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Comment by randomacct3847 | Hacker News Reader

It is definitely not overblown. Easy to do simple searches on Amazon and compare to a site that doesn’t rely on 3rd party sellers like Best Buy. If you searched “wireless headphones” the top results are all knock off airpods and other suspect cheap Chinese made electronics with thousands of likely fake reviews. It’s a joke

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This is my biggest pet peeve with Amazon. I have given up on buying electronics multiple times because every search returns hundreds of no name Chinese knockoffs for every one reputable brand that I'm actually looking for. There is the option to select only certain brands, but if there are more than a few (which there always are because of the hundreds of knockoffs) it takes you to a page that only allows you to select one brand at a time. It's maddening and makes buying electronics on Amazon impossible. I don't know how they can not see how much friction they have in an industry where even the most trivial inconveniences cause exponential increase in bounce rates.

> If you searched “wireless headphones” the top results are all knock off airpods and other suspect cheap Chinese made electronics with thousands of likely fake reviews.

But isn't it a feature of all on-line shopping? If you type a generic query like this, you'll always get generic garbage as results. If you want to buy quality items, you search directly for those items - by their exact name or SKU.

E-commerce storefronts are not useful for product discovery.

> E-commerce storefronts are not useful for product discovery.

Probably a notable paradigm. E-commerce storefronts aren't so much for shopping as they are purchasing. There's definitely a bit of a difference.

(That said I've actually had some luck on Amazon being able to get some lotion I liked from Hawaii here in Toronto and finding a deodorant I actually like. The former is an example of "purchasing", the latter "shopping".)

Amazon commingles inventory, so counterfeits end up in the same bins as real products. So even by ordering a specific product or SKU, from a reputable seller, you can still have a decent chance of getting a counterfeit.

https://sellercentral.amazon.ca/gp/help/external/G200141480?...

https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-fake-products-project-zer...

https://www.climbing.com/gear/counterfeited-how-illegal-knoc...

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