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I'd really like a more 'curated' or vetted everything store. I don't need to see 40 of the same exact item rebranded into various English horrors. Walmart see

I'd really like a more 'curated' or vetted everything store. I don't need to see 40 of the same exact item rebranded into various English horrors. Walmart seems most primed to do this, barring third party sales. Or Sears, if they ever had a miraculous turnaround to their old days.

Fervicus 3y ago
I'll leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQpxAvjD_30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQpxAvjD_30
danjoredd 3y ago
I wish Sears sold do-it-yourself-houses again like they did in the 1920s. That would be very cool of them.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Sears doesn't, but others do.
- bluGill 3y ago
  If you go to a real lumber yard - the type of places the pros go - they will look at any blueprint print and prepare you the kit. Prices are better than Home Depot after you account for free delivery and they pick up your returns. The kit won't include plumbing, HVAC, electric... so it isn't 100% what Sears did in the 1910s, but it is actually pretty close.
  - 123sereusername 3y ago
    what's a lumber yard?
    - danjoredd 3y ago
      Its a place that sells lumber. Usually a small business
dangus 3y ago
Sometimes curation just means higher prices. My local Best Buy curates electronics, but none of them are cheaper than the hundreds of additional brands you can find on Amazon. You can’t get a $50 WiFi 6 access point at Best Buy, but you can find that on Amazon. I think what you are describing is Walmart or Target but with filters applied to turn off third party sellers. As an aside, what’s interesting about Amazon is that once you unsubscribe from Prime, it’s not incredibly competitive with AliExpress for the right types of products. Usually if you can wait a week, you can wait two and save more money.
- jprete 3y ago
  It's not about the price, it's about getting a more trustworthy device.
  - dangus 3y ago
    The amount of trust you need in a device varies based on what you’re buying. There are a whole lot of products where saving cash easily trumps having a good brand standing behind it. Phone cases are a classic example. Some of my recent purchases like a toilet paper holder or emergency ponchos are similar. Even clothing is getting to the point where name brands are barely more dependable than Amazon off-brand clothes that probably come from the same factories. Sometimes “untrustworthy” brands go above and beyond mass market retail options, like the LED automotive lights that AutoZone won’t sell me.
    - kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
      AutoZone is doing us all a favor. Most people whack in an LED replacement for their turn signals and end up with a quick flashing mess that may be partially green. Or they put in LED brake lights that are blindingly bright and have no differentiation between idle and braking.
      - dangus 3y ago
        I made sure the lights had the same projection pattern as the halogens. I put in one on one side first and compared to the old bulb. No difference: they both cut off at the same height. Neither halogen nor these LEDs are directional, it’s the housing that determines the projection pattern. Plus, I’m in a sedan, while everyone else drives a huge SUV that rides higher than my car. I don’t see how my light system is any more offensive than the luxury cars that have the same thing from the factory. The only difference is that I don’t blow all my money on a stupid car payment or a thousand dollar feature package just so I can see better at night. I also installed LEDs for the license plate lights which has no negative effect on anyone, and now they won’t burn out all the time. (I did not install turn signal, brake, or high beam LEDs, I just installed the stuff that annoyed me by burning out all the time)
dylan604 3y ago
If you're curated, you're not everything. If you want everything, well, expect everything.
- whacko_quacko 3y ago
  Feels like arguing semantics instead of replying to the stated wish I can't get a hitman on amazon, so technically it's not an "everything store" to begin with. But for the purposes of this conversation it clearly is
  - EchoReflection 3y ago
    good response
    - 123sereusername 3y ago
      Could you use a amazon tuckle though?
  - dylan604 3y ago
    no, now, you're thinking of Silk Road or some such. The vast vast majority of consumers will only expect to find legal products/services on an everything store. If you are going to qualify everything to include things that will potentially land the user in prison, then sure, we shouldn't call it everything.
    - yunwal 3y ago
      I think you’re making gps point. No customer wants or expects spam crap in the everything store. The everything store doesn’t literally need to sell “everything”.
- EchoReflection 3y ago
  "everything" but only the "high quality" (or highER quality) instances of everything. seems pretty reasonable.
RyanShook 3y ago
There are more listings like that one, some are sold by Amazon. https://amzn.to/41Zf3hS https://amzn.to/41Zf3hS
- KomoD 3y ago
  This is an affiliate link
FerretFred 3y ago
Rebranded .. I'm getting really annoyed with the same product, different prices, different brand names apparently generated by some China-based anagram generator
- sbarre 3y ago
  But.. that's how a lot of products have always worked. I think the difference is that before a lot of white-label product factories would cut territory-based deals with resellers, so in (for example) the US, that widget is called "Acme Widget" but in France that exact same widget is called "Le Widget Magnifique". Around the world there might be 100+ companies selling that same product but typically not competing with each other because they would each have exclusive markets. But now with these global marketplaces, that same approach feels weird exactly because you can suddenly see the same exact products being sold under different names, and it's a lot easier for any random business to white-label a product and reach a global audience.
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    The difference is that many big brands will vet the products before they put their name and warranty on it. Amazon is a free for all when factories can just direclty dump their garbage. There is no brand recognition or reputation. It's all just random character strings attached to random products. If a QUENTOC dog leash is prone to snap and whiplash your face, they can just dump the brand and move on.
  - iforgotpassword 3y ago
    Sure, but before it didn't bother me because I didn't have to browse through eight pages of search results that show the same four products over and over again with different brands slapped on before I might find a fifth one that suits my needs better. If you're lucky they're all using the same images, but sometimes there's a couple of variations so it takes you a couple seconds for each listing to figure out if it's one of the four you already seen a dozen times and don't want.
