5 ms·

I have drastically cut down on the number of amazon orders I place because of the amount of no-name imports that have flooded their catalog in the last few year

• elefanten 9y ago
  I have ceased entirely. All product categories. For most of late 2016 I played the annoying game of "would some really counterfeit this product?", which usually ended in a stalemate. First I stopped buying anything that goes in my body. Then I stopped buying anything that goes on my body. Then electronics. Finally, sometime early this year when I caught myself pondering whether paper cat litter pellets might be dangerous if counterfeit... I just realized it was time to stop. Until they show they care about this, I'm Amazon-free. It's nice, I'm walking more than I used to and it feels good.
  • andrei_says_ 9y ago
    What are some guaranteed counterfeit free alternatives?
    • milesvp 9y ago
      In the EE community, it's generally understood that if you use ebay or amazon, you're probably going to get counterfeit electronics components. Mouser and Digikey are largely considered safe places to order components from, and presumably they have incentive to maintain their supply chain as free of counterfeits as possible. For physical goods, I'm more inclined to go to local retailers, since I can inspect them. Case in point, rat traps, I couldn't find a place on line where I could convince myself they weren't selling cheap knockoffs, so I drove to home depot and bought them there. I can't guarantee I didn't buy counterfeit traps, but at least they were high quality.
      • CamelCaseName 9y ago
        At the end of the day, no one but the sellers are concerned about counterfeit vs. real. The only thing that matters is the quality, and any marketplace with insufficient controls is bound to suffer in that metric.
      • kayfox 9y ago
        You will note with Digikey the packing list includes a certification that the parts are not counterfeits.
      • fludlight 9y ago
        Local retailers sell cheap knockoffs, too. Look up "Lumber Liquidators china formaldehyde".
      • andrei_says_ 9y ago
        Thank you. What about less specialized but pricey and thus likely to be counterfeit items, like electronics ( headphones, speakers, hdmi cables, dashcams), cookware (don't want toxic stuff in my food), wool/leather clothing, organic teas etc.
    • x0x0 9y ago
      I think monoprice still makes and sells all their own stuff. I still think it's safe to buy makeup on jet, though they're probably going to start doing 3rd party nonsense soon.
• baybal2 9y ago
  Consider going even further if you order stuff bulk. Chinese domestic marketplace Taobao, has surely overgrown Aliexpress since its launch. P.S. Aliexpress itself is an English language "fork" of Taobao. At some point, amount of active merchants on Aliexpress was that high, that it seemed that it is about to overgrow the original, but Taobao caught back after few years.
  • cisanti 9y ago
    I wonder how to find slightly better quality Chinese products. I like a AliExpress because it has everything, not because of the low price..
    • leggomylibro 9y ago
      You're usually fairly safe if you pay the 'going rate' for a product. Check several listings. The ones listed as 1.00 yuan are asking you to negotiate which is more effort than you probably want to deal with, the ones 15-30% under are probably from a rejected batch or a line of functional fakes, the real bargain prices are probably not even what you think you're ordering, etc. You'll still get burned sometimes. But the savings!
      • timthelion 9y ago
        Why wouldn't a seller offer a crap product for full price? What does it cost them to offer you a reject at full price?
        • leggomylibro 9y ago
          Well, that's where the second thing to look at comes in; how many sales the individual listing has. If more than a half-dozen people have bought it and it's still up, it's costly for the vendor to take the listing down and replace it when a 1-star rating is left. Sometimes you gotta roll the dice, but yeah that is very risky with things like integrated circuits, or really anything more complex than discrete components.
• Pxtl 9y ago
  This. Amazon has eliminated its own usefulness for me with its permissive approach to no-name sellers (and also its permissive approach to gougers, and the poor quality of search results where gougers and no-name sellers are difficult to filter from the actual good results). In general, the typical "retail" product results get mixed into the sketchy sellers way too much on the platform. I've actually gone back to buying from brick-and-mortar for things where I care about quality, and aliexpress where I'm willing to experiment. Amazon mixes those two categories poorly, providing a bad experience for both use-cases.
