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Amazon.de is sub-eBay in terms of bargain bin junk store vibe. It's mostly stuff direct from Alibaba with an own brand name slapped on it to get around having t

Amazon.de is sub-eBay in terms of bargain bin junk store vibe. It's mostly stuff direct from Alibaba with an own brand name slapped on it to get around having to compete for the buy box. I've actually started going back to eBay, Google Shopping and some independent web shops I know are good just to cut through the noise.

nikanj 5y ago
I go to AliExpress. No point in me paying for some middleman to order crap from China for me.
- Glavnokoman 5y ago
  Yeah. The thing is some people think they can buy non- crap from china there. And it is getting really difficult even if you're ready to pay extra.
- Aissen 5y ago
  The point is you can get it the next day on Prime. You're paying for availability (between 1.8x, 2.2x markup), and ease of sending a product back should it not match your expectations. Edit: also, big brands like Aukey have stock available next to you, so there's only one middle-man (Amazon), and it handles the logistics, so it's not like it's doing nothing…
  - gorbypark 5y ago
    I recently moved to Spain from Canada, and have pretty much bought everything on AliExpress. They’re making a big push into Spain and most things are available with 10 day delivery. It’s not Amazon prime quick, but it’s worth it for the savings. AliExpress would take 2-3 months to get to Canada.
    - tecleandor 5y ago
      And you also have some products located in EU and ES warehouses that arrive very quickly. They have this "AliExpress Plaza" which is products located in Spain .
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    You know? I don't get your obsession with same/next-day delivery. Besides that, my first shopping on Aliexpress involved some microcontroller boards which I've ordered between 3 and 4AM in my local german time, after long searching. Clicked on some fast delivery option for a dozen EURos more, because it didn't matter, compared to what they would have cost elsewhere. Went to bed, next day passed with no thought about delivery, because I expected it to be about 3 days at best, probably a week. Then the next noon the postman rang my bell. That was unexepected. Shenzen->Hamburg in about 30hrs. And no, wasn't local fulfilment. Got all the stamps from customs, and whatnot else. I'd say that is fast enough, even EXCELLENT!
- alangibson 5y ago
  The only reason I don't is Prime. When I need something, it's usually in an ASAP timeframe. I'm fairly convinced that Prime is actually what keeps Amazon in business.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    AWS and other digital offerings’ profit margins are what Amazon’s valuations are based on. Otherwise, they are not that different from most other big retailers.
- infofarmer 5y ago
  I have a surprise for you if you think AliExpress sellers are not middlemen. Even the local Taobao, JD, and Pinduoduo are mostly professional sellers. D2C is on the rise, but still relatively rare in China. Ecommerce is extremely competitive and specialized here.
  - alangibson 5y ago
    Can you expand in how the middlemen work in China in regards to factories and the platforms?
    - baybal2 5y ago
      You go to a company saying "we sell your wares on Amazon.com," and sign a contract. Your goods come in from one end, cash comes out on another. Usually that's all If the guy sucks, you go to another one. You can see a company called Ugreen, which ended up with multiple "official stores" on online marketplaces this way. Contract enforcement in China is of course non-existent. It's good if you manage to get a prominent handle for your own brand, in worst case somebody else can do it for you! I know a man who regularly have to smack pretender "official stores" of his brand few times a year. This also works the other way around, somebody with a vicious lawyer can coerce Alibaba, or JD into handing your (likely well doing) online store to them on a claim that you don't own your own brand name.
    - NicoJuicy 5y ago
      Factories aren't on Ali. English speaking businesses that but from factories are.
  - amelius 5y ago
    But if you go to the manufacturer directly, you will have to buy in bulk.
    - fmajid 5y ago
      And in the case of Alibaba, be registered as a business, not an individual.
- dagw 5y ago
  What I'm paying for with Amazon (compared to Aliexpress) is easier return/refunds.
bserge 5y ago
Not sure why people hate on eBay, it's a better platform for buying (and selling) if you're at least a little careful. Amazon's first choices are always garbage, have to sort through a lot of it, make sure you're buying from the right seller (and even then you could get a fake) and actually read the reviews (1 star, 2-3 stars and 5 stars, preferably) so you know what you're buying. But overall, it's alright.
- alangibson 5y ago
  I've really been converted back to eBay. I mostly buy stuff for doing product prototyping, and it's way easier to get materials and light industrial type stuff off of eBay.
- notahacker 5y ago
  I also think eBay's better for the cheap AliExpress stuff. Simple geographical filter gives me UK-based stock that won't take long to arrive (which AliExpresss often doesn't have), and what's left is cheaper than Amazon as well as quicker to sort through, with reliable sellers.
- cpach 5y ago
  Ebay is pretty good. But I wish their filtering options where even more sophisticated. For example, as in living in the EU it would be helpful to see listings only from the EU (no need to worry about customs clearance then).
  - mibollma 5y ago
    I think that option does exist, showing only items located in country, eu or world
