Amazon Sold a Used Diaper. It Tanked a Mom-and-Pop Business | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Sold a Used Diaper. It Tanked a Mom-and-Pop Business

bloomberg.com

67 pointsrurp94 comments

I’ve had multiple purchases recently where the product I ordered (new) arrived in obviously-used condition. First was a metal kitchen trash can that had scratches and small dents on it. Second was a stroller cover for the airplane that arrived with tons of dirt and black streak marks all over it. In both cases I got a refund but it makes me wonder how many other “new” products I’m getting from Amazon that are likely used.

Could be literally anything. Amazon does nothing more than a weight test for inventory verification. Sellers have put bricks in a box with the correct barcode for some product send it to the Amazon warehouse where it enters the pool of inventory from multiple sellers for that product. When a sale comes through the seller's account Amazon takes a random item from the inventory pool. Chances are it won't be a box with a brick in it so it gets sold and not returned. Some other seller is going to have the brick in the box delivered to one of their customers and lose a sale and reputation from people who have no idea what really happened. And because Amazon doesn't track this stuff (not cost effective) only the fraudulent seller knows.

> Could be literally anything. Amazon does nothing more than a weight test for inventory verification.

Someone used this to defraud (?) Amazon by ordering asphalt, using it to fix potholes, and then shipping back sand:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mXCSMu0fH4

This is gold thx :) (Hopefully it was Amazon the first party seller and there is no mixed inventory to other marketplace sellers).

Forced stock commingling by Amazon is the absolute worst. It's a negative-sum game where honest actors get the bitter end of the stick.

As have I. It's given me pause on buying from Amazon as it appears they are completely out of control.

I’ve cancelled Prime and just buy things from Target, Costco, Home Depot, etc now

Amazon is just full of junk, the 2-day shipping too often becomes 3-4 for me, and general concerns about the health and safety of products on there (I have no idea how people trust them enough to buy things like toothpaste or other stuff that goes in your body)

For home depot you ought to make sure its an in store product. They are starting to list the dropshipped junk that permeates amazon for some products at least. Same with lowes.

Target is the same way.

And Walmart.

Home Depot has sold me a returned product that was missing parts before.

I've seen home depot workers lament on their subreddit how so many people buy a tool just to return it and steal the battery. Shrink must be absurd at these stores. They at least try and do something about it; I've seen people walked out in cuffs at the home depot when I've gone a few times now.

Even acting in good faith, the nature of their shopping experience (goods are undifferentiated, often unpackaged, often either very large or very small and self-checkout predominates) makes it easy to make mistakes. I'll willingly admit that I've gotten to my car and realized I didn't scan (or under-counted) an item at least once (and I'm rather compulsive about checking my work).

You want to save money by making customers do the checkout labor for you, you're going to lose some money on goods.

With return rates at about 15%, a good rule of thumb is probably going to be that about 10% of what you get sent will have been returned by someone else already.

It's way worse for clothing items, but what else are you going to do? You steam it, bag it and put it back into stock as new.

Maybe wash/dump it if it has poop marks.

Yeah, this is happening all the time now.

I received an item recently that was actually just a bunch of hardware pieces [0] in one of the return bags you use at Whole Foods when you do a return there. Very clearly not the original packaging. It looked fine so I didn't fuss. But when I went to install the thing, I noticed about 1/3 of the pieces were missing. I returned it and ordered another one thinking surely it wouldn't happen again; I really liked the product but needed all the parts. The next order came before I even made the return and it was clearly in a box and labeled as the original manufacturer intended. They obviously resale returned items without even inspecting them at all.

I now won't buy anything from them besides the junk that's hard to find else where because of this. I've learned to inspect everything immediately because the return window might lapse before I intend on using the product. The thing I mentioned above I sat on for about 28 of 30 days of the return window before I went to install it and noticed I was short a lot of parts. It created some logistical headaches because I would have really liked to install it the day I tried to ... had some guests coming in town, had a nice weather day to do the work, etc. then had to scramble to find time to do it when the replacement came and my guests were at my house I installed it while my wife entertained them... stuff like that

[0] The nature of the item being a kit of several dozen nuts and bolts to hang something outside.

