being said, I've been a prime customer for years and I've never encountered this issue. I'm actually surprised to hear that's even a thing.
- nebabyte 10y ago
  > Because it erodes trust in the platform, obviously. Would you buy something from a website if you were concerned it might be counterfeit? It just seems like it'd lead to exactly this kind of effect (quoting another user from above): > I frequently purchase from Amazon, and haven't(to my knowledge) received counterfeit goods. Generally I stick to "fufilled by Amazon" or otherwise first-party sellers, so that may have something to do with it. Trust in the platform entails "the buttons worked as expected (i.e. didn't glitch me out of my money)". Trust in the product and sellers can be eroded, but that just makes it more likely that users would next time look for more trustworthy sellers. I suppose you meant a trust in the ecosystem, but that wouldn't necessarily be eroded either as people would tend to assume that as long as you're smart about it you're fine. (e.g. people get mugged in shady alleys, but this doesn't erode trust in city living - people just learn not to go down those alleys.)
gpawl 10y ago
it Primes the market?

rubicon33 10y ago

Agreed. As a long time prime user, it's been the rise in counterfeit goods that has really shook my unwavering loyalty to Amazon. I used to order everything on there, without thinking twice. Now, I'm much more careful about what I buy on there, and often just avoid purchasing on Amazon entirely.

knowaveragejoe 10y ago
I'm mystified by this personally. I frequently purchase from Amazon, and haven't(to my knowledge) received counterfeit goods. Generally I stick to "fufilled by Amazon" or otherwise first-party sellers, so that may have something to do with it. Maybe I'm not purchasing niche enough products to run into this issue.
- jerdfelt 10y ago
  Unfortunately, Amazon does not appear to keep different sellers products separate in the warehouse. All it takes is one seller sending counterfeit products to the warehouse for their inventory to be contaminated by counterfeits. This makes "fulfilled by Amazon" more risky in some respects.
  - ethbro 10y ago
    If this is true (and I suppose Amazon's the only one who really knows, absent a supplier orchestrating a test), then I can't believe there wouldn't be grounds for a class action lawsuit. Because, crucial, Amazon also comingles reviews for the same product. I'd assume they have boilerplate in their legal agreements that waive rights to do so. But it seems blatantly obvious that if I put a novel item on Amazon, attract great reviews for its high quality, get comingled with counterfeits, have my reviews bombed by pissed off customers, Amazon has materially injured my business through no fault of my own.
    - throwaway55523 10y ago
      This has been discussed here in the past. If you look at the FBA program they explicitly charge extra to not co-mingle your inventory.

plandis 10y ago

You're 1.) implying that Amazon isn't actively trying to fix it (otherwise they would be "walking the walk") and 2.) that it's a widespread issue (all I've heard about counterfeit products are from a few HNers)

FreakyT 10y ago
Same here -- I've seen a lot of comment sections upset about it, but I haven't encountered the issue myself yet. I'm sure it's a problem, and I certainly hope Amazon is trying to fix it, but I don't think it's the massive company-destroying thing that people are making it out to be.
veidr 10y ago
It's absolutely a widespread issue. I know it happens repeatedly to me, and every Amazon user I know well enough to have ever discussed this issue with, but don't take our word for it: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=amazon+counterfeit&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=amazon+... (I do think this is probably a hard problem, however, so I don't necessarily accept that Amazon isn't working hard on it...)
ctdonath 10y ago
Oh, it's an issue. You just may not have gone after high-value easy-to-copy products as others have. I haven't had a problem with top products being counterfeit, but maybe because I tend to buy them directly from the manufacturer (Apple) or from brick-and-mortar stores where I have the goods in-hand before purchase (Nikon); I'm willing to pay a more those ways for the assurance that I'm getting what I think I'm getting. The bigger problem I've found is counterfeit & knock-off accessories. Once I've paid US$X,000 for a products, I can't trust Amazon to show me suitable batteries, chargers, lenses, etc - there's so much money in selling those things, and it's so easy to make crap that ...works... but which is problematic somehow (dangerous knock-off chargers, batteries that swell or die, etc). Amazon is great for stuff that nobody would seriously try to copy & undercut in a deceitful manner. Yes, you can get great deals on stuff people would seriously try to deceitfully copy & undercut, but with enough money riding on it working right, I'll spend a few bucks more elsewhere to be sure I'm getting the real thing.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

