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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

The impression I get from that thread is that the dream here is now Americans can do what they do best, sit in the middle of transactions and collect rent. Previously, you could go to a Chinese website and have the Chinese factory send you a widget directly to your door. Now that will be too expensive, but hey we have a solution! An American will order a bunch of widgets in bulk, ship them over in a cargo ship, come up with some fancy marketing, and then sell the widgets to you at 200% markup. You know these folks will never hire electrical engineers to certify safety and conformance, or work with the factory to improve the product in response to customer feedback. They're there to do one thing: sit in the middle of the transaction and charge Chinese manufacturers for the privilege of selling to Americans.

But hey, look on the bright side... at least there is someone you can sue when your widget blows up.

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Pretty much. I absolutely fucking hate Amazon now. It's full of white label products. You can tell the seller does no real safety testing of any kind from their broad array of random shit. You can't even trust the kitchen equipment for chance they made the steel with lead or the silicone is mixed with something toxic, etc. Completely unregulated market place of stupid. And this is on top of Amazon's counterfeit problems they half ass enforcement. I'm surprised nobody has died yet from counterfeit or substandard automotive goods of all things.

I work in automotive parts (ASE Parts Specialist Cert.) and Amazon carries all the same substandard automotive goods Autozone and the other Mexican car parts stores have. Valuecarft line is dangerous Mexican made remans, duralast same crap. Most the time you go to one these Mexican car parts stores to get hard parts your getting something marked up 200% and searching it on amazon gets you same identical part. Your right it's amazing that even more people don't die from crap parts.

So where should I be buying my automotive car parts?

I like RockAuto. But since I had a bad run-in with a supposedly-quality oil pan for an Aisin transmission, I've increasingly been using OEM. Like, from the local dealers. But, there's always things like brake calipers from TRW which are identical to the VW-branded ones (but far cheaper). Anyway, I avoid Dorman and a whole host of other parts manufacturers. If I need to get it done in one day, OEM helps...

I had one bad experience from RockAuto and haven't gone back. One OEM lists a part as compatible for a Honda Accord 2006 V6 belt tensioner when it is basically incompatible it comes in as the pulley's are different sizes from factory (and you can't tell in their images). They made it incredibly difficult for me to return it for god knows what reason.

A different OEM sourced elsewhere was the correct kit out of the box :/

From the OEM as much as possible. I know their parts are "expensive" but nobody debates that they have the best fitment and quality compared to places like AutoZone, O'Rly, etc.

The only other option is to look for the company who builds the OEM parts and find their suppliers. For example, you'll find Exedy builds clutches for companies like Honda. So if you can get an Exedy clutch from your local parts store, it's usually the same as the OEM part.

If you do research too, you'll find that there are a lot of high-quality aftermarket parts suppliers too. If you are looking for bearings, you can usually look for places that sell SKF bearings (or whatever you prefer), and measure and cross reference the sizes to find what fits your application.

So what it comes down to is, it depends on the part, and it depends on what is available from where. It's basically a giant research project for every part.

>from the OEM as much as possible

I think I'll take my chances with the "Mexican" parts you've described as I have seen them installed in countless cars and road deaths have only been dropping year over year.

There is no need for me to crucify myself financially because German plastic is supposedly better than Mexican.

Honestly, there's nothing wrong with "Mexican" parts specifically just "aftermarket" quality outside of known aftermarket brands.

For example, an after-market engine mount isn't going to kill you when it goes bad, but your wallet is going to be a lot emptier compared to just buying the factory part after you replace the damn thing every year. (I've had the experience, I tried a few aftermarket brands, I've since gone exclusively to factory and haven't replaced an engine mount in years)

> I absolutely fucking hate Amazon now. It's full of white label products.

So is Walmart and Dollar General. It's always been the customer's responsibility to buy the product they want, not the store's. Don't want counterfeit crap? Don't buy IFONE FROM APPEL in the listings. I don't know when the last time I got counterfeit crap from amazon is because I look at what I buy before I buy it.

White labelling and counterfeiting are two different things.

White labelling is just rebranding; I go to Home Depot and buy some screws, print out a label that says "jrockway's miracle fasteners", slap it on top of Home Depot's label, and sell them to you, that's white labeling.

Counterfeiting is when you inject seemingly-identical goods into the supply chain. You mix up some soap and blue dye in your bathtub, pour it into some recycled Tide bottles, and ship them off to Amazon's warehouse as "Tide brand laundry detergent". Now you are selling them to customers seeking a genuine product, but they're not getting the real thing.

White-labelling is a perfectly legitimate thing. Counterfeiting is a crime.

To be extra clear, your "I look at things on Amazon before I buy them" technique is exactly the sort of procedure that won't protect you from counterfeiting. The counterfeiters already fooled Amazon. Amazon thinks they're selling you genuine merchandise. But they're not. That's what upsets people.