    - 3y ago
SoftTalker 3y ago
Sears still exists?
- matteoraso 3y ago
  Yes, there's 13 stores left. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears
- xp84 3y ago
  It’s almost a stretch of the definition of “exist” but yeah. They mostly sell crap you’d find at a TJ Maxx or something, because they have neither name brands, nor most of their famous private labels that were good.
pphysch 3y ago
> Walmart seems most primed to do this The one time I used their ecommerce platform (due to a gift card), I got a damaged product drop-shipped as an Amazon gift. Quality and trust are not words that I have ever associated with Walmart, even in the brick-and-mortar world where it is much harder to pull a fast one. Color me skeptical.
- xp84 3y ago
  See I’m always kinda amused when I encounter Amazon arbitrage plays. I’m like “welp. I guess this one is on me for not knowing my item was cheap enough on Amazon to have room for the middleman to pay retail and still make money!”
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Solvency 3y ago
There used to be that. It was called Canopy. The best curated Amazon products. It was awesome. Guess what? Amazon acquired them and vaporized it.
- cookie_monsta 3y ago
  This seems like a solid business idea. Start up a company that deshittifies some BigCorp experience, become an existential threat to BigCorp, get acquired by BigCorp. Rinse and repeat. Who loses?
dumbfounder 3y ago
Amazon is just SO EASY though. It's a vortex I can't escape. I tried ordering a Nintendo Switch from Walmart for my son's birthday. 3 days they told me. It didn't even ship. The website said I could "try" to cancel the order. "Try" I did, and that try failed. I then waited a few weeks and had to call them up and they said oh we will just mark it as lost in transit. Oh yeah, that sounds perfect. They wasted my time, they endangered my mission, they cost me money, and then THEY MADE ME TALK TO SOMEONE (who was very pleasant and it was pretty quickly resolved but that's a little cherry on a sundae made of poo,). Screw all that nonsense. The only way for others to compete is to have a 3rd party help them all become just as easy as Amazon. We need someone to partner with Fedex and step up. Who can do it?
- yunwal 3y ago
  I’m shocked that people are having good experiences with Amazon delivery in 2023. For me, 2-day delivery means it’ll get here in a week or 2. And forget about customer service that can actually solve my issue. I want whatever program you’re on
  - ketzo 3y ago
    Where are you located? Not specifically, but urban, suburban, rural, remote? Anecodtally: I am in a super-urban location. I order Prime 2-day, on average, twice a week. It has been late maybe once in the past year; often, it comes a day early.
    - dumbfounder 3y ago
      That's my experience, and yes I am in an urban location. And returns are so easy too. In fact, I tried to return something the other day, and they said it was not returnable so they were like you just keep it and we will refund the money.
      - xp84 3y ago
        Suburbs here. We buy a lot of stuff from Amazon and generally it’s here when it said it would be. About 10% of the time it slips a day or two.
jrockway 3y ago
Wal-Mart and Target are the 'curated' everything stores. My biggest disappointment with them is that they never have what I want. I think I'm OK with Amazon being Aliexpress for the US market. Sometimes I want to get random crap from the depths of Shenzhen, and Amazon is that. What is unfortunate is that they can't get "real" brands to sell there, because of their counterfeiting issue. The "mistake" Amazon made (that has probably made them hundreds of billions of dollars) was to let someone send in a box of crap and get paid when someone shopping for "Tide Laundry Detergent" gets their box of crap instead of Tide Laundry Detergent. Other than that, they're where they are today because they're good. I just wouldn't buy anything valuable from them; laptops, cameras, phones, etc. Those you'll have to find a dedicated electronics retailer. But sometimes I'm like building a 3D printer and I want a touchscreen display or something for it... for $20 I can have one the same day. That is super neat. It works because no "brand" makes parts for hobbyists, and some company you've never heard of in China is actually the market leader. Amazon connects you to them... but also to billions of scammers. Caveat emptor. Edit to add: I'm talking about the in-person stores. I have no idea what Wal-Mart and Target do online.
- lastofthemojito 3y ago
  > Wal-Mart and Target are the 'curated' everything stores. Are you talking in-store or online? If I go to walmart.com or target.com and search for "usb cable", I don't see a dozen cables that fit 95% of use cases like in the store. Walmart shows thousands of results, the vast majority of which are marketplace sellers selling through walmart.com. Target has "only" 753 results, 600+ of which I find are not actually sold directly by Target if I dive into the filters. Basically it feels like Walmart and Target are trying to turn their online shopping experience into amazon.com.
  - boring_twenties 3y ago
    Annoying but at least Walmart still has the option to filter out third party sellers (under Filters, select Retailer and then Walmart). IIRC Amazon used to support this, but not anymore. I guess it wouldn't even do you much good with the commingling issue.
pompino 3y ago
Talk to friends and family, and only buy when someone has had a positive experience with a product before. Use outlets like consumer reports that do long-term reviews, etc.
rsync 3y ago
"I'd really like a more 'curated' or vetted everything store." It exists for tools and parts and hardware: mcmaster.com
pants2 3y ago
I'm prone to losing sunglasses, so some years ago I went through the process of testing out a dozen Alibaba sunglasses to find the best ones. I settled on one that's $4/pair, sturdy, and looks/feels/functions just like a $50 pair. Of course, being Alibaba, I had to buy it in bulk, so I now have sunglasses for life. But that brings me to the type of site I want to see. Not curated luxury products like Le Creuset cookware at a markup, but curated dirt-cheap Alibaba products with low margins that have been tested and vetted extensively. Massdrop or Monoprice are a little bit like this, but only for a few niches like headphones or cables.
- bitzun 3y ago
  Massdrop (Drop?) has had filler garbage for quite a while. I think (maybe one) part of the issue is mechanical keyboards got much more popular and drops were less necessary for good stuff.
  - silisili 3y ago
    I used to love Drop when they did outdoor gear. My favorite pocketknife is one of their collabs. Unfortunately they just do headphones and keyboards now, a move I certainly don't understand as those are really crowded segments with hardly any bottom.

