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This also makes me laugh out loud. If Amazon gave two craps about some of this stuff it would be cut WAY back. For a few years at least every Apple branded pr

This also makes me laugh out loud. If Amazon gave two craps about some of this stuff it would be cut WAY back. For a few years at least every Apple branded product on amazon I bought was 100% fake - lazy fakes too. I ended up having to buy from Apple directly to get something legit. You are telling me brands haven't complained about this? I find that totally hard to believe. The crap amazon sells is going to bring them down. I've got used stuff sold as new (complete with debries from previous owner). If they cared they would. Have sellers post $1,000 bond to sell, scaled up based on sales volume. Enforce clear fraud issues with account bans and forfeit the deposit (ie, the whole changed 5 star listing selling a totally different product). Segregate inventory by seller, and enforce consequences on seller for product quality issues. Have a QC team sample 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 100,000 items and 1 item per seller each year. If it claims USB 3- test to spec, claims waterproof test to spec, claims safe for kids - test for lead. Whoever does this will win in long run. Who wants lead in the product they give to their kids. This reputation issue could bleed into AWS. Why trust a company that CANNOT get control over its marketplace. The fakes are horrible.

Phylter 7y ago
The only way Amazon is going to fix it is if it costs more to leave it as a problem than it will cost to fix it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- BaronSamedi 7y ago
  Let's hope that Amazon recognizes the seriousness of this problem before it manifests itself financially. By then it could be too late. If we think about this as a "reputational security" problem then Amazon is already vulnerable. If the idea that buying from Amazon means you will get a fake gains traction--either organically or through an information campaign by a competitor--then it seems likely that their sales will decline. And, once their reputation is damaged in this way it will be difficult to repair. I'm suggesting that reputation has a delayed effect on sales, it may not have a significant financial impact until the reputational attack hits a certain threshold; at which point that impact could be very significant. It's easy to imagine the hyberbolic, clickbait articles that might arise: "The Amazon Fake Crisis: What you need to know" or "Amazon fakes: Read this before you buy another thing on Amazon" (or better clickbait headlines than I can write but you get the idea).
  - scarface74 7y ago
    If Amazon retail imploded, it would affect their revenue greatly, but not their profitability. 75% of their profit comes from AWS.
tessting 7y ago
This strikes me as very idealistic. They are selling more than double the amount of stuff they were 5 years ago, and are over half of US ecommerece. You might care about getting a fake charger, but 90% of people don't give a crap if it's 30% cheaper than the real thing and magically appears at their house the next day. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/revenu... I think AWS and retail/AFT are basically two different companies. I don't think what happens in one reflects on or affects the other, at all.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  People do care about fake chargers when they make their phone explode or their house burn down.
  - Mdk25 7y ago
    Genuine Samsung premium phones can do that too. Just saying...
    - TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
      Sometimes yes, but if it happens there will be a very public recall, and they will replace the device for free. A crappy charger someone bulk- ordered white-label is not going to have either of those things.
      - Mdk25 7y ago
        Replacing a phone isn't going to help someone who's house burned down
        friendlybus 7y ago
        You can plausibly sue Samsung for it. Does AMZ have the same accountability?
    - 7y ago
PakG1 7y ago
Have sellers post $1,000 bond to sell, scaled up based on sales volume. This is interesting. I've looked over various pages, starting at https://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/pricing.html https://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/pricing.ht... and I can't find anything where FBA stores need to do anything like this (post bond). Compare this to Chinese stores tmall.com (operated by Alibaba) and jd.com. Both tmall.com and jd.com are focused on trying to ensure that customers can trust the authenticity of their products and similarly can host 3rd party stores. Their corresponding webpages say: https://about.tmall.com/tmall/fee_schedule https://about.tmall.com/tmall/fee_schedule This one-time fee (frozen on Merchant's Alipay account) is used as collateral in the case of any damages incurred by Tmall.com or any customer, unfrozen upon termination of the Tmall.com Service Agreement. - Flagship Store, Franchise Store:™100,000RMB; ® 50,000RMB - Specialty Store: ™ 150,000RMB; ®: 100,000RMB - Specialty Categories: Flagship Store of a multi-brand marketplace - 150,000RMB Specialty stores sell merchandises produced outside of Mainland China and the trademarks of those merchandises are not registered in China(Fruit, import products, etc) - 150,000RMB "Book/Audiovisual" primary category operators: Flagship store and franchise store - 50,000RMB; Specialty store - 100,000RMB "Service" and "E-tickets" primary category operators - 10,000RMB "Online Gaming and QQ", "Mobile Fees", and "Travel" primary category operators - 10,000RMB "Medicine/Medical Service" primary category merchants - 300,000RMB "Cars and Car accessories" and below 1st class "New and Used Cars" primary category merchants - 100,000RMB For information on first-class categories, please consult: //a.taobao.com/detail/2011/11/10/533509/1.php Tmall.com reserves the right to deduct from the Deposit an amount equivalent to the damage incurred by Tmall.com or any customer. Should the Security Deposit be less than the required amount, the merchant must cover the difference within 15 days. Should the merchant exceed the deadline, Tmall.com will close the store until the payments are received. Correspondingly, for jd.com, I couldn't find a similar official company URL, but I found this one. https://www.tmogroup.asia/how-to-sell-using-jd-com/ https://www.tmogroup.asia/how-to-sell-using-jd-com/ Although companies who are registered inside mainland China are eligible to sell on the JD Marketplace platform, it is important to take into account the costs associated with operating a store. Roughly the costs can be divided into the security deposit, service see, and commission. First, the security deposit ranges between 10.000 and 100.000 RMB depending on the product category. This deposit is refundable if you decided to leave the JD Marketplace. Second, the service fee is a monthly payment between 500 and 1.000 RMB depending on the chosen product category. Lastly, JD will charge a commission based on your sales. This commission ranges between 1% and 8% varying with the shop type and product category. I'm sure they also take various other measures to ensure authenticity and punish misbehaving sellers. Both of them basically are market responses to Chinese consumers being fed up with counterfeit products. I am surprised that to date, Amazon has not done something similar to weed out all the bad sellers.
hef19898 7y ago
It seems to be less of an issue in Germany. But it is bad enough that for certain products I insist on sold and shipped by Amazon. Do, my impression is that over here it is more like a marketplace problem, for now. Also, customer service for marketplace orders is just crap.
- ddebernardy 7y ago
  Insofar as I've understood, buying products that are sold and shipped by Amazon doesn't protect you anymore because inventories are no longer segregated.
  - hef19898 7y ago
    That would be bad for all kind of reasons, I don't like that kind of lack of transparency.
    - ddebernardy 7y ago
      Not would. Is. Speaking personally I haven't bought anything from Amazon for that reason.
- fhars 7y ago
  It may be related to the german legal concept of „Mitstörerhaftung“ which basically means that anyone who is contributing to a rights violation (like selling counterfeit goods) is liable for this. This can be a bit absurd (a shipping company transporting a sealed container which contains counterfeit goods they know nothing of is liable to at least stop doing so), but it may keep amazon on it‘s toes.