> Amazon thinks they're selling you genuine merchandise.

I'm pretty sure Amazon doesn't believe this anymore either.

What Chinese companies actually do is both really. They take an order of 1000 say Apple iPhones then actually produce 2000, keeping 1000 for themselves. They then sell the knock-offs themselves within China or into the U.S. on e-bay and other 'used' sites.

1. The commenter I replied to was talking about white label, they didn't mention counterfeiting.

2. I doubt Amazon purposefully sells counterfeit goods.

I wouldn't blame the consumer on this. Retailers are responsible for the things they sell. That includes if it's low quality or if it says it's something that it isn't (counterfeit etc). Also hosting fake reviews etc is also something they are responsible for.

Normal retailers are responsible. Amazon hides behind the veil of "third party sellers".

Is it a veil? Imagine you are a landlord and you rent to a Walmart. Are you as the landlord responsible for all of Walmart's products? It is the same thing but Amazon owns a virtual high traveled location instead of the landlord who owns a place on a busy street. Amazon shouldn't be responsible for the third party seller, but it should be extremely clear that it is a third party seller, like the sign on the side of a building.

Caveat emptor has to have limits. If merchants can just write whatever on whatever package and sell it, how the hell are consumers supposed to function as informed or responsible? How long until every transaction turns into a sketchy used car buy, having to take my package of fucking toilet paper to a maid so she can use her expertise to make sure they didn't make the paper out of razorblades and carbon fiber?

I'm all for free markets but merchants have proven time and again, and long before China for that matter, that they can't be fucking trusted with anything. Sure, some are good, but the vast majority especially online will do any damn thing they can to increase bottom line.

So blame the seller, not the store, unless you really think Amazon is trying to sell counterfeit goods.

>I'm surprised nobody has died yet from counterfeit or substandard automotive goods of all things.

I've been told this will self-regulate in a truly free market.

I 100% guarantee someone has died from substandard automotive goods. Not sure when or where, but mechanical failures contribute to accidents all the time.

Yes and no. Essentially this is already happening, except they are drop-shipping you the product for next to nothing direct from China. In fact, there is a small industry that revolves around this business model. The barrier of entry has just risen dramatically with this news.

https://www.shopify.com/guides/dropshipping

There are thousands of small drop-shipping businesses based in North America that depend on cheap postal service from China. Excuse me while I go short Shopify stock.

I see this as a positive for Shopify. We work very closely with the platform, and over the years I have only seen a handful of direct-from-Chinese dropshipping sites that actually produce any revenue. Sure there are a lot of accounts that are opening with the hopes of a get-rich-quick scheme with low cost and risk.

I am certain that it is the legitimate businesses that are behind Shopify's success, and this will help with their reputation and give them a chance to focus their marketing on the right customers.

Check out Shopify's marketplace for selling online businesses [0]. I limited the search to dropshipping. Dozen's of businesses with five figure monthly revenue and a few with more than that. Revenue data comes directly from Shopify and can't be edited by the seller. These are just the businesses for sale. I would call this more than a handful.

Look, Shopify is a great product and long-term I only see it growing. That being said, I would think the loss of Chinese dropshipping would hurt it's short term outlook.

[0]https://exchangemarketplace.com/shops?businessTypes=21&page=...

Not sure what's changed but that link shows me only one business with 5-figure monthly revenues.

you aren't scrolling past the featured listings...

As a side note, Shopify acquired an app to help with this whole process of importing AliExpress products for drop shipping a few years ago for about $10-15 mil. Oberlo, it is called [1].

I would guess based on the acquisition price that there’s likely a significant enough number of accounts that depend on this whole drop shipping at minimal shipping expense model.

[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/acquisition/shopify-acquires-ober...

You are missing out the bit where you ordered the widget from China and then the US tax payers subsidised the Chinese companies delivery cost.

All that is happening is that subsidy is being removed.

Yes you either pay for the shipping or you pay the middle man. It's much cheaper for the consumer to subsidize the shipping than it is for the consumer to subsidize the middle man.

I expect going forward Alibaba will open warehouses all over the US which their sellers can stock with goods which can then be shipped domestically for about the same cost. I doubt Alibaba will just go away.

Or, you buy from a different source.

If cheap crap x from China has a moderately expensive source alternative from the USA and stopping subsidising the transportation costs from China makes the moderately expensive option price viable then that's good for the USA supplier without any middlemen being involved.

> sit in the middle of transactions and collect rent

This is already a cottage industry, drop shipping. You make a shopify store, put up some marketing of people in sunglasses in front of brick walls, and sell cheap crap like fashion watches. Then when someone buys one, you go on Aliexpress and order it directly to your customers' address.

