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40% of the top sellers on Amazon are based in China, according to research

309 points by juokaz 7y ago

lighthazard 7y ago
Amazon is a lazy man's AliExpress in 2019.
- contingencies 7y ago
  AliExpress is a lazy man's Taobao.
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > AliExpress is a lazy man's Taobao. Don't you need a mainland bank card and phone number to use Taobao, and also know Chinese?
    - baybal2 7y ago
      You can register on Taobao from overseas without any problem, few vendors ship overseas though, but the number is far from zero.
    - contingencies 7y ago
      You can definitely settle via international credit cards (~5% fee = ~3% card settlement fee + ~2% currency exchange hit). Regarding language, online translation tools are adequate. Regarding shipping, I believe there are reshipment providers that you can batch purchases with, which means you can use all vendors (not just the ones who agree to ship internationally).
    - adelie 7y ago
      don't need either of those. shipping isn't even a problem now with taobao direct - taobao themselves will cover shipping to one of their warehouses, and then you can batch those to ship internationally. once you get used to the format, you should be able to order things without knowing chinese; it's pretty consistent. helps to know the language for things like reviews, product descriptions, etc. though.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- laurentdc 7y ago
  Amazon used to be my go to for the occasional hardware purchase, but now even searching for something simple such as "wireless keyboard" brings up a boatload of sponsored garbage with shady reviews (iClever, VicTsing, Qpao, Mpow, Topelek what the hell are these brands?)
  - maxxxxx 7y ago
    Same here. I get really stressed when I see the same thing under 29 different names with different prices.
    - lighthazard 7y ago
      It used to be that I would pop open Amazon any time I want to buy anything. Now I have to actively search for my options since Amazon is no longer my go-to option. It's unfortunate but Amazon has made it clear they care about their merchant dropshippers over keeping a measly customer like me.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    > what the hell are these brands? This is what 1-man-brands are. I myself used to run a sunglasses brand in my student years :) Most are just dropshippers, or people working out of home. Recipe was simple: order cheapest 1 dollar sunglasses on Alibaba, have them put into fancy packaging and silkscreened with something Italian sounding. Then you make up a generic website with stock photos for your "brand" I was surprised with the amount of people keen to buy $100 to $200 sunglasses with nothing more than an Italian sounding brand name.
    - petra 7y ago
      Does this still work ?
      - lighthazard 7y ago
        Yes :D
  - 7y ago
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  I find aliexpress very inconvenient and prices are not really much better than amazon or eBay.
  - lighthazard 7y ago
    My $0.99 pack of six combs that took 5 weeks to ship disagree with pricing being not really much better. Convenience.. the time it takes to ship is the only major deciding factor in my online purchases vs in-store purchases now. Do I need a comb tomorrow? No? How about in a week? No? Great, AliExpress.
- Glyptodon 7y ago
  I won't use Ali Express because it requires invasive "identity verification." I have visions of whatever documentation they get ending up in some Chinese government intelligence database.
  - jerrysievert 7y ago
    is this a new requirement? i've never had to verify identity to order from the united states.
    - Glyptodon 7y ago
      I'm not sure if it's a requirement or something they use algorithms to select certain new accounts for.
- gscott 7y ago
  Strangely Office Depot is sending out emails promoting AliExpress. Strange that a large company would undercut themselves.
  - ddeck 7y ago
    Perhaps explained by this: Office Depot and Alibaba team up to tap small and medium businesses Office Depot on Monday teamed up with Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd to launch a co-branded e-commerce website, seeking to tap into the opportunities of selling to small and medium businesses in the United States. While the Chinese e-commerce giant has inked deals with U.S. companies including Kroger Co to sell products in China through its online marketplace Tmall.com, the deal with Office Depot marks Alibaba.com’s first business-to-business collaboration with a major U.S. company. The partnership would give Alibaba access to Office Depot’s 10 million customers and 1,800 sales agents. Alibaba would also be able to take advantage of Office Depot’s distribution network that offers next day delivery in the United States, the companies said in a joint statement. Office Depot’s customers will also get access to Alibaba’s global network of over 150,000 suppliers to find more product options or a reputed manufacturer to produce their goods. For instance, a cutlery maker with a special design can find a factory to make it, which can be sold to restaurants or retailers across the world using Alibaba.com platform, John Caplan, head of North America B2B at Alibaba Group, said in an interview with Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-office-depot-alibaba/office-depot-and-alibaba-team-up-to-tap-small-and-medium-businesses-idUSKCN1QL195 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-office-depot-alibaba/offi...
- seppin 7y ago
  As bad as Amazon is, it's far from the minefield that is AE
sct202 7y ago
I'm not surprised that this has happened. As soon as I started seeing ads for people selling courses on how to list cheaply imported things from China in your spare time to make 'passive' income, it probably was easy enough for factories/businesses in China to do it directly.
- Anardo 7y ago
  Interestingly, what a lot of those sellers don't know is that say you do find a product that you private label. The Chinese companies buy fake reviews for your listing, and the Amazon blackhole removes your listing, and the Chinese sellers win anyways. Building with Amazon is building on the sand, don't build on the sand.
hsnewman 7y ago
Is it possible that the tariffs are an attack on Amazon (Bezos) who Trump doesn't like?
- tantalor 7y ago
  No, tariffs are waived on packages <$800 so Chinese merchants can skate by while US importers are penalized. Packages whose declared value is under $800... will generally be cleared without any additional paperwork prepared by CBP. https://www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-import-export/internet-purchases https://www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-import-export/internet-purch...
  - baybal2 7y ago
    Well, it will play against people who resell from inland, and towards dropshippers from abroad.
anilshanbhag 7y ago
“Why buy a $40 bikini made in America when you can buy a $4 bikini directly from China? For that matter, why buy a $20 bikini made in China but imported by a U.S. company like the Gap when you can buy a $4 bikini directly from China?” – Alana Semuels, The Atlantic ^ 40% of merchants are in China but the percentage of goods made in China is likely much higher maybe like 75%.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Yes! It’s simple price compression. If you can outsource labor to China, why can you not buy direct from China?
  - baybal2 7y ago
    > why can you not buy direct from China? Before somebody can buy something directly from China, the person have to know what they can buy... You know, entire business empires were built entirely on knowing what and where to buy.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Quality assurance is one thing: many companies that outsource to China have very strict QA setup to prevent being scammed by vendors. Also, while the manufacturing might happen in China, the IP is often not. That bikini’s nice design and the way the material is put together might be more valuable than the assembly. You might think you are getting the real deal, but it turns out it’s just a cheap copy.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      How is this different than cheap, low quality material already sold at Walmart and similar establishments (or even Amazon marketplace) at a first world markup? You can have a lot of garbage come from Aliexpress and still come out ahead.
plink 7y ago
