Shopping on Amazon Has Gone to Absolute Shit

[BPD Gunt Rider]

I buy shit on Amazon regularly and I've never looked at a review. I know they are often paid for, I've been invited to do that.

The only things I look at on the page are price changes through the Keepa plugin.

Amazon is still good with shipping things quickly and cheap, and returning is very simple with no issues, so whatever.

And I get half off Prime for being an autistic retard.

 

[indomitable snowman]

They need to work and remove the fly-by-night chinesium dropshippers and institute better filtering on searches. I always have to doublecheck who the seller is and try to make sure the brands of anything electronic are not something like "Qhing-shong cables". Amazon did fuck up 2 orders for me last year, but they did fix in the end. First mess-up it was lost in transit, I requested they sent me it again they both showed up the same day. The second mess up it was lost again so Amazon sent it again, but this time only one showed up. It makes me think someone is or was intercepting electronic items at the amazon hub.
For expensive electronic Items, I think I'm better off going to BestBuy and pick up at the store. Would have been crazy to do that 10+ years ago. Heck even Ebay is better in some regards than amazon for finding things. I wish I lived in an area with a Micro Center though.

 

[UERISIMILITUDO]

I very begrudgingly purchased a power supply converter, for a Japanese video game console, and I suspect it to be fake, but I never bothered testing it. Fuck them. I very rarely buy anything, and I always buy my books directly from the publisher, or in some cases a reputable bookstore. Amazon has been selling poorly-printed fakes of No Starch Press books for years, as one example, not that I buy any of those anyway.

It never occurred to me until I read about it, but Amazon functions as a way for criminals to sell stolen merchandise, very, very easily. I'd go to prison for that, but large corporations never get punished in any meaningful way anymore.

 

[Los Pollos Hermanos]

Amazon Marketplace has to be used for money laundering or illicit payments or something. Search for any innocuous item, sort by price: high to low, and then ask yourself why garden hose is selling for $1000 each

 

[Wholesome Big Chungus]

Everyone around me has seemed to stop caring about product quality at all. They just buy QXYNGRZY brand or whatever other Chinese brand ends up on the top of the search listings and the products are trash despite not really saving that much money at this point. When stuff arrives its just the absolute lowest quality plastic, things break if they actually get used for their intended purpose and it feels like nobody notices the common link. These products are bad and they feel bad to use.

The people i know who have the least money do the most of this too, and I dont know how to talk to them about this.

 

[Judge Dredd]

When did Amazon start going to shit? Like @Two Dollars I've used them on and off for years, mainly for computer parts and never had a problem, though I've not made a big purchase from them in a while.

It's worth learning how to more effectively find alternatives both online and in brick & mortar stores. Even if the price is higher the quality is usually much more consistent.

That's not always viable. I don't live in the middle of nowhere like the OP, but I do live a city most people outside the local area won't have heard of.

The selection at brick and mortar shops is terrible. I had to buy a torch recently and ended up buying one from Lidl of all places. My only option for tools are B&Ms, I think a B&Q still exists somewhere. Boomers and even Google maps will point me to local hardware shops that are just empty lots and clearly have been for years.

 

[DrearyDoomguy]

That's not always viable. I don't live in the middle of nowhere like the OP, but I do live a city most people outside the local area won't have heard of.

The selection at brick and mortar shops is terrible. I had to buy a torch recently and ended up buying one from Lidl of all places. My only option for tools are B&Ms, I think a B&Q still exists somewhere. Boomers and even Google maps will point me to local hardware shops that are just empty lots and clearly have been for years.

I'm not saying restrict yourself to brick and mortar. There's smaller online storefronts you can buy from that will carry most of what you would otherwise get from Amazon. Electronics, books, appliances, if you can order it on Amazon chances are you can find another site that sells it. Often times you can buy directly from manufacturers and completely cut out the middleman. I can count the number of items I've had to resort to Amazon for on one hand.

 

[Jump]

I only use Amazon lockers because I don't want their crackhead drivers coming on my property. So all those weird chink drop ship and 3rd party sellers are excluded. Only "Ships From Amazon" or "Sold by and Ships from Amazon" stuff can go to lockers. Normally shows up same day/next day.
Another advantage is if you change your mind you just never pick it up and after 3 days your automatically refunded. If I am in the middle of a project I'll order things just in case I might need them, then when I don't its automatically refunded.

