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Anecdotally I've spoken to people who compete with Amazon private label in electronics and they tell me Amazon doesn't care about quality, and that the factorie
by ikeboy 7y ago
Anecdotally I've spoken to people who compete with Amazon private label in electronics and they tell me Amazon doesn't care about quality, and that the factories they were buying from were known to be lower quality.
I've also heard the opposite about Anker - that they always get the best quality.
- VRay 7y agoAmazonBasics isn't any more trustworthy than any of the junk you find on AliExpress or at Wal-Mart/Target/Best Buy. (Except that it has a good return policy backing it, I think)
- ceejayoz 7y agoAmazon is at least liable (theoretically, at least) if they sell an AmazonBasics product that winds up giving my kids lead poisoning, and will have a lot harder time disappearing into the wind to avoid a lawsuit. They disclaim any liability for third-party sellers.
- partialrecall 7y agoSure, but will a lawsuit unpoison your kid? Unless Amazon is currently testing products for lead before recommending them, which somehow I doubt, then the potential of a lawsuit against Amazon isn't actually protecting your child.
- ceejayoz 7y agoThere's at least someone with deep pockets to go after, which is very much not the case for some random drop shipper in China.
- roywiggins 7y agoIt makes sense- if Anker's batteries start exploding, nobody will buy Anker's batteries again, and that's a significant part of their brand. If Amazon's batteries start exploding, it's not quite the same magnitude. People will still shop at Whole Foods.
- bluedino 7y agoSamsung doesn't have a problem selling phones
- roywiggins 7y agoPeople buy Samsung phones because they're good phones, people buy Anker batteries because they're good batteries. If they start exploding people will find some other, better battery brand. Admittedly a phone that explodes is a bad phone, but Samsung can still sell its "good phone" brand the same way Apple can still sell its laptops.
- vinay427 7y agoSamsung also has a very long track record of producing cell phones that are deemed safe which neither Anker nor Amazon can match in batteries. You either need an extensive positive record to easily bounce back or need to be willing to write it off as an auxiliary business (e.g. if Amazon had battery issues).
- dpark 7y agoI’m sure Amazon’s competitors are the best source for unbiased feedback about the quality of Amazon-branded products.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoAnker are difficult to gauge, I've a few products of theirs, mostly bought a few years ago, with nothing recent - those have been excellent quality and value. Yet I've also started to notice precisely identical unknown brands for most of their products on Amazon. So I no longer have any certainty. Are Anker merely badge engineering some random white label product, or are Amazon / Anker just not caring or able to do anything about dozens of clear counterfeits?
- ikeboy 7y agoAre those identical products being sold as Anker, or under different brands? If it's different brands then it's not counterfeit just to make a product that looks similar to another one.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoThere's similar and completely indistinguishable, except for brand name and logo. e.g. their desk lamps, also their mice. Seems to be the case for almost every Anker product I remember looking at recently.
- ikeboy 7y agoNothing illegal about that unless Anker has a design patent.
- vinay427 7y agoI appreciated your response but as far as I can tell, they were asking whether Anker is badge engineering generic products or is a victim of counterfeiting, which I think is a slightly different question that I'm also looking for the answer to.
- ikeboy 7y agoThe only way it would be counterfeit is if they sell it as an Anker product or print Anker on the product. My assumption would be that the same factory that makes Anker products is also selling the same designs to competitors - it's also possible that a different factory just cloned it. Note that even if it's the same factory, they could have different quality control for different clients. So quality can differ even on identical designs.
- Spare_account 7y agoThe issue, then, is how do I guarantee that the Anker branded product I'm buying through Amazon is genuinely Anker manufactured. I'm of the understanding that Amazon comingle stock from different supply chains in their warehouses so presumably I can't trust them to be supplying genuine hardware.
- ikeboy 7y agoMost Anker stuff is sold by only Anker, so that wouldn't be a problem.
- jfim 7y agoIn that specific instance, Anker also sells directly from their website, so you can shop there if you're concerned about counterfeited merchandise.
- amelius 7y agoPerhaps products should include a tiny circuit (e.g. challenge-response) that can prove that the product is genuine.
- otakucode 7y agoMy understanding, and this might just be marketing PR I honestly don't know, is that Anker sends their own QA people to the factories in China, so they're able to meet a higher standard. I always rely on them for battery stuff, and now USB cables since apparently no one else can make cables that reliably work to connect my phone to my car except them. I went through half a dozen different brands before theirs finally worked and remained working.