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We used to buy from Amazon since it was a stamp of quality. I tried buying a usb-c cable for my mac mini, and it was terrible. So many brands and no way of know

We used to buy from Amazon since it was a stamp of quality. I tried buying a usb-c cable for my mac mini, and it was terrible. So many brands and no way of knowing what to get. Today you might as well buy from Ebay. What online store exists today, where I can be guaranteed to buy quality things? Do they no longer exist?

athenot 7y ago
The odd thing is eBay's quality is now easier to assess than Amazon's.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  And eBay is often way cheaper to boot.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    I have not found this to be the case for almost anything I have bought. It is almost always more expensive on eBay now.
    - okmokmz 7y ago
      Amazon used to regularly be one of the least expensive retailers I can find. Now I rarely find anything that is cheaper on amazon than elsewhere
  - castlecrasher2 7y ago
    definitely so for <$10 items, sometimes higher. Anything I've bought on eBay for <$10 is nearly always $10 or higher on Amazon
- isolli 7y ago
  How do you assess quality on eBay, e.g. for cables?
  - noonespecial 7y ago
    Read the seller's feedback.
  - athenot 7y ago
    For an active cable (lighning, etc.) look for new and look at the seller's feedback. Look at the other stuff they are selling. Is it junk, is it all off-brand? How long have they been selling? It's not fool-proof and I still find myself buying only cable brands I trust (I don't mind overpaying for peace of mind when it comes to that). But the likelyhood of fakes (imitations of legitimate brands) is much lower, in my opinion.
    - CamperBob2 7y ago
      eBay's opaque feedback system and captive seller relationships aren't the answer. The core problem is that they don't make it easy to associate individual listings with specific feedback for those items. In combination with the increasing popularity of "private" items, this encourages exit scams, among other things. A seller might garner 100% positive feedback for selling 500 Beanie Babies or whatever at $0.25 each, marking all the listings "private," then switch to ripping people off for $25K on nonexistent cars or machine tools or whatever. eBay could easily fix this in the common case where bulk sales are involved simply by adding a "Show feedback for this item only" feature. But they care even less about providing effective search tools than Amazon does, which is really saying something. Regardless of the question, the answer from the customer's point of view should involve more transparency rather than less. None of the major online retailers seem to agree, least of all eBay.
  - okmokmz 7y ago
    The feedback and reviews on eBay are far more useful and trustworthy than those on Amazon. I find that the bundling of unlike products together, and other tactics Amazon uses, makes their reviews essentially useless and definitely not an accurate way to assess product quality
bluedino 7y ago
When was Amazon ever a 'stamp of quality'? You can still buy a brand-name cable from Best Buy or other retailers that people used to use before everyone was trying to save a few pennies.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  > You can still buy a brand-name cable from Best Buy or other retailers that people used to use before everyone was trying to save a few pennies. It seems in the last year or two Best-Buy has wised up with their Insignia brand, but it used to be all you could find was $40 Monster Cable and the like in their stores. Using Amazon was saving quite a bit more than a few pennies.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    With their price matching of Amazon, I think Best Buy just realized that they were about to be the next B&M retailer to be put out of business by them. If they thought they still had a captive audience I bet they'd still be offering only Monster crap.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  > When was Amazon ever a 'stamp of quality'? Up until the moment they started intermixing stock from third-party sellers in with the stuff "Ships from and sold by Amazon." It is this change all by itself that pushes me away from using Amazon. If I could just opt-out of the third party sellers I would, but I can buy a product ostensibly from Amazon and still end up with a fake.
specialp 7y ago
It used to be when I wanted a quality item, I'd click "Ships from and sold by Amazon". They removed that option. Now I cancelled Prime and either buy from other well known retailers, or click "Condition: Used" on EBay. Amazon now is just FBA Alibaba with same lack of quality control.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
Target.com doesn’t have resellers yet.
leetcrew 7y ago
there's basically nowhere you can buy a USB type C cable and have it be guaranteed not to violate the spec. maybe the Apple store. the situation with usb-c is particularly bad, but I don't think there's ever been a time where you can just blindly buy tech and expecta high quality product. you have to be willing to do at least some research.
Klathmon 7y ago
This is the same issue I've had with walmart. For a long time now it's been obvious they have brands make "special versions" of many products for walmart which are lower quality and cheaper. Now they are offering free one and 2 day delivery on their site, but I just don't want to go there for fear that I'll end up getting what looks like a "good deal" but what I'll actually get is a worse more cheaply made product. And like you I also avoid Amazon now for many things for fear of getting knockoffs. Most electronics and chargers/cables and things like it. Between their issues with commingling inventory from multiple sellers and 3rd party sellers basically having completely broken their review system (it's exhausting having to weed out the fake reviews from the real ones every time I'm looking at a product). Amazon is quickly becoming another site that I'll start avoiding at all costs. I've started looking for replacements for many thing I buy, and once I've switched i'm really unlikely to go back just like how I'm basically never going to go back to Walmart because they burned all my trust.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  At least with Walmart you know their value engineered products are actually made by who they say they are and actually work enough of the time to pass whatever QC standards were set. With Amazon you have no idea whether you're getting a counterfeit.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- okmokmz 7y ago
  I never thought I'd say this, but I trust Walmart more than Amazon at this point
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
I tend to go for StarTech now, look it up on https://www.startech.com https://www.startech.com and search for the part number on Ebay. So far I've not been disappointed.
tannhaeuser 7y ago
Go to a manufacturer's direct sales site, or buy at respected brick-and-mortar shops or online retailers who have reputation to loose.
rchaud 7y ago
> What online store exists today, where I can be guaranteed to buy quality things? Do they no longer exist? I'm in Canada, and increasingly I'm buying direct from brick-and-mortar retailers w/ online ordering and delivery. Best Buy, Staples, Walmart, the Apple Store, the Microsoft Store, etc. BB's site does have third party sellers, but the website has a useful, clearly marked toggle labeled "Best Buy Only" which I always click. Walmart's search function is terrible, but once you locate the product, you can usually pick it up same day or have it delivered to a pickup point in a couple of days if you live in a city.
astura 7y ago
For cables? Monoprice.