creaghpatr 10y ago

The counterfeiters are also Bezos' customers he has to show them some true customer love too /s

dmode 10y ago

I once tried to purchase a pair of sunglasses from Amazon. That space is littered with counterfeits. The product page proudly proclaimed "Sold by Prada", but if you look carefully it is fulfilled by some shady company. Then you read the comments and realize that this item is not a original Prada item.

thaumasiotes 10y ago
> Then you read the comments and realize that this item is not a original Prada item. There is a very interesting discussion in Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah of how major fashion brands produce clothing: First, the brand (e.g. "Calvin Klein") decides what they want - color, cut, material. They go to a bunch of shady Italian clothing manufacturers (the book is about the Italian mafia) and hold an auction to determine the price they'll pay for finished clothes and the amount they'll receive. Once that auction completes, giving a price, quantity, and deadline, every manufacturer is permitted to accept the terms. Those who do are given the materials (cloth) at Calvin Klein's expense. Every manufacturer who accepted the terms is then in a race to deliver. The first one to do so is paid. Everyone else is left with what would have been high-priced clothing if they'd finished making it a little faster; that stuff, obviously, often meets with an illegitimate branding tag and sells in counterfeit markets. So my question to you is: suppose I go to an underground Italian market and buy a shirt made to Calvin Klein's exact specifications from material provided by Calvin Klein. Also, the branding tag on the shirt saying "Calvin Klein" is used without permission. Have I been cheated? Of what?
- bmelton 10y ago
  > Have I been cheated? Of what? In theory, you've been cheated of the certainties that tend to go along with brand identity. Calvin Klein, as a brand, is associated with a certain amount of quality, of durability, of accuracy in fit, etc. You've been theoretically cheated of those assurances. In practice, you may not have been cheated of anything. Generally speaking, the trendline for clothing manufacturers is a rise towards a peak, and then a gradual descent from there. Looping back around to the article, Bezos would refer to them as "Day 1" companies while they're still proving themselves, ensuring quality and fitness, and "Day 2" companies thereafter, once they've attained enough brand recognition that they can coast on their laurels. In many cases, quality goes down, fit and finish suffer, and, of course, margins go up.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

petra 10y ago

But Amazon isn't "customer focused" when it comes to strategic threats - for example Android - and Amazon's response - the Fire phone, Their App Store. So the question is - are low cost goods, coming pretty directly from chinese manufacturers, often counterfeited and sold at a low price a strategic threat to Amazon ? They might, if you look at alibaba, but also on the tendency of capitalistic markets to stabilize on focusing on crap: just look at the quality of white goods, planned obsolescence, the security of the consumer IOT, etc etc.

jonnathanson 10y ago
As consumers we also have to acknowledge some complicity here. In most categories of products, time and again, American consumers have chosen price and convenience over quality.
- panarky 10y ago
  Preferring convenience and low prices != complicity
- petra 10y ago
  Not so sure: When buying something(say a white good) - how do i know how long it would last and whether it's worth the price ? And that's information companies hold, but don't share. And it's intentional. And if Americans could have found product with double the life and only 30% increase in costs - it's a great deal. And it's definitely techically possible, for many products.

xster 10y ago

> I respect Jeff, TONS, but come on. You're talking the talk, but you're not walking the walk. iunno man, I took a peek inside his mind via the Washington Post and it's dark

ninv 10y ago

Amazon charges sellers 8-15% per each sale in addition to FBA Fees so only way a seller can make money is by selling counterfeit. Amazon is getting greedy, sellers are cutting corner and customers are paying price.

