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Physical stores also SHOULD have a benefit that Amazon seems to have no will to address. Quality control. If you do have an item through a retail store with a

Physical stores also SHOULD have a benefit that Amazon seems to have no will to address. Quality control. If you do have an item through a retail store with a physical presence, not only should (common) items be there at any time, they should also be of actual durable quality.

NullPrefix 8y ago
I can't follow the point you're trying to make. Are you suggesting that retail employees could inspect the merchandise before giving it to the customer?
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  Brick and mortar retailers use a supply chain that is much more resistant to adulteration with counterfeit products than Amazon's is.
- rarec 8y ago
  Amazon has incredibly poor quality control depending on what you're buying. On the other hand, if you buy something retail, you can A. see it yourself first and B. have a physical store you can return it to.
- luddaite 8y ago
  I ordered new electric toothbrush heads from Amazon about a year ago and ended up receiving a very obvious knockoff product. It might be my fault for not reading the listing carefully but this definitely would not have happened in a brick and mortar where I can pick up the product and see that it isn't some off-brand mimic.
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  Because they’re shipping stuff supplied by random “merchants,” Amazon has no idea whether the products they sell you are authentic or fake. For a major example of this, Apple sued sellers over knockoff (and potentially hazardous) USB chargers being sold as official Apple chargers. “Shipped and sold by Amazon” and as far as customers can tell, it’s the real thing. https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13343682/fake-apple-chargers-amazon-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13343682/fake-apple-char... Best Buy’s supply chain doesn’t have this problem. This is common across all sorts of products. A shoe company (I forget which) stopped selling on Amazon because they couldn’t do anything about being mixed in with all the fakes, and fountain pens bought there (Lamy Safari in particular) have good odds of being Chinese knockoffs of questionable quality.
- esaym 8y ago
  That's not the point. Retailers use a known supplier for their products. Amazon uses any one and anyone else (3rd party) can sell on amazon. Common products that are normally sold at a high mark-up at retailers, are usually always counterfeit if bought from amazon. Case in point are the expensive electric tooth brush replacement heads by Oral-B. You will pay $5-$8 per head from a physical retailer. Yet on amazon, there are tons of them being sold for much less. If you do buy one from amazon, the product will not be the same as from a physical store even though the packaging is identical. Its a cheap counterfeit. Another time, I bought a hand cranked can opener. It was supposed to be a heavy duty "Made in America" can opener. Yet once I got it, the construction was nothing at all like the product images showed (was held together by cheap pop rivets instead of solid rivets) even though all the brand markings (including a big print "made in America") were there. It broke quickly. Looking on ebay I discovered an identical item only instead of it have a printed "made in America", it said "China"...
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    Banana republic uses multiple suppliers and apparently 32 inches mean different things in different countries. By upwards of half a foot. I bought 3 pairs, three different countries, three different lengths. There is no guarantee from a normal retailer either.
    - branchless 8y ago
      I would so love it if clothes retailers standardised on measures. This stops me ordering clothes online.
    - ajmurmann 8y ago
      The fashion industry is completely crazy that way. It's not just banana republic. Years ago I worked on a ordering system for a fashion retailer and it was mind-blowing. Orders would be filled on a best-effort basis. You order 1k black M and 1k blue L and you receive 1.5k L white and 500 XXL red for example. So we'd have not only to store the order but also what was received. On top of that the designer might change vendors between orders and now you have different SKUs for what's supposed to be the same product.
tw04 8y ago
This is a bit random, but case in point - I just needed some batteries today for a garage door opener. I refuse to order them from Amazon because I've gotten burned multiple times. The ONLY batteries I'd ever order from Amazon are their Amazon basics brand.
- dbcurtis 8y ago
  Interestingly, “Amazon Basics” has no counterfeitting problem. It is not that Amazon can’t fix counterfeiting, they just don’t care unless it is their own brand. At some point this crosses the line into anti-trust territory.