Fervicus 3y ago

I'll leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQpxAvjD_30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQpxAvjD_30

danjoredd 3y ago

I wish Sears sold do-it-yourself-houses again like they did in the 1920s. That would be very cool of them.

SoftTalker 3y ago
Sears doesn't, but others do.
bluGill 3y ago
If you go to a real lumber yard - the type of places the pros go - they will look at any blueprint print and prepare you the kit. Prices are better than Home Depot after you account for free delivery and they pick up your returns. The kit won't include plumbing, HVAC, electric... so it isn't 100% what Sears did in the 1910s, but it is actually pretty close.
- 123sereusername 3y ago
  what's a lumber yard?
  - danjoredd 3y ago
    Its a place that sells lumber. Usually a small business

dangus 3y ago

Sometimes curation just means higher prices. My local Best Buy curates electronics, but none of them are cheaper than the hundreds of additional brands you can find on Amazon. You can’t get a $50 WiFi 6 access point at Best Buy, but you can find that on Amazon. I think what you are describing is Walmart or Target but with filters applied to turn off third party sellers. As an aside, what’s interesting about Amazon is that once you unsubscribe from Prime, it’s not incredibly competitive with AliExpress for the right types of products. Usually if you can wait a week, you can wait two and save more money.

jprete 3y ago
It's not about the price, it's about getting a more trustworthy device.
- dangus 3y ago
  The amount of trust you need in a device varies based on what you’re buying. There are a whole lot of products where saving cash easily trumps having a good brand standing behind it. Phone cases are a classic example. Some of my recent purchases like a toilet paper holder or emergency ponchos are similar. Even clothing is getting to the point where name brands are barely more dependable than Amazon off-brand clothes that probably come from the same factories. Sometimes “untrustworthy” brands go above and beyond mass market retail options, like the LED automotive lights that AutoZone won’t sell me.
  - kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
    AutoZone is doing us all a favor. Most people whack in an LED replacement for their turn signals and end up with a quick flashing mess that may be partially green. Or they put in LED brake lights that are blindingly bright and have no differentiation between idle and braking.
    - dangus 3y ago
      I made sure the lights had the same projection pattern as the halogens. I put in one on one side first and compared to the old bulb. No difference: they both cut off at the same height. Neither halogen nor these LEDs are directional, it’s the housing that determines the projection pattern. Plus, I’m in a sedan, while everyone else drives a huge SUV that rides higher than my car. I don’t see how my light system is any more offensive than the luxury cars that have the same thing from the factory. The only difference is that I don’t blow all my money on a stupid car payment or a thousand dollar feature package just so I can see better at night. I also installed LEDs for the license plate lights which has no negative effect on anyone, and now they won’t burn out all the time. (I did not install turn signal, brake, or high beam LEDs, I just installed the stuff that annoyed me by burning out all the time)