    - ratww 5y ago
      I don't have this option. I have to select all EU countries if I want to filter. Helps with my geography knowledge, though. I wish Ebay had the same interface as https://reverb.com/ https://reverb.com/ , which is nice, but is for music-instruments only and the prices are a bit too high.
arkitaip 5y ago
You should see the state of Amazon.se. It launched earlier this year in absolute shambles: product descriptions were whacked; many listed products couldn't even be purchased; the product reviews were imported from other Amazon sites which made them look suspicious; the pricing wasn't even competitive when factoring in shipping to Sweden, etc, etc. They have made some improvements but still haven't taken off and it's crazy they don't value quality that much on a new market. The bargain bin junk store feel is all over the place.
- brtkdotse 5y ago
  While I agree that Amazon.se looks like a clown shoes dumpster fire, all of Amazon’s properties have more and more devolved into looking like a Dollar Store website (or Wish re-skin if you prefer that).
  - cameronh90 5y ago
    I still quite like amazon.co.uk. It has pretty much everything, I've never had a fake product and I get same or next day delivery on most things.
    - cryptoz 5y ago
      > I've never had a fake product Are you really certain about that? The fakes are so good sometimes I don't notice for a year or two. There are so many ways of faking different products, and the fakers are getting really really really good at making the product seem real. Have you done a few hours of searching and testing for everything you've bought? This is what it takes, IMO, to feel some level of confidence in an Amazon (US) product being 'real'. The levels of suspicion never really go away either - since I've been duped by probably a dozen products at least, that have turned out to be fake, I'm highly suspicious of any Amazon purchase. It's been a couple years since I bought anything from there. Too much stress worrying about authenticity to make it worth it.
      - cameronh90 5y ago
tpm 5y ago
Even though I am not a citizen of Germany I buy a lot of stuff from German e-shops, because they are of high quality, faster and often cheaper than our own (Slovakia). Amazon.de though is a horrible mess, one time sending us an order twice, another time not telling the truth in description... we don't shop there anymore.
ratww 5y ago
Lots of fake items too. About a few months ago, most guitar items in Amazon.de were straight up forgeries at a smaller price, unless the Amazon Seller was a famous German music store. Those items also were on top of search. I have some internal contacts at Amazon and passed it to someone internally, and it seems to have been solved, but there is still lots of forgery in others areas.
jarcane 5y ago
It happened so fast too. I'm in Finland but used to buy from a.de on a regular basis because there was no VAT, shipping was sensible, and often the prices were much better than local markup (which is infamously bad in Finland), especially on stuff like video games. Sometime in the past few years something changed though. Shipping prices went up. Prices on name brand goods started climbing up too, sometimes higher than I pay locally even. Savings basically disappeared so I stopped bothering 90% of the time. Then the flood came. IG without the international competition, the knockoff and counterfeit and aliexpress sellers saw an opportunity and absolutely flooded the site. Now you can't find a name brand fucking anything unless you explicitly search for it, and more often than not it's out of stock. It will sell you a million suspiciously cheap knockoffs with obviously fake brand names, often the same knockoff under dozens of different names and prices. It really is basically just a shit overpriced Wish now, and it is baffling to me that Amazon have seemingly just allowed this to happen.
wolfretcrap 5y ago
It's absolutely shocking India where startup competition is huge has no eBay. Basically there's no way to buy anything in secondary market, yes OLX or Quikr etc... exist but they are limited to only people around you (in same city) and do not facilitate payments or logistics or even reviews. Now someone can make their own website but product discovery is pain and buyers can't trust reviews on website owned by the single seller, neither can trust the refund will be honoured as you need Escrow to deal with the unknown sellers. India has people who are interested in saving money and buying second hand tools/machines is an option yet it has no eBay or alternative as if startups in India have a blindspot. For example, I live a town with population of 500K (200km away from Delhi) and while repairing my car, the mechanic told me he will go to Delhi and try getting the spare part from Junkyard owners. Maybe guys from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore don't have this problem but majority of Indian population still lives in small towns and villages where finding 1 used part at affordable price can save a business or medical equipment (life). What are the technical people in small towns are supposed to do? Run to Delhi and Mumbai each time you need a spare part? Such a waste of human efforts, my mechanic could have instead bought it on eBay from a junkyard owner who is also a seller on ebay through courier if eBay like website existed. Lemme give you another example, sometime back I was interested in a product from Mobil which only comes in 230L barrel packaging, I need only 2liters of this stuff and there were many sellers on eBay selling it in used Coke/Soda bottles, but I couldn't buy it because I am from India. Similarly, our junkyards are filled with useful servos, PLCs etc..., linear rails, valves but it's hard to find buyers for the junkyard owners because there's no online marketplace for this India imports millions of tons of waste from foreign countries yet the stuff that's harvested from it has very inefficient market. This is holding back innovation as you can build lots of cool things from the used machinery/tools which cost wayyy less than the new stuff.