Rife Chinese product forgery is the greatest cause of my reticence to trust most any Amazon product. Second to that is wariness over resold return items which are not disclosed as such. I'm not much liking my shopping experience there lately.
pault 7y ago
This is the single worst thing about Amazon (aside from the knockoffs); Every time I want to buy something, I do a search and all I get is 200 pages of the same shitty product with some generic brand name like "teksolv". Somewhere in that 200 pages is a product I want. So I go to another online retailer and buy it there. Edit: the Brand filter would work, except if there are more than five or six brands it dumps you in a huge directory of brands that you can't search, and you can only select one at a time. It's been that way for like ten fucking years! The only thing that would explain such incompetence is some kind of dark pattern.
- thefounder 7y ago
  Chances are the branded retailer just rebranded the shitty product from China and sells it at premium/luxury price.
  - pault 7y ago
    This is undoubtedly the case with most of the clothing, but not for consumer electronics. Edit: No, it's the same with the clothing; buy one of those generically branded jackets some time and see how long it lasts.
    - AJ007 7y ago
      I don’t recall any clothes I have that say made in China? I think the Chinese labor cost is too high for garments. Yes, there is a huge mark up, but if the clothing brand is ok they are doing quality control and providing some consistency besides the whole style/fashion part.
  - maxxxxx 7y ago
    Hopefully the branded item will have better quality control. You see that with camera batteries for example. The name brands seem to take the best batteries of a lot and third party sellers then take the ones that are less according to spec.
  - caconym_ 7y ago
baybal2 7y ago
I find a great irony that Amazon decided to wrap up in China's domestic market. I believe Jeff Bezos simply failed to comprehend the market. Amazon in China was actually beginning to do quite well in the last year when they found their niche in second tier cities. Second tier city may not sound appetising, but you have to keep in mind that even second tier cities in China have more buyers than entire USA.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > Amazon in China was actually beginning to do quite well in the last year when they found their niche in second tier cities. Maybe they got caught up in the stupid VC mindset that unless you're the dominant player with exponential growth, you've failed.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    FWIW, I wouldn't really question Amazon's judgement here just because of a comment on HN. Amazon has vastly more information about how their business was performing than anybody outside of the company. And they have management that has a track record of being able to run a business very competently. They probably had very good reasons for exiting China.
    - CharlesColeman 7y ago
      > Amazon has vastly more information about how their business was performing than anybody outside of the company. You can literally say the exact same thing about VCs that treat anything short of market dominance with exponential growth as failure. It's not a question or more/less information. People with the same extensive information can make vastly different decisions based on having different values and priorities. The person with the most information doesn't necessarily make the best decisions.
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        While I generally agree that incompetence explains a lot of decisions and, more specifically, the need for exponential returns explains a lot of VC decision making, we’re talking about Amazon here. They’re one of the most long term oriented companies in the world. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Jeff Bezos spent tons of his own money to build a clock that is designed to work continuously for 10,000 years. And Amazon’s trajectory has been an abject lesson in long term thinking.
lqet 7y ago
So, in the first week of April, I was browsing Amazon for a small bike part. I bought one for 1.99 EUR, no shipping costs. 1 day later I get an email that my article is now in transit via China Post, and I will receive it in 5-6 weeks. How can they possibly make money selling bike parts for 1.99 EUR from China?
- dmortin 7y ago
  There is some postal agreement between countries which makes it possible to deliver packages at a very low cost from China. But the US wants to end this: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/trump-changes-terminal-dues-and-epacket-rates/573337/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/trump...
- baybal2 7y ago
  First, China is still a relatively cheap country Second, developed countries offer China subsidies as an undeveloped country on postage rates. Postage stamp for international mail is in between 50 to 90 cents. Prepaid envelopes go for 1 to 2 USD. Third, E-commerce companies are eligible for Chinese own postal subsidies on top of that, and they get some volume discounts. Subsidised price for prepaid envelopes was around 40 cents last time I checked, so it is probably closing on 20 cents in wholesale volumes. Fourth, China still has a lot of people in abject poverty. You may be surprised, but a lot of these 1 dollar goods sellers are working out of small towns or villages. For them, earning even 10 dollars a day selling abroad may look more attractive than trying to sell to Chinese domestic market where they have no chances. Edit: they actually got a website in English http://english.chinapost.com.cn/html1/report/1208/204-1.htm http://english.chinapost.com.cn/html1/report/1208/204-1.htm Interestingly, even small air parcels that are not considered postal correspondence get crazy low rates http://english.chinapost.com.cn/html1/report/1208/188-1.htm http://english.chinapost.com.cn/html1/report/1208/188-1.htm
- rjf72 7y ago
  Aside from what everybody else mentioned about the worldwide postal treaties (which strongly favor developing nations, including China) this could be done profitably. It all comes down to profit margin per pound or volume. If it's coming by sea, and with a 5 week delivery - I'd assume it would be, you are really only restrained by volume. Cargo ships can carry hundreds of thousands of tons so volume is often the bottleneck. As for volume, they're packed with 20x8x8 foot shipping containers - that's 1,360 cubic feet. And a cargo ship can hold thousands of these containers, the biggest cargo ships can hold tens of thousands of them. And the operating costs for these ships are not huge. You're looking at a ballpark of a million bucks. Convert that into $/cubic foot and you can see the point. They can make a very near $0 profit per foot, and still show substantial profit. So cheers for economies of scale! If you ever get a chance to see one of these ships in real life, I'd strongly recommend it. These words and numbers mean nothing compared to actually seeing one of these monsters.
preinheimer 7y ago
Is that so different from Walmart? Perhaps not "Merchants" but the country of origin of the products. 15 years ago we were watching reports on the Walmartization of america, and one key line from the Frontline documentary (I think) was that Walmart basically taught China how to sell to America.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Walmart buys a surprising number of US sourced things for a bunch of reasons that are well outside the scope of this comment and basically have to do with the difference between a business that chooses what to sell and buys things by the box car and stocks them on shelves vs a business that basically proxies consumers to many small sellers and also operates a bunch of warehouses.
- jorblumesea 7y ago
  Walmart has QA, where they actually test and source products, ensuring quality and legal compliance. Buying direct from China runs the risk of toxic paints, metals, and that sort of thing. There was a HN article yesterday about Washington State suing Amazon for selling toxic toys. That's why you don't buy direct.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  IMO, not different at all. The retailer/distributor model is going away for lots of consumer goods, it's simply not as efficient as selling direct to consumers. The world has come full circle. You used to buy your candles from the candlestick maker. Then you bought them at the department store. Now you buy them on the internet directly from the candlestick maker.
less_penguiny 7y ago
