Comment by justboxing | Hacker News Reader

Comment by justboxing | Hacker News Reader

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> the sheer volume of random brands is really off-putting to me for some reason

Your example of 'usb cable' is a very good one for highlighting this problem. You are seeing so many brands because of an army of "Amazon Associates Sellers" / FBA - Fullfilled by Amazon Sellers ( I like to refer to them as scam artists) who identify various electronic gadgets, household items, and other things that are in demand, that are light (so cheap to ship) and that are available in bulk in Alibaba or Alibaba Express. They simply slap on their brand logo / name on packaging, pay a few select reviewers to do a 5-star review on amazon and make a whole bunch of sale.

So in essence, the chances are that these 10+ brands you are seeing for 'usb cable' are all sourcing the same exact 'Made in China' product from the same factory in China through Alibaba. Do a search for 'Strawberry corer' and you'll see what I mean :)

This is a very real problem that amazon has been very slow to resolve.

There are even Fiverr gigs that do the product research for cheap. Source: https://www.fiverr.com/gigs/amazon-fba

Where is the problem? Should selling imported generic goods on Amazon only be allowed for major brands? That would make the cost go up as there would be less competition.

That's what I was thinking. As if the name brands aren't just getting most of their products from the same factories in China.

Two problems I see with Amazon is:

1. The search engine is pretty bad. Anecdotal example was when I search for a eye mask: there were two different categories — eyes masks and eyes masks / face pillows. Both gave me the same products, but in different order. Why is that?

2. Sometimes there is no guarantee of quality. When I look for an iPad case or screen protector, it seems that the item either has low ratings or the reviews don’t seem genuine.

Scratch that — third problem is that item description is not uniform or standardized. That makes it hard to compare products; only option is to compare reviews which leads back to problem 2.

And then I get off Amazon and use Reddit to find reviews.

You don’t see a problem with users being completely unable to predict with any accuracy how good the quality of what they’re buying is?

If being able to predict quality without spending time reading the reviews is important, buy a name brand and pay twice the price.

Careful with that - there's another saying: buy cheap, buy twice.

Amazon reviews are a pretty bad indicator of quality. You often need to make educated gueses about whether the reviewer knows what they're talking about, whether their standards are the same as yours, whether they're a shill (which is very common on off-brand items), whether the review actually reflects the product and isn't referring to the shipping or customer servie experience, etc.

You could always go for big brands... Sony or Sennheiser or Apple.. you get QA from buying from big brands because their name is on the line. Small unknown sellers.. not so much.

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