athenot 7y ago

The odd thing is eBay's quality is now easier to assess than Amazon's.

ravenstine 7y ago
And eBay is often way cheaper to boot.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  I have not found this to be the case for almost anything I have bought. It is almost always more expensive on eBay now.
  - okmokmz 7y ago
    Amazon used to regularly be one of the least expensive retailers I can find. Now I rarely find anything that is cheaper on amazon than elsewhere
- castlecrasher2 7y ago
  definitely so for <$10 items, sometimes higher. Anything I've bought on eBay for <$10 is nearly always $10 or higher on Amazon
isolli 7y ago
How do you assess quality on eBay, e.g. for cables?
- noonespecial 7y ago
  Read the seller's feedback.
- athenot 7y ago
  For an active cable (lighning, etc.) look for new and look at the seller's feedback. Look at the other stuff they are selling. Is it junk, is it all off-brand? How long have they been selling? It's not fool-proof and I still find myself buying only cable brands I trust (I don't mind overpaying for peace of mind when it comes to that). But the likelyhood of fakes (imitations of legitimate brands) is much lower, in my opinion.
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    eBay's opaque feedback system and captive seller relationships aren't the answer. The core problem is that they don't make it easy to associate individual listings with specific feedback for those items. In combination with the increasing popularity of "private" items, this encourages exit scams, among other things. A seller might garner 100% positive feedback for selling 500 Beanie Babies or whatever at $0.25 each, marking all the listings "private," then switch to ripping people off for $25K on nonexistent cars or machine tools or whatever. eBay could easily fix this in the common case where bulk sales are involved simply by adding a "Show feedback for this item only" feature. But they care even less about providing effective search tools than Amazon does, which is really saying something. Regardless of the question, the answer from the customer's point of view should involve more transparency rather than less. None of the major online retailers seem to agree, least of all eBay.
- okmokmz 7y ago
  The feedback and reviews on eBay are far more useful and trustworthy than those on Amazon. I find that the bundling of unlike products together, and other tactics Amazon uses, makes their reviews essentially useless and definitely not an accurate way to assess product quality

bluedino 7y ago

When was Amazon ever a 'stamp of quality'? You can still buy a brand-name cable from Best Buy or other retailers that people used to use before everyone was trying to save a few pennies.