Something I've found frustrating as of late is when a merchant isn't transparent about as much. Case in point, I ordered an urgently needed textbook off Amazon and was disappointed to learn that the package ended up delayed at customs for numerous weeks. I felt somewhat violated.
- guitarbill 7y ago
  i do wish that was move obvious (like eBay), or there was a way to automatically exclude results from abroad by default on all searches. bonus points for allowing me to specify some countries (like Japan) or exclude others. it wouldn't even impact Amazon's bottom line that much, as most people would never turn it on if it's opt-in
sergiotapia 7y ago
What's an online store that doesn't allow chinese knock off today? Amazon used to be good, a stamp of "This is quality" but now it's a numbers game and the quality is a dice roll.
- HoochieKoo 7y ago
  China is the country killer.
- username223 7y ago
  Newegg is okay for computer parts. The various online outdoor equipment stores aren't flooded with knockoffs. And you can always go to the manufacturer. Amazon is still fine if you're looking for a name-brand item, but as soon as you leave that path, who knows what you'll get? Don't take my word for it, but I even remember reading about their "Fulfilled by Amazon" program substituting items from different sellers with the same SKU. The result was predictable: people scammed the system by mis-labeling cheap knockoffs. Now that Amazon makes so much money off AWS, maybe they could use a bit of it to put third party sellers in their own "Wild West" tab, and taking a bit of responsibility for what they sell.
  - stevenwoo 7y ago
    The last time I ordered from NewEgg, five different items came from five different vendors, one sent me a cat 5 network cable instead of the keyboard I ordered (the address indicated the source was only 400 miles away in southern California so can't blame China for this one oddly.) NewEgg is now no different from Amazon with third party sellers. I just drive to Fry's now or if I'm willing to take chance, eBay.
ProAm 7y ago
Walmart is a town killer, Amazon is an economy killer
cbhl 7y ago
I recommend Episode #857 of Planet Money, which talks about how postal rates are set by the UPU, and the impact on e-commerce. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/episode-857-the-postal-illuminati https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/epis... Transcript: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=634732388 https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...
- baybal2 7y ago
  This is not all to postal rate. Even parcels not subject to UPU subsidies go at relatively low rate in China.
- codedokode 7y ago
  I think that they might be making wrong conclusions. For example, they say that USPS is losing 80 millions dollars on delivery from abroad. But USPS is delivering letters and goods to Americans, so you should also count how much they save on getting cheaper goods, how much they save because prices lower due to competition, and maybe the total balance would be in favour of Americans. Also, they mention that the last mile delivery is expensive, but often goods are delivered only to the post office, not to the customer's door so the expenses are not that high.
w8rbt 7y ago
Poison toothpaste and pet treats from China have been ongoing problems for the last decade: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_207.html https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_207.html https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/news-events/fda-investigates-animal-illnesses-linked-jerky-pet-treats https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/news-events/fda-invest... I'm not sure getting a cheap price/good deal is worth the risk (even for clothing) as the materials may be dangerous to your health.
- ryandrake 7y ago
  A good rule of thumb I use is: if it uses electricity or goes in someone’s body, don’t buy it from Amazon.
- misiti3780 7y ago
  I just bought this for my cat: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FP9KC1K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FP9KC1K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b... I just bought one from Monster Pets and confirmed it was US based company: https://www.monsterpetsonline.com/2605-2/ https://www.monsterpetsonline.com/2605-2/ Did I do something wrong ?
zwaps 7y ago
I have to say the variance has become very high. In the past, I have, for example - Ordered a brand product and gotten an obvious fake from China. Not good. - Ordered a brand product, got something that had obviously been opened and used before. - Searched for something, found only hundreds of mostly identical Chinese generic products. Ordered one, was complete and utter garbage. - Searched for something, found hundreds of mostly identical Chinese generics. Ordered one, and it was actually pretty decent! Sadly, this happens less often. Overall, I only buy electronic stuff on Amazon if it is cheap and/or no product with domestic (EU) assembly and QA exists. If it is a large purchase, or one which may put me, my family or the house in any sort of danger, I would never, ever trust Amazon anymore. I buy it directly or from a store that sources directly from the producer. Additionally, you pretty much have to buy stuff which you wouldn't bother to send back, because these things usually go nowhere. Edit: Oh and don't get me started on the reviews. I just to look at them. Now, they are mostly fake, especially for these Chinese generic brands. I am convinced that some of these generic brands just receive the products that got sorted out of some real brand QA process and sell them anyway.
- jak92 7y ago
  > Searched for something, found only hundreds of mostly identical Chinese generic products. This is my biggest problem with Amazon now and why I use it less and less.
  - iamdbtoo 7y ago
    Same here. I used to love that I could browse a large selection of top quality choices in one place, from my home, rather than whatever the store happen to have in stock. Now it's mostly just the same item with different fake-seeming brands that mostly seem to compete on review count/quality.
- duxup 7y ago
  I'm finding similar things. Also I'm coming across a lot more garbage brands on Amazon that I'm having trouble plowing through to find what I want. It doesn't help that Amazon seems to be pushing me to buy a lot of garbage too with their suggestions, their own promoted sales, and etc. It feels like there is a very Wallmart type push for "hey this is 30 cents cheaper and look at all these reviews (fake, or by morons)!" Prime Day seems more like a garage sale than anything else ... I'm constantly seeing promotions for highly questionable health products / supplements... Lots of wrong categorized products that seem like spam almost. I feel like not just a lot of garbage but fewer quality products. I wanted a good HDMI switch, but all Amazon has are inexpensive (granted I have a couple and they're "ok") but not great switches and that is it. They really want me to buy these flimsy things that are all the same with these tiny annoying remotes. Oddly enough for me Amazon was a route to find a variety of BETTER quality things than I might find in a store, it is becoming harder to do that now.
CodeSheikh 7y ago
Also worth reading into "Universal Postal Union", an agency within the United Nations that is responsible for managing postal service policies for its member countries. "Under the current UPU’s treaty, China and other countries deemed a 'developing nation' receive a lower rate for packages shipped to the U.S. via the United States Postal Service." That's why it is convenient to get $3 iPhone case from Chinese/Asian country seller at $0 shipping cost. Gotta love the loop holes, eh?
- Mindless2112 7y ago
  Trump plans to withdraw the US from the UPU unless they fix that [1]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-made-the-right-call-to-withdraw-from-the-universal-postal-union/2018/10/28/7dbdde34-d3cb-11e8-83d6-291fcead2ab1_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-made-the-right...
- sytelus 7y ago
  This will make little difference. Large number of Chinese sellers already participate in Amazon Prime to get the SEO boost. Shipping through containers to Amazon warehouses is massively inexpensive compared to shipping via US post even if it was subsidized. Only small inexperienced sellers just starting out and tasting waters use US post.
AnnoyingSwede 7y ago
