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Comment by ikeboy | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotally I've spoken to people who compete with Amazon private label in electronics and they tell me Amazon doesn't care about quality, and that the factories they were buying from were known to be lower quality.

I've also heard the opposite about Anker - that they always get the best quality.

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The issue, then, is how do I guarantee that the Anker branded product I'm buying through Amazon is genuinely Anker manufactured. I'm of the understanding that Amazon comingle stock from different supply chains in their warehouses so presumably I can't trust them to be supplying genuine hardware.

Most Anker stuff is sold by only Anker, so that wouldn't be a problem.

In that specific instance, Anker also sells directly from their website, so you can shop there if you're concerned about counterfeited merchandise.

Perhaps products should include a tiny circuit (e.g. challenge-response) that can prove that the product is genuine.

Anker are difficult to gauge, I've a few products of theirs, mostly bought a few years ago, with nothing recent - those have been excellent quality and value. Yet I've also started to notice precisely identical unknown brands for most of their products on Amazon.

So I no longer have any certainty. Are Anker merely badge engineering some random white label product, or are Amazon / Anker just not caring or able to do anything about dozens of clear counterfeits?

Are those identical products being sold as Anker, or under different brands? If it's different brands then it's not counterfeit just to make a product that looks similar to another one.

There's similar and completely indistinguishable, except for brand name and logo. e.g. their desk lamps, also their mice. Seems to be the case for almost every Anker product I remember looking at recently.

Nothing illegal about that unless Anker has a design patent.

I appreciated your response but as far as I can tell, they were asking whether Anker is badge engineering generic products or is a victim of counterfeiting, which I think is a slightly different question that I'm also looking for the answer to.

The only way it would be counterfeit is if they sell it as an Anker product or print Anker on the product.

My assumption would be that the same factory that makes Anker products is also selling the same designs to competitors - it's also possible that a different factory just cloned it.

Note that even if it's the same factory, they could have different quality control for different clients. So quality can differ even on identical designs.

You don't need a patent to protect a design. There's trademark, copyright and design protections, not just patents.

So maybe Anker are uniquely incompetent in selecting suppliers. Not specifying in the contract with factories not to copy whatever widget they produce for Anker, not registering any of their designs. Yet aside from a) products within the same group ostensibly from different brands and b) same idea but clearly made by someone else, few other companies seem affected. They'll have a few products counterfeited. Not most. It's the sort of thing that might encourage you to be very careful on third, fourth and subsequent products.

I suppose it makes a case to avoid Anker and the identical copies, as clearly inept. Few other companies appear to be quite so afflicted. I'm not convinced it's the answer though. Outside the purely generic: white T shirts, tungsten light bulbs and such, you see very few precisely identical products.

You said they were not copying the brand, so it's not trademark infringement nor counterfeit.

You keep using the word counterfeit when it does not apply. Copyright is also not applicable unless there's a work of art printed on the product (like cell phone cases).

Most brands making commodity products don't get protection for the design, because the design isn't that unique. Search for "fast chargers for Samsung" and you'll see tons of chargers identical to the Samsung charger except with a different name. Same for Apple.

Examples:

https://www.amazon.com/Pantom-Adaptive-Charging-Compatible-S...

https://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Charging-Charger-Compatible-...

https://www.amazon.com/Panmy-Foldable-Portable-Charging-Comp...

https://www.amazon.com/ByCallMax-Adapter-Original-Certified-...

There are well known, widely applied design protections that are not patents.

Here's the EU's:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_design_rights_in_th...

Which protects "the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and/or materials of the product itself and/or its ornamentation". It applies if they are novel and/or if they have unique character.

The equivalent in the US is a design patent.

AmazonBasics isn't any more trustworthy than any of the junk you find on AliExpress or at Wal-Mart/Target/Best Buy. (Except that it has a good return policy backing it, I think)

Amazon is at least liable (theoretically, at least) if they sell an AmazonBasics product that winds up giving my kids lead poisoning, and will have a lot harder time disappearing into the wind to avoid a lawsuit. They disclaim any liability for third-party sellers.

Sure, but will a lawsuit unpoison your kid?

Unless Amazon is currently testing products for lead before recommending them, which somehow I doubt, then the potential of a lawsuit against Amazon isn't actually protecting your child.

There's at least someone with deep pockets to go after, which is very much not the case for some random drop shipper in China.

It makes sense- if Anker's batteries start exploding, nobody will buy Anker's batteries again, and that's a significant part of their brand.

If Amazon's batteries start exploding, it's not quite the same magnitude. People will still shop at Whole Foods.

Samsung doesn't have a problem selling phones

People buy Samsung phones because they're good phones, people buy Anker batteries because they're good batteries. If they start exploding people will find some other, better battery brand.

Admittedly a phone that explodes is a bad phone, but Samsung can still sell its "good phone" brand the same way Apple can still sell its laptops.

Samsung also has a very long track record of producing cell phones that are deemed safe which neither Anker nor Amazon can match in batteries. You either need an extensive positive record to easily bounce back or need to be willing to write it off as an auxiliary business (e.g. if Amazon had battery issues).

My understanding, and this might just be marketing PR I honestly don't know, is that Anker sends their own QA people to the factories in China, so they're able to meet a higher standard. I always rely on them for battery stuff, and now USB cables since apparently no one else can make cables that reliably work to connect my phone to my car except them. I went through half a dozen different brands before theirs finally worked and remained working.

I’m sure Amazon’s competitors are the best source for unbiased feedback about the quality of Amazon-branded products.

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