  - tw04 8y ago
    Never really thought about it that way, but interesting none the less. I have no idea if it's intentional but I definitely lean towards the Amazon branded stuff when it's an option for the fear of counterfeits.
  - Theodores 8y ago
    I imagine I could make some fake Duracell batteries and list them on Amazon with the Amazon folks (if they cared) thinking this was 'seller #143' also selling the same stuff. However, if I was to make some fake 'genuine Amazon Basics batteries' and then list them on Amazon I might not just blend in so easily. Someone at Amazon or even a customer might think 'where were these sourced as it wasn't through Amazon' for the gig to soon be up. There are other vectors for counterfeiting own brand products but you would have to be a supplier. In normal retail 'own brand' products can be sourced from many suppliers. If you are selling ready meals then the exterior pack could be provided by the supermarket with that being consistent. Meanwhile the contents could come from one of many industrial units at one of many suppliers. In this way 'co-mingling' is possible. In the UK we had a little problem a few years ago where 'own brand' ready meals were full of horsemeat. The products themselves were 'legit' but the contents were not. I would say that Amazon Basics are vulnerable to this type of fakery that goes on further up the food chain. This is fully possible with commodity items such as batteries. As per the UK horsemeat problem there is a serious reputation risk if this happens, terrifying the customers this way is a bigger existential threat to the brand than any 'anti trust' laws.
ChuckMcM 8y ago
Agreed, Amazon is getting deep into 'Day 2' territory by not policing the inventory controls and seller scams. From counterfeit goods to used goods sold as new, Amazon expanded to the point where the new shoppers it picks up are 'bargain at any cost' who are being served by these marginal sellers, and they are then losing their buyers who want a reliable purchase experience. Not to mention Amazon's ability to throw your purchases at your door when the disinterested delivery agent is only measured on packages delivered per hour rather than returns due to damage.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  > 'Day 2' territory What does this mean?
  - dsjoerg 8y ago
    It's a reference to Amazon's "Day 1" philosophy. https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/13/jeff-bezos-says-it-will-always-be-day-1-at-amazon.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/13/jeff-bezos-says-it...
- x0x0 8y ago
  I, and by extension my company, refuse to buy (1) anything apple makes on amazon; (2) any electrical item under $200. No chargers, no cables, no nothing. You all should try bhphoto.com -- good prices, no counterfeit gear.
  - justinator 8y ago
    bhphoto has their own problems [0] http://www.bhexposed.org/ http://www.bhexposed.org/
  - arethuza 8y ago
    I've pretty much given up on buying anything physical from Amazon after yet another "genuine Apple" part turned out not to be. It's not that I'm anti-Amazon - I use my Kindle every day, a long time Audible subscriber and I use Prime Video.
TheAceOfHearts 8y ago
I've been moving away from Amazon for a while now simply to reduce the risk of getting counterfeit items. At least with other retailers you can feel much more confident that they're not selling you a fake. Frys is a nice choice for buying electronics: they have in-store same-day pickup, and they'll price match Amazon and Newegg. It's pretty convenient if you have one nearby. This one surprised me a bit, but Best Buy also has equivalent prices to Amazon on a lot of things. A few days back I was looking for some items and found that they had everything available for the same price and I could go pick it up on the same day. Amazon do seem to be stepping up their delivery speed, though. This morning I ordered something that wasn't available at other retailers and I was given an option for same-day delivery. A few hours later it arrived.
- SomewhatLikely 8y ago
  Even if the shelf price at Best Buy isn't the same, they will match Amazon, Newegg, bhphoto and a few others. I even had to ask them to match their own online price before. It's convenient when you really want something immediately.
lemoncucumber 8y ago
While I wholeheartedly agree that Amazon has a problem with quality and counterfeit/knockoff items, IMO quality control has nothing to do with brick and mortar stores. If I order something from, say, nordstrom.com, I’m pretty confident that the item will be high quality and exactly the same as if I’d bought it from one of their physical stores. Or for another example, if I were to order some clothing from mrporter.com, I have similar expectations of quality even though they have no physical stores. If I buy something from eBay or Craigslist though, I have no expectations that it will be of a certain quality standard.