Amazon should make it easier to filter away things with long shipping.. Looking for motorbike parts that i prefer shipped from Germany (to the Netherlands) i sometime go through 20-30 products before i find a local seller. I didn't used to do this and in 80% of the cases delivery of 2 months, with some 20% shipped within days. Amazon is terrible on tracking the objects too. After waiting for 2 months, the day come when stuff is suppose to arrive, only to wait another day and find out it was not even shipped yet.
- TheRealPomax 7y ago
  To play devil's advocate: why? Unless it's fraud, those Chinese sellers aren't violating any laws that are relevant to Amazon, and it makes them tons of money, so why would they change something that doesn't make them run afoul of the law? Because "to improve customer experience" is only a valid reason of that comes with increased revenue, and it sounds like your suggestion wouldn't.
radcon 7y ago
And a significant portion of those 40% are spamming all of their competitors with fake negative reviews and/or false infringement claims to get their listings buried or removed. Both of those tactics are surprisingly effective and you can find many stories of people's businesses being ruined (or held ransom) by them. Fulfillment by Amazon was a decent idea, but it's time for it to go the same way as the Dash button and Amazon pop-up stores.
throwwaythrow 7y ago
In addition to the 25% levied on the $200 billion in Chinese imports, today: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/the-latest-china-vows-countermeasures-to-raised-us-tariffs/2019/05/10/485e32e6-72dd-11e9-9331-30bc5836f48e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/the-latest... President Donald Trump says his administration is beginning the process to impose 25% tariffs on another $325 billion in Chinese imports, covering everything China sells the United States. This will definitely have an effect on Amazon FBA sellers eventually, as foreign factories continue to move out of China until...they're all gone. Then the Chinese factories will try to flood Amazon with goods...until Trump focuses on Amazon, after he tariffs all of Chinese's goods.
- systematical 7y ago
  If the reports about them basically extorting U.S. companies into giving away technology are true, coupled with the outright theft of technology then we can't put enough tariffs on them until they start playing by the rules. I only wish a smarter guy was doing this. We could've used our allies to also slap tarrifs on them as well. The top export markets for China are the US, Japan, Germany, South Korea. A pretty good list of strong U.S. allies. We could've crippled them with a steadier hand.
hedora 7y ago
The title and conclusions of the article are not backed by the data presented in the article. According to the data presented by the article, Chinese sellers have ~40% market share. It is possible (and likely) that these sellers represent a long tail of small operations, and therefore << 40% of the top sellers are based in China.
partiallypro 7y ago
That does explain all the fakes.
miguelmota 7y ago
Amazon is polluted with knock-offs. It's often a hit or miss when ordering cheap electronics
rgbimbochamp 7y ago
Does a single DB query qualify as research?
danimal88 7y ago
I don't understand why the US puts up with this while largely being denied market access to China. In my mind, it would be more symetrical to have applied tariffs to brands that aren't incorporated and substantially operating in the US and are imported into the US from China. This would help American businesses by having American consumers buy quality items from US companies, even if a substantial portion of the product was built in China.
- swebs 7y ago
  So exactly what happened yesterday? https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-move-forward-with-china-tariffs-trump-says-11557424081 https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-move-forward-with-china-...
  - danimal88 7y ago
    Paywalled so can't read the whole thing. In general, my understanding is that it is NOT exactly what happened. We are putting tariffs on ALL IMPORTS from China, whether designed, maintained, operated by a US corp or a Chinese corp. A better policy would have recognized that there is a distinct difference between Chinese and US corps looking to sell into the US market. The simplest example would be anything internet connected product with software. If the design, software, marketing etc. is all largely in the US and just the physical product is manufactured in China, it seems like a reasonable economic policy to say that China can keep the manufacturing business and the US corps can continue to do this - largely because it acknowledges the reality that US manufacturing for high volume/low mix is simply not going to be competitive and if it is, it will only be due to automation. Leaving the manufacturing in place but blocking Chinese market access would impart substantial hardship to Chinese companies who are able to ignore US Trademark, IP, deceitful advertising/low quality (read other threads on this HN post), all the while largely not interrupting US businesses. It would have provided needed leverage while avoiding doing damage to US business and consumers.
- analyst74 7y ago
  There are many examples where American brands gained or dominated in market share in China. GM sells more cars in China than in US for example.
notacoward 7y ago
40% of top sellers because every item is sold under a hundred different made-up brand names to pad the search results. No one of them pulls in many suckers (the products sold this way are consistently crap) but they do add up.
SubiculumCode 7y ago
This is absolutely gutting the American small-business retail sector and the jobs that sector supports. I'm not 100% confident what the solution should be, but these types of stories really underscore how tech is enabling accellerated job displacement in America, and the need for new solutions, perhaps like Andrew Yang's UBI proposal.
- SubiculumCode 7y ago
  The point stands.
noja 7y ago
"Give us a 5 star review, email us, then get a free battery pack" - a note in the parcel from one particular top seller from China. How is this allowed?
FiatLuxDave 7y ago
I see a lot of talk in this thread about how Amazon's UI makes it hard to filter the good stuff from the bad stuff. But I haven't seen anyone suggest making a redirection website which does this filtering for a customer. Is there any reason one of you web slingers (not my gig) couldn't build a better site where all the links are Amazon affiliate links, thus using the entirety of Amazon as your backend? Then, you would have a better website for Amazon than Amazon does. People would use it. Sure, Amazon would totally absorb you once you got big enough, but that doesn't sound like the worst problem for a millionaire to have. And it would fix the problem.
- toss1 7y ago
  I've been thinking much the same thing, both to make search far better, filtering vendors & brands, etc. But I suspect that Amazon would not long allow the consistent access to their data sets this would require. It seems that it'd be to Amazon's benefit to provide an API (perhaps they do, I haven't really searched, just haven't yet noticed one available) and see what data gets pulled related to sales...
- rkuykendall-com 7y ago
  Amazon has very specific rules about affiliate links. You have to be providing what they consider a significant amount of content unrelated to the link. The site you just pitched sadly wouldn't qualify. Two real examples: If you have a site where you show a graph of all the IMDB ratings for a TV series, that isn't enough added value and they will ask you to remove the links. If you have a site where you post the reading-orders for various short series with short introductions, that is enough value.
wintorez 7y ago
I'm surprise. I was expecting a higher percentage.
m463 7y ago
This is how things work. Walmart, Target, Amazon, etc... they are all just the local landing pad for the global container shipping system, which statistically originates in china.
- techslave 7y ago
  they aren’t. they add value by doing QA, stocking inventory, having a reputation to uphold (taking returns, etc), handling recalls, and so on.
imjustsaying 7y ago
To what extent are Americans even allowed to sell anything in China?
dqpb 7y ago
China's manufacturing dominance is the ultimate Trojan horse.
qbaqbaqba 7y ago
Figures for aliexpress are even more shocking.
herbst 7y ago
Amazon is essentially AliExpress with a 50-500% markup. Especially if you live in a country nearly nobody delivers to. Like Switzerland.