Phylter 7y ago

The only way Amazon is going to fix it is if it costs more to leave it as a problem than it will cost to fix it.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
BaronSamedi 7y ago
Let's hope that Amazon recognizes the seriousness of this problem before it manifests itself financially. By then it could be too late. If we think about this as a "reputational security" problem then Amazon is already vulnerable. If the idea that buying from Amazon means you will get a fake gains traction--either organically or through an information campaign by a competitor--then it seems likely that their sales will decline. And, once their reputation is damaged in this way it will be difficult to repair. I'm suggesting that reputation has a delayed effect on sales, it may not have a significant financial impact until the reputational attack hits a certain threshold; at which point that impact could be very significant. It's easy to imagine the hyberbolic, clickbait articles that might arise: "The Amazon Fake Crisis: What you need to know" or "Amazon fakes: Read this before you buy another thing on Amazon" (or better clickbait headlines than I can write but you get the idea).
- scarface74 7y ago
  If Amazon retail imploded, it would affect their revenue greatly, but not their profitability. 75% of their profit comes from AWS.

tessting 7y ago

This strikes me as very idealistic. They are selling more than double the amount of stuff they were 5 years ago, and are over half of US ecommerece. You might care about getting a fake charger, but 90% of people don't give a crap if it's 30% cheaper than the real thing and magically appears at their house the next day. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/revenu... I think AWS and retail/AFT are basically two different companies. I don't think what happens in one reflects on or affects the other, at all.

