It’s worth pointing out the cracks in a service everyone uses - some of those cracks have been there for a long time and Amazon has been doing a poor job combating it - if they even are. Amazon seems to make knockoffs themselves of best selling items, but that’s another topic.
To your point though, depends what you buy - when I was looking for really good headphones a few years ago, there were warnings on review sites about ordering Sony brand headphones and getting fakes. Apparently there were also sites dedicated to help identify fake headphones bought from Amazon (Sony MDR-7506). Once would be correct to say counterfeits were around since before Amazon, but you wouldn’t expect to get a counterfeit if you pay full price from a brand name store - which is the new problem.
Also buying SD cards, specialized batteries, etc has been a big problem on Amazon for years, and Amazon doesn’t seem able to really address it (inb4 someone says they haveade it worse)
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 9 months ago
I mean… even if it still works or hasn’t fucked up it’s still a cheap knockoff. The cheap knockoffs I get from Amazon usually work fine, but I don’t go there to find cheap knockoffs, I need a specific brand usually. Where I get frustrated is when I search for a specific item I need and I get a hundred cheap knockoffs listed first. Maybe other people don’t care, but I don’t want a genuine Sorny or Pantafonix.
LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I have never seen this. It just doesn’t happen that often on US Amazon stores. There entire thing, at least in the US, is over blown.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 9 months ago
Literally just did this to prove it to you. I searched for “Wireless phone charger”. Something that’s not technical, that most people with wireless charging have at least thought about buying. First page is shown here. Feel free to point out any brands that you recognize.
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I’ve tried 2 so far from amazon. Both garbage. 1 didn’t work out of the box and the other worked for about a month then crapped out. Amazon hosts just garbage now. I’ve gone back to buying from retail whenever possible.
phar@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I agree with you, however Anker is a well known brand
Isthisreddit@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Anker is a cheap knockoff brand?
ImpossibilityBox@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It happens every single time I ever search for anything on Amazon in the US. I have to search through pages and pages of shit knockoff items with fake reviews from other product listing created by “brands” with names that look like a cat walked across the keyboard.
Most the time the items are unrelated to what I’m actually looking for and are only showing up because their titles are “CIGNHKA Road Bike saddle seat chair seat comfort adjustment bike seat mountain seat, gravel, ideal, perfect use universal, black.” And then the description has even more word salad.
If you bother taking the time you can find 17 other brands selling the same identical item with the same markings and the same specs (sometimes with the same reviews) with the only change being the name on the product.
If I didn’t live in a very rural area that Amazon somehow still covers with their free shipping I would never shop their. I only shop on Amazon when I can find a specific item from a specific well known brand.
MalachaiConstant@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Nah, my search results look this like this. Even when I search for a specific brand, very rarely does that make it to the top of the list. Far more often than not, I have to go digging for what I want. It sounds like you have a different experience of Amazon and I honestly envy it. It used to be great