- pmichaud 5y ago
  What's stopping someone from building ebay for India? Why hasn't ebay done that?
  - wolfretcrap 5y ago
    We can say startups didn't bother with it because eBay India was already operating in market before startup culture was even here in India. Back in time eBay was operating in Indian market and eBay was successful as the payment service used on eBay was PayPal, buyers had protection in India which they couldn't get with any other local website as online payment infrastructure was in dark ages in India at that time. After that India rapidly grew in e-commerce and payment platforms rapidly developed (now they are at par with western ones or we can say even better and payment regulations also improved a lot). Now logistics has also improved a lot, so we can receive goods in just 1 or 2 days in any part of the country. We've new expressways, freight corridors, capacity expanding rapidly so now even more businesses is possible in India yet we are leaving the obvious one out. Where are all my Indian executives, investors, guys from IITs are doing? Why they aren't working on this? Then Flipkart buys eBay India and shuts it down. And now there exists market vaccum. Everyone is looking at each other, no startup founder doing anything about it. Existence of eBay alternative will add great efficiency to India market, reduce its CO2 footprint as well when used products find buyer instead of destroying and remelting them.
ed_balls 5y ago
I just tried to login into amazon.co.uk to buy some stuff. I can't get 2FA notification on my phone and in order to see the recovery page for "I don't have access to my Two-Step verification" I need 2FA........
- oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
  a) usually, when you set up 2fa you get a set of 'recovery codes' for this exact situation - do you not have those? b) usually, there's an option to authenticate via SMS or reset your 2FA via email - does Amazon not offer any alternative? Ultimately, though, you need to exercise care when setting up 2fa - make sure the device you use is one that you're going to have around for a while, or you have a decent way of migrating to a newer device if necessary.
  - ed_balls 5y ago
    I didn't not set up 2FA, it was forced on me. The problem is that Amazon wants to send a notification, not a SMS or something else. I can't pick an alternative. If I don't have a smartphone i'm screwed. https://postimg.cc/LJ6KVgZr https://postimg.cc/LJ6KVgZr
- exporectomy 5y ago
  Never use 2FA alone. You always need a 3rd factor in case you lose one of the others which is more likely than losing a single password. I don't know why websites don't enforce this.
  - isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
    In case of TOTP one way of doing that is to scan the QR code on two devices. Many services only allow 1 MFA hardware/virtual device (I'm looking at you, AWS...)
beforeolives 5y ago
It's interesting how it varies across countries. In the UK Amazon is great - good options, decent quality, fast delivery (next day with Prime, sometimes even same day). It's much better than the alternatives in my experience.
schmorptron 5y ago
Yeah, it's mostly just aliexpress but with a 100 to 200% price mark-up.
hda111 5y ago
It’s nearly impossible to buy a toaster or a water kettle from a reputable brand on amazon.de. Since I don’t want to burn my home I only buy books at amazon.
- K0balt 5y ago
  Be careful, even their books are flammable (/s)
  - hda111 5y ago
    Not sure why your comment is hidden I appreciate it
busymom0 5y ago
Amazon Canada is turning into a Wish/Aliexpress clone too. If you get commonly branded items like detergent, soap, chips etc, you will be okay. But if you order stuff like weight lifting equipment, bedsheets, socks etc, the product descriptions have lots of false info which you will realize when you receive the item. Bedsheets with Egyptian cotton in description turn out to be 100% polyester, merino wool socks turn out to ordinary wool and so on.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Yeah it's crazy how QUICKLY amazon.ca turned into a flea market. It was getting bad for a few years now but until recentlu you could at rely on it for some essential/basic electronics. But I had a hard time getting a "reputable" USB-C Cable a few weeks ago, & all of them were basically obviously "too good to be true" clone cables from generic brands that you know won't actually work. Getting good cables/electronics for a lot cheaper was what got me into Amazon in the first place but now I'd rather buy everything from best buy or Walmart and avoid a huge headache. Everything from good brands has been perpetually out of stock or outright unavailable anymore. Appliances are somehow even worse, like the last few things I've bought there were outright unsafe and almost always had misleading listings/pictures. I mean at least on Aliexpress you pretty much know what you will get, and (good) stores are usually honest about their products. (I'm not sure if it's still the case but for almost the entirety of 2020 Amazon support was only available through emails that could take 48h to get a reply to, apparently because of coronavirus (?? Isn't chat pretty much perfect for remote work) so good luck even getting a refund especially for less expensive items that aren't worth a few days of back and forth)
  - julianlam 5y ago