 

[Dick Mason]

ALISINSEN
HUNYEIZ
ONKO
ORAIMO

You'd think there'd be a market for a service that caters to east asian firms to pick names for their products so that they don't end up sounding like repugnant bodily excretions.

My favorite is Doogie. It sounds disgusting - which is apt for the products they make. They might as well just jam random words together, like "pinkrollerpoodle microSD adapter micro SD for Computer or SmartPhone [4k] [192khz] [LG] [samsuNG] [AUTHENTIC NOT FAKE THIS TIME WE PROMISE]".

This is the best one I’ve ever seen:
View attachment 5698733

There we go. They were not giving a single crap. Annnwzzd!

 

[Al from Dadeville]

There’s too much fake shit on Amazon now. I don’t buy anything important from there anymore like flea meds.

 

[AmpleApricots]

Maybe it's because our letters probably look to them like chinese symbols look to us, heh.

Can't say I have issues with amazon over here. Then again there's a law (not refund policy, actual law) that you can give everything you buy online back without specifying a reason inside of two weeks and the seller has to refund you without asking questions. I feel that knocks off a lot of the BS. It's true though - amazon is often just aliexpress with a markup.

I also have to say that I made good experiences with aliexpress in general, sellers were always responsive and the few times I couldn't come to some conclusion, aliexpress support was helpful. You gotta use some common sense though, if you buy stuff from sellers that have an old store and already hundreds of orders on an item you'll make a better experience than on the new shop that sells a 14 TB USB stick for $10. I actually find aliexpress more transparent regarding the sellers on there and you can get a better picture of them.

 

[The Hardest R]

Everyone around me has seemed to stop caring about product quality at all. They just buy QXYNGRZY brand or whatever other Chinese brand ends up on the top of the search listings and the products are trash despite not really saving that much money at this point. When stuff arrives its just the absolute lowest quality plastic, things break if they actually get used for their intended purpose and it feels like nobody notices the common link. These products are bad and they feel bad to use.

The people i know who have the least money do the most of this too, and I dont know how to talk to them about this.

Yep. People these days look for “good enough.” Of course, some shit doesn’t even work but good enough is considered a viable strategy for emerging markets like China or India: https://www.fastcompany.com/1679885...r-lessons-in-simplicity-from-emerging-markets

Most people are niggercattle and really only need China-grade consumer goods. They’ll lose cables, they’ll drop electronics, they’ll only want earbuds in colors that match their clothes, etc. They don’t really know what quality is and don’t think twice about ordering another iPhone charger cable for $5 when the ZZFHHHFNIGGERXP cable they ordered lasts a few weeks.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

The search engine on Amazon seems to have gone the same way as that of YT and Google: to crap.

 

[Pee Cola]

If you're still buying stuff on Amazon in 2024, you're a gigafaggot who deserves all the F-grade Chinesium they get.

 

[Gargamel]

Due to this, my family and friends have become pretty reliant on Amazon for getting anything other than the absolute most basic stuff you can find in our town. Lately, the Amazon shopping experience has been getting steadily worse.

Again, the biggest issue with this is if you are in a smaller area without many options, you come to rely on online shopping. Walmart, Staples and Best Buy have far more reliable online storefronts at this point, but they lack the selection of items Amazon has.

If those storefronts are better, shop there instead. You're paying for shipping anyway, right?

First off, most of the small electronic items such as SD cards, cables and chargers are just being drop shipped from Ali Express.

Nothing of this kind is being drop shipped from Ali Express. These things are imported in bulk and sent to Amazon fulfillment centers. You really shouldn't be buying these kinds of things from Amazon though, if you value fire safety.

It's long been know that they fuck around with reviews, but I believe even this has gotten more brazen. For example, I bought a pack of plain white cotton t-shirts this past fall. These were a regular brand you'd buy at Wal-Mart like Fruit of the Loom or Haines. When they arrived, they were poorly stitched and full of holes in places where the seams come together like the armpits. I left a one star review, saying I didn't think they were authentic as the quality was so poor. Amazon removed the review, stating, "We investigated your concerns about product authenticity, and the information we have indicates that the product you received was authentic." So I left another one star review, this time simply stating that the shirts were of poor quality without calling the authenticity into question. Once again, it was removed by Amazon. I was told "This ensures that customer reviews remain as accurate as possible for the benefit of future customers."