  • dcosson 9y ago
    > the typical "retail" product results get mixed into the sketchy sellers And sometimes in the same listing! Like some colors will be the regular retail version and other colors are from a different seller and either a no-name copy or a totally different year or model and price, and then the reviews are all but useless because you don't know which version they're referring to. Or what used to be a high quality product stops being for sale or stops being prime, and a different product gets merged with it and gets to start with 4 stars and hundreds of reviews. There's definitely value in having access to cheap products, I guess I'm just surprised that Amazon has basically turned into Ebay rather than the other way around.
    • pasbesoin 9y ago
      the reviews are all but useless because you don't know which version they're referring to This is an, err..., "prime" point: Their aggressive and increasingly universal "mushing together" of reviews for specific items/entries into a single set of less-specific reviews. Even if you've developed a nuanced view and ability to assess Amazon reviews, they've made it yet harder by dissassociating reviews from the specific, exact item in question. The primary remaining value that Amazon has, for me, is that so far -- anecdotally and as far as I recall reading -- their payment system and record-keeping has not been directly compromised. (There was the password shortening/weakening behavior, exposed and fixed some years ago.) I hesitate to face replacing an exposed credit card -- maybe months down the line, and with fraudulent entries to clear up -- due to competitors' less robust payment systems. That, and the fact that I now find the Prime video selection better than Netflix (in the U.S.). But actually shopping on Amazon -- trying to find a best choice when you haven't already decided and know how to differentiate the authentic from a counterfeit or gray source -- has become damned frustrating.
• x0x0 9y ago
  Amazon just don't care. I bought a charger with a fake Intertek -- a UL competitor -- mark on it. Internek at the time had a pdf on their site warning the product had not been tested by them. I discovered this by googling the product after arrival. I notified Amazon and they immediately refunded my order... but didn't remove the charger from their site. Instead, they continued to sell it.
  • ksk 9y ago
    So, how does Amazon know you're not lying? If they lower the threshold enough to pull products, people would just game the system (not that it isn't happening now) to pull their competitors products off of Amazon. The good news is that the solution can come from the community. Aren't we all startup people here? But the bad news is that very few people are willing to put their money where their mouth is. People rail on about Big Corp screwing over the little guy. But supporting the 'little guy' companies means buying products that are made by smaller non-established companies. Sometimes doing things "right" means paying employees more benefits, having higher product safety standards, sourcing raw materials ethically, etc all of which adds to the cost of doing business. That money has to come from all of us buying those products.
    • forgottenpass 9y ago
      So, how does Amazon know you're not lying? Presumably the people at Amazon can also access Intertek's website. They're a big enough retailer they could probably get someone on the phone too.
• gscott 9y ago
  If you don't have Amazon Prime you save money by shipping direct from China since China subsidizes their shipping and the United States accepts the parcel and delivers it at no extra charge. If something costs $6 to ship from Amazon then it will probably cost around $2 in shipping from China. Plus no sales tax.
  • cbhcali 9y ago
    That's not exactly how that's paid for, but this article explains it a little more clearly https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/the-postal-service-is-losing-millions-a-year-to-help-you-buy-cheap-stuff-from-china/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/...
• atomi 9y ago
  It's truly infuriating. I think the answer is to provide proof of authenticity. Perhaps something like a hash that users can use a website to verify if their purchase is indeed authentic, and actively encourage customers to file chargebacks for products that fail the verification. Hit them where it hurts. This is something that needs to be actively fought by both governments and consumers.
  • astura 9y ago
    But is Grandma really going to understand how to verify authenticity and/or why she should?
    • nerfhammer 9y ago
      > actively fought by both governments and consumers.
      • astura 9y ago
        So it "needs" to be "actively fought" for but my point was consumers don't "actively [fight]" for things when they don't understand why they will benefit from it.
    • jff 9y ago
      I think you'd be surprised how easily Grandma cottons to the idea of cheap knock-off crap, and that by typing a code from her multivitamin bottle into product-validation.gov, she can verify it's not full of heavy metals.
      • rtkwe 9y ago
        Not sure a system like that can really work. All a counterfeiter needs to do is buy or scan a legitimate product if it's just a code printed on it and now all the devices validate as 'real'. Can't do a challenge response authentication with a simple printed HMAC. I guess if we did a lot more intensive inventory tracking so whatever validation service knew batch 213489234 was made 10/21/2019 and was being sold by Amazon/CVS/etc. and was all sold out by 3/14/2020. Then grandma could say 'Oh no' I bought this from BobsDiscountPharma.com so it's maybe fake. Another option that could maybe make it work with a little RFID/powered chip so you could actually do authentication but that's more expensive and creates a lot of ewaste if it gets applied to a lot of products.