I've personally received stuff that is sold as new that clearly wasn't. In many cases it may have been somewhat hard to tell if just checking quickly outside of package. Amazon could have buyers note if still new or used on returns, check some "new" ones carefully, and if buyers are lying have a consequence. Because once you actually open a package it usually is crystal clear that stuff is used! Think a "new" pencil sharpener filled with different color shavings :)

In my case most stuff has been to low dollar value to deal with a returns cycle on - so maybe that plays into the algorithm. More expensive stuff this seems to be rarer or I'm just getting lucky there.

I've also received a speaker that was clearly yellowed from years of use inside a smoker's room, it smelled awful too. I'm pretty sure someone pulled a switcheroo scam there.

I received 1/3 of a deck chair in a box too small to house the whole chair, that, upon receiving the whole assembled chair later, clearly had not come from the factory even remotely assembled.

Stories like these are the reason that I put my cellphone on a tripod and open every single package, I ever get from a retailer on camera, recording it. I do this in full, and take the necessary time. This has allowed me to continuously fight all silly return issues I've had.

It's ridiculous that I have to do this. It's saved my bacon twice (once literally with a computer). But the $5 tripod was worth every penny.

If I need to go to those lengths to protect myself from a seller, I'd just stop buying from that seller. I stopped buying from Amazon years ago because of that sentiment.

I've also pretty much entirely stopped buying from amazon, save for maybe 1 - 2 orders a year. Although my biggest problem is that because any number of sellers can offer products on the same listing, you often just flat out do not get what's in the listing. 32A fuses being sold under a listing for 16A because or even at times the title and description having different values. And that's not even talking about the abundance fake items. Amazon is just dogshit now.

Same for me, after way too many fakes, i have been reducing my Amazon spend by a lot in last two years and moving purchasing to places like Walmart (non-marketplace) for random items, HomeDepot for home stuff and B&H for trusted electronics (don’t even let it cross your mind to buy an SD card from Amazon!)

When I eliminated Amazon from my life, I replaced it with with first checking if I can find what I want from a local on-prem business. If so, I buy it there.

If not, then I see if I can buy it directly from the manufacturer's website. 80% of the time, I can (often with free shipping).

If that fails, then I check a small number of resellers that I trust. This mostly tends to be electronic components, so I'm talking places like Digikey.

If that fails, then it's off to the classifieds and eBay. Those bring many of the same problems as Amazon, but I very rarely have to go that far.

Why bother - isn't the return policy enough? I'm assuming they are optimistic on new returns being new, but they are liberal on the return end to compensate.

Amazon has started to refuse returns on many items. One of their core customer value mechanisms has been destroyed.

Online shopping requires returns. Removing that option significantly reduces trust and value.

Once you establish a monopoly, the consumer-friendly behaviors which enabled you to crush the competition no longer have a justification for their cost.

Amazon is hardly close to a monopoly no matter how much some political class and their big competitors want to hammer that point. In fact I rarely buy anything from them precisely because they suck quite a bit on retail and competitors have gotten better (and consciously want to take my business elsewhere because I don’t like to benefit AWS). Because they are not a monopoly I don’t feel particularly in pain not purchasing from them.

I suspect the cost structure and consumer behavior has forced their hand to be more restrictive on retail (and perhaps they no longer care as much either).

Yep I ordered a big jug of cleaning solution that showed up completely destroyed in a soaked and ruined box. Amazon refused to credit me a refund unless I returned the product to them, which was literally impossible. They have gotten big enough that they don't need to care about customers as much as they used to and, unfortunately, they might be right. The only solution is to not shop there any more.

Another behavior I started seeing a lot more of the past couple years was paid listings selling a product for 4-5x the normal price, mixed in with the organic results. The only purpose of those is to rip off people who are in a hurry or confused and miss that they are being taken advantage of. They must work often enough to pay for the ad placements and clearly Amazon doesn't have any interest in protecting their customers.

Actually in Germany, any online buy is subject to return within 14 days without any questions asked. So Amazon.de cannot refuse the return of items.

You get banned from Amazon if you return too many articles, no matter the reason.

I've returned stuff to Amazon twice, and my experience both times was pretty bad. But even if the seller is good about returns, having to return it is still a loss. It takes time and hassle, and you have to wait even longer for the thing you want.

My wife had to repeatedly call Amazon to get them to re-refund a returned item on multiple occasions. That issue coupled with generally terrible quality on almost everything is why we stopped buying anything on there. They would refund the item and then a month later claw it back. The csrs usually wouldn’t understand what she was saying either so she would have to wait for a supervisor every time.