donw 10y ago

This is an especially big problem for people buying precision tools. I've been looking at picking up some Mitsutoyo calipers, and the overall consensus is that if you buy from Amazon, you'll likely end up with a well-executed counterfeit that has all the right markings, but for obvious reasons won't be as precise, nor will it be warrantied or serviced by Mitsutoyo. This is a very real problem. Imagine that you wanted to buy, say, an Omega Seamaster as a special gift. For most people, myself included, three thousand dollars is a ludicrous amount to spend on a wristwatch. Imagine how pissed off you would be to order said watch, have it delivered, give it to your significant other, and then learn a year or two down the road that what you really got was a well-executed fake that could be bought for 1/10 the price.

carl689 10y ago

A little behind the scenes info, I work for a pretty good sized seller on Amazon. If a customer who purchased an item reports it as counterfeit * All items we sell of that brand are taken down * We are required to email a copy of an invoice of between us and that vendor. I think there is a date requirement here also * We are not permitted to ship comingled FBA shipments for that brand until resolved If the manufacturer is participating in the counterfeit program, they can whitelist sellers who are permitted to sell their goods and avoid the above.

kalleboo 10y ago
If someone bought something from your listing but the item that shipped was actually commingled from another seller, who gets the ding and the report? You or the other seller?
- carl689 10y ago
  That's an excellent question, and honestly, I am not sure. I know we have been asked to send invoices not attached to a customer order AND only one listing was taken down (as opposed to the entire brand), so perhaps it's all suppliers that have contributed qty to that pick location go through a similar different workflow? While I know they have the audit info to do this, I am ultimately guessing on this scenario.

jjeaff 10y ago

The most frustrating part as a seller on Amazon is that they are taking severe action against sellers that receive complaints. I just got through a month long process of getting my account reopened after a suspension. All it took was a few complaints from a vindictive competitor. While they are harrasing long time sellers with years of positive feedback, they allow Indian and Chinese sellers to open accounts way faster than they can be closed for selling counterfeits. The model from the perspective of the counterfeiters is easy. Simply open an account, sell as much counterfeit goods as you can then get closed down due to complaints. Amazon then holds your money for 90 days in order to pay for any returns that may show up, but a good percentage of buyers will never know any better or won't bother to return. At the end of the 90 days, you collect the money that is left. In the mean time, you can open several seller accounts to keep the process rolling. If a part time Amazon seller can see exactly what is happening. There is no way that at least middle management at Amazon doesn't know exactly what is going on and that they are profiting immensely from it. Many scam sellers are extremely obvious. Why would Amazon allow Indian sellers to list hundreds of American textbooks for sale that ship from Amazon? The most frustrating part is to be harrassed incessantly by the half wits in their "seller quality" department when all this is going on.

6stringmerc 10y ago

I don't respect Jeff because of exactly the reasons you point out. He's a smart fella. He's not out of the loop about this shit unless he chooses to be. A fish rots from the head down. Even as a customer of sorts via Amazon Story Writer, I still think Jeff is essentially a Robber Baron in new clothes unless he finds humanity like Gates did and tries to use his war chest for good.

kriro 10y ago

There's also massive sales tax fraud that is at least tolerated by Amazon. I 'm pretty sure there are some (silent) investigations of this in Germany. Basically container, usually from China->Amazon warehouse; fulfilled by Amazon; sales tax never applied. To make matters worse these sellers have crowded out people that pay the sales tax in many categories because it's usually stuff that is 90% bought on price and well there's an automatic discount of 15%. I vaguely remember a report on TV of some small stores being slowly bled to death because their margins are below the sales tax percentage and the competition often just passes on 90% of the tax "savings" to dominate categories on price. Iirc. Britain has made some sort of deal or passed some sort of law to control this explicitly.

doorty 10y ago

But you also want the lowest price? Multiple sellers compete on a product page to sell you the product by being the seller in the "buy "box"--the seller with the lowest price. The alternative solution would be to only allow the product owner or licensed seller to sell the product, but that would require a LOT of manual labor for verification. But they will do this for big, important brands.

murtnowski 10y ago

How would you fix it?