The amount of third party sellers re-using listings for multiple products to pad their reviews is honestly astonishing. Searching for a lightning to 3.5mm jack leads to this as the #2 result:
https://www.amazon.com/Earphone-Charging-Headphone-Splitter-...
Not only does this not work (as discovered by my SO), but all of the reviews for it are for phone cases, utility knives, etc. In the past month or two, this has been happening WAY too often. It's gotten to the point, like you've said, where AliExpress has become more reliable. That seems insane to me.
It links to this article from last year that seems to go into more detail about that particular method too: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/amazon-rev...
(I would really just like a way to filter out multiple-product listings entirely. The only valid use-case is like, multiple colors or something. 99% of the time they're used to game search results and the prices are almost never good enough to be worth manually sorting through 200 identical listings vs just filtering them out entirely. But at least minimum price queries filter out one way they are abused.)
Also, filter to US sellers only. Usually if you buy from China then the savings aren't that huge, you'll be waiting a month to get your item, and if the item ends up not working then it's impossible to return it. On some items you are going to be getting the same junk anyway, but from a bulk importer shipping from the US, but other items with definite name-brands it does cut out a lot of the junk listings.
I recently wanted a blue alarm clock. Amazon was 20$. Walmart Online 10$.
I still use Amazon to price check, but I've started price checking numerous competitors.
Here is a study we did for baby items, but it was clear online>brick and mortar. Walmart>Amazon https://efficiencyiseverything.com/target-vs-amazon-vs-walma...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/shoptimate/pr...
The gathering of browser data in the privacy policy is to cover things taken by my Apache logs or click statistics (which I sometimes need to charge stores that pay me per click). But I don't monetize this in any shape or form.
I think Target may be moving in that direction as well? They've started doing free 2-day shipping as well, I would not be surprised if that's how they're doing it. They seem like they're making a genuine attempt to compete with Amazon too.
or when you order something from amazon while not having prime, choose free shipping and have it artificially delayed so that it comes 2 weeks later. not much different than ordering the same item from aliexpress for cheaper and waiting those same weeks for the free shipping.
I am forced to return the item and cause Amazon so much loss, when Amazon can just offer price matching upto a week but no they don't do that
Second, Amazon tells me that there is lightening offer on some product but the price has only changed like 1% and Amazon compares it with the fake price which it never before charged in its store.
But when price also changes and there are issues, this leaves me no other option but to return the package. (Which I really hate)
Packaging? As in neither your neighbor nor the delivery guy know there is a $500 SSD in that little package. What other company is able / willing to pack such a huge variety of products into its own branded boxes?
Of course, should the whole thing turn into a giant screwball of hidden links between manufacturer and end user, impossible to debug when things go wrong - well, that's just a collateral. As long as the decision makers get their bonuses, it's all good. /s