Wow! That's dedication! You should at least start a Youtube Channel with the content. There are probably some odd folks out there that would enjoy watching that. Add a condenser microphone for some ASMR hits!

I also record every package I open, but actually Amazon never asked for proof when I file a claim. Maybe it's because I only filed so few claims, or maybe a generous return/refund policy helps Amazon cover up any reputation damage they might incur, and they figured it's cheaper to just eat this cost than trying to sort out why they ship out so much junk.

I’ve received opened packages of baby food from Amazon. Of course, I immediately threw it away and didn’t even bother returning it, knowing that somebody else would end up with whatever was in the package. Amazon has some real problems and I cancelled my prime account over this and other issues

A similar thing happened to me recently with Target. What I received was obviously damaged, broken seal, broken canister, formula spilling out. I initiated a "damaged product" problem, and they wanted me to return it. So I dumped the rest, rinsed it, and returned an empty can to a physical Target store. The clerk was confused, but they didn't challenge me on it. I got the refund.

(I started ordering the formula online because there was a severe shortage recently due to a potentially contaminated batch. Finding it in a physical store was not possible for a while, and not practical even when it was available.)

I've received great many things from Amazon sold as new that were clearly used. For important ones I've returned / replaced the items and amazon never made a fuss about it. I've always got an impression that they know this is going on and outsource returned item verification to customers.

It's also entirely possible that Amazon does handle verification, but they have set their operator metrics so high, the operators are forced to speed through the process.

We see this in other areas of logistics as well - delivery people sprinting and tossing packages because they can't spend more then X seconds per stop.

I've spent a lot of time in distribution centers over the last decade. The vast majority of people just want to do a good job, even if the job isn't a good one.

[dupe]

More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40969870

https://archive.is/LYOVm

Imo the return policies have gotten out of hand and are negatively affecting many shoppers (by necessarily having increased prices), while the return scammers like this proliferate. It’s ridiculous that you are able to buy a mattress online, and have a _year_ to sleep on it and then just return it for free. How much cheaper would this all be if returns weren’t priced in.

I know someone from work that during covid bought a desk and used it for a year, returned it after 364 days for full refund, then immediately bought another, and then returned that again whenever offices opened up again. And he absolutely could afford the desk. And apart from ethical arguments, there’s not much to argue since he followed all the policy rules, and ended up with 2 years of completely free desk usage so a net win for him.

I don’t think there should be any “return for no reason” policies, or if there are there should be very high restocking fees. Only if the item is completely broken / unusable should there be returns. And something like a diaper shouldn’t even be returnable.

I do have to wonder if Target or Wallmart have this problem, particularly with Wallmart going the same marketplace model.

Clearly something is wrong with Amazon's return process, but just curious if this is unique to Amazon or just known more with Amazon due to scale?

I have seen a few of these articles and the thing I have not seen outlined, was this a case of the original person packaging up the order to make it appear as new? Would it have required Amazon to fully open the package and possibly break a seal (even if it was already broke, but if they tried to make it appear as new)?

It is also worth being very clear here that his incident happened in 2020. A lot could have changed about their process. It doesnt excuse it and they clearly still have a problem, but it is an important detail that is quite a bit into the article.

Amazon is especially lenient when it comes to reviews.

Whenever an Amazon story appears on HN, dozens of comments appear with stories of used goods sold as new, bricks instead of PS5s, counterfeit goods, etc. Going by the consensus you'd think Amazon has a 0% customer satisfaction rate.

Just as a counterpoint, I've bought thousands of items from the site. Multiple thousands. From dried dates to SLRs, random offbrand tablets to laptops. I've had zero used-as-new, counterfeit or replaced goods. None. A couple of times I had notices that things were delivered when they actually weren't, but Amazon immediately sent me a replacement (and in more than one case the original item eventually turned up and Amazon told me to keep that too). One time a driver turned on my wet lawn and left a rut so Amazon gave me a $500 credit.

Eh, overall I'm extremely satisfied with the service. Does the Canadian operation just not do the shady stuff? Am I just a remarkable exception?

Same here, I think I only got a used-as-new item once or twice (I remember a scratched up cheap $5 timer), even something like damaged in transit is pretty rare, and I get dozens of consumables a month through Subscribe and Save.

> Does the Canadian operation just not do the shady stuff? Am I just a remarkable exception?