dylan604 3y ago

If you're curated, you're not everything. If you want everything, well, expect everything.

whacko_quacko 3y ago
Feels like arguing semantics instead of replying to the stated wish I can't get a hitman on amazon, so technically it's not an "everything store" to begin with. But for the purposes of this conversation it clearly is
- EchoReflection 3y ago
  good response
  - 123sereusername 3y ago
    Could you use a amazon tuckle though?
- dylan604 3y ago
  no, now, you're thinking of Silk Road or some such. The vast vast majority of consumers will only expect to find legal products/services on an everything store. If you are going to qualify everything to include things that will potentially land the user in prison, then sure, we shouldn't call it everything.
  - yunwal 3y ago
    I think you’re making gps point. No customer wants or expects spam crap in the everything store. The everything store doesn’t literally need to sell “everything”.
EchoReflection 3y ago
"everything" but only the "high quality" (or highER quality) instances of everything. seems pretty reasonable.

RyanShook 3y ago

There are more listings like that one, some are sold by Amazon. https://amzn.to/41Zf3hS https://amzn.to/41Zf3hS

KomoD 3y ago
This is an affiliate link

FerretFred 3y ago

Rebranded .. I'm getting really annoyed with the same product, different prices, different brand names apparently generated by some China-based anagram generator

sbarre 3y ago
But.. that's how a lot of products have always worked. I think the difference is that before a lot of white-label product factories would cut territory-based deals with resellers, so in (for example) the US, that widget is called "Acme Widget" but in France that exact same widget is called "Le Widget Magnifique". Around the world there might be 100+ companies selling that same product but typically not competing with each other because they would each have exclusive markets. But now with these global marketplaces, that same approach feels weird exactly because you can suddenly see the same exact products being sold under different names, and it's a lot easier for any random business to white-label a product and reach a global audience.
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  The difference is that many big brands will vet the products before they put their name and warranty on it. Amazon is a free for all when factories can just direclty dump their garbage. There is no brand recognition or reputation. It's all just random character strings attached to random products. If a QUENTOC dog leash is prone to snap and whiplash your face, they can just dump the brand and move on.
- iforgotpassword 3y ago
  Sure, but before it didn't bother me because I didn't have to browse through eight pages of search results that show the same four products over and over again with different brands slapped on before I might find a fifth one that suits my needs better. If you're lucky they're all using the same images, but sometimes there's a couple of variations so it takes you a couple seconds for each listing to figure out if it's one of the four you already seen a dozen times and don't want.
  - 3y ago

SoftTalker 3y ago

Sears still exists?

matteoraso 3y ago
Yes, there's 13 stores left. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears
xp84 3y ago
It’s almost a stretch of the definition of “exist” but yeah. They mostly sell crap you’d find at a TJ Maxx or something, because they have neither name brands, nor most of their famous private labels that were good.

pphysch 3y ago

> Walmart seems most primed to do this The one time I used their ecommerce platform (due to a gift card), I got a damaged product drop-shipped as an Amazon gift. Quality and trust are not words that I have ever associated with Walmart, even in the brick-and-mortar world where it is much harder to pull a fast one. Color me skeptical.

xp84 3y ago
See I’m always kinda amused when I encounter Amazon arbitrage plays. I’m like “welp. I guess this one is on me for not knowing my item was cheap enough on Amazon to have room for the middleman to pay retail and still make money!”