NullPrefix 8y ago

I can't follow the point you're trying to make. Are you suggesting that retail employees could inspect the merchandise before giving it to the customer?

bunderbunder 8y ago
Brick and mortar retailers use a supply chain that is much more resistant to adulteration with counterfeit products than Amazon's is.
rarec 8y ago
Amazon has incredibly poor quality control depending on what you're buying. On the other hand, if you buy something retail, you can A. see it yourself first and B. have a physical store you can return it to.
luddaite 8y ago
I ordered new electric toothbrush heads from Amazon about a year ago and ended up receiving a very obvious knockoff product. It might be my fault for not reading the listing carefully but this definitely would not have happened in a brick and mortar where I can pick up the product and see that it isn't some off-brand mimic.
wlesieutre 8y ago
Because they’re shipping stuff supplied by random “merchants,” Amazon has no idea whether the products they sell you are authentic or fake. For a major example of this, Apple sued sellers over knockoff (and potentially hazardous) USB chargers being sold as official Apple chargers. “Shipped and sold by Amazon” and as far as customers can tell, it’s the real thing. https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13343682/fake-apple-chargers-amazon-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13343682/fake-apple-char... Best Buy’s supply chain doesn’t have this problem. This is common across all sorts of products. A shoe company (I forget which) stopped selling on Amazon because they couldn’t do anything about being mixed in with all the fakes, and fountain pens bought there (Lamy Safari in particular) have good odds of being Chinese knockoffs of questionable quality.
esaym 8y ago
That's not the point. Retailers use a known supplier for their products. Amazon uses any one and anyone else (3rd party) can sell on amazon. Common products that are normally sold at a high mark-up at retailers, are usually always counterfeit if bought from amazon. Case in point are the expensive electric tooth brush replacement heads by Oral-B. You will pay $5-$8 per head from a physical retailer. Yet on amazon, there are tons of them being sold for much less. If you do buy one from amazon, the product will not be the same as from a physical store even though the packaging is identical. Its a cheap counterfeit. Another time, I bought a hand cranked can opener. It was supposed to be a heavy duty "Made in America" can opener. Yet once I got it, the construction was nothing at all like the product images showed (was held together by cheap pop rivets instead of solid rivets) even though all the brand markings (including a big print "made in America") were there. It broke quickly. Looking on ebay I discovered an identical item only instead of it have a printed "made in America", it said "China"...
- paulie_a 8y ago
  Banana republic uses multiple suppliers and apparently 32 inches mean different things in different countries. By upwards of half a foot. I bought 3 pairs, three different countries, three different lengths. There is no guarantee from a normal retailer either.
  - branchless 8y ago
    I would so love it if clothes retailers standardised on measures. This stops me ordering clothes online.
  - ajmurmann 8y ago
    The fashion industry is completely crazy that way. It's not just banana republic. Years ago I worked on a ordering system for a fashion retailer and it was mind-blowing. Orders would be filled on a best-effort basis. You order 1k black M and 1k blue L and you receive 1.5k L white and 500 XXL red for example. So we'd have not only to store the order but also what was received. On top of that the designer might change vendors between orders and now you have different SKUs for what's supposed to be the same product.

tw04 8y ago

This is a bit random, but case in point - I just needed some batteries today for a garage door opener. I refuse to order them from Amazon because I've gotten burned multiple times. The ONLY batteries I'd ever order from Amazon are their Amazon basics brand.