309 points by juokaz 7y ago

lighthazard 7y ago

Amazon is a lazy man's AliExpress in 2019.

contingencies 7y ago
AliExpress is a lazy man's Taobao.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > AliExpress is a lazy man's Taobao. Don't you need a mainland bank card and phone number to use Taobao, and also know Chinese?
  - baybal2 7y ago
    You can register on Taobao from overseas without any problem, few vendors ship overseas though, but the number is far from zero.
  - contingencies 7y ago
    You can definitely settle via international credit cards (~5% fee = ~3% card settlement fee + ~2% currency exchange hit). Regarding language, online translation tools are adequate. Regarding shipping, I believe there are reshipment providers that you can batch purchases with, which means you can use all vendors (not just the ones who agree to ship internationally).
  - adelie 7y ago
    don't need either of those. shipping isn't even a problem now with taobao direct - taobao themselves will cover shipping to one of their warehouses, and then you can batch those to ship internationally. once you get used to the format, you should be able to order things without knowing chinese; it's pretty consistent. helps to know the language for things like reviews, product descriptions, etc. though.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
laurentdc 7y ago
Amazon used to be my go to for the occasional hardware purchase, but now even searching for something simple such as "wireless keyboard" brings up a boatload of sponsored garbage with shady reviews (iClever, VicTsing, Qpao, Mpow, Topelek what the hell are these brands?)
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  Same here. I get really stressed when I see the same thing under 29 different names with different prices.
  - lighthazard 7y ago
    It used to be that I would pop open Amazon any time I want to buy anything. Now I have to actively search for my options since Amazon is no longer my go-to option. It's unfortunate but Amazon has made it clear they care about their merchant dropshippers over keeping a measly customer like me.
- baybal2 7y ago
  > what the hell are these brands? This is what 1-man-brands are. I myself used to run a sunglasses brand in my student years :) Most are just dropshippers, or people working out of home. Recipe was simple: order cheapest 1 dollar sunglasses on Alibaba, have them put into fancy packaging and silkscreened with something Italian sounding. Then you make up a generic website with stock photos for your "brand" I was surprised with the amount of people keen to buy $100 to $200 sunglasses with nothing more than an Italian sounding brand name.
  - petra 7y ago
    Does this still work ?
    - lighthazard 7y ago
      Yes :D
- 7y ago
maxxxxx 7y ago
I find aliexpress very inconvenient and prices are not really much better than amazon or eBay.
- lighthazard 7y ago
  My $0.99 pack of six combs that took 5 weeks to ship disagree with pricing being not really much better. Convenience.. the time it takes to ship is the only major deciding factor in my online purchases vs in-store purchases now. Do I need a comb tomorrow? No? How about in a week? No? Great, AliExpress.
Glyptodon 7y ago
I won't use Ali Express because it requires invasive "identity verification." I have visions of whatever documentation they get ending up in some Chinese government intelligence database.
- jerrysievert 7y ago
  is this a new requirement? i've never had to verify identity to order from the united states.
  - Glyptodon 7y ago
    I'm not sure if it's a requirement or something they use algorithms to select certain new accounts for.
gscott 7y ago
Strangely Office Depot is sending out emails promoting AliExpress. Strange that a large company would undercut themselves.
- ddeck 7y ago
  Perhaps explained by this: Office Depot and Alibaba team up to tap small and medium businesses Office Depot on Monday teamed up with Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd to launch a co-branded e-commerce website, seeking to tap into the opportunities of selling to small and medium businesses in the United States. While the Chinese e-commerce giant has inked deals with U.S. companies including Kroger Co to sell products in China through its online marketplace Tmall.com, the deal with Office Depot marks Alibaba.com’s first business-to-business collaboration with a major U.S. company. The partnership would give Alibaba access to Office Depot’s 10 million customers and 1,800 sales agents. Alibaba would also be able to take advantage of Office Depot’s distribution network that offers next day delivery in the United States, the companies said in a joint statement. Office Depot’s customers will also get access to Alibaba’s global network of over 150,000 suppliers to find more product options or a reputed manufacturer to produce their goods. For instance, a cutlery maker with a special design can find a factory to make it, which can be sold to restaurants or retailers across the world using Alibaba.com platform, John Caplan, head of North America B2B at Alibaba Group, said in an interview with Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-office-depot-alibaba/office-depot-and-alibaba-team-up-to-tap-small-and-medium-businesses-idUSKCN1QL195 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-office-depot-alibaba/offi...
seppin 7y ago
As bad as Amazon is, it's far from the minefield that is AE

sct202 7y ago

I'm not surprised that this has happened. As soon as I started seeing ads for people selling courses on how to list cheaply imported things from China in your spare time to make 'passive' income, it probably was easy enough for factories/businesses in China to do it directly.

Anardo 7y ago
Interestingly, what a lot of those sellers don't know is that say you do find a product that you private label. The Chinese companies buy fake reviews for your listing, and the Amazon blackhole removes your listing, and the Chinese sellers win anyways. Building with Amazon is building on the sand, don't build on the sand.

hsnewman 7y ago

Is it possible that the tariffs are an attack on Amazon (Bezos) who Trump doesn't like?

tantalor 7y ago
No, tariffs are waived on packages <$800 so Chinese merchants can skate by while US importers are penalized. Packages whose declared value is under $800... will generally be cleared without any additional paperwork prepared by CBP. https://www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-import-export/internet-purchases https://www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-import-export/internet-purch...
- baybal2 7y ago
  Well, it will play against people who resell from inland, and towards dropshippers from abroad.

anilshanbhag 7y ago

“Why buy a $40 bikini made in America when you can buy a $4 bikini directly from China? For that matter, why buy a $20 bikini made in China but imported by a U.S. company like the Gap when you can buy a $4 bikini directly from China?” – Alana Semuels, The Atlantic ^ 40% of merchants are in China but the percentage of goods made in China is likely much higher maybe like 75%.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Yes! It’s simple price compression. If you can outsource labor to China, why can you not buy direct from China?
- baybal2 7y ago
  > why can you not buy direct from China? Before somebody can buy something directly from China, the person have to know what they can buy... You know, entire business empires were built entirely on knowing what and where to buy.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Quality assurance is one thing: many companies that outsource to China have very strict QA setup to prevent being scammed by vendors. Also, while the manufacturing might happen in China, the IP is often not. That bikini’s nice design and the way the material is put together might be more valuable than the assembly. You might think you are getting the real deal, but it turns out it’s just a cheap copy.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    How is this different than cheap, low quality material already sold at Walmart and similar establishments (or even Amazon marketplace) at a first world markup? You can have a lot of garbage come from Aliexpress and still come out ahead.