    I've used their live chat a bunch of times in 2020... They just hide it behind a bunch of hurdles in their support centre since they want to promote self-help.
mwill 5y ago
My experience with Amazon Australia is the same, literally identical products on eBay for 25-75% less, cheaper shipping, faster delivery. An example from pricing something up earlier this week, identical leveling casters, made in china and sold under different brand names, but with the same specs and product code Aliexpress: $41, Free postage, Est delivery 17/6 Ebay: $62, Free postage, Est delivery 2/6 - 7/6 Amazon.com.au: $125, $35 Delivery, Est delivery 10/6
silasdavis 5y ago
Having moved to Spain from UK I have noticed amazon.es worse than amazon.co.uk in numerous ways. Continually nags me on checkout to sign up for 'student prime' for which I would not be eligible anyway. Continually tries to offer its own exchange rate to GBP on checkout. The range is significantly less and most categories are dominated by bear identical products under throwaway brands. Definite bargain basement feels.
- regularfry 5y ago
  I always used to get 'student prime' nags on UK amazon, until I got prime a few months back.
______- 5y ago
My main gripe with Amazon right now: There should be a big red sign saying that a product ships all the way from from China. I only learn about that fact after I've paid for the order. It can take 5-6 weeks waiting for something to circumnavigate the globe to reach my house!
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  In every order I've ever placed there has been an estimated delivery date and, in my experience, they're accurate. How does your experience differ? Is the date missing? Does it change after checkout?
  - ______- 5y ago
    > there has been an estimated delivery date I didn't even know there is an estimation. I just assume it will ship within 7 days. The vast bulk of my orders all arrived in 7 days (sometimes even shorter). But I got caught out with some orders where it shipped all the way from China, and I only learned about that after buying them (by visiting the 'track package' page).
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      I'm curious if you're seeing a different page than I am... perhaps you order on mobile a lot or something? It is very prominent: https://d2bvhe78se1grn.cloudfront.net/optimized/2X/a/a0a838507c7e11aa534eefd59d46e096124e3d91_1_690x366.jpg https://d2bvhe78se1grn.cloudfront.net/optimized/2X/a/a0a8385...
      - ______- 5y ago
        Oh thanks for pointing that out. To be honest, I never pay attention to that. But I will give it plenty of attention from now on, because I'm very impatient and hate waiting 4-5 weeks for something!
IdiocyInAction 5y ago
I never had any bad experiences with Amazon.de, actually. Though I do watch out to only buy genuine stuff and try to avoid off-brand. I buy stuff quite regularly too.
- onli 5y ago
  That's impossible, to only buy genuine stuff there. Thanks to inventory mingling you get the fake products even for legitimate listings of genuine products. Germany has so many other good online shops that it's for most products really easy to cut Amazon out and avoid that problem.
  - r00fus 5y ago
    How is FBAs co-mingling even legal?
    - AnssiH 5y ago
      It is legally not much different from just-in-time sourcing, I think. Customer orders X from seller A, A buys X1 from seller B, then A gives X1 to customer. Meanwhile B buys X2 from A. Sellers can of course opt out of this scheme.
      - r00fus 5y ago
        It's quite different. At least with JIT sourcing, you know that a vendor has a given approved source(s) given an effective date. Everything is traceable. With FBA, you could have gotten counterfeit goods or a return from another customer where they've sent only the box and something that weighs the same (or a broken item). Amazon throws away the receipts (it'd be a nightmare to handle so they just... don't). Why is Amazon not on the hook for this?
        AnssiH 5y ago
        > Amazon throws away the receipts (it'd be a nightmare to handle so they just... don't). I'm not sure what you mean by this. Amazon does keep track on where a given unit came from so that it is traceable to the original source, and at least in Europe invoices are issued for the inventory supplies between the sellers (these are documented at https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/gp/help/help-page.html?itemID=200141480 https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/gp/help/help-page.ht... - may not be public).
randomaces 5y ago
Maybe it’s just me but .de also feels like bigger brands are abandoning Amazon. This is also why all the junk is placed even more prominent.
rchaud 5y ago
It's the same at Amazon Canada. If you want name brands, particularly for electronics, you have to go elsewhere. The Amazon selection is straight out of Wish or Aliexpress or DealExtreme (does that site still exist?)
SkyPuncher 5y ago
I have some points to use, so I tried to find an espresso dosing funnel on Amazon. This is a metal ring that sits onto of the espresso basket to make grind less messy. It's shifting through loads of absolute trash. * Many with "product tolerances may be 1cm to 3cm off". This is a device that's about 2inch (58mm). 3cm is half the width. Perhaps they mean millimeter.... * Magnetic and non-magnetic ones mixed together. Seller even communicates they have mixed stock and will not guarantee which one you get. I want the magnetic one. * Misleading claims on nearly every description to suggest the product has features of much more expensive funnels. I'm only willing to tolerate it because I don't actually need this item and I can get it for free from Amazon. But...it's getting to the point where I might as well pay more and wait to get it from a reputable seller.

