Comment by alexhutcheson
7 years ago
I often buy from Target or Costco.com, which have no 3rd party sellers that I'm aware of. Because of this, I assume that they are vetting their vendors and supply chain to minimize the reputation damage that counterfeits would cause. I also use Walmart.com, but I filter out anything sold by 3rd parties to make sure I'm buying something from Walmart's vetted supply chain.
If shipping charges aren't prohibitive, I'll also consider buying directly from the manufacturer website.
If you buy from a random site on the internet that doesn't have a reputation to protect, then I agree it's just as risky as buying from Amazon or a random eBay seller.
Likewise, I've been looking at Walmart.com more often as well, but even there they seem to have other sellers. I'm unsure if their actual supply chain is any better or not though. Amazon really ruined it.
Aside: I'm also disappointed in Newegg at whatever point they started allowing third parties. Worse still is a number of the third parties list the same products as different items/codes so search is a pain sometimes until you select newegg as the seller.