plink 7y ago

Rife Chinese product forgery is the greatest cause of my reticence to trust most any Amazon product. Second to that is wariness over resold return items which are not disclosed as such. I'm not much liking my shopping experience there lately.

pault 7y ago

This is the single worst thing about Amazon (aside from the knockoffs); Every time I want to buy something, I do a search and all I get is 200 pages of the same shitty product with some generic brand name like "teksolv". Somewhere in that 200 pages is a product I want. So I go to another online retailer and buy it there. Edit: the Brand filter would work, except if there are more than five or six brands it dumps you in a huge directory of brands that you can't search, and you can only select one at a time. It's been that way for like ten fucking years! The only thing that would explain such incompetence is some kind of dark pattern.

thefounder 7y ago
Chances are the branded retailer just rebranded the shitty product from China and sells it at premium/luxury price.
- pault 7y ago
  This is undoubtedly the case with most of the clothing, but not for consumer electronics. Edit: No, it's the same with the clothing; buy one of those generically branded jackets some time and see how long it lasts.
  - AJ007 7y ago
    I don’t recall any clothes I have that say made in China? I think the Chinese labor cost is too high for garments. Yes, there is a huge mark up, but if the clothing brand is ok they are doing quality control and providing some consistency besides the whole style/fashion part.
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  Hopefully the branded item will have better quality control. You see that with camera batteries for example. The name brands seem to take the best batteries of a lot and third party sellers then take the ones that are less according to spec.
- caconym_ 7y ago

baybal2 7y ago

I find a great irony that Amazon decided to wrap up in China's domestic market. I believe Jeff Bezos simply failed to comprehend the market. Amazon in China was actually beginning to do quite well in the last year when they found their niche in second tier cities. Second tier city may not sound appetising, but you have to keep in mind that even second tier cities in China have more buyers than entire USA.

CharlesColeman 7y ago
> Amazon in China was actually beginning to do quite well in the last year when they found their niche in second tier cities. Maybe they got caught up in the stupid VC mindset that unless you're the dominant player with exponential growth, you've failed.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  FWIW, I wouldn't really question Amazon's judgement here just because of a comment on HN. Amazon has vastly more information about how their business was performing than anybody outside of the company. And they have management that has a track record of being able to run a business very competently. They probably had very good reasons for exiting China.
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > Amazon has vastly more information about how their business was performing than anybody outside of the company. You can literally say the exact same thing about VCs that treat anything short of market dominance with exponential growth as failure. It's not a question or more/less information. People with the same extensive information can make vastly different decisions based on having different values and priorities. The person with the most information doesn't necessarily make the best decisions.
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      While I generally agree that incompetence explains a lot of decisions and, more specifically, the need for exponential returns explains a lot of VC decision making, we’re talking about Amazon here. They’re one of the most long term oriented companies in the world. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Jeff Bezos spent tons of his own money to build a clock that is designed to work continuously for 10,000 years. And Amazon’s trajectory has been an abject lesson in long term thinking.

lqet 7y ago

So, in the first week of April, I was browsing Amazon for a small bike part. I bought one for 1.99 EUR, no shipping costs. 1 day later I get an email that my article is now in transit via China Post, and I will receive it in 5-6 weeks. How can they possibly make money selling bike parts for 1.99 EUR from China?

dmortin 7y ago
There is some postal agreement between countries which makes it possible to deliver packages at a very low cost from China. But the US wants to end this: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/trump-changes-terminal-dues-and-epacket-rates/573337/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/trump...
baybal2 7y ago
First, China is still a relatively cheap country Second, developed countries offer China subsidies as an undeveloped country on postage rates. Postage stamp for international mail is in between 50 to 90 cents. Prepaid envelopes go for 1 to 2 USD. Third, E-commerce companies are eligible for Chinese own postal subsidies on top of that, and they get some volume discounts. Subsidised price for prepaid envelopes was around 40 cents last time I checked, so it is probably closing on 20 cents in wholesale volumes. Fourth, China still has a lot of people in abject poverty. You may be surprised, but a lot of these 1 dollar goods sellers are working out of small towns or villages. For them, earning even 10 dollars a day selling abroad may look more attractive than trying to sell to Chinese domestic market where they have no chances. Edit: they actually got a website in English http://english.chinapost.com.cn/html1/report/1208/204-1.htm http://english.chinapost.com.cn/html1/report/1208/204-1.htm Interestingly, even small air parcels that are not considered postal correspondence get crazy low rates http://english.chinapost.com.cn/html1/report/1208/188-1.htm http://english.chinapost.com.cn/html1/report/1208/188-1.htm
rjf72 7y ago
Aside from what everybody else mentioned about the worldwide postal treaties (which strongly favor developing nations, including China) this could be done profitably. It all comes down to profit margin per pound or volume. If it's coming by sea, and with a 5 week delivery - I'd assume it would be, you are really only restrained by volume. Cargo ships can carry hundreds of thousands of tons so volume is often the bottleneck. As for volume, they're packed with 20x8x8 foot shipping containers - that's 1,360 cubic feet. And a cargo ship can hold thousands of these containers, the biggest cargo ships can hold tens of thousands of them. And the operating costs for these ships are not huge. You're looking at a ballpark of a million bucks. Convert that into $/cubic foot and you can see the point. They can make a very near $0 profit per foot, and still show substantial profit. So cheers for economies of scale! If you ever get a chance to see one of these ships in real life, I'd strongly recommend it. These words and numbers mean nothing compared to actually seeing one of these monsters.

preinheimer 7y ago

Is that so different from Walmart? Perhaps not "Merchants" but the country of origin of the products. 15 years ago we were watching reports on the Walmartization of america, and one key line from the Frontline documentary (I think) was that Walmart basically taught China how to sell to America.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Walmart buys a surprising number of US sourced things for a bunch of reasons that are well outside the scope of this comment and basically have to do with the difference between a business that chooses what to sell and buys things by the box car and stocks them on shelves vs a business that basically proxies consumers to many small sellers and also operates a bunch of warehouses.
jorblumesea 7y ago
Walmart has QA, where they actually test and source products, ensuring quality and legal compliance. Buying direct from China runs the risk of toxic paints, metals, and that sort of thing. There was a HN article yesterday about Washington State suing Amazon for selling toxic toys. That's why you don't buy direct.
linuxftw 7y ago
IMO, not different at all. The retailer/distributor model is going away for lots of consumer goods, it's simply not as efficient as selling direct to consumers. The world has come full circle. You used to buy your candles from the candlestick maker. Then you bought them at the department store. Now you buy them on the internet directly from the candlestick maker.

less_penguiny 7y ago

Something I've found frustrating as of late is when a merchant isn't transparent about as much. Case in point, I ordered an urgently needed textbook off Amazon and was disappointed to learn that the package ended up delayed at customs for numerous weeks. I felt somewhat violated.

guitarbill 7y ago
i do wish that was move obvious (like eBay), or there was a way to automatically exclude results from abroad by default on all searches. bonus points for allowing me to specify some countries (like Japan) or exclude others. it wouldn't even impact Amazon's bottom line that much, as most people would never turn it on if it's opt-in

sergiotapia 7y ago

What's an online store that doesn't allow chinese knock off today? Amazon used to be good, a stamp of "This is quality" but now it's a numbers game and the quality is a dice roll.