nikanj 5y ago

I go to AliExpress. No point in me paying for some middleman to order crap from China for me.

Glavnokoman 5y ago
Yeah. The thing is some people think they can buy non- crap from china there. And it is getting really difficult even if you're ready to pay extra.
Aissen 5y ago
The point is you can get it the next day on Prime. You're paying for availability (between 1.8x, 2.2x markup), and ease of sending a product back should it not match your expectations. Edit: also, big brands like Aukey have stock available next to you, so there's only one middle-man (Amazon), and it handles the logistics, so it's not like it's doing nothing…
- gorbypark 5y ago
  I recently moved to Spain from Canada, and have pretty much bought everything on AliExpress. They’re making a big push into Spain and most things are available with 10 day delivery. It’s not Amazon prime quick, but it’s worth it for the savings. AliExpress would take 2-3 months to get to Canada.
  - tecleandor 5y ago
    And you also have some products located in EU and ES warehouses that arrive very quickly. They have this "AliExpress Plaza" which is products located in Spain .
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  You know? I don't get your obsession with same/next-day delivery. Besides that, my first shopping on Aliexpress involved some microcontroller boards which I've ordered between 3 and 4AM in my local german time, after long searching. Clicked on some fast delivery option for a dozen EURos more, because it didn't matter, compared to what they would have cost elsewhere. Went to bed, next day passed with no thought about delivery, because I expected it to be about 3 days at best, probably a week. Then the next noon the postman rang my bell. That was unexepected. Shenzen->Hamburg in about 30hrs. And no, wasn't local fulfilment. Got all the stamps from customs, and whatnot else. I'd say that is fast enough, even EXCELLENT!
alangibson 5y ago
The only reason I don't is Prime. When I need something, it's usually in an ASAP timeframe. I'm fairly convinced that Prime is actually what keeps Amazon in business.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  AWS and other digital offerings’ profit margins are what Amazon’s valuations are based on. Otherwise, they are not that different from most other big retailers.
infofarmer 5y ago
I have a surprise for you if you think AliExpress sellers are not middlemen. Even the local Taobao, JD, and Pinduoduo are mostly professional sellers. D2C is on the rise, but still relatively rare in China. Ecommerce is extremely competitive and specialized here.
- alangibson 5y ago
  Can you expand in how the middlemen work in China in regards to factories and the platforms?
  - baybal2 5y ago
    You go to a company saying "we sell your wares on Amazon.com," and sign a contract. Your goods come in from one end, cash comes out on another. Usually that's all If the guy sucks, you go to another one. You can see a company called Ugreen, which ended up with multiple "official stores" on online marketplaces this way. Contract enforcement in China is of course non-existent. It's good if you manage to get a prominent handle for your own brand, in worst case somebody else can do it for you! I know a man who regularly have to smack pretender "official stores" of his brand few times a year. This also works the other way around, somebody with a vicious lawyer can coerce Alibaba, or JD into handing your (likely well doing) online store to them on a claim that you don't own your own brand name.
  - NicoJuicy 5y ago
    Factories aren't on Ali. English speaking businesses that but from factories are.
- amelius 5y ago
  But if you go to the manufacturer directly, you will have to buy in bulk.
  - fmajid 5y ago
    And in the case of Alibaba, be registered as a business, not an individual.
dagw 5y ago
What I'm paying for with Amazon (compared to Aliexpress) is easier return/refunds.

bserge 5y ago

Not sure why people hate on eBay, it's a better platform for buying (and selling) if you're at least a little careful. Amazon's first choices are always garbage, have to sort through a lot of it, make sure you're buying from the right seller (and even then you could get a fake) and actually read the reviews (1 star, 2-3 stars and 5 stars, preferably) so you know what you're buying. But overall, it's alright.

alangibson 5y ago
I've really been converted back to eBay. I mostly buy stuff for doing product prototyping, and it's way easier to get materials and light industrial type stuff off of eBay.
notahacker 5y ago
I also think eBay's better for the cheap AliExpress stuff. Simple geographical filter gives me UK-based stock that won't take long to arrive (which AliExpresss often doesn't have), and what's left is cheaper than Amazon as well as quicker to sort through, with reliable sellers.
cpach 5y ago
Ebay is pretty good. But I wish their filtering options where even more sophisticated. For example, as in living in the EU it would be helpful to see listings only from the EU (no need to worry about customs clearance then).
- mibollma 5y ago
  I think that option does exist, showing only items located in country, eu or world
  - ratww 5y ago
    I don't have this option. I have to select all EU countries if I want to filter. Helps with my geography knowledge, though. I wish Ebay had the same interface as https://reverb.com/ https://reverb.com/ , which is nice, but is for music-instruments only and the prices are a bit too high.