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
People do care about fake chargers when they make their phone explode or their house burn down.
- Mdk25 7y ago
  Genuine Samsung premium phones can do that too. Just saying...
  - TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
    Sometimes yes, but if it happens there will be a very public recall, and they will replace the device for free. A crappy charger someone bulk- ordered white-label is not going to have either of those things.
    - Mdk25 7y ago
      Replacing a phone isn't going to help someone who's house burned down
      - friendlybus 7y ago
        You can plausibly sue Samsung for it. Does AMZ have the same accountability?
  - 7y ago

PakG1 7y ago

Have sellers post $1,000 bond to sell, scaled up based on sales volume. This is interesting. I've looked over various pages, starting at https://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/pricing.html https://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/pricing.ht... and I can't find anything where FBA stores need to do anything like this (post bond). Compare this to Chinese stores tmall.com (operated by Alibaba) and jd.com. Both tmall.com and jd.com are focused on trying to ensure that customers can trust the authenticity of their products and similarly can host 3rd party stores. Their corresponding webpages say: https://about.tmall.com/tmall/fee_schedule https://about.tmall.com/tmall/fee_schedule This one-time fee (frozen on Merchant's Alipay account) is used as collateral in the case of any damages incurred by Tmall.com or any customer, unfrozen upon termination of the Tmall.com Service Agreement. - Flagship Store, Franchise Store:™100,000RMB; ® 50,000RMB - Specialty Store: ™ 150,000RMB; ®: 100,000RMB - Specialty Categories: Flagship Store of a multi-brand marketplace - 150,000RMB Specialty stores sell merchandises produced outside of Mainland China and the trademarks of those merchandises are not registered in China(Fruit, import products, etc) - 150,000RMB "Book/Audiovisual" primary category operators: Flagship store and franchise store - 50,000RMB; Specialty store - 100,000RMB "Service" and "E-tickets" primary category operators - 10,000RMB "Online Gaming and QQ", "Mobile Fees", and "Travel" primary category operators - 10,000RMB "Medicine/Medical Service" primary category merchants - 300,000RMB "Cars and Car accessories" and below 1st class "New and Used Cars" primary category merchants - 100,000RMB For information on first-class categories, please consult: //a.taobao.com/detail/2011/11/10/533509/1.php Tmall.com reserves the right to deduct from the Deposit an amount equivalent to the damage incurred by Tmall.com or any customer. Should the Security Deposit be less than the required amount, the merchant must cover the difference within 15 days. Should the merchant exceed the deadline, Tmall.com will close the store until the payments are received. Correspondingly, for jd.com, I couldn't find a similar official company URL, but I found this one. https://www.tmogroup.asia/how-to-sell-using-jd-com/ https://www.tmogroup.asia/how-to-sell-using-jd-com/ Although companies who are registered inside mainland China are eligible to sell on the JD Marketplace platform, it is important to take into account the costs associated with operating a store. Roughly the costs can be divided into the security deposit, service see, and commission. First, the security deposit ranges between 10.000 and 100.000 RMB depending on the product category. This deposit is refundable if you decided to leave the JD Marketplace. Second, the service fee is a monthly payment between 500 and 1.000 RMB depending on the chosen product category. Lastly, JD will charge a commission based on your sales. This commission ranges between 1% and 8% varying with the shop type and product category. I'm sure they also take various other measures to ensure authenticity and punish misbehaving sellers. Both of them basically are market responses to Chinese consumers being fed up with counterfeit products. I am surprised that to date, Amazon has not done something similar to weed out all the bad sellers.

hef19898 7y ago

It seems to be less of an issue in Germany. But it is bad enough that for certain products I insist on sold and shipped by Amazon. Do, my impression is that over here it is more like a marketplace problem, for now. Also, customer service for marketplace orders is just crap.

ddebernardy 7y ago
Insofar as I've understood, buying products that are sold and shipped by Amazon doesn't protect you anymore because inventories are no longer segregated.
- hef19898 7y ago
  That would be bad for all kind of reasons, I don't like that kind of lack of transparency.
  - ddebernardy 7y ago
    Not would. Is. Speaking personally I haven't bought anything from Amazon for that reason.
fhars 7y ago
It may be related to the german legal concept of „Mitstörerhaftung“ which basically means that anyone who is contributing to a rights violation (like selling counterfeit goods) is liable for this. This can be a bit absurd (a shipping company transporting a sealed container which contains counterfeit goods they know nothing of is liable to at least stop doing so), but it may keep amazon on it‘s toes.