I got used stuff from Amazon Canada. Once got counterfeit SSD. Additionally Amazon Canada doesn't have that good selection or prices compared to Amazon USA so perhaps less expose to scams due to low volume? Therefore I buy mostly shampoo or toothpaste from Amazon (not SSDs or electronics), since chances of getting fake toothpaste are very low.

Most of the discussion is about what Amazon did wrong. What about the person returning a used diaper? What kind of deranged person does that? Is this some kind of exploitation of a generous return policy? I’ve seen those kinds of shoppers ruin the policy for everyone else.

"It’s extremely rare for these types of mistakes to happen, and when they do we take them very seriously to improve the experiences of customers and sellers."

Bullshit. Literally everyone I know has had this problem with Amazon (albeit not with poopy diapers). Is this a repeat case of Amazon managers looking at metrics and assuming all is well?[1]

[1] https://www.startuparchive.org/p/jeff-bezos-recounts-the-tim...

As someone who was employed by three large marketplaces in two different countries: you can't and won't have easy returns and quality checks.

Every one sell returned goods regardless of condition. It's not like it affects the marketplace in any meaningfull way.

I sell a custom manufactured consumable product on Amazon FBA. I’ve had to redesign the packaging to make it impossible to repackage for a return, so it cannot be restocked and resold. Buyers were previously returning half used and Amazon was restocking

Would you mind expanding a bit on how you redesigned the packaging to make it impossible to repackage for a return?

There's an entire industry devoted to teaching people how to flip Amazon return pallets. The warnings not to relist returns as new on Amazon might as well be instructions to do exactly that.

As noted in the article, returns are high volume and it's hard to thoroughly inspect every item. Somebody on a line probably saw a package that looked like it hadn't even been opened, and said "cool, that's an unopened return, I don't have to spend time on that one, on to the next item". They made a mistake. It's not that it isn't bad, it's that it's bound to happen.

The bigger issue is used items being sold as new. That could be a mistake too, except it happens way too often to be a mistake. That's lawsuit territory. Amazon needs to fix that.

But to me, the more interesting issue is how one bad review can tank a business. I'm assuming that's what happened in this case, and that's how the article portrays it. Of course, Amazon should have removed the review in question, because it was ultimately their fault and not the business'. However, my hot take is that I think prospective buyers are at fault for seeing a product with an overwhelming number of positive reviews, then seeing one bad review, and thinking "Gross, I won't buy these diapers, the company sells them with shit inside!!!"

On amazon.fr I've seen some reviews in the past with an extra mention along the lines “Amazon takes responsibility for this issue, the seller isn't to blame”. I wonder if this is a common occurence in different countries and/or if it was just an A/B testing they did at some point.

When there are dozens of similar products, one bad review may be all it takes. Why would you choose the one out of 12 that has a chance of a dirty diaper when they are all in the same price range?

Because there is no higher chance of getting sold a product with a dirty diaper in it from this company than from any of the 11 other products, unless you believe the company sells new diapers with shit inside them.

This is what happens when customers don't understand the separation between product manufacture and product fulfilment.

This was Amazon's fault (for re-selling a returned product as new) but it was also the reviewer's fault for blaming the manufacturer instead of the fulfiller.

I see it all the time in product reviews. A one-star review because "PRODUCT ARRIVED LATE AND BOX WAS DAMAGED BECAUSE UPS THREW IT OVER MY FENCE!!!" is a totally useless review and doesn't help anyone, except maybe letting the reviewer vent their anger.

Product reviews are not the place for this kind of review, unless the fault is clearly on the manufacturer themselves, or the manufacturer's customer service has been poor.

Interestingly though, Amazon seems to have addressed this problem in their Marketplace seller reviews. If you view the profile of a Marketplace seller you'll see "mini reviews" of the seller themselves. When people rate the seller poorly because of delivery problems, the review is greyed out and a note says "Amazon takes responsibility for the fulfilment of this order". It's been like that for years, and I don't know why they haven't extended the same system to product reviews.

TL;DR the reviewer shouldn't have written a product review about a bad fulfilment experience, but Amazon should improve their website to make the distinction clearer.

