I recently bought a Hario coffee grinder. I looked at what I thought was the official page for the item on Amazon (not a third party seller) yet 10-15% of the reviews all complained about receiving a counterfeit. That's when I gave up and bought it at Williams Sonoma.
My anecdotal case was buying a lamp for a DLP TV. The seller claimed to provide a 1 year warranty and mine burn out after 11 months. However, there was absolutely no means to contact the seller. I tried reached out to Amazon to get it, but to no avail. Finally, I resorted to leaving a negative review about the product and seller. Within a day I was sent an email saying my review violated some rules that state I’m not allowed to be critical of the seller, only the product. I was flabbergasted. So I rewrote it without any direct mention of the seller and the same thing happened. At that point, I just gave up. The seller is still there, selling non-existing one year warranties.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=aw/...
The translation is by Constance Garnett. They only mention the book in passing. If I wouldn't have been wanting to read the book since years and called Russ Roberts highly the podcast wouldn't have made me want to read the book. It was in no way the topic of the episode or even close.
No, it is, or at least it was. When online shopping got big, up until a few years ago, the prices were usually better than physical retail (but with higher latency due to shipping). It only got popular because you were getting a deal (if only dodging sales tax), and most people were conditioned to think that online shopping = good deal (compared to physical retail).
But you're right, in 2018 Amazon's for paying retail and gambling that you didn't get a counterfeit (the chance of which varys depending on the kind of product), and then waiting for it to arrive.
For me that doesn't make any sense, so I've stopped shopping there for anything I can find locally in a retail store.
People often say that media like CDs and DVDs/Blu-rays are on the way out and it's all online downloads now, but at least here in the UK I still buy probably 90% of the films I watch at home and maybe half of the TV shows on disc, because the likes of Netflix simply don't have a big range of big name titles, or don't get them until several years after they come out.
Sadly, most of the good local stores where I used to buy discs have closed down, in large part thanks to online sellers undercutting them and driving them out of the market. The likes of Silver Screen, where you could go in and browse for almost any film or TV show you liked on disc and probably pick up something new to try on an offer while you were there, have gone the way of the dinosaur. All that's left is a few of the recent blockbusters in the big stores. I'm not convinced this is progress!
We do at least still have one decent bookshop in town, which is a blessing because Amazon's handling of books is apparently so careless that I was returning a crazy number of them just because they arrived marked, ripped or otherwise not in brand new condition. I've gone back to buying the majority of my books, and anything I possibly can if it will be a gift, in bricks and mortar stores so I can see it's in good condition before I buy it, and where I can also browse for related material that I might also like to pick up while I'm there.
Tech-wise, I wouldn't trust Amazon for anything more sophisticated than a network cable or USB hub. This is a merchant that ships hard drives in over-sized boxes with a bit of tissue paper for padding, and then seems to have trouble understanding why we decline the delivery. There are plenty of specialist tech merchants who will supply more serious gear packaged properly, from reputable sources, and typically at about the same price anyway.
No, don't buy name brands from Fulfilled by Amazon sellers (including Amazon itself) on Amazon, only from known-good third-party non-FBA sellers (exception, Amazon is okay if there are no FBA sellers for a product), since Amazon commingles inventory from FBA sellers (including themselves), so you never know which seller actually sourced a good purchased from an FBA seller.
1. Items sold by Amazon. 2. Items sold by 3rd parties and fulfilled by Amazon. 3. Items sold by 3rd parties and shipped by 3rd parties.
The problem is that items in their fulfillment centers, (1) and (2) are mixed together. Just because you buy something sold by Amazon doesn’t guarantee that you won’t be sent a counterfeit item that a 3rd party sent to amazon to use for fulfillment.
Everything except for topical/consumable items and items with an expiration date can be conmingled.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/12/13/how-to-p...
Just a few days ago this was on the front page, an article by a small business owner selling their product on Amazon complaining both in the article and the comments that even when a product is in the brand registry they are woefully ineffective about dealing with counterfeits.
This not-Chromecast is a really bad example because it's not actually claiming to be a Chromecast, but I have certainly ordered products on Amazon and received knockoffs before. Inventory comingling makes it basically impossible to ensure you're getting what you order because even if you order from a reputable seller it might come from somebody else entirely.