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It's not just the scams and counterfeits.

It used to be easy to tell which items are from third-party sellers, now often that's hidden.

It used to be that I could trust Amazon to have a reasonable price, so I didn't have to price-shop every item every time. Now, many common items are only available from third-party sellers with wildly inflated prices. Now I feel like I have to comparison-shop everything to ensure it's not a rip-off.

It used to be that third-party sellers would be listed in descending order by total cost (price plus shipping). Now they're in seemingly random order, and you can't see the shipping cost until it's in your cart. Many sellers game this by listing a low price with ridiculously high shipping.

Really feels like Amazon is going backward at a remarkably fast pace.

> Now they're in seemingly random order

Oh they aren't random. They're sorted by Amazon profit margin.

If I want to buy something online, I first search at Walmart.com and select the retailer as Walmart (I never buy from their 3rd party...that's what ebay is for...)

Walmart will actively price match Amazon. I know it won't be counterfeit and I can return in store immediately. I had a recent experience when I returned an unopened Apple watch. Despite them receiving it for several days, I never got a refund. I had to chat with customer service. I don't know if I had any products in the past that never got refunded. I only checked for the Apple Watch because it was a significant amount of money.

Amazon at this point is only good for cheap made in China commoditized goods delivered quickly. i.e. needed a pair of throwaway quality headphones recently.

You can return in store immediately, after waiting 20+ minutes in line. I stopped ordering from Walmart because in store pickups and returns are a colossal waste of time.

20+ minutes in line is a colossal waste of time?

As someone from Asia am amused.

In Shanghai you have the privilege queuing an hour or so just to be allowed outside these days :)

But seriously, it's understandable that someone wouldn't want to wait for 20 minutes when the alternative is simply dropping off a parcel somewhere. Sure, there's always places that are worse but 20 minutes is relatively long, there's clearly room for improvement.

I'm done with Amazon for the reasons others have mentioned and will gladly wait 20 minutes just so to not give them a single cent of my business. But not everyone hates them as much, some folks might not care much either way and just go with what's most convenient. Maybe they don't notice getting low quality trash from some Shenzhen-based seller either. The same way many people eat junk food because it's convenient. If competitors can match Amazon in that regard, I think even more people will turn their backs on them. Because what Amazon does well is automation and logistics, not quality.

I replied to the OC that for Walmart.com orders you have the option to return in store or ship it back for free.

If they don't want to go to the store then don't have to...they can mail it back, just like Amazon.

https://www.walmart.com/cp/returns/1231920

Americans expect instant service. You either accomplish that by staffing accordingly or scheduling an appointment online or over the phone so when you come in you never wait. When I visited Japan waiting in lines seemed to be a hobby or a sport.

I saw a tv show or maybe a YouTube video where they created a line in public and waited to see if people would just get in line, not knowing what it was for. I think it did work. Can't remember what country it was. UK or could have been Japan.

Neither. Queuing in Japan is as natural as breathing.

Asia doesn't generally have mature e-commerce with Amazon-like service. In Europe, you can request a return and the courier will show up at your door and take the item or sometimes Amazon will just refund you and tell you to keep it. I'm waiting for Amazon to become a proper competitor here, they'll raise the standards of shoddy Asian ecomm companies

I don't understand your point...Nothing stops you from returning via mail, for free, just like Amazon...?

Walmart has the flexibility of both.

If I have an expensive item I'd rather have the piece of mind that it won't get lost in the mail or in Amazon's warehouse, or like the case of my Apple watch...they've received it but haven't refunded it a week later.

Walmart customer service is open in the early mornings and evenings - more flexible hours than a UPS store or the likes and that's when I'd go where there's less people.

> Their immense investment into logistics means that many things will make it to me next-day.

This is what really turned me off from Amazon. They say it'll get to you next day... and then it shows up several days later (or it gets marked delivered or never shows up, and you have to take the time to call them up and complain to get another sent).

And worse yet, there's always the knowledge in the back of your mind that if you complain too often, they'll simply ban you from purchasing from them [https://www.wsj.com/articles/banned-from-amazon-the-shoppers... etc]

> They say it'll get to you next day... and then it shows up several days later

Yep, it's running about 25% 'on time' these days for me with Amazon. I've also noticed they'll continue to say 'arriving today by 9pm' even when UPS or Fedex tracking of the package says it is still halfway across the country and it is due to arrive in a couple days.

something is fucked up with their order-tracking platform in general. Returns aren't tracking... refund status isn't updating... it is not just delivery dates that aren't getting updated.

things still seem to be happening on the back-end of course, but the UI to display to customers must be in a database/service of its own and it is often getting stale and never getting refreshed.