Given how messy the relationship is between products, sellers and fulfillment on Amazon, I don't think it realistic to expect customers to know which to blame. For example, I received clearly counterfeit merchandise. I don't know if it is the sellers fault for providing counterfeits, or Amazon's fault for commingling stock. I don't know if the product reviews are exclusive to that listing or if they will be applied to other sellers listing the "same" product. And in the end I don't care. I just want others to know that if they order from this listing they may get counterfeit goods. Product reviews are by far the most consumer facing information, and most of the other feedback mechanisms that Amazon provides seem to go into a black-hole where no other customers can see them and which Amazon never acts on, so it is natural for customers to use product reviews for any type of feedback.

There are a few things that Amazon could do to improve reviews for sellers. They should make seller reviews more prominent in listings. And if a review is determined to be posted to the wrong place (product vs seller) Amazon should move it to the right place instead of deleting it. I can't see the issues regarding fulfillment feedback ever getting better though. Late shipping is one thing, but reselling returned items and commingling good and bad inventory will always be opaque to the customer.

> This is what happens when customers don't understand the separation between product manufacture and product fulfilment.

> This was Amazon's fault (for re-selling a returned product as new) but it was also the reviewer's fault for blaming the manufacturer instead of the fulfiller.

No, it's all Amazon's fault. 100%

It's Amazon's fault for re-selling a returned product as new, it's Amazon's fault for designing it's site to allow it's users get confused like this, and it's Amazon's fault for leaving the review up that blamed the manufacturer for Amazon's mistake.

Amazon doesn't make the difference between seller, third party fulfillment, and FBA obvious.

A customer shouldn't have to delve into the amazon supply chain to determine which system failed them and somehow direct their rage-cannon accordingly.

They could also read every review for every product as it comes in and proactively notify the seller or take steps to mitigate the problem.

And use much of the touted LLMs to figure out if a review should be about the shipping company. But that wouldn't be cost effective I suppose.

So is there section in Amazon where I could review or see reviews on fulfilment? If not, product review is the correct place.

“We take issues of this type very seriously.”

Yeah, after they happen. None of the activities their spokesperson describe are proactive. Everything is in response to a terrible experience. Which is fine for a small company, but even rare bad experiences happen with enough frequency at scale that if you’re not anticipating them you’re already behind the curve. Which is one more reason I don’t shop at Amazon anymore.

after they make it to the press, you mean

What I keep telling hw companies - you NEED quality control.

That doesn't mean that you should test each diaper before they go out though.

It does, however, mean that Amazon should inspect every single return and err on the side of selling something "used" rather than "new" even if it looks new.

They wouldn't need to do that if they properly checked their return streams. In some cases they're only checking the weight of the items being returned.

You'd think a weight check would have been sufficient in the OP's case.

There's also the annoying other side where Amazon shipped a clearly underweight package but refuses to acknowledge their own equipment's measurement for a return. The person bought a 7-8 pound graphics card and the package only weighed a little over 1 pound according to the package's own shipment info. Amazon is still giving the guy the run around demanding police reports etc when it clearly left the depot without the gpu.

Does depend on how heavily the item was… “Tested” before it was returned.

Many products will also have inconsistent weight, not only between units (not everything is made to NASA specs, and anything handmade or harvested will have huge variations) but also after shipping (labels on box, seal tape or cellophane removed, cardboard absorbing moisture, …).

QC can be a visual inspection, doesn't just mean a functional test.

I feel that the sarcasm was lost - what went out here was an, ahem, “functionally tested” diaper.

QC before restocking is fine. On the shipping side you just check that it’s the right product and that the packaging is intact and not indicative of damage.

But when you sell with Amazon, you cede quality control to their fulfillment.

You didn't read the article.

Someone returned one of their diapers used. They trusted Amazon to handle returns and labeling of inventory. Amazon labeled the used diaper as "new," and consumers assumed the diaper company was responsible for the mixup.

This is an issue with Amazon's handling of returns, which is exacerbated by their inventory mixing (all items of the same SKU are considered "the same" and interchangeable, regardless of their provenance).

I read the article, and I think the take you're replying to is still valid. As a company, you need good quality control. What this incident reveals is that Amazon does not do good quality control. If you outsource that part of your business to Amazon, your business has an existential risk.

They should do that, but also, a diaper is one of those products that shouldn't even be returnable to begin with.

I don't buy things I need to rely on from Amazon.

Why would a diaper even be returnable?

"Amazon removed the review a few hours after Bloomberg published this story."

Disgusting and absolutely par for the course with these big web companies.