If you're a real expert in arbitrage, you don't settle for making a couple dollars at a time. You charge people thousands of dollars to "teach" them how to make their own drop shipping stores.

> If you're a real expert in arbitrage, you don't settle for making a couple dollars at a time.

Have you been to Thailand? I estimate these "digital nomad" drop-shippers and drop-shipping-shippers comprise about half the GDP of Chiang Mai

We've experienced something similar here in Norway. The commerce unions have been lobbying hard to get rid of toll-free imports, which we have up until a certain limit. (Turns out that the majority of imported Chinese goods fall under that limit)

So they've been fighting tooth and nail to get that limit removed, which means that every single item gets slapped with additional brokerage fees and what-not, essentially rendering the purchases economically unsound (i.e a $1 item will cost close to $20).

They did the same in Sweden, and IIRC, the post offices ended up with storing hundreds of thousands of shipments that people refused to pick up, when they discovered the new fees.

Our unions have argued that it's good because

1) consumers get better consumer rights when purchasing from domestic retailers

2) shipping times are much lower

3) supports domestic economy - both e-commerce and postal services.

4) Better for climate, as less parcels = less transportation

But yeah, in the end, it's just one more link in the value-chain.

Why didn't the fee get put on the vendor/shipper?

Fees basically always fall on the consumer (in part) as higher item cost

FTA:

"This is all related to the Universal Postal Union agreement that allows Chinese sellers to ship products to the U.S. for less than it costs us to ship to the same state."

The USPS has been losing money on this arrangement for a long time, it's one of these things that has stuck around despite being a total embarrassment due to industry pressuring. There is no reason taxpayers should be subsidizing this -- in fact, THAT is the most American of tales, everyday Americans paying for the privilege of bad downstream consequences.

This is not limited to the US. I believe it is worldwide and it is certainly the same in The Netherlands.

edit: I believe there has been some change recently, the 'ePacket' ? Which is not delivered to your door, but you have to fetch it at a postal point.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/withdrawal-universal-postal-unio... has a deep breakdown, I was just speaking to the consequences the USPS (which handles international mail in the US) felt from the price setting that occurs under UPU.

I was not refuting your point, just trying to give your comment broader meaning.

Being able to hold someone accountable seems an important aspect of neutralizing the Amazon fraud problem.

Who cares? The goods crossing the ocean should not have their shipping subsidized. Drop shipping doesn't change that. If it's cheaper to use a drop shipper then they are providing a service anyway so I wouldn't call it rent seeking. That would only work for really in demand products anyway in which case good? Not to mention any drop shipper is taking on risk.

> An American will order a bunch of widgets in bulk, ship them over in a cargo ship, come up with some fancy marketing, and then sell the widgets to you at 200% markup. You know these folks will never hire electrical engineers to certify safety and conformance, or work with the factory to improve the product in response to customer feedback.

Pretty sure that's been going on at Amazon for at least 5 years now. There is no shortage of 3rd party sellers importing garbage in bulk (try to buy a Li-Ion battery on Amazon), marking it up to account for their shipping, marketing and the 15% Amazon fee and then selling it to the end consumer in the US.

No electrical engineers involved at any point there either.

I see this as a good thing. It should cull a lot of garbage listings from E-commerce platforms.

The advantage of having a US based middle man is that he can be held accountable if the goods sold are unsafe or counterfeit. These days it’s difficult to buy genuine goods of eBay and Amazon unless you buy from a reputable seller. It shouldn’t be this way.

This has been happening for literally years already. Basically dropshippers would buy products list them and ship direct in the way you're describing. Then, when a manufacturer noticed that a product was popular enough, they would undercut the dropshipper and just list the product directly. Most of the "advanced" dropshippers though have white label products with some branding and design changes and then buy them in blocks of inventory and have them shipped to a 3PL partner anyways.

I'm actually pretty curious how this could niche cultural phenomena like electric skateboards or mechanical keyboards hobbyists where it's all about low volume customized shipping from Shenzhen. Maybe this will force consolidation of individual consumer tastes into things like Massdrop.

* at least there is someone you can sue when your widget blows up.*

Which is pretty good, IMHO.

There are so many people hawking get rich schemes by selling on Amazon FBA. Judging by the array of meat claws on Amazon, there might not be a lot of opportunity left.

Americans: Basically invent the modern internet including just about every major service and store.

Non-Americans: AMERICANS ARE ONLY GOOD AT COLLECTING RENT, AMIRITE?

Oof owie I forgot Silicon Valley was in Europe.

Whoa, this breaks a whole bunch of the site guidelines. Would you please review them and stick to the rules when posting here?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: we've had to ask you this a bunch of times before. If you continue ignoring these requests we will ban you. Also, I'm pretty sure jrockway is super American—not that it's relevant here, because you can't attack another user based on where they're from or where you imagine they're from.

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