arkitaip 5y ago

You should see the state of Amazon.se. It launched earlier this year in absolute shambles: product descriptions were whacked; many listed products couldn't even be purchased; the product reviews were imported from other Amazon sites which made them look suspicious; the pricing wasn't even competitive when factoring in shipping to Sweden, etc, etc. They have made some improvements but still haven't taken off and it's crazy they don't value quality that much on a new market. The bargain bin junk store feel is all over the place.

brtkdotse 5y ago
While I agree that Amazon.se looks like a clown shoes dumpster fire, all of Amazon’s properties have more and more devolved into looking like a Dollar Store website (or Wish re-skin if you prefer that).
- cameronh90 5y ago
  I still quite like amazon.co.uk. It has pretty much everything, I've never had a fake product and I get same or next day delivery on most things.
  - cryptoz 5y ago
    > I've never had a fake product Are you really certain about that? The fakes are so good sometimes I don't notice for a year or two. There are so many ways of faking different products, and the fakers are getting really really really good at making the product seem real. Have you done a few hours of searching and testing for everything you've bought? This is what it takes, IMO, to feel some level of confidence in an Amazon (US) product being 'real'. The levels of suspicion never really go away either - since I've been duped by probably a dozen products at least, that have turned out to be fake, I'm highly suspicious of any Amazon purchase. It's been a couple years since I bought anything from there. Too much stress worrying about authenticity to make it worth it.
    - cameronh90 5y ago

tpm 5y ago

Even though I am not a citizen of Germany I buy a lot of stuff from German e-shops, because they are of high quality, faster and often cheaper than our own (Slovakia). Amazon.de though is a horrible mess, one time sending us an order twice, another time not telling the truth in description... we don't shop there anymore.

ratww 5y ago

Lots of fake items too. About a few months ago, most guitar items in Amazon.de were straight up forgeries at a smaller price, unless the Amazon Seller was a famous German music store. Those items also were on top of search. I have some internal contacts at Amazon and passed it to someone internally, and it seems to have been solved, but there is still lots of forgery in others areas.

jarcane 5y ago

It happened so fast too. I'm in Finland but used to buy from a.de on a regular basis because there was no VAT, shipping was sensible, and often the prices were much better than local markup (which is infamously bad in Finland), especially on stuff like video games. Sometime in the past few years something changed though. Shipping prices went up. Prices on name brand goods started climbing up too, sometimes higher than I pay locally even. Savings basically disappeared so I stopped bothering 90% of the time. Then the flood came. IG without the international competition, the knockoff and counterfeit and aliexpress sellers saw an opportunity and absolutely flooded the site. Now you can't find a name brand fucking anything unless you explicitly search for it, and more often than not it's out of stock. It will sell you a million suspiciously cheap knockoffs with obviously fake brand names, often the same knockoff under dozens of different names and prices. It really is basically just a shit overpriced Wish now, and it is baffling to me that Amazon have seemingly just allowed this to happen.

wolfretcrap 5y ago

It's absolutely shocking India where startup competition is huge has no eBay. Basically there's no way to buy anything in secondary market, yes OLX or Quikr etc... exist but they are limited to only people around you (in same city) and do not facilitate payments or logistics or even reviews. Now someone can make their own website but product discovery is pain and buyers can't trust reviews on website owned by the single seller, neither can trust the refund will be honoured as you need Escrow to deal with the unknown sellers. India has people who are interested in saving money and buying second hand tools/machines is an option yet it has no eBay or alternative as if startups in India have a blindspot. For example, I live a town with population of 500K (200km away from Delhi) and while repairing my car, the mechanic told me he will go to Delhi and try getting the spare part from Junkyard owners. Maybe guys from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore don't have this problem but majority of Indian population still lives in small towns and villages where finding 1 used part at affordable price can save a business or medical equipment (life). What are the technical people in small towns are supposed to do? Run to Delhi and Mumbai each time you need a spare part? Such a waste of human efforts, my mechanic could have instead bought it on eBay from a junkyard owner who is also a seller on ebay through courier if eBay like website existed. Lemme give you another example, sometime back I was interested in a product from Mobil which only comes in 230L barrel packaging, I need only 2liters of this stuff and there were many sellers on eBay selling it in used Coke/Soda bottles, but I couldn't buy it because I am from India. Similarly, our junkyards are filled with useful servos, PLCs etc..., linear rails, valves but it's hard to find buyers for the junkyard owners because there's no online marketplace for this India imports millions of tons of waste from foreign countries yet the stuff that's harvested from it has very inefficient market. This is holding back innovation as you can build lots of cool things from the used machinery/tools which cost wayyy less than the new stuff.