This is literal enshittification. Way to go, Bezos.

He is literally gone from Amazon. Jassy is next. He is hanging on perhaps because he is only poor centi millionaire and not billionaire yet.

LinkedIn influencers, podcasters and middle-management types keep buzzword bullshit of flywheel effect, today is Day 1, your margin is my opportunity, disagree then commit etc..etc going.

Customers are unsatisfied with ad-infested Amazon site but Bloomberg says Amazon revenue will rise by 30% due to bullish ads business. So Amazon is doing something right.

Luiss Rossmann says Aliexpress is now better than Amazon.

Louis Rossman can be a bit of a blow hard.

People on the Amazon hate meme train have a hard time understanding that you can both be a reputable brand retailer and a bazaar marketplace, which Amazon is, while Ali is only the latter.

You’re not going to get genuine power tools or batteries or brand home/car audio from Aliexpress for instance, but this is easily done on Amazon. You can verify serial numbers and generally inspect the original packaging. Yes, I have received fucked up WTF items (eg recently a hard drive that was not even packed and was in a wrinkled ESD bag directly in an envelope), but Amazons return/replacement has been flawless. I cannot say the same for Aliexpress - good luck if even your package is clearly lost but they think it’s in the hands of the courier so it’s your problem.

Most people’s Amazon complaints are with crappy 3rd party sellers. Well that is all you get with Ali and the dispute system is stacked against you there.

For cheap Chinese items I routinely compare Aliexpress to Amazon and buy on Ali frequently. But have found that Ali is not always significantly cheaper, and sometimes even more expensive when there are deals or coupons. Isolated horror stories aside, Amazon fulfillment and refund/return policies are light years better and more consumer friendly than Ali and if you think otherwise I doubt you use the two platforms frequently.

Louis did extensive testing, it is all well documented. Wrong fuse can burn your house, and insurance will not cover that! Calling it "blow hard" is misinformation!

Aliexpress sells genuine power tools, Chinese brands like "Deko" has official store there! It even sells cars!

Doing juggling with bar codes on Amazon is not for everyone. You are one click away from counterfeit, just change color, boom! order is not from official store, but some bum!

And serial numbers can be faked too, obviously!

This is idiotic.

In his first video he is comparing Amazon Chinese crap connectors to Home Depot sold Gardner Bender connectors. This is the exact same crap you would get ordering off Aliexpress. The difference with Amazon is that you can buy the Gardner Bender connectors and Ali you certainly cannot.

In the second video he’s testing crap brand products (like Nilight, Kzper, Crocsee, WTF?) with inflated reviews, he isn’t uncovering any massive counterfeiting operation.

The strongest “downfall” argument you can make with his testing is that Amazon is becoming more like Aliexpress.

The big difference is that Amazon has greatly superior customer service and customer protections.

I actually overall like Louis’ presentation. And I’m wondering where the fuck you think he is endorsing Ali Express. That seems like the complete antithesis of what he is saying, because at the end he is in favor of more regulation. He laments that Amazon doesn’t police their marketplace and reviews better, which AliExpress doesn’t do at all.

I take back saying he is a blow hard. It sounds like you must be a shill.

> Aliexpress sells genuine power tools

You can also buy “Makita” and “Milwaukee” on Aliexpress, but none of them will be legitimate and Ali does nothing to prevent this, on the other hand Amazon is not willingly allowing the sale of counterfeits. Despite some high profile cases, counterfeits are just not as rampant on Amazon as some think.

The marketplace is a free for all, but it’s no better on Ali or Walmart.

Ships and sold by Amazon for major brand products works well enough.

I am being trolled hard here. Goodbye.

> And I’m wondering where the fuck you think he is endorsing Ali Express.

He made follow up video recently, 3:15.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x8LVOhv7lHs

Main point against amazon, it "polices" reviews by it censoring and deleting negative comments. Fuses he bought are on top of search results, not some obscure brands at bottom. It is still there after 6 months!

Aliexpress does not do such stuff, and technical parts are more likely to be upto specs.

> You can also buy “Makita” and “Milwaukee” on Aliexpress

Milwaukee also have official store on aliexpress.

> Aliexpress does not do such stuff

Seriously, what in the hell are you smoking?

