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Comment by sdfsafsaf | Hacker News Reader

After so many stories and experiences with fakes, why would anyone still buy items in Amazon that are otherwise typically found in pharmacies or grocery stores?

In my experience Amazon ships:

Food that is expired or fake Drugs that are expired or fake Batteries that are expired or fake

I've even received fake diapers! Very well done fakes too: we only noticed because of a very small logo that are included in the real ones.

I use Amazon only for high ticket items that are unlikely to harm me, and then only because of their easy return policy (Epson, I'm looking at you)

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Easy:

1) because your local store doesn't have it (stores run out of things like the specific shampoo or deoderant or detergent all the time, e.g. probably 2/3 of the time they have regular Tide but not Tide Unscented)

2) because depending on the item, it can be 30-50% cheaper on Amazon (drugstore prices in Manhattan are highway robbery), or

3) because you need another $5 or $10 item to meet the free shipping threshold, so might as well stock up on Q-tips because you'll need them eventually.

Also, expired/fake items are extremely rare, despite the media attention. In about a decade of ordering many, many hundreds of items on Amazon, I once received a counterfeit camera battery (which was quickly refunded) and once received a jar of nuts that was close to, but not at, its expiration. (I also try to order items sold by Amazon directly, and I've never personally been hit by a comingling issue.)

So... that's why.

I'll match your anecdote with mine. Before I canceled Prime, 30% of my previous 10 orders were defective or counterfeit. 3 in 10. Before that it was trending a bit above 10%. I finally got sick of it and don't order anything from Amazon anymore.

I'll counter your anecdotes:

I've never had a defective or counterfeit order in more than 100+ orders on Amazon of electronics, household items, or foodstuffs. And yes, I've checked.

How do you avoid counterfeits, etc on Amazon?

Simple: never buy from a seller that isn't Amazon.com. They don't commingle their own inventory with third party sellers. Commingling is merely a "feature" they offer to other sellers.

They maintain their inventory separately for product liability law reasons. In a nutshell, if they don't under most US product liability laws, Amazon is strictly liable for all damages related to the use (including potentially misuse) of a defective product they sold.

> why would anyone still buy items in Amazon that are otherwise typically found in pharmacies or grocery stores?

Presumably with the following logic:

* I went to Big Box Computer Store and they tried to charge me $$$ for a gold-plated Monster USB cable when I could get a perfectly good one for much less online.

* Therefore, there's precedent for me finding things online for a fraction of the price at big box retailers.

* Amazon has a pack of 8 Duracell-brand AA batteries for half the price of the nearest supermarket.

> Amazon has a pack of 8 Duracell-brand AA batteries for half the price of the nearest supermarket.

Are you sure they're not counterfeit?

Watch those batteries. The batteries at a wholesale club are dated 9-11 years out.

I’m looking at a box of batteries I received last week. They expire in 2020.

> why would anyone still buy items in Amazon that are otherwise typically found in pharmacies or grocery stores?

Sometimes, it's comparing a one hour drive to the nearest town vs. waiting one day for free shipping.

>After so many stories and experiences with fakes, why would anyone still buy items in Amazon

Or just this.

Because they have a crushing monopoly on US online commerce, and 80%+ of customers are happily consuming their cheap goods without knowing/caring about the quality/authenticity.

38% share (or even 47%) isn't a crushing monopoly. There are always dozens of alternative online purchase options.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-13/emarketer...

Still usually the fastest / most convenient way for me to get products in the U.K.

I've personally never had any issues with Amazon in terms of quality, but would never buy anything from them I put in my body - I usually stick to electronics of value < £100.

Because I've been an Amazon customer for over a decade, and for half of that time I could trust them to have reliable reviews, good products, and the best prices.

Old habits die hard, but I'm now at the breaking point.

It was recently cheaper for me to buy an over-the-counter medication through Amazon Prime Now than it was to buy it at an actual drug store in SF. It was like a $5 difference after tax and tip.

I was initially going to buy it on the way home, but I was so annoyed by how much it cost in store that I refused to buy it, even though the difference wasn't significant.

Amazon just has a bigger target on their back.

Why wouldn't these issues affect any business with a sizable logistics chain? There are no guarantees of authenticity of goods at your local brick and mortar stores either.

Your local bricks and mortar store cares about monitoring its supply chain because it's on the hook for refunds and legal claims if the goods are counterfeit, defective or beyond their sell-by date. Amazon Marketplace outsources blame to the third party supplier (even when due to commingling it's actually not the third party supplier's fault...) which is usually overseas and with not much brand to protect in the first place.

This is just patently untrue. Your brick and mortar store has a clear hierarchy of responsibility -- it's the workers job to prune expired items from shelves. It's the manager's job to make sure the employees are doing their job. It's the parent company's or owners job to make sure the manager is doing his job.

Amazon flips this on it's head by having a super-loose affiliation with people selling on it's platform. Turns out, when you break chains of responsibility, people act irresponsibly. This tale is as old as time.

If Amazon wants to fix this problem they should just get out of the independent seller game and let it go back to eBay. Amazon is tarnishing its brand image for low-margin shenanigans and it's just not worth it.

It’s not low-margin, it aids their financial engineering by eliminating inventory.

Sure there are guarantees. Stores usually use actual distributors or order direct from OEMs.

When I worked with a big box store long ago, some manufacturers even audited our inventory when they bought end-caps, etc. Stuff like ink cartridges would be checked by vendor reps.

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