pmichaud 5y ago
What's stopping someone from building ebay for India? Why hasn't ebay done that?
- wolfretcrap 5y ago
  We can say startups didn't bother with it because eBay India was already operating in market before startup culture was even here in India. Back in time eBay was operating in Indian market and eBay was successful as the payment service used on eBay was PayPal, buyers had protection in India which they couldn't get with any other local website as online payment infrastructure was in dark ages in India at that time. After that India rapidly grew in e-commerce and payment platforms rapidly developed (now they are at par with western ones or we can say even better and payment regulations also improved a lot). Now logistics has also improved a lot, so we can receive goods in just 1 or 2 days in any part of the country. We've new expressways, freight corridors, capacity expanding rapidly so now even more businesses is possible in India yet we are leaving the obvious one out. Where are all my Indian executives, investors, guys from IITs are doing? Why they aren't working on this? Then Flipkart buys eBay India and shuts it down. And now there exists market vaccum. Everyone is looking at each other, no startup founder doing anything about it. Existence of eBay alternative will add great efficiency to India market, reduce its CO2 footprint as well when used products find buyer instead of destroying and remelting them.

ed_balls 5y ago

I just tried to login into amazon.co.uk to buy some stuff. I can't get 2FA notification on my phone and in order to see the recovery page for "I don't have access to my Two-Step verification" I need 2FA........

oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
a) usually, when you set up 2fa you get a set of 'recovery codes' for this exact situation - do you not have those? b) usually, there's an option to authenticate via SMS or reset your 2FA via email - does Amazon not offer any alternative? Ultimately, though, you need to exercise care when setting up 2fa - make sure the device you use is one that you're going to have around for a while, or you have a decent way of migrating to a newer device if necessary.
- ed_balls 5y ago
  I didn't not set up 2FA, it was forced on me. The problem is that Amazon wants to send a notification, not a SMS or something else. I can't pick an alternative. If I don't have a smartphone i'm screwed. https://postimg.cc/LJ6KVgZr https://postimg.cc/LJ6KVgZr
exporectomy 5y ago
Never use 2FA alone. You always need a 3rd factor in case you lose one of the others which is more likely than losing a single password. I don't know why websites don't enforce this.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
  In case of TOTP one way of doing that is to scan the QR code on two devices. Many services only allow 1 MFA hardware/virtual device (I'm looking at you, AWS...)

beforeolives 5y ago

It's interesting how it varies across countries. In the UK Amazon is great - good options, decent quality, fast delivery (next day with Prime, sometimes even same day). It's much better than the alternatives in my experience.

schmorptron 5y ago

Yeah, it's mostly just aliexpress but with a 100 to 200% price mark-up.

hda111 5y ago

It’s nearly impossible to buy a toaster or a water kettle from a reputable brand on amazon.de. Since I don’t want to burn my home I only buy books at amazon.

K0balt 5y ago
Be careful, even their books are flammable (/s)
- hda111 5y ago
  Not sure why your comment is hidden I appreciate it

busymom0 5y ago

Amazon Canada is turning into a Wish/Aliexpress clone too. If you get commonly branded items like detergent, soap, chips etc, you will be okay. But if you order stuff like weight lifting equipment, bedsheets, socks etc, the product descriptions have lots of false info which you will realize when you receive the item. Bedsheets with Egyptian cotton in description turn out to be 100% polyester, merino wool socks turn out to ordinary wool and so on.

mardifoufs 5y ago
Yeah it's crazy how QUICKLY amazon.ca turned into a flea market. It was getting bad for a few years now but until recentlu you could at rely on it for some essential/basic electronics. But I had a hard time getting a "reputable" USB-C Cable a few weeks ago, & all of them were basically obviously "too good to be true" clone cables from generic brands that you know won't actually work. Getting good cables/electronics for a lot cheaper was what got me into Amazon in the first place but now I'd rather buy everything from best buy or Walmart and avoid a huge headache. Everything from good brands has been perpetually out of stock or outright unavailable anymore. Appliances are somehow even worse, like the last few things I've bought there were outright unsafe and almost always had misleading listings/pictures. I mean at least on Aliexpress you pretty much know what you will get, and (good) stores are usually honest about their products. (I'm not sure if it's still the case but for almost the entirety of 2020 Amazon support was only available through emails that could take 48h to get a reply to, apparently because of coronavirus (?? Isn't chat pretty much perfect for remote work) so good luck even getting a refund especially for less expensive items that aren't worth a few days of back and forth)
- julianlam 5y ago
  I've used their live chat a bunch of times in 2020... They just hide it behind a bunch of hurdles in their support centre since they want to promote self-help.

