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> The shelves are largely stocked with cheaply made chinesium junk as it is! I don't understand this complaint in this day and age. Can you point me to a brick

> The shelves are largely stocked with cheaply made chinesium junk as it is! I don't understand this complaint in this day and age. Can you point me to a brick-and-mortar store that has mostly high-quality long-lasting items?

tcmart14 4y ago
Not only that, I've also been bitten by cheaply made junk stamped "made in the USA." As another commenter said, at least with going in the store, there is usually some company attached to the product I can contact if really needed. Regardless of the cheaply made stuff's origin. Third party online retailers, much of the time end up ghosted or someone trying to play off as being incompetent.
hot_gril 4y ago
Never heard of Best Buy selling fake stuff, at least not yet. For spoons and such, there are dedicated stores like Sur La Table, which of course cost a lot more.
pengaru 4y ago
There are plenty of such stores selling quality goods, brick-and-mortar is too general. But in terms of big-box retailers it has indeed become a depressing reality in the USA, ever since Sears closed down. FWIW the last few times I abandoned hope in the kitchenware aisles of Wal-Mart I found something reasonable at Bed Bath & Beyond, a brick-and-mortar store. But it did admittedly require still splurging on basically top-of-the-line variants at BB&B. Such options were nowhere to be found in Wal-Mart though, not even close. My impression is that the big-box retailers just don't go deep on the quality axis, they instead go wide on the quantity axis in terms of kinds of products. Within the ~quality axis they often just have cosmetically different looking dolled-up variants of more or less the same garbage with a higher price tag. But if you go somewhere with a narrower scope like BB&B, you can at least find tangible differences along the quality axis. And they sure demand top-of-the-line prices for quality levels we once took for granted before China turned up the wick on this race to zero :(

tcmart14 4y ago

Not only that, I've also been bitten by cheaply made junk stamped "made in the USA." As another commenter said, at least with going in the store, there is usually some company attached to the product I can contact if really needed. Regardless of the cheaply made stuff's origin. Third party online retailers, much of the time end up ghosted or someone trying to play off as being incompetent.

hot_gril 4y ago

Never heard of Best Buy selling fake stuff, at least not yet. For spoons and such, there are dedicated stores like Sur La Table, which of course cost a lot more.

pengaru 4y ago

There are plenty of such stores selling quality goods, brick-and-mortar is too general. But in terms of big-box retailers it has indeed become a depressing reality in the USA, ever since Sears closed down. FWIW the last few times I abandoned hope in the kitchenware aisles of Wal-Mart I found something reasonable at Bed Bath & Beyond, a brick-and-mortar store. But it did admittedly require still splurging on basically top-of-the-line variants at BB&B. Such options were nowhere to be found in Wal-Mart though, not even close. My impression is that the big-box retailers just don't go deep on the quality axis, they instead go wide on the quantity axis in terms of kinds of products. Within the ~quality axis they often just have cosmetically different looking dolled-up variants of more or less the same garbage with a higher price tag. But if you go somewhere with a narrower scope like BB&B, you can at least find tangible differences along the quality axis. And they sure demand top-of-the-line prices for quality levels we once took for granted before China turned up the wick on this race to zero :(