Perhaps Amazon's high turnover is impacting their ability to keep an increasingly large and aging codebase stable. The turnover in their warehouses gets most of the attention but it's pretty bad across the board.

it feels like they realized during covid that people will tolerate it because "everything is a mess right now", and will now take advantage of it forever.

Honestly the problems also coincided with the change to in-house amazon logistics... it seems like the delay rate with UPS/Fedex logistics is far lower than with amazon shipping. Especially pre-covid, UPS/Fedex were just absolutely completely reliable, if they said 2-day it would be there in 2 days, nowadays the most I've seen is an extra day here or there occasionally.

It seems like Amazon looked at the logistics problem and said "we can solve that 95% as well as UPS and if anyone complains too often we'll just ban their account, so there is no need to outperform it since we're not the ones who bear the cost if we don't".

After all - the way Amazon gets that 2-day guarantee is, if it doesn't make it through their logistics in time for delivery on UPS 2-day shipping, they have to pay more to UPS for overnight shipping/etc. That's money they can now retain in-house because lol fuck the customer. And I'm sure on-time delivery was a KPI for UPS/Fedex if they wanted to get paid, they had an incentive to get it there on time or else... and amazon logistics doesn't. Having those two entities be separate led to big improvements in quality-of-service as they each tried to minimize the faults in their own behavior, now it's one entity and it's fine if it sucks.

(not talking about busting the balls of some delivery driver here either, these are problems with amazon's logistics and shipments, not the drivers.)

>it feels like they realized during covid that people will tolerate it because "everything is a mess right now", and will now take advantage of it forever.

I don't think that's fair. Amazon was among the very very few things that actually worked during the pandemic (in London). And they still have the best logistics operation by far.

What's not working is search. It feels like they're not even trying to show you what you're looking for. They're just trying to sell you something ... anything, regardless of how unsuitable or useless it may be.

It's so frustrating that I'm even resorting to Google search sometimes, which says a lot. Product search is universally broken everywhere.

Well, in Germany, Amazon logistics is so bad, that I am actively looking for other online shops that deliver through DHL. Most of the time, I don't care whether an electronic gadget arrives in one or two days. But I like reliability. And Amazon's own drivers usually arrive very late in evening, drop the packet wherever they want without even ringing the bell. Recently, I found an Amazon packages in my garden that was delivered before christmas.

And I agree totally with your point about search.

> And I would never buy any food or medicine from Amazon.

The price premium to know I'm getting a legitimate version of something in this category is painful. Protein powder might be twice as expensive directly through GNC, but I share your sentiment. I'm comfortable with the risk of a fake widget, but absolutely not with food.

I strongly, strongly recommend that you purchase anything that goes in your body or in your pets from a different source. Costco's web store carries a lot of pet products/medicines (flea/tick, cosequin, etc) at very solid pricing, and even if there is a cost difference, it's kinda just the cost of peace of mind. Is it worth $5 extra to know that you're not feeding your pet melamine or something else that will just kill them?

I acknowledge there are some obscure supplements/etc that are difficult to source from third parties but.. a lot, you can.

Ugh. Thanks for mentioning that. I've been getting protein powder from Amazon as well as vitamins and some other supplements. I should stop that ASAP.

As long as the manufacturer has a Amazon store set up that you buy from it’ll be fine

not necessarily, thanks to the joys of commingled inventory! "GNC Storefront" goes in to the same bin as the rando person who put a label on some melamine powder, since it has the same UPC. In fact this also applies to Amazon stock as well - with the exception of Amazonbasics since they don't allow third-party sellers of their own products.