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Solvency 3y ago

There used to be that. It was called Canopy. The best curated Amazon products. It was awesome. Guess what? Amazon acquired them and vaporized it.

cookie_monsta 3y ago
This seems like a solid business idea. Start up a company that deshittifies some BigCorp experience, become an existential threat to BigCorp, get acquired by BigCorp. Rinse and repeat. Who loses?

dumbfounder 3y ago

Amazon is just SO EASY though. It's a vortex I can't escape. I tried ordering a Nintendo Switch from Walmart for my son's birthday. 3 days they told me. It didn't even ship. The website said I could "try" to cancel the order. "Try" I did, and that try failed. I then waited a few weeks and had to call them up and they said oh we will just mark it as lost in transit. Oh yeah, that sounds perfect. They wasted my time, they endangered my mission, they cost me money, and then THEY MADE ME TALK TO SOMEONE (who was very pleasant and it was pretty quickly resolved but that's a little cherry on a sundae made of poo,). Screw all that nonsense. The only way for others to compete is to have a 3rd party help them all become just as easy as Amazon. We need someone to partner with Fedex and step up. Who can do it?

yunwal 3y ago
I’m shocked that people are having good experiences with Amazon delivery in 2023. For me, 2-day delivery means it’ll get here in a week or 2. And forget about customer service that can actually solve my issue. I want whatever program you’re on
- ketzo 3y ago
  Where are you located? Not specifically, but urban, suburban, rural, remote? Anecodtally: I am in a super-urban location. I order Prime 2-day, on average, twice a week. It has been late maybe once in the past year; often, it comes a day early.
  - dumbfounder 3y ago
    That's my experience, and yes I am in an urban location. And returns are so easy too. In fact, I tried to return something the other day, and they said it was not returnable so they were like you just keep it and we will refund the money.
    - xp84 3y ago
      Suburbs here. We buy a lot of stuff from Amazon and generally it’s here when it said it would be. About 10% of the time it slips a day or two.

jrockway 3y ago

Wal-Mart and Target are the 'curated' everything stores. My biggest disappointment with them is that they never have what I want. I think I'm OK with Amazon being Aliexpress for the US market. Sometimes I want to get random crap from the depths of Shenzhen, and Amazon is that. What is unfortunate is that they can't get "real" brands to sell there, because of their counterfeiting issue. The "mistake" Amazon made (that has probably made them hundreds of billions of dollars) was to let someone send in a box of crap and get paid when someone shopping for "Tide Laundry Detergent" gets their box of crap instead of Tide Laundry Detergent. Other than that, they're where they are today because they're good. I just wouldn't buy anything valuable from them; laptops, cameras, phones, etc. Those you'll have to find a dedicated electronics retailer. But sometimes I'm like building a 3D printer and I want a touchscreen display or something for it... for $20 I can have one the same day. That is super neat. It works because no "brand" makes parts for hobbyists, and some company you've never heard of in China is actually the market leader. Amazon connects you to them... but also to billions of scammers. Caveat emptor. Edit to add: I'm talking about the in-person stores. I have no idea what Wal-Mart and Target do online.

lastofthemojito 3y ago
> Wal-Mart and Target are the 'curated' everything stores. Are you talking in-store or online? If I go to walmart.com or target.com and search for "usb cable", I don't see a dozen cables that fit 95% of use cases like in the store. Walmart shows thousands of results, the vast majority of which are marketplace sellers selling through walmart.com. Target has "only" 753 results, 600+ of which I find are not actually sold directly by Target if I dive into the filters. Basically it feels like Walmart and Target are trying to turn their online shopping experience into amazon.com.
- boring_twenties 3y ago
  Annoying but at least Walmart still has the option to filter out third party sellers (under Filters, select Retailer and then Walmart). IIRC Amazon used to support this, but not anymore. I guess it wouldn't even do you much good with the commingling issue.

pompino 3y ago

Talk to friends and family, and only buy when someone has had a positive experience with a product before. Use outlets like consumer reports that do long-term reviews, etc.

rsync 3y ago

"I'd really like a more 'curated' or vetted everything store." It exists for tools and parts and hardware: mcmaster.com

pants2 3y ago

I'm prone to losing sunglasses, so some years ago I went through the process of testing out a dozen Alibaba sunglasses to find the best ones. I settled on one that's $4/pair, sturdy, and looks/feels/functions just like a $50 pair. Of course, being Alibaba, I had to buy it in bulk, so I now have sunglasses for life. But that brings me to the type of site I want to see. Not curated luxury products like Le Creuset cookware at a markup, but curated dirt-cheap Alibaba products with low margins that have been tested and vetted extensively. Massdrop or Monoprice are a little bit like this, but only for a few niches like headphones or cables.

bitzun 3y ago
Massdrop (Drop?) has had filler garbage for quite a while. I think (maybe one) part of the issue is mechanical keyboards got much more popular and drops were less necessary for good stuff.
- silisili 3y ago
  I used to love Drop when they did outdoor gear. My favorite pocketknife is one of their collabs. Unfortunately they just do headphones and keyboards now, a move I certainly don't understand as those are really crowded segments with hardly any bottom.