mwill 5y ago

My experience with Amazon Australia is the same, literally identical products on eBay for 25-75% less, cheaper shipping, faster delivery. An example from pricing something up earlier this week, identical leveling casters, made in china and sold under different brand names, but with the same specs and product code Aliexpress: $41, Free postage, Est delivery 17/6 Ebay: $62, Free postage, Est delivery 2/6 - 7/6 Amazon.com.au: $125, $35 Delivery, Est delivery 10/6

silasdavis 5y ago

Having moved to Spain from UK I have noticed amazon.es worse than amazon.co.uk in numerous ways. Continually nags me on checkout to sign up for 'student prime' for which I would not be eligible anyway. Continually tries to offer its own exchange rate to GBP on checkout. The range is significantly less and most categories are dominated by bear identical products under throwaway brands. Definite bargain basement feels.

regularfry 5y ago
I always used to get 'student prime' nags on UK amazon, until I got prime a few months back.

______- 5y ago

My main gripe with Amazon right now: There should be a big red sign saying that a product ships all the way from from China. I only learn about that fact after I've paid for the order. It can take 5-6 weeks waiting for something to circumnavigate the globe to reach my house!

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
In every order I've ever placed there has been an estimated delivery date and, in my experience, they're accurate. How does your experience differ? Is the date missing? Does it change after checkout?
- ______- 5y ago
  > there has been an estimated delivery date I didn't even know there is an estimation. I just assume it will ship within 7 days. The vast bulk of my orders all arrived in 7 days (sometimes even shorter). But I got caught out with some orders where it shipped all the way from China, and I only learned about that after buying them (by visiting the 'track package' page).
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    I'm curious if you're seeing a different page than I am... perhaps you order on mobile a lot or something? It is very prominent: https://d2bvhe78se1grn.cloudfront.net/optimized/2X/a/a0a838507c7e11aa534eefd59d46e096124e3d91_1_690x366.jpg https://d2bvhe78se1grn.cloudfront.net/optimized/2X/a/a0a8385...
    - ______- 5y ago
      Oh thanks for pointing that out. To be honest, I never pay attention to that. But I will give it plenty of attention from now on, because I'm very impatient and hate waiting 4-5 weeks for something!

IdiocyInAction 5y ago

I never had any bad experiences with Amazon.de, actually. Though I do watch out to only buy genuine stuff and try to avoid off-brand. I buy stuff quite regularly too.

onli 5y ago
That's impossible, to only buy genuine stuff there. Thanks to inventory mingling you get the fake products even for legitimate listings of genuine products. Germany has so many other good online shops that it's for most products really easy to cut Amazon out and avoid that problem.
- r00fus 5y ago
  How is FBAs co-mingling even legal?
  - AnssiH 5y ago
    It is legally not much different from just-in-time sourcing, I think. Customer orders X from seller A, A buys X1 from seller B, then A gives X1 to customer. Meanwhile B buys X2 from A. Sellers can of course opt out of this scheme.
    - r00fus 5y ago
      It's quite different. At least with JIT sourcing, you know that a vendor has a given approved source(s) given an effective date. Everything is traceable. With FBA, you could have gotten counterfeit goods or a return from another customer where they've sent only the box and something that weighs the same (or a broken item). Amazon throws away the receipts (it'd be a nightmare to handle so they just... don't). Why is Amazon not on the hook for this?
      - AnssiH 5y ago
        > Amazon throws away the receipts (it'd be a nightmare to handle so they just... don't). I'm not sure what you mean by this. Amazon does keep track on where a given unit came from so that it is traceable to the original source, and at least in Europe invoices are issued for the inventory supplies between the sellers (these are documented at https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/gp/help/help-page.html?itemID=200141480 https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/gp/help/help-page.ht... - may not be public).

randomaces 5y ago

Maybe it’s just me but .de also feels like bigger brands are abandoning Amazon. This is also why all the junk is placed even more prominent.

rchaud 5y ago

It's the same at Amazon Canada. If you want name brands, particularly for electronics, you have to go elsewhere. The Amazon selection is straight out of Wish or Aliexpress or DealExtreme (does that site still exist?)

SkyPuncher 5y ago

I have some points to use, so I tried to find an espresso dosing funnel on Amazon. This is a metal ring that sits onto of the espresso basket to make grind less messy. It's shifting through loads of absolute trash. * Many with "product tolerances may be 1cm to 3cm off". This is a device that's about 2inch (58mm). 3cm is half the width. Perhaps they mean millimeter.... * Magnetic and non-magnetic ones mixed together. Seller even communicates they have mixed stock and will not guarantee which one you get. I want the magnetic one. * Misleading claims on nearly every description to suggest the product has features of much more expensive funnels. I'm only willing to tolerate it because I don't actually need this item and I can get it for free from Amazon. But...it's getting to the point where I might as well pay more and wait to get it from a reputable seller.