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Comment by dataflow | Hacker News Reader

> During Wednesday’s presentation in Seattle, Amazon executives said the economics of commingling no longer worked. With the company’s logistics network now capable of storing products closer to customers, the speed advantage of pooled inventory has diminished.

Sounds more like they were losing market to other retailers.

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I don’t think I’ve had a counterfeit good come in, but the number of times I’ve heard about it led me to start going to other retailers for things I wanted guarantees on: cleaning products, personal hygiene items, and expensive electronics/accessories.

Amusingly after that, I saw I could get nearly everything else off AliExpress for cheaper. My usage of Amazon practically evaporated.

Don't you just have the same issue but with shady ali express sellers now?

No. 1) AliExpress sellers control their own store listing and have their own reviews. This is leagues ahead of Amazon. 2) I only buy products from AliExpress where safety and quality aren’t of any concern. 3) I have never actually had a "shady seller" experience on AliExpress.

Even quality can be fine on AliExpress for all sorts of parts and even custom work. Small screws in a specific size, wood routing bits, drill bits, magnets, crafting stuff…

I had a cutting die for leather made there in a shape specified by me, and the process, while clunky with their spammy message box, was pretty much as pleasant as you could expect, and the workmanship excellent.

Just don't buy clothing or end-user electronics there. For makers, crafters, and tinkerers AliExpress is a great resource while it lasts¹.

1: The US obviously has its tariffs thing going on. The EU is considering a fixed €2 surcharge for packages from China.

I know that's extremely off -topic, but could you please tell me the name of the shop? I'm currently getting into leather stamping, and the quality of dies has been rather hit or miss, so I was to cautious to buy a custom one until now.

Not at all, I ordered at the LiSaDuPu Store (https://www.aliexpress.com/store/912251155). I had a 60 mm outline of a water lily leaf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeblatt) made, and the die seems alright. I've done around twenty of those now in 7-8 oz leather, so no idea about its longevity, but it's cheap enough to warrant experimenting. The die itself accurately reproduces the PNG I sent in the chat to the store.

To use the die I'm using a one ton arbor press. That's not enough force to push a die of that size through in one go, but after the first press I can move the die and the leather around the outline and finish the cutting with a few light presses all around.

Thank you. So far I'm not using a press and relying on mallets instead, with all the limitations that result from that. But it feels more fun to me this way :) But as I could just attach such a die to a handle myself, I'll probably give it a go anyway.

I'm surprised just how much luck I've had with AliExpress. Packages arrive quickly and as described.

My usage of Amazon evaporated as it lost its benefits over AliExpress:

- The Amazon product catalog is essentially AliExpress at this point. Endless WIXUBI product slop.

- Free shipping thresholds went up

- Amazon shipping times became longer

- AliExpress managed to drastically speed up their shipping

If they don't ship much faster, cost three times as much (especially once you add the shipping cost), can't guarantee higher quality - why would I buy from them rather than going to the source?

If I need reliable quality (e.g. stuff that comes into contact with food) or want it fast, I'm paying the retail premium (which isn't as bad nowadays as it used to be).

I started buying hard drives from b&h photo. Just couldn’t trust Amazon anymore.

It's the old Blockbuster problem. You can screw over the customer for years in order to squeeze out a few more bucks. And it can work, because many times the customer has few alternatives. But you're eroding support the entire time, and when the shift changes, it can be sudden and irreversible.

They are getting steadily eroded by Temu and Aliexpress/Alibaba. Also in-person retail is surging for specific items - places like Best Buy have had a nice resurgence since the 2010s (stock is down compared to the pandemic, but that's a retail thing, not BBY problem).

Temu and the Alis are eating them alive on one side, and Walmart, Target, Best Buy (and even Home Depot) are destroying them on the other.

Happy to say I walked into a Best Buy last week because I needed a replacement mouse right now. I am really glad they survived.

I cancelled Prime because I wasn't getting any value anymore. Non-Prime customers are treated like second class citizens. Amazon has really gone downhill lately. Customer service is terrible. Not just the counterfeiting, but the website UX has become steadily worse. Archive order was recently removed without warning as was the ability to view itemized invoices. Yes, really. Before anyone says otherwise, "View Invoice" now redirects to your Order Details page, absent any additional detail.

I switched most of my shopping to Walmart. I get free next day or two-day shipping for orders of $35 or more, where Amazon will ship the same in 5-6 days now that I am non-Prime scum.

I still have a view invoice on the Android app, I just checked

> the website UX has become steadily worse

Not disagreeing, but the Amazon web UX has been famously terrible since like 1998. They basically invented the whole trend of building via A/B test result instead of via user-centric design. Nothing on the site has ever made any sense. Every item title is a paragraph description. The categories are basically useless. The filters are a mess of bad and incomplete data to the point of being useless. Many items have 2-3 duplicate listings that somehow have different shipping dates and descriptions, and you never know if you have found the "real" listing. But they sure sell a lot of stuff.

I've always assumed the issues you described were meant to disarm users but also maybe to set expectations. When you see 3 similar items, you don't know if you're getting the "real thing". So you spend that money and expect the worst. Terrible listings make it hard to find what you need exactly but also make it seem like they have more selection when they might not.

Regardless I've considered it to be intentional.

Best Buy has been a big one for me when I need things like USB sticks or SD cards. (Bad enough with the occasional duds from the reputable sources without mixing in counterfeits on top of that.)

Price matching on most of their stuff and their budget line of cabling is actually quite competitive. When I have to do buildouts sometimes we need to buy a lot of Ethernet cable and their pricing is not terrible in a pinch.

Once bought an entire store out of patch cables, ha.

This. Amazon buyer metrics have been tanking for a while. In general if I don't care about the quality I have better and cheaper places to shop. When I know the brand I want, and want predictable quality, I order from the company directly. Price, service, quality, and delivery time are equal or better than Amazon.

This. I switched to buying from online retailers rather than marketplaces because of the level of fraud and counterfit in the latter.

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