I've also noticed the numbers being fudged in weird ways with ratings. For example, I was looking for a replacement part for a fairly obscure electronic component. I was in a bit of a hurry, so I hit up Amazon instead of Ali. The item in question only had five ratings. However, the average and percentage of the ratings make no sense and would be impossible to get with five reviews. Look at this shit:

It's something you wouldn't notice on an item with thousands of reviews, but it's glaringly obvious with only a few ratings. If you click the little "How are ratings calculated?" thingy under the ratings, Amazon claims it analyzes reviews to verify "trustworthiness." So basically, they're not allowing certain one star reviews to be posted at all, and they are tipping the scale toward the more positive ratings because they do not deem the negative ones trustworthy.

It's a scam to get you to spend your money in ways that benefits Amazon, which is making boatloads of money on these sales. The people selling this garbage are making out too, but not nearly as much as Amazon itself.

I bet a lot of people, faced with this bullshit, won't even bother trying to get their $10 back, even if Amazon makes it so easy to do so.

Finally, the wife and I were looking to get a couple of security cameras recently. We specifically wanted something with local storage that didn't require the cloud or a subscription to review footage. We found a couple different cameras we liked and decided to sleep on it. When I logged onto Amazon the next day, in the little "Pick Up Where You Left Off " box was not the cameras we had been interested in, but a variety of Ring and Blink cameras; brands that are owned by Amazon and require a subscription.

I bet they're still showing in your Amazon Browsing History, which is a link on the Accounts and Lists menu.

I've found this kind of thing has gotten more and more blatant over the last year or so. What has your experience been? Have you run into things as blatant as I have?

It's been steadily going downhill as Amazon thinks up new and improved ways to scam you out of your money.

Expect other ecommerce sites to follow suit. They're all already copying Amazon with the 3rd party seller bullshit.

 

[sadrefrigerator]

There's no point looking for real items in a majority of the cases. Unless you're getting the official 50 dollar cable, every cable you buy is going to be made in the same Chinese factory. You're not going to get a knockoff PS5, and if you did, it would be obvious. Return it if it's broken or not what you ordered.

 

[skykiii]

So what Amazon alternatives would you guys recommend, then?

 

[Car Won't Crank]

It is getting increasingly harder to find quality items on Amazon. The strange almost nonsensical brands that are promoted make it quite of putting to browse. It's as if the Chinese vendors run a string of a certain length through a random generator.

Everyone around me has seemed to stop caring about product quality at all. They just buy QXYNGRZY brand or whatever other Chinese brand ends up on the top of the search listings and the products are trash despite not really saving that much money at this point. When stuff arrives its just the absolute lowest quality plastic, things break if they actually get used for their intended purpose and it feels like nobody notices the common link. These products are bad and they feel bad to use.

The people i know who have the least money do the most of this too, and I dont know how to talk to them about this.

Funnily enough one of the well regarded Chinese companies that sells Lipo batteries for RC airplanes and drones is called GaoNengBatteries (GNB).

 

[Screamer_2]

One of the problems Amazon has is that different sellers sell "the same" product share reviews. Which of course opens up vendors to sell cheap knockoffs. While fake reviews ect, you can easily look at a lot of reviews, where clearly people are getting different products.

 

[Brabbit Narp]

Seems I have gotten relatively lucky when it comes to purchasing stuff from Amazon.

Then again, I don't purchase from there often.

Still, it's a pain in the ass to locate good reviews for certain products, and the research process often becomes more headache than it's worth. Not just looking for the reviews on Amazon, but elsewhere too.

I distinctly recall a story where a fairly reputable mattress review site had a good thing going for them, at least until one of the bigger manufacturers for one of the product they began to review started to hassle them. After a while, they bit the bullet, sold out, and was bought up by a "third" party that just so happened to slap excellent reviews for this said brand and others like it, and with the users of that site being none the wiser of the change of hands for said site. And ever since then, there really hasn't been any decent replacement.

I feel this way whenever I am trying to purchase a product on Amazon and trying to do my due diligence on other websites. YouTube is a shitshow unless you just so happen to know and vet user reviews through a thorough process. And half the videos I try to find in avoiding pitfalls just end up being ads for the damn site and/or product for something else.

With all that being said, I think it would be a good idea to host some form of guide in the OP in terms of showing us the better path so to speak. Alternative websites to purchase from, general guidelines to follow when researching and buying shit, sites to look for and avoid, stuff of that nature. It's all well and good to bitch about the topic. Hell, I like to have a few bitchfests myself. But it's another to