Comment by _heimdall
5 days ago
I ended up drastically cutting back on Amazon purchases when they started getting flooded with brands like that.
Its absolutely on Amazon to maintain quality. There are certain brands and types of products I'll order there because they're just harder to find otherwise, but its mostly a last resort these days given that Amazon doesn't care to curate what is on their "shelves".
If the quality sucks (or at least doesn't match expectations), return it. Shipping is fast and returns are easy. The vendor takes the consequence of the return. Rarely do I buy product that has subpar quality that I need to return it. Just do your research.
This is why I still buy from Amazon.
Hah, well easy may be in the eye of the beholder. The closest dropoff for Amazon returns is about a 20 minute drive, its a CVS that has lost one return I tried to send back. I often don't leave our farm more than once a week, mailing off a few returns a year isn't a big deal but I don't want to make a habit of it.
My research, and experience with Amazon, just left me avoiding it when I can. That's not always possible and there's plenty of good stuff to buy on Amazon as well, but 2 day delivery can mean a week here and returns aren't as simple as dropping it off a block from an office in the city.
Returns aren't easy when Amazon threaten to ban you for returning too many items.
I love it in terms of consumer experience. I like several products from AliExpress and the like, but sometimes find they're available for the same price or cheaper and faster with better customer service from Amazon. I don't care that they have generic brand names in either case
I'm with you. I don't really understand the complaints, since Amazon's return policy means that you aren't really taking a risk when you buy, even from randomly-named brands.
Not all harms of using inadequately QC’d or deceptively marketed products are adequately remedied by a reasonably easy return and refund policy.
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That rather depends on your ability to evaluate what you get. I have no qualms telling non-technical people "buy USB-C chargers from the Apple Store", knowing perfectly well what quality I will get. However, you can't even guarantee you'll get something genuine from Amazon anymore even if you select that exact same product.
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An easy example of the harm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU&t=1688s
I'll just return the fuses to Amazon after my family burns up I guess.
Now expand that to people buying supplements, bolts holding things in place that can harm people, etc from Amazon.
There are negative externalities caused by buying and returning stuff.
> Amazon's return policy means that you aren't really taking a risk
Depends how much you buy. If you end up returning too much stuff, Amazon will ban you.
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It only shows what people are buying, not what they want to buy. Cheap crap might sell a ton because it's cheap and listed at the top of the search results. Which then feeds into it being kept at the top of the search results. A lot of times if the item is cheap enough people don't bother with returns and rather just throw the item out, something that will go completely unseen by the metrics.
Ratings are also not very helpful because they are manipulated in a variety of ways. Things like bots/mechanical turks, putting offers in the package to give people money back if they rate the item 5 stars, or hijacking a well rated product listing by changing it later or taking advantage of item variants system.
So, I very much don't trust any of their data myself.
> putting offers in the package to give people money back if they rate the item 5 stars,
I had something similar but more convoluted happen with the car mount I got for my phone. The box included a card stating to email them to sign up for their warranty. Emailing them signed me up for their loyalty emails, which are infrequent enough that I actually didn't mind them. The loyalty emails frequently included offers of "free gifts." One day, I actually replied to one asking for it, and they explained I'd be buying it from them on Amazon and then they'd pay me back for it-- in exchange for a review, of course.
I'd had similar things offered to me as a YouTuber with companies wanting "reviews" but making me do the purchase myself (I've done one or two of them). The fact that it's just being offered to mainstream consumers now is ridiculous. It means you can't trust any of the reviews (or at least the positive ones; I normally look for negative ones with photos these days).
I don't think its so easy to pull apart what people are buying and what they want to buy.
Amazon has a pretty crippling hold on the online retail industry, and they collect massive amounts of data to decide what to put in front of people.
Targeted marketing and the partnership between marketing and psychology is nothing new, it has gotten stronger though. I have a hard time looking at a market run like that as a roughly free market where the successful products indicate what buyers actually want rather than what they were best coerced (or "nudged") into buying.
I would say there are other viable platforms people could offer on but Amazon actively punishes people for trying to work out of their ecosystem by penalizing them for offering lower prices than on Amazon
It's an optimization loop where one part of the cycle (showing people stuff and seeing if they buy it) is very fast, and one part (product development) is very slow. This is sure to find local, rather than global maxima.
> Amazon’s relentless quantitative focus
It’s 2025 and I still get the “I see you bought a stapler, what you obviously desire is twenty-five more staplers” treatment from Amazon.
ROFLMAO