HoochieKoo 7y ago
China is the country killer.
username223 7y ago
Newegg is okay for computer parts. The various online outdoor equipment stores aren't flooded with knockoffs. And you can always go to the manufacturer. Amazon is still fine if you're looking for a name-brand item, but as soon as you leave that path, who knows what you'll get? Don't take my word for it, but I even remember reading about their "Fulfilled by Amazon" program substituting items from different sellers with the same SKU. The result was predictable: people scammed the system by mis-labeling cheap knockoffs. Now that Amazon makes so much money off AWS, maybe they could use a bit of it to put third party sellers in their own "Wild West" tab, and taking a bit of responsibility for what they sell.
- stevenwoo 7y ago
  The last time I ordered from NewEgg, five different items came from five different vendors, one sent me a cat 5 network cable instead of the keyboard I ordered (the address indicated the source was only 400 miles away in southern California so can't blame China for this one oddly.) NewEgg is now no different from Amazon with third party sellers. I just drive to Fry's now or if I'm willing to take chance, eBay.

ProAm 7y ago

Walmart is a town killer, Amazon is an economy killer

cbhl 7y ago

I recommend Episode #857 of Planet Money, which talks about how postal rates are set by the UPU, and the impact on e-commerce. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/episode-857-the-postal-illuminati https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/epis... Transcript: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=634732388 https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...

baybal2 7y ago
This is not all to postal rate. Even parcels not subject to UPU subsidies go at relatively low rate in China.
codedokode 7y ago
I think that they might be making wrong conclusions. For example, they say that USPS is losing 80 millions dollars on delivery from abroad. But USPS is delivering letters and goods to Americans, so you should also count how much they save on getting cheaper goods, how much they save because prices lower due to competition, and maybe the total balance would be in favour of Americans. Also, they mention that the last mile delivery is expensive, but often goods are delivered only to the post office, not to the customer's door so the expenses are not that high.

w8rbt 7y ago

Poison toothpaste and pet treats from China have been ongoing problems for the last decade: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_207.html https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_207.html https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/news-events/fda-investigates-animal-illnesses-linked-jerky-pet-treats https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/news-events/fda-invest... I'm not sure getting a cheap price/good deal is worth the risk (even for clothing) as the materials may be dangerous to your health.

ryandrake 7y ago
A good rule of thumb I use is: if it uses electricity or goes in someone’s body, don’t buy it from Amazon.
misiti3780 7y ago
I just bought this for my cat: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FP9KC1K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FP9KC1K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b... I just bought one from Monster Pets and confirmed it was US based company: https://www.monsterpetsonline.com/2605-2/ https://www.monsterpetsonline.com/2605-2/ Did I do something wrong ?

zwaps 7y ago

I have to say the variance has become very high. In the past, I have, for example - Ordered a brand product and gotten an obvious fake from China. Not good. - Ordered a brand product, got something that had obviously been opened and used before. - Searched for something, found only hundreds of mostly identical Chinese generic products. Ordered one, was complete and utter garbage. - Searched for something, found hundreds of mostly identical Chinese generics. Ordered one, and it was actually pretty decent! Sadly, this happens less often. Overall, I only buy electronic stuff on Amazon if it is cheap and/or no product with domestic (EU) assembly and QA exists. If it is a large purchase, or one which may put me, my family or the house in any sort of danger, I would never, ever trust Amazon anymore. I buy it directly or from a store that sources directly from the producer. Additionally, you pretty much have to buy stuff which you wouldn't bother to send back, because these things usually go nowhere. Edit: Oh and don't get me started on the reviews. I just to look at them. Now, they are mostly fake, especially for these Chinese generic brands. I am convinced that some of these generic brands just receive the products that got sorted out of some real brand QA process and sell them anyway.

jak92 7y ago
> Searched for something, found only hundreds of mostly identical Chinese generic products. This is my biggest problem with Amazon now and why I use it less and less.
- iamdbtoo 7y ago
  Same here. I used to love that I could browse a large selection of top quality choices in one place, from my home, rather than whatever the store happen to have in stock. Now it's mostly just the same item with different fake-seeming brands that mostly seem to compete on review count/quality.
duxup 7y ago
I'm finding similar things. Also I'm coming across a lot more garbage brands on Amazon that I'm having trouble plowing through to find what I want. It doesn't help that Amazon seems to be pushing me to buy a lot of garbage too with their suggestions, their own promoted sales, and etc. It feels like there is a very Wallmart type push for "hey this is 30 cents cheaper and look at all these reviews (fake, or by morons)!" Prime Day seems more like a garage sale than anything else ... I'm constantly seeing promotions for highly questionable health products / supplements... Lots of wrong categorized products that seem like spam almost. I feel like not just a lot of garbage but fewer quality products. I wanted a good HDMI switch, but all Amazon has are inexpensive (granted I have a couple and they're "ok") but not great switches and that is it. They really want me to buy these flimsy things that are all the same with these tiny annoying remotes. Oddly enough for me Amazon was a route to find a variety of BETTER quality things than I might find in a store, it is becoming harder to do that now.

CodeSheikh 7y ago

Also worth reading into "Universal Postal Union", an agency within the United Nations that is responsible for managing postal service policies for its member countries. "Under the current UPU’s treaty, China and other countries deemed a 'developing nation' receive a lower rate for packages shipped to the U.S. via the United States Postal Service." That's why it is convenient to get $3 iPhone case from Chinese/Asian country seller at $0 shipping cost. Gotta love the loop holes, eh?

Mindless2112 7y ago
Trump plans to withdraw the US from the UPU unless they fix that [1]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-made-the-right-call-to-withdraw-from-the-universal-postal-union/2018/10/28/7dbdde34-d3cb-11e8-83d6-291fcead2ab1_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-made-the-right...
sytelus 7y ago
This will make little difference. Large number of Chinese sellers already participate in Amazon Prime to get the SEO boost. Shipping through containers to Amazon warehouses is massively inexpensive compared to shipping via US post even if it was subsidized. Only small inexperienced sellers just starting out and tasting waters use US post.

