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Comment by partiallypro | Hacker News Reader

I try not to shop at Amazon, but every time I try to just go to Target or Walmart, the prices are higher. I was looking for some probiotics and lotion just yesterday, felt that was simple enough, so I could just go to one of the two...it was $5 more (each) than on Amazon.

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The Amazon products are (possibly) counterfeit. I think this is less likely at Target or WalMart (as long as you avoid the third-party sellers on WalMart's site -- not sure if Target has those).

I try to buy from the manufacturer these days. Always more expensive but guaranteed (I think?) not to be counterfeit.

as long as it's not 'fulfilled by amazon' or whatever and thus commingled with their garbage

How many manufacturers offer direct-to-consumer sales?

A lot, I've discovered, and not just giants like Apple.

It's kind of crazy to me that the manuf is consistently the most expensive place to buy things. Went to the benchmade factory store a few weeks back, there's only one. Their prices were 20% over what sportsmans warehouse a few blocks away had for the same knife.

Like someone comes all the way to your one store location and you're gouging them on price. Crazy. I didn't buy anything at the store, got the knife at the SW.

They charge even more online which is also fun. This is on $425 knives so you know there's hella headroom.

Probably they are less efficient at retail operations than a retailer, so have higher overhead. Also wouldn't want to undercut the retailers, who are providing valuable shelf space and marketing.

More the latter. Why would any retailer carry your product if you're going to undercut their price with your own direct consumer sales?

the retailer can be competitive by providing convenience/location, faster shipping speed, etc

Which cost a lot, so they need to get the product for a lower price before reselling. Also, because they are buying wholesale, they usually have the upper hand in the negotiations. It's quite common for their contracts to be contingent to the manufacturer not selling the product at the same price point

What’s “SW”?

Sportsmans Warehouse

It's not cheap to pay for inventory storage, warehouse workers, logistics, etc. When something like Amazon/Walmart/other can take on those liabilities for you, the costs come down.

I'm not sure if WalMart is much better since they have third-party sellers.

But do they commingle inventory? That's the real problem with Amazon, not that fakes are listed on the marketplace, but that you can't even trust Amazon as the seller.

According to a quick google search Walmart does not commingle inventory. However, I think they will eventually once their tech can support it. Target started commingling inventory so it is only a matter of time before Walmart does. From a logistics standpoint it makes 2-day shipping much easier since you can spread inventory out across the country.

Walmart is well beyond what Target is doing online, not the other way around.

Walmart and Target are actually much worse. Target is perhaps the worst of all, believe it or not. If a scammer creates a listing for a particular UPC, they own it within the Target system basically forever. Even if you approach Target as the legitimate brand and try to take control of the listing they refuse and then try to essentially extort you. They tell you that you can essentially “stop the bleeding” by signing up with a certain third party vendor that charges thousands a month so you can list on Target. And even if you do, that product listing still remains controlled by someone else. They wanted it to be a kind of “gold rush” where brands would run to sign up for fear of losing the ability to sell their products to third parties.

That sounds... weird?

Not saying it doesn't happen, but if this is indeed the case, what is preventing the same scammer from essentially registering all still-unregistered UPC codes to do something akin to domain squatting?

(I am not familiar with how Target online works so maybe I am missing something)

Nothing, really. But you have to actually sell the product. On Target only one person can sell an item. Only one listing for that item can exist. It goes to whoever lists first.

That seems ripe for (more) abuse.

Not really sure who comes up with these schemes but... doesn't sound well thought out.

There is a CertAin large SaaS company that partners with retailers and sells them on this kind of bullshit. They don’t CAre. They ChArge the retailer and the seller thousands per month for their platform and technology.

Wouldn't you just order one as the legitimate manufacturer, check if it's fake, and the sue the shit out of target and the seller for willfully selling counterfeit product after having been warned about it? I don't know about the US but in some places knowingly selling fakes is illegal.

That’s not at all how Walmart works; what you get online is what you’d get in a store if Walmart is the retailer, often likely taken from the shelf.

Not necessarily.

Walmart also offer DSV, which is a bit of a nightmare.

How is DSV a nightmare? Savings for the supplier, savings for Walmart, therefore savings for the customer.

> The Amazon products are (possibly) counterfeit. I think this is less likely at Target or WalMart (as long as you avoid the third-party sellers on WalMart's site -- not sure if Target has those).

Do you have any data on the number of counterfeit items? I've been an Amazon customer for 20 years now. I've never had an incident, and we order pretty much every week for basic home goods.

You're saying that people are selling counterfeit probiotics and lotion on the site now?

I've seen this counterfeit claim repeatedly on this site. While I understand Amazon intermingling inventory from different sources makes it a possibility, I've yet to see any data that it's a significant issue. Not to the extent that it warrants you telling people their lotion, which is lower priced, is counterfeit and not for numerous other reasons.

Not a ton of research on this, but there are some worrying examples:

"According to a recent lawsuit filed by tech giant Apple in October of 2016, roughly 90% of Apple chargers on Amazon, even when labeled as a genuine article, are fake" [1]

"manufacturers determined 20 of 47 items we purchased from third-party sellers on popular sites were counterfeit" [2]

[1] https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1148... [2] https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-18-216

Sometimes I'll pick up a cheap SD card or two if what I actually want is just under the free shipping limit. Several and possibly even most are flaky enough that I doubt they're genuine.

Yeah, but on Amazon you can buy directly from that vendor (Nivea or Bayer for example) instead of the 3rd party sellers. Those are going to be legit, it's when you start messing with 3rd party sellers that you run into issues. I've gotten counterfeit items before but haven't had any come straight from the main vendors.

Only buy things on Amazon that you would buy off the back of someone's truck. You have the same odds of those items being meaningfully subject to the US regulatory, consumer safety, and trademark ecosystem.

Walmart's online store is actually a marketplace, with Walmart being one of the many sellers (they also do fulfillment by Walmart).

So, if you see higher prices, it's probably an arbitrage situation. Filter down to just Walmart as the retailer, and you should get the kind of pricing you expect from Walmart, albeit with the selection you would expect from a Walmart.

I mean physically walking into their store (Walmart and Target)

Oh in that case you’ll be happy to know Amazon is being sued for exactly that.

That's probably exactly the phenomenon that the FTC is talking about in their complaint. Since Amazon punishes sellers who offer lower prices off of Amazon, sellers are forced to use their Amazon price as their price floor. And since Amazon has huge market share and insanely high seller fees (upwards of 40%), then prices across the entire economy go up.

Most stuff you can buy at AliExpress (or similiar), but it more conventient to have same/next day delivery and excellent customer favoring support. A lot of trash items on Amazon though, I try to not buy a lot there, it still happens.

> but every time I try to just go to Target or Walmart, the prices are higher.

Isn't it worth paying a bit more in order to stop doing business with Amazon, though?

I haven't found that to be the case.

But the selection, reviews, and overall experience of Amazon makes it better anyway.

Small price to pay to not buy from amazon in my opinion

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