Correct me if I'm wrong but while there is a way for sellers to pay for non-commingled inventory... this is not signaled to consumers in any way either, this is a benefit to the seller to avoid increased returns, not to you as a customer. So you have no way of knowing where any particular "sold by amazon" or "fulfilled by amazon" item comes from. Probably by design... it would not surprise me if "no discussing commingling" was a rule too. It's in Amazon's interest to keep this opaque so that consumers treat them all as interchangeable commodities rather than favoring one storefront or another. Consumer loyalty would be detrimental to amazon's leverage over sellers.

everyone hates the non-prime items because they come slower and frequently incur large shipping costs... but those are the only items that are guaranteed to come from a trustworthy supply chain (if you trust the seller). Prices are actually often higher than a direct transaction with a vendor because they pay large fees to transact on amazon's platform too, and the shipping costs are often more sensible as well.

You really need to price it out because between prime costs, platform costs, shipping costs, etc, amazon is often not that much cheaper than directly transacting with a merchant, and then you would get a trustworthy supply chain by default.

The only thing keeping me on the platform is the unlimited 5% back from the amazon prime card (vs 3% for the card without prime), which can be worth it for certain big-ticket, difficult-to-counterfeit electronic items... and even then, I may end up significantly reducing my usage because Amazon has recently sent me a warning telling me to knock it off (a string of items damaged in shipment). Well, I'll have to make sure I don't order anything I might want to return, then... and I'm definitely going to re-evaluate in light of the price increase kicking in for my next renewal. The platform flat-out does not work if they start getting bitchy about returns given how awful it is in other considerations.

I know you are correct about the seller being able to pay to avoid commingling. The fact that they refuse to show which products paid to the consumer seems hard to justify

> "GNC Storefront" goes in to the same bin as the rando person who put a label on some melamine powder

If toxic products are getting into consumer food I would hope the FDA or some other regulatory agency would sue Amazon to oblivion. The USA is supposed to be better than this.

I have seen a lot of suspicious "manufacturer" storefronts.

Obviously, you're fine with Amazon Fresh.

> However, despite all of that I do still use Amazon. Their immense investment into logistics means that many things will make it to me next-day. And their return policies allow me to order with the confidence that if I get a fraudulent item (or just something I don't like) it will be fairly painless to get a replacement or my money back.

Spot on for me too. That calculus is slowly shifting in the other direction for me though. It's becoming a pain to have to ship things back repeatedly, and I'm starting to find that the wait time of shipping from normal companies is coming out as a wash when factoring in the multiple-shipment-return-cycle Amazon factor.

At least with other companies that don't have a wild west of third party sellers I can be reasonably confident I won't get an outright counterfeit.

I used to have prime and often place multiple orders per week. I cancelled prime when they made it no better than not having it (add-on items + longer shipping times + "not available for prime"), and only used it for higher value purchases (maybe what they wanted but my net spend was way lower). Now, I hardly order from them at all since you can't really trust them for higher value stuff as this thread is all about.

I still order like usb cables and cloths to clean my glasses. That's pretty much it. Looking at the parent and grandparent comments and my experience, I'd say they've become a flea market, where maybe you can get a good price of some throwaway crap you don't care about, but wouldn't use for anything of value. And in reality, that's what a collection of fly-by-night shady sellers is. It should not be a surprise. It's a shame though, in principle the ordering process and older style prime delivery is way better than going to a store for almost everything.

I never buy USB cables from Amazon any more -- especially USB-C. Their stuff is all cheap counterfeit junk that very often is not capable of proper PD, even when it says it is. It's become quite the task to find good USB-C cables. Recommendations welcome.

Controversial and not cheap, but since I use apple products and live near an Apple Store… I just buy from apple. They heavily curate what shows up in store so it’s always good enough. That and whatever my work IT sources I’ll also use their brands. My IT had a internal site that lists what they have and I’ll just find a retailer that sells it.

Also I’ve never had that “apple cables suck” experience many had so maybe I’m holding it differently- ymmv

The biggest problem with Apple cables I've seen is that they don't seem as durable as others. But I totally agree that if you want to be sure that a cable is capable of what it claims, Apple is a great choice.

monoprice is the go-to, but I'm sure they're just sourcing from someone else and at some point they'll realize there's money to be made by burning down their brand reputation

I'd second this. Never had issues with features that don't work, and the cables I've gotten are bulky enough to not have issues with wearing out the protective sheathe.

They're not the most aesthetic cables, but they're cheap and they work.

Anker typically makes decent products too, but I don't have a lot of experience with their USB-C stuff.