AnnoyingSwede 7y ago

Amazon should make it easier to filter away things with long shipping.. Looking for motorbike parts that i prefer shipped from Germany (to the Netherlands) i sometime go through 20-30 products before i find a local seller. I didn't used to do this and in 80% of the cases delivery of 2 months, with some 20% shipped within days. Amazon is terrible on tracking the objects too. After waiting for 2 months, the day come when stuff is suppose to arrive, only to wait another day and find out it was not even shipped yet.

TheRealPomax 7y ago
To play devil's advocate: why? Unless it's fraud, those Chinese sellers aren't violating any laws that are relevant to Amazon, and it makes them tons of money, so why would they change something that doesn't make them run afoul of the law? Because "to improve customer experience" is only a valid reason of that comes with increased revenue, and it sounds like your suggestion wouldn't.

radcon 7y ago

And a significant portion of those 40% are spamming all of their competitors with fake negative reviews and/or false infringement claims to get their listings buried or removed. Both of those tactics are surprisingly effective and you can find many stories of people's businesses being ruined (or held ransom) by them. Fulfillment by Amazon was a decent idea, but it's time for it to go the same way as the Dash button and Amazon pop-up stores.

throwwaythrow 7y ago

In addition to the 25% levied on the $200 billion in Chinese imports, today: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/the-latest-china-vows-countermeasures-to-raised-us-tariffs/2019/05/10/485e32e6-72dd-11e9-9331-30bc5836f48e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/the-latest... President Donald Trump says his administration is beginning the process to impose 25% tariffs on another $325 billion in Chinese imports, covering everything China sells the United States. This will definitely have an effect on Amazon FBA sellers eventually, as foreign factories continue to move out of China until...they're all gone. Then the Chinese factories will try to flood Amazon with goods...until Trump focuses on Amazon, after he tariffs all of Chinese's goods.

systematical 7y ago
If the reports about them basically extorting U.S. companies into giving away technology are true, coupled with the outright theft of technology then we can't put enough tariffs on them until they start playing by the rules. I only wish a smarter guy was doing this. We could've used our allies to also slap tarrifs on them as well. The top export markets for China are the US, Japan, Germany, South Korea. A pretty good list of strong U.S. allies. We could've crippled them with a steadier hand.

hedora 7y ago

The title and conclusions of the article are not backed by the data presented in the article. According to the data presented by the article, Chinese sellers have ~40% market share. It is possible (and likely) that these sellers represent a long tail of small operations, and therefore << 40% of the top sellers are based in China.

partiallypro 7y ago

That does explain all the fakes.

miguelmota 7y ago

Amazon is polluted with knock-offs. It's often a hit or miss when ordering cheap electronics

rgbimbochamp 7y ago

Does a single DB query qualify as research?

danimal88 7y ago

I don't understand why the US puts up with this while largely being denied market access to China. In my mind, it would be more symetrical to have applied tariffs to brands that aren't incorporated and substantially operating in the US and are imported into the US from China. This would help American businesses by having American consumers buy quality items from US companies, even if a substantial portion of the product was built in China.

swebs 7y ago
So exactly what happened yesterday? https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-move-forward-with-china-tariffs-trump-says-11557424081 https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-move-forward-with-china-...
- danimal88 7y ago
  Paywalled so can't read the whole thing. In general, my understanding is that it is NOT exactly what happened. We are putting tariffs on ALL IMPORTS from China, whether designed, maintained, operated by a US corp or a Chinese corp. A better policy would have recognized that there is a distinct difference between Chinese and US corps looking to sell into the US market. The simplest example would be anything internet connected product with software. If the design, software, marketing etc. is all largely in the US and just the physical product is manufactured in China, it seems like a reasonable economic policy to say that China can keep the manufacturing business and the US corps can continue to do this - largely because it acknowledges the reality that US manufacturing for high volume/low mix is simply not going to be competitive and if it is, it will only be due to automation. Leaving the manufacturing in place but blocking Chinese market access would impart substantial hardship to Chinese companies who are able to ignore US Trademark, IP, deceitful advertising/low quality (read other threads on this HN post), all the while largely not interrupting US businesses. It would have provided needed leverage while avoiding doing damage to US business and consumers.
analyst74 7y ago
There are many examples where American brands gained or dominated in market share in China. GM sells more cars in China than in US for example.

notacoward 7y ago

40% of top sellers because every item is sold under a hundred different made-up brand names to pad the search results. No one of them pulls in many suckers (the products sold this way are consistently crap) but they do add up.

SubiculumCode 7y ago

This is absolutely gutting the American small-business retail sector and the jobs that sector supports. I'm not 100% confident what the solution should be, but these types of stories really underscore how tech is enabling accellerated job displacement in America, and the need for new solutions, perhaps like Andrew Yang's UBI proposal.

SubiculumCode 7y ago
The point stands.

noja 7y ago

"Give us a 5 star review, email us, then get a free battery pack" - a note in the parcel from one particular top seller from China. How is this allowed?

FiatLuxDave 7y ago

I see a lot of talk in this thread about how Amazon's UI makes it hard to filter the good stuff from the bad stuff. But I haven't seen anyone suggest making a redirection website which does this filtering for a customer. Is there any reason one of you web slingers (not my gig) couldn't build a better site where all the links are Amazon affiliate links, thus using the entirety of Amazon as your backend? Then, you would have a better website for Amazon than Amazon does. People would use it. Sure, Amazon would totally absorb you once you got big enough, but that doesn't sound like the worst problem for a millionaire to have. And it would fix the problem.

toss1 7y ago
I've been thinking much the same thing, both to make search far better, filtering vendors & brands, etc. But I suspect that Amazon would not long allow the consistent access to their data sets this would require. It seems that it'd be to Amazon's benefit to provide an API (perhaps they do, I haven't really searched, just haven't yet noticed one available) and see what data gets pulled related to sales...
rkuykendall-com 7y ago
Amazon has very specific rules about affiliate links. You have to be providing what they consider a significant amount of content unrelated to the link. The site you just pitched sadly wouldn't qualify. Two real examples: If you have a site where you show a graph of all the IMDB ratings for a TV series, that isn't enough added value and they will ask you to remove the links. If you have a site where you post the reading-orders for various short series with short introductions, that is enough value.

wintorez 7y ago

I'm surprise. I was expecting a higher percentage.

m463 7y ago

This is how things work. Walmart, Target, Amazon, etc... they are all just the local landing pad for the global container shipping system, which statistically originates in china.

techslave 7y ago
they aren’t. they add value by doing QA, stocking inventory, having a reputation to uphold (taking returns, etc), handling recalls, and so on.

imjustsaying 7y ago

To what extent are Americans even allowed to sell anything in China?

dqpb 7y ago

China's manufacturing dominance is the ultimate Trojan horse.

qbaqbaqba 7y ago

Figures for aliexpress are even more shocking.

herbst 7y ago

Amazon is essentially AliExpress with a 50-500% markup. Especially if you live in a country nearly nobody delivers to. Like Switzerland.