• cranjice 9y ago
  +1!
• grandalf 9y ago
  I'm still a loyal Amazon shopper but I've been victimized by this many times. The worst part is that some of the counterfeit items will actually cause property damage when they malfunction (chargers, batteries, etc.) Others are so inexpensive that it's not really worth the hassle to return them. Now I'm reluctant to order any electronics product that doesn't have at least 500 reviews, as the scammers have become good at getting 50-100 fake reviews for counterfeit items. Amazon needs to step up and fully insure all purchases against counterfeiting. The worst part is that this kind of stuff is ammunition for the Trump supporter view that Amazon is doing harm to the American economy by promoting goods manufactured by cheap labor abroad.
  • pault 9y ago
    The other day I was shopping for tooth whitening strips and the top result was a sketchy no-name product with 400 5 star reviews and only 2 verified purchases. I left a review warning people that the reviews are fake and amazon rejected it. Apparently fake reviews are fine, and thousands of prank reviews from redditors are fine, but calling out fakes is against the TOS. It was so infuriating and made me feel like amazon is intentionally allowing their customers to be defrauded.
    • grandalf 9y ago
      Amazon makes tremendous profit on all of the counterfeit goods, so unless customers resort do doing credit card chargebacks Amazon is unlikely to notice. Chances are chargebacks would result in account termination, so Amazon's market power is sort of obvious in this case.
  • andrei_says_ 9y ago
    I started figuring in the cost of toxic landfills, and the pollution (manufacturing + transport) for items to come to my door. So I do mind throwing away cheap electronics, because they’re anything but cheap.
    • grandalf 9y ago
      True. Countries with lax emissions laws arbitrage environmental damage in exchange for short-term profits. When we import goods from these countries, we too arbitrage environmental damage for short-term profits. Since the environment is global, a filthy and polluted river or smokestack in China is harmful to all of us in the US, even if we are not directly drinking out of it or breathing it in. I think all products made from imported parts should contain disclosure about what environmental harm was created in the manufacture of the parts. I'm not loyal to American manufacturing in the least, but it's silly to pretend that there is fair competition when a product manufactured in the US must comply with extensive environmental regs that the Chinese product does not.
• agumonkey 9y ago
  Then Amazon is digging its own grave.
• anonymous5133 9y ago
  The worst category is buying "OEM" cell phone batteries. Battery looks the same but it is fake. It gets listed with all the regular batteries so you dont know who is legit seller.
• Nomentatus 9y ago
  I'm still buying from Amazon, but only items they stock, and I'm sticking close to well name brands. Nothing shipped from anywhere else, I've just been burned far too many times. For the same reason, I avoid Chinese-produced goods if at all possible - plus, I swear they're using gasoline as a solvent when they make anything plastic. What a stink.
  • thirdsun 9y ago
    > I'm still buying from Amazon, but only items they stock. Won't help. Amazon mixes their stock with "fulfilled by Amazon" stock from third party sellers. So as long as it appears to be the same product it'll end up in the same batch. Funnily enough, due to this even sketchy sellers that provide counterfeit goods using the FBA service might actually sell original products.
    • randycupertino 9y ago
      this is so infuriating. Why can't you just select to only buy from teh specific seller on Amazon. ARGH. All I want to do is buy makeup and shampoo on there and I can't after having gotten way too many fakes.
• closeparen 9y ago
  This is highly reminscient of the iOS vs. Android app distribution model. If Amazon aggressively curated its platform for quality, I expect we’d be hearing a deafening and righteously indignant chorus against its existential threat to freedom and consumer choice. Also makes you wonder whether “Amazon, but with quality control” might exist as a smaller but more profitable niche, similar to Apple.
• cwkoss 9y ago
  As a frequent Aliexpress customer, I was suprised to find that Amazon had the best price on a particular item. I've only seen for one product category (Solar LED string lights). I assume it only happens when a US distributor has too much supply and sells at cost/below. Also, prices on AE have risen about 20% as winter season approaches, so it could be that Amazon sellers still have units from 'summer' prices.