On Aliexpress a search for “milwaukee power tools” the top 100s of results are for clear counterfeits ($50 for an high torque impact wrench is not real, dude), some “compatible” battery replacements (ie cheap crap that Rossman complains about) or some used tools from consolidators of questionable repute (a 90% rating on Ali is really bad).

Gosh man, I love Ali for what it is, but if you don’t know it’s a cess pit of counterfeiters with gamed search rankings and mostly fake reviews you are extremely naive.

> technical parts are more likely to be upto specs.

Bullshit. There’s considerable overlap between the two in the marketplace. You think the shitty suppliers are just limiting themselves to Amazon and avoiding Ali? Aliexpress has less oversight than Amazon. Why would the QC on Aliexpress be better?

Rossman’s offhand remark is a bit of hyperbole. It’s also a bit silly. He laments the lack of trusted brands on Amazon and the mass of crappy ones. But the trusted brands are still there, Amazon still carries tons of brand name products. It’s true their search prioritizes crappy things as the marketplace is overrun by shear volume, but this is no where near as bad as Ali. I don’t know why you or Rossman think Ali is somehow better about product quality, but you’re both full of shit on this point.

> Milwaukee also have official store on aliexpress.

If they do (and I doubt it, since everything you’ve said is detached from reality), it is not available in North America, so not very useful to me or the majority of Amazon’s customers.

Or do you actually believe the “Milwaukee Tool Store” selling $50 impact wrenches is official?

Moreover most of their products that are clear counterfeits (the shells look legit but they completely phone it in on the control pads) in customer photos have close to 5 star ratings. Yeah, no manipulation going on there.

Amazon is nowhere near that bad.

> Or do you actually believe the “Milwaukee Tool Store” selling $50 impact wrenches is official

I guess not, does not seems like official store. I buy tools from aliexpress sometimes. Most are good. It is hard to get specialised stuff in EU.

People do buy real Milwaukee tools in China.

> Aliexpress has less oversight than Amazon. Why would the QC on Aliexpress be better?

This is the point! Value added by Amazon (oversight) has negative value. It gives false sense of security. It gass light people! People may think "it is like wallmart" and put fuse from amazon into their car or house!

> But the trusted brands are still there, Amazon still carries tons of brand name product

That is not the point! Amazon logistics is contaminated with fake sellers, unchecked returns etc... Their usability is bad, you change color and store changes to some Chinese seller!

You can not trust stuff bought from amazon. Maybe trick with checking serial numbers works for now, but it may stop anytime!

This stuff started way back in 2013, with fake climbing carabiners!

That's definitely true for random cheap things you're looking to buy. Unless you need it quickly, there is no reason to buy on it Amazon. You can often find the exact same item on Aliexpress for much cheaper. Shipping has gotten a lot faster from Aliexpress these days, too, though it's still on the order of 1.5+ weeks for most stuff.

The types of products I'm willing to buy on Amazon is quickly shrinking because you can't really go to Amazon for assurance that the product you are buying is genuine anymore, either.

I've gotten 2 counterfeit micro SD cards (confirmed counterfeit by contacting Sandisk) that were "New, Ships and Sold by Amazon.com" in the last few months. They had barcode stickers added to the back of the packaging which, from my Googling, turned out to be stickers Amazon places on returns which made what was going on pretty clear. Someone orders genuine sd cards then returns counterfeits, and Amazon just spoils their inventory by blindly accepting the returns and throwing them back in the inventory to be sold again.

Amazon has no place in their customer support maze to report this and if you try to leave a review saying you received counterfeits (which isn't even the right place to complain about this issue because it's a fulfillment issue, not a product issue, but they leave no other choice) they block your review then pester you with a chatbot asking you for more details about why you think it was counterfeit but limits your responses to multiple choice options that don't fit then gaslights you by saying the product couldn't possibly be counterfeit because Sandisk is a trusted partner (the same company that confirmed they were counterfeit).

> Amazon has no place in their customer support maze to report this and if you try to leave a review saying you received counterfeits

I don’t agree. If you receive a counterfeit you go to return item from the order screen, choose “Wrong item was sent” or “Inaccurate website description”, specify status of packaging and there is a required comments field where you can type “item is counterfeit”, you then proceed to continue a return or replacement option (which will be sent immediately).

As far as I am concerned that is “reporting it” and getting a remedy.

Online review systems are bad for many reasons, but a fulfillment issue is clearly stated as not the intention of the reviews and I don’t see a problem with that policy.

At least they're honest!

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