this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Amazon makes a lot of money facilitating the sales of counterfeit goods.
Sure. But they'd make similar amounts of money (possibly more) by selling non-counterfeit goods.
They want their market to be open to third parties, because otherwise those third parties are gonna launch competing platforms. Better if they stick with Amazon, and Amazon gets a cut of the sale. There are thousands and thousands of Chinese companies selling products on Amazon, and many of them are fantastic deals. If Amazon blocks them, they all move to AliExpress, and maybe that really takes off and bites into Amazon's market share.
But when you consider the sheer number of products offered on Amazon, it's hard for them to separate the good-but-cheap from the crap counterfeit bullshit. And as you say...they make money either way, so it's not the highest-priority problem to fix--though as I said in another comment, they are aware that if enough products are crap, people will lose faith in Amazon as a whole, so they've tried different techniques to block bullshit reviews in the past.
But if somebody else wants to put in the work to filter shitty knockoffs from the results page? Well, that's fine with them! They make money selling you the real deal products, too--likely more, because their cut of a more expensive original product is gonna be higher.
Lol, as of this hasn't already happened
I mean, if people have lost faith in Amazon, they sure don't show it with the amount they spend on it.
There are some things you can really only buy there. Which is why I bigly agree with the US government that they're a bigly monopoly bigly abusing their monopoly power (bigly).
It extra sucks for rural America where you might only have a handful of stores to pick from and all are discount stores like Walmart and Dollar General. Makes it hard to buy better quality/up market items
I find this to be a challenge in general. Amazon and Walmart killed recognizable name brands as quality markers. Walmart forced their suppliers (some of which were name brands) down in quality and prices in order to maintain shelf space, and Amazon is just a haven for rip-off and junk goods.
But the only places you can find quality with good warranty periods in my experience is ultra-high end suppliers in very top line stores. For instance, I'm trying to buy a leather jacket and everywhere I look both online or in person seems like a junk expo...except if you look at very high end stuff (800+ minimum, 1-2k median).
I've had similar problems with furniture, and even home goods recently. The only place I've had any luck at all is Costco.
PS: I do agree that small town America gets even more screwed because they don't have the high end stores to speak of.
Regarding furniture, check the Amish furniture stores! They make stuff that your grandkids will resent receiving as inheritance because they'll be how many decades old and still in perfectly serviceable condition
I'm in CA, I dunno if that's around here. But it is good advice if you have local Amish.
So if there's a Lancaster in your state (which there is) there's a good chance there is an Amish population, and they do tend to open showrooms in major cities to facilitate ordering. Do some googling and you should be able to find some (I did). The Amish have some incredibly skilled carpenters and if you're willing to spend the cash you'll get some absolutely wonderful furniture
Got any examples? Between Walmart, Etsy, AliExpress, Best Buy, MonoPrice, Home Depot, and Wayfair, plus the fact that nearly every major store has online shopping and delivery...I really can't think of anything I could only get on Amazon. To be quite frank, I think the US government's case is sorta ridiculous.
Of course you do, you post like some type of Amazon shill.
I was looking for hardware at home depot and the dude recommended I buy what I was looking for on Amazon.