dbcurtis 8y ago
Interestingly, “Amazon Basics” has no counterfeitting problem. It is not that Amazon can’t fix counterfeiting, they just don’t care unless it is their own brand. At some point this crosses the line into anti-trust territory.
- tw04 8y ago
  Never really thought about it that way, but interesting none the less. I have no idea if it's intentional but I definitely lean towards the Amazon branded stuff when it's an option for the fear of counterfeits.
- Theodores 8y ago
  I imagine I could make some fake Duracell batteries and list them on Amazon with the Amazon folks (if they cared) thinking this was 'seller #143' also selling the same stuff. However, if I was to make some fake 'genuine Amazon Basics batteries' and then list them on Amazon I might not just blend in so easily. Someone at Amazon or even a customer might think 'where were these sourced as it wasn't through Amazon' for the gig to soon be up. There are other vectors for counterfeiting own brand products but you would have to be a supplier. In normal retail 'own brand' products can be sourced from many suppliers. If you are selling ready meals then the exterior pack could be provided by the supermarket with that being consistent. Meanwhile the contents could come from one of many industrial units at one of many suppliers. In this way 'co-mingling' is possible. In the UK we had a little problem a few years ago where 'own brand' ready meals were full of horsemeat. The products themselves were 'legit' but the contents were not. I would say that Amazon Basics are vulnerable to this type of fakery that goes on further up the food chain. This is fully possible with commodity items such as batteries. As per the UK horsemeat problem there is a serious reputation risk if this happens, terrifying the customers this way is a bigger existential threat to the brand than any 'anti trust' laws.

ChuckMcM 8y ago

Agreed, Amazon is getting deep into 'Day 2' territory by not policing the inventory controls and seller scams. From counterfeit goods to used goods sold as new, Amazon expanded to the point where the new shoppers it picks up are 'bargain at any cost' who are being served by these marginal sellers, and they are then losing their buyers who want a reliable purchase experience. Not to mention Amazon's ability to throw your purchases at your door when the disinterested delivery agent is only measured on packages delivered per hour rather than returns due to damage.

jacobolus 8y ago
> 'Day 2' territory What does this mean?
- dsjoerg 8y ago
  It's a reference to Amazon's "Day 1" philosophy. https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/13/jeff-bezos-says-it-will-always-be-day-1-at-amazon.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/13/jeff-bezos-says-it...
x0x0 8y ago
I, and by extension my company, refuse to buy (1) anything apple makes on amazon; (2) any electrical item under $200. No chargers, no cables, no nothing. You all should try bhphoto.com -- good prices, no counterfeit gear.
- justinator 8y ago
  bhphoto has their own problems [0] http://www.bhexposed.org/ http://www.bhexposed.org/
- arethuza 8y ago
  I've pretty much given up on buying anything physical from Amazon after yet another "genuine Apple" part turned out not to be. It's not that I'm anti-Amazon - I use my Kindle every day, a long time Audible subscriber and I use Prime Video.

TheAceOfHearts 8y ago

I've been moving away from Amazon for a while now simply to reduce the risk of getting counterfeit items. At least with other retailers you can feel much more confident that they're not selling you a fake. Frys is a nice choice for buying electronics: they have in-store same-day pickup, and they'll price match Amazon and Newegg. It's pretty convenient if you have one nearby. This one surprised me a bit, but Best Buy also has equivalent prices to Amazon on a lot of things. A few days back I was looking for some items and found that they had everything available for the same price and I could go pick it up on the same day. Amazon do seem to be stepping up their delivery speed, though. This morning I ordered something that wasn't available at other retailers and I was given an option for same-day delivery. A few hours later it arrived.

SomewhatLikely 8y ago
Even if the shelf price at Best Buy isn't the same, they will match Amazon, Newegg, bhphoto and a few others. I even had to ask them to match their own online price before. It's convenient when you really want something immediately.

lemoncucumber 8y ago

While I wholeheartedly agree that Amazon has a problem with quality and counterfeit/knockoff items, IMO quality control has nothing to do with brick and mortar stores. If I order something from, say, nordstrom.com, I’m pretty confident that the item will be high quality and exactly the same as if I’d bought it from one of their physical stores. Or for another example, if I were to order some clothing from mrporter.com, I have similar expectations of quality even though they have no physical stores. If I buy something from eBay or Craigslist though, I have no expectations that it will be of a certain quality standard.