Hacker News Reader

Comment by pupppet | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the meeting when reputable businesses decided it was in their best interests to sell random garbage they couldn't vouch for.

View on HN

Probably something like this:

Amazon is earning a huge profit margin with no liability by letting random entities sell using their website.

Do we want to earn more money too?

Yes.

"What if it hurts our reputation? Customers might flock to a competitor!"

"Competitor?"

entire board room bursts into laughter

I did stop using Amazon years ago except as an Aliexpress alternative after I found out about commingling. I moved my business to Best Buy/Costco/Target/Walmart/Home Depot/Staples/etc.

But the reason Amazon probably does not care about that because they have much better profit margin opportunities (AWS, Prime Video and Music, warehouse infrastructure as a service and delivery as a service).

Hate to break it to you but both Target and Walmart sell third-party goods too. So does DigiKey…

I know, but as far as I know they do not commingle inventory.

So basically shit cake without the shit icing?

How?

The cake being acting as a storefront for third party vendors and the icing being commingling. On its own selling products on behalf of a third party vendor creates enough problems – especially with a vendor like DigKey where you might come to expect predictable pricing and availability.

Same here for most things. There's no way I'll buy flash (SD cards, etc) storage from Amazon anymore. That was a sad day when I learned why stuff seemed to be dying more often than usual.

I feel like Microcenter is a good example of combatting this, they have cheap house brands of components, but they are legit and not the outright scams that propagate online marketplaces like Amazon.

"eBay gets away with selling random junk from random sellers, how can we get a piece?"

I’ve had much better experiences getting what I order from eBay than I have from Amazon. Random junk is fine, but I at least want it to be the random junk I ordered.

I order a lot of new-old-stock auto parts from eBay. Best of both worlds while it lasts.

Yeah, the good thing about eBay's design is that their listings are (mostly) seller-centric rather than product-centric. There's no dice roll (or obfuscation) of where the product comes from when you order a product. The feedback rating that you see above the fold on the majority of listings is the seller's feedback.

many might be like segway - where they were bought by a less-reputable brand like ninebot and then used for the name.

did Walmart ever have a reputation for quality?

There was a baseline expecting of quality, because Walmart would not be expected to buy from counterfeiters. For example, if I buy 3 mule team borax from Walmart, I expect it to come via official sources.

If I buy 3 mule team borax from a Walmart reseller, I have no idea where it is sourced from or how much those entities care about reputation. It could be from 3 mule team, it could be counterfeit.

The brand is "20 Mule Team". I would be quite suspicious of "3 mule team": how would a 3-mule hitch even work? Who makes a harness for three mules? b^)

I don’t know if it’s made specifically, but conceptually it’s pretty simple - the rear two would be in tandem with a “lead” mule in the front.

Think of Rudolph in front of the eight other reindeer :)

Hah, good catch. Do not know why I had 3 mule team stuck in my head. I used it as an example because I just bought it this morning.

Branded borax? It's a mineral, coming out of the same mines no matter what brand you buy.

You'd think. But really the issue is that you can't trust that you are actually getting borax and not something completely different (and cheaper).

and how do you know its actually Na₂B₄O₇·10H₂O? How much filler did the 3rd party seller add? How much of the filler is toxic or will react in unexpected ways? At least if I bought walmart borax from a brick&mortar walmart, I generally expect it to be all borax. 3rd party reseller? Even that's not guaranteed. If the seller is caught, they'll just disappear and another will fill its place. It is all snake oil salesmen wearing masks and unless you get a lab test on everything you order, you'll get burned one day.

I do not have the equipment or expertise required to confirm it. So I rely on a combination of a reputable businesses who would care to verify it is whatever percent and quality borax it should be because they (presumably) have something to lose if it comes out that it is not.

2 mule borex- 10% genuine borax and 90% drywall mud dust.

Yeah, I guess I need to physically go into stores now if I want to really avoid counterfeits.

Luckily, I have not seen evidence that Walmart/Target commingle inventory, so restricting searches to sold by Walmart/Target should work.

But who knows what is happening behind the scenes. Amazon removed the wording that made it clear they commingled inventory, but I am sure they still do.

I don't think Walmart handles any fulfillment for 3rd parties so commingling wouldn't really be possible.

I think they are starting to do that. I've seen items listed as sold by a third party but fulfilled by walmart

… there's a difference between "cheap and low quality" and fraud.

Yeah, IMHO Walmart and Target both have pretty excellent curation. There is a high level of.. consistency to what you get for the price you pay.

Yes. They're ruthless with their vendors (in the stores, not online crap) about complaints and returns.

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com