mieseratte 7y ago
> You can still buy a brand-name cable from Best Buy or other retailers that people used to use before everyone was trying to save a few pennies. It seems in the last year or two Best-Buy has wised up with their Insignia brand, but it used to be all you could find was $40 Monster Cable and the like in their stores. Using Amazon was saving quite a bit more than a few pennies.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  With their price matching of Amazon, I think Best Buy just realized that they were about to be the next B&M retailer to be put out of business by them. If they thought they still had a captive audience I bet they'd still be offering only Monster crap.
rootusrootus 7y ago
> When was Amazon ever a 'stamp of quality'? Up until the moment they started intermixing stock from third-party sellers in with the stuff "Ships from and sold by Amazon." It is this change all by itself that pushes me away from using Amazon. If I could just opt-out of the third party sellers I would, but I can buy a product ostensibly from Amazon and still end up with a fake.

specialp 7y ago

It used to be when I wanted a quality item, I'd click "Ships from and sold by Amazon". They removed that option. Now I cancelled Prime and either buy from other well known retailers, or click "Condition: Used" on EBay. Amazon now is just FBA Alibaba with same lack of quality control.

lotsofpulp 7y ago

Target.com doesn’t have resellers yet.

leetcrew 7y ago

there's basically nowhere you can buy a USB type C cable and have it be guaranteed not to violate the spec. maybe the Apple store. the situation with usb-c is particularly bad, but I don't think there's ever been a time where you can just blindly buy tech and expecta high quality product. you have to be willing to do at least some research.

Klathmon 7y ago

This is the same issue I've had with walmart. For a long time now it's been obvious they have brands make "special versions" of many products for walmart which are lower quality and cheaper. Now they are offering free one and 2 day delivery on their site, but I just don't want to go there for fear that I'll end up getting what looks like a "good deal" but what I'll actually get is a worse more cheaply made product. And like you I also avoid Amazon now for many things for fear of getting knockoffs. Most electronics and chargers/cables and things like it. Between their issues with commingling inventory from multiple sellers and 3rd party sellers basically having completely broken their review system (it's exhausting having to weed out the fake reviews from the real ones every time I'm looking at a product). Amazon is quickly becoming another site that I'll start avoiding at all costs. I've started looking for replacements for many thing I buy, and once I've switched i'm really unlikely to go back just like how I'm basically never going to go back to Walmart because they burned all my trust.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
At least with Walmart you know their value engineered products are actually made by who they say they are and actually work enough of the time to pass whatever QC standards were set. With Amazon you have no idea whether you're getting a counterfeit.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
okmokmz 7y ago
I never thought I'd say this, but I trust Walmart more than Amazon at this point

tonyedgecombe 7y ago

I tend to go for StarTech now, look it up on https://www.startech.com https://www.startech.com and search for the part number on Ebay. So far I've not been disappointed.

tannhaeuser 7y ago

Go to a manufacturer's direct sales site, or buy at respected brick-and-mortar shops or online retailers who have reputation to loose.

rchaud 7y ago

> What online store exists today, where I can be guaranteed to buy quality things? Do they no longer exist? I'm in Canada, and increasingly I'm buying direct from brick-and-mortar retailers w/ online ordering and delivery. Best Buy, Staples, Walmart, the Apple Store, the Microsoft Store, etc. BB's site does have third party sellers, but the website has a useful, clearly marked toggle labeled "Best Buy Only" which I always click. Walmart's search function is terrible, but once you locate the product, you can usually pick it up same day or have it delivered to a pickup point in a couple of days if you live in a city.

astura 7y ago

For cables? Monoprice.