> flea market

A few years ago I didn't consider Amazon and Ebay as similar options. Now, I think of them as a wash in terms of risk vs. reward with Amazon having a slight edge on return policy (maybe).

I recently bought four Klipsch in ceiling speakers from eBay over Amazon. In either case the seller was not Klipsch authorized, so I knew I was going without a warranty. However the price more than justified the trade off. But in the end, I chose eBay because the seller posted enough pictures of the actual stock for me to believe it. And also, the seller reviewers were great. Nobody bothers with seller reviews on Amazon but they do on eBay.

I dunno, my point is you're right, it's a wash at this point.

>the seller posted enough pictures of the actual stock for me to believe it

what about a picture on the internet made you believe it? were there images of serial numbers that matched the items received?

Image search for uniqueness. A seller with history of items primarily in the same category.

Compare to the common opposite on Amazon, 50 listings of different products with an identical image.

>>> However, despite all of that I do still use Amazon. ... And their return policies allow me to order with the confidence that if I get a fraudulent item (or just something I don't like) it will be fairly painless to get a replacement or my money back.

Oddly enough Amazon didn't invent this. All of the "big box" and online retailers had no-questions-asked returns before Amazon came along. My hunch is that one of two things have happened: 1) You figure out that the most cost effective way to manage quality control is through returns and refunds, and you streamline this process; 2) You go out of business.

The retailers who delivered quality goods and charged appropriately for getting it right on the first try are gone.

I'm suffering this right now with an order of lumber from Home Depot. Half the plywood is delaminated and bulging, two thirds of the studs are covered in mold. Talking to customer service, they'll come and pick up returns for free within 90 days - the same as if I merely changed my mind. I guess that means for the next truck order I'll just order vastly more than I need, so they can bring the pick-through-the-lumber-pile experience to my home?

> You figure out that the most cost effective way to manage quality control is through returns and refunds, and you streamline this process

No. It's actually just about the most expensive way to do it. But the decision is made by the retailers, who (particularly in the case of Amazon, but also other chains, Walmart, Best Buy, etc) can effectively enforce the decision on their vendors unilaterally, and who coincidentally have virtually no financial stake in the matter (their vendors do!).

> can effectively enforce the decision on their vendors unilaterally,

I can second that, someone I know personally who is building well-reputed longboards in his shop with a few friends, thought a few year ago it would be a good idea to sell through Amazon. Let's just say it didn't went well. Amazon forced them to take basically any returned longboard no matter how obviously it was destroyed.

Many retails don’t buy the inventory directly, it’s still owned by the manufacturer/seller. Returns cost money in the operation but the actual product is free to them. Lots of returns end up in the trash too.

While Amazon may pay for the shipping, many low quality products are probably losing money for the seller when returned.

> Lots of returns end up in the trash too.

Yup, apparently until recently Amazon didn't bother finding a new buyer for the returned products and simply trashed most of them. Now there's a cottage industry of people buying returns in bulk, sorting through, and reselling the quality stuff (kind of like the industry around auctioning unclaimed storage unit contents). However, I imagine that many cheap products even now don't go through the auctioning process and go directly to waste.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66qOop6J8Q8

Even once "reputable" brands/IP are now falling into the hands of these people and are being replaced with the same Chinese Dollar-Store product, just rebadged with that IP.

It's getting very hard to wade through offers and find what is the one that will make you waste the least amount of time.

It can definitely vary where you live, but it seems like I can get a good bit of stuff next-day at my location even from other larger online venues or especially some vendors which have a lot of local retail presence. Some retail still hasn't figured out internet home delivery but it seems over the years most have seemed to figure it out OK.

Also, while Amazon might seem to get it faster more often, its also the most unreliable. I've had way more taped up empty boxes and never-sealed bubble mailers from Amazon and many times I've had it promise next day and have it arrive a week later. Meanwhile other retailers seem to not have as many shipping errors and tend to hit their shipping estimates better.

> I would never buy any food or medicine from Amazon.

Wholefoods is owned by Amazon.

Reselling from AliExpress and drop shipping are orthogonal issues. You don't buy drop shipped stuff on Amazon because it would take too long too arrive. The value of Amazon is having items in local warehouses already.

I've received things via DHL that I had no idea when ordered it was coming directly from China. However, being DHL, it arrived in 2-days. There was no signifincant offsetting charge for this delivery method.