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Games without rules and referees degenerate into brawls. Similarly, open markets require regulations, enforcement, fair and impartial judiciary (tort), and pro

Games without rules and referees degenerate into brawls. Similarly, open markets require regulations, enforcement, fair and impartial judiciary (tort), and property rights. Fraud and counterfeits spoil markets. Lowering trust. Increasing transaction costs. Poorly regulated Freedom Markets™ like eBay and Amazon are net negatives, even while a few thrive on the chaos.

rchaud 5y ago
Buying from Amazon used to be just as legit as buying from Best Buy, Circuit City or Walmart. They sold the same types of products, but Amazon with its no-sales-tax advantage usually offered better prices and more selection. Then they got greedy and decided to turn the site into Aliexppress US.
- SmellTheGlove 5y ago
  The joke used to be that Best Buy was just a showroom for Amazon. That is definitely no longer the case.
  - buffet_overflow 5y ago
    I'm genuinely grateful that Amazon has at least pulled those and other even smaller stores into an age of much easier online ordering and delivery.
    - SmellTheGlove 5y ago
      Definitely. At the time, though, I was 100% convinced Amazon would just put them all out of business. Our choices would become Amazon or Walmart, depending on whether we wanted to have something right now. I'm glad I was wrong. It's funny though, we were talking about this at dinner the other night. Both my wife and I are still a bit surprised that we'd trust Walmart quality over Amazon at this point. We don't buy anything from Amazon with the expectation that it'll last, or that it's even real - just things that we'll use lightly and nothing we'd eat (minus Prime Now for Whole Foods delivery now and then). Amazon feels like some weird amalgamation of online Walmart + Harbor Freight.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > Then they got greedy and decided to turn the site into Aliexppress US. Because physical retail is a single digit profit margin business. It might not even be worth their time anymore now that they have AWS and Prime Video. Walmart’s market cap is $400B and they have to do a ton more work managing a customer facing business on top of all their warehouses and logistics and website. Amazon has a 1.75T market cap, without even having to deal with physical stores and customer interactions liabilities that come with it. They already have to deal with all the negative PR of paying warehouse workers less than their other employees…even though they pay more than other companies for warehouse work. I would be surprised if Amazon would bother entering retail if they had already had AWS and Prime Video. It might be worth the 15% commission as a platform though, but I suspect that’s why I see less and less “shipped and sold by Amazon.com” and more obfuscation of what is and is not coming directly from Amazon.
  - libertine 5y ago
    I disagree, Amazon has been pushing and growing Amazon Basics brand, among many others, leveraged by data from all the other sellers. Remember that retail gives you a lot of cashflow, and Amazon only allows you to transfer part of your funds, and transfers are made every 2-3 weeks. They probably have more money sitting around then many banks.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Walmart has even more cash flow. It’s not worth much, compared to other business lines, according to the market. At the end of the day, a sub 5% profit margin is still a sub 5% profit margin.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  I don't know what you are talking about :-) If you know exactly what you want and can find that from sellers on Aliexpress who actually know what they are selling, and put that in clear english language on there, everything is fine. If there is any vagueness, which is not resolvable by messaging/mail/chat, then I don't order. When I ordered with the above conditions met, I never had any trouble. Also fast delivery by air to *.de. edit: That was for electronic parts, boards, development kits, measuring equipment, and some tools so far. Don't know about the other stuff on offer there, but I'd guess it would be the same. The problem is the knowing and the sometimes horribly translated descriptions there, which make it look like alien gibberish. Apart from that I'm thinking it's mostly the same stuff, not even 'bootlegged', just directly from the source/ODM/OEM, while the usual 'high-quality' stuff just has a different label on it, and it is the greed for that label/brand which enables countless middlemen/upsellers/marketeers and their shady schemes.
  - chx 5y ago
    This is even more so with taobao/jd. You need a proxy like superbuy but sometimes I'll find a product which costs X at the "root" on taobao/jd costs say 1.3X on aliexpress, 1.8X on eBay and 2*X on Amazon. Numbers can be even worse, of course.
    - moepstar 5y ago
      For the cases i bothered to look up, i was looking at a 6x increase going from Alibaba to Amazon. (been looking at automatic soap dispensers, fwiw - after hours of research however i gathered that all are trash and didn't bother to find out if was going to get lucky)
      - chx 5y ago
        Getting stuff from Alibaba in single quantities though is very very difficult.
- smachiz 5y ago
  I mean... Aliexpress is Aliexpress US - Amazon is worse since you don't expect the product to be counterfeit, a knockoff or completely gamed reviews. At least with aliexpress that's exactly what you expect, and exactly what you're paying for.

rchaud 5y ago

Buying from Amazon used to be just as legit as buying from Best Buy, Circuit City or Walmart. They sold the same types of products, but Amazon with its no-sales-tax advantage usually offered better prices and more selection. Then they got greedy and decided to turn the site into Aliexppress US.

