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Comment by ItIsWhatItIs2 | Hacker News Reader

Honestly the buying experience on Amazon is truly dreadful right now. If you are browsing for anything that’s not a name brand you have to sift through pages of garbage 5 star reviews from people paid with Amazon gift cards by the seller. If you look at the 1 star reviews you’ll see the sellers of items will pay people in Amazon gift cards to review the product, and pay to take down negative reviews. If I need to purchase anything I’ve given up on using them and simply go to Best Buy, Target Walmart, etc. Though it seems Walmart is trying to follow in Amazon’s footsteps with third party sellers for its website.

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I have also noticed an absolutely massive increase in products having 5 star review averages as reported by Amazon, then you scroll down to the top reviews, and it's almost pages of 1 star reviews reporting complete failures of the product. Their algorithm is basically worthless or obviously manipulated if the majority of top reviews are 1-star and yet the item has a 4.5 or 5 star average.

I've stopped buying on Amazon for many things, using it mainly for repeat stuff I know that works, and I've been trying to find things at other big box stores like Best buy or Target, as you mention, or directly from the manufacturer. Amazon isn't really cheaper other than faster shipping for legitimate items from main brands anyway. In several cases, I've found Amazon to actually be more expensive for some items.

Not to mention when you finally do buy something they'll use the worst dark patterns to autoenroll you into a monthly prime subscription.

I'm usually good at finding the opt out link but had no luck with this. Surprised it's legal to be honest.

Trick is to only buy branded stuff off Amazon. Everything else is a shit show.

Actually whenever you go shopping know what you want before you go to Amazon. That helps.

True, the issue is if you are getting a niche item without name brands in the market. For example I was trying to get a TV antenna, which to me doesn’t have a recognizable brand to look towards.

Even then, you've got the risk of it being counterfeit.

But a big problem is that because they mix items from third parties with everything else because they’re “the same”, you never know when you’re getting counterfeit goods. Amazon has made it so bad that some manufacturers will now actually have a page on their website showing how to detect counterfeit versions of their product.

This is an especially big problem for items that are differentiated on quality of materials/coatings/construction/etc. My go-to example is always lens filters: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/News/News-Post.aspx?News...

It's hard to fake a believable iPhone. It's easy to fake a threaded cylinder with a round piece of glass in the middle that can fool the uninitiated.

I found this issue when trying to buy a filter replacement for my LG refrigerator. The reviews reported several cases of wrong filters sent, some used, and some fake/counterfeit. Like one was literally just an empty plastic shell. I ended up just going to LG's website, and it was actually cheaper, albeit with slower shipping. But who cares for something like that.

A few years ago I bought some brand name shampoo from Amazon and what they sent was very clearly counterfeit. The product and packaging were so bad that if anyone was paying attention to the supply line they should have been able to figure it out.

Since then my general rule has been "If it goes on me or in me, I'm not getting it from Amazon"

Good luck finding proper brands in the search results. Four times out of five, weird names that I've never heard of dominate the results to the point where it's impossible to filter for a known brand.

Exactly. Just today, even knowing what to expect, I decided to try and search for a mattress pad or cover on Amazon. Just pages and pages of brands I've never heard of.

I use ReviewMeta to sift through the garbage. It really comes in handy for items with lots of reviews (>1,000).

Review-gaming will always be a problem for websites with high-enough traffic.

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