Hacker News Reader

Comment by sharkweek | Hacker News Reader

I used to trust Amazon for just about anything I needed to buy, but I'd guess maybe in the last 6-8 years I'll mostly only order something if I recognize the brand name selling me the product.

Tried to buy a pair of cheap-ish bluetooth headphones off there a few months ago. Three different pairs and none of them even worked out of the box. Gave up and bought a more expensive pair from a known brand.

View on HN

You can't trust ANYTHING on Amazon; including name brand. They co-mingle their legit inventory with counterfeit 3rd party inventory. When you order something, even if it's "Sold and Shipped from Amazon", they ship you the closest product. You may very well end up getting the fake 3rd party item.

Also ship damaged, repackaged goods as “new”, e.g. monitor with scratched screen. Solution: Order monitor from Staples, insist employee open box for inspection. Cost an extra $20 over Amazon — bargain!

If it's Amazon brand (e.g. Kindle), I'd be surprised to get a counterfeit.

I also trust less popular brands to not be counterfeit, though I expect that to change in the future.

My experience ordering from Shopify sites over the past or two: the checkout is now faster and easier than Amazon. Overall Amazon's failings are good for everyone else involved in e-commerce. The bottlenecks to purchasing online 20 years ago are far behind us now.

If your business is selling low margin items at massive scale then Amazon probably continues to win (in the US.)

What I noticed about Amazon is they do make it obvious something is a counterfeit, but only after the fact. Up until you buy it it looks legit and they make it hard to tell it's not, but after it's gotten to you they know you know and they want you to think it was your fault for falling for an obviously fake listing. That's when they display the real listing, to make you feel stupid.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com