SmellTheGlove 5y ago
The joke used to be that Best Buy was just a showroom for Amazon. That is definitely no longer the case.
- buffet_overflow 5y ago
  I'm genuinely grateful that Amazon has at least pulled those and other even smaller stores into an age of much easier online ordering and delivery.
  - SmellTheGlove 5y ago
    Definitely. At the time, though, I was 100% convinced Amazon would just put them all out of business. Our choices would become Amazon or Walmart, depending on whether we wanted to have something right now. I'm glad I was wrong. It's funny though, we were talking about this at dinner the other night. Both my wife and I are still a bit surprised that we'd trust Walmart quality over Amazon at this point. We don't buy anything from Amazon with the expectation that it'll last, or that it's even real - just things that we'll use lightly and nothing we'd eat (minus Prime Now for Whole Foods delivery now and then). Amazon feels like some weird amalgamation of online Walmart + Harbor Freight.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
> Then they got greedy and decided to turn the site into Aliexppress US. Because physical retail is a single digit profit margin business. It might not even be worth their time anymore now that they have AWS and Prime Video. Walmart’s market cap is $400B and they have to do a ton more work managing a customer facing business on top of all their warehouses and logistics and website. Amazon has a 1.75T market cap, without even having to deal with physical stores and customer interactions liabilities that come with it. They already have to deal with all the negative PR of paying warehouse workers less than their other employees…even though they pay more than other companies for warehouse work. I would be surprised if Amazon would bother entering retail if they had already had AWS and Prime Video. It might be worth the 15% commission as a platform though, but I suspect that’s why I see less and less “shipped and sold by Amazon.com” and more obfuscation of what is and is not coming directly from Amazon.
- libertine 5y ago
  I disagree, Amazon has been pushing and growing Amazon Basics brand, among many others, leveraged by data from all the other sellers. Remember that retail gives you a lot of cashflow, and Amazon only allows you to transfer part of your funds, and transfers are made every 2-3 weeks. They probably have more money sitting around then many banks.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Walmart has even more cash flow. It’s not worth much, compared to other business lines, according to the market. At the end of the day, a sub 5% profit margin is still a sub 5% profit margin.
LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
I don't know what you are talking about :-) If you know exactly what you want and can find that from sellers on Aliexpress who actually know what they are selling, and put that in clear english language on there, everything is fine. If there is any vagueness, which is not resolvable by messaging/mail/chat, then I don't order. When I ordered with the above conditions met, I never had any trouble. Also fast delivery by air to *.de. edit: That was for electronic parts, boards, development kits, measuring equipment, and some tools so far. Don't know about the other stuff on offer there, but I'd guess it would be the same. The problem is the knowing and the sometimes horribly translated descriptions there, which make it look like alien gibberish. Apart from that I'm thinking it's mostly the same stuff, not even 'bootlegged', just directly from the source/ODM/OEM, while the usual 'high-quality' stuff just has a different label on it, and it is the greed for that label/brand which enables countless middlemen/upsellers/marketeers and their shady schemes.
- chx 5y ago
  This is even more so with taobao/jd. You need a proxy like superbuy but sometimes I'll find a product which costs X at the "root" on taobao/jd costs say 1.3X on aliexpress, 1.8X on eBay and 2*X on Amazon. Numbers can be even worse, of course.
  - moepstar 5y ago
    For the cases i bothered to look up, i was looking at a 6x increase going from Alibaba to Amazon. (been looking at automatic soap dispensers, fwiw - after hours of research however i gathered that all are trash and didn't bother to find out if was going to get lucky)
    - chx 5y ago
      Getting stuff from Alibaba in single quantities though is very very difficult.
smachiz 5y ago
I mean... Aliexpress is Aliexpress US - Amazon is worse since you don't expect the product to be counterfeit, a knockoff or completely gamed reviews. At least with aliexpress that's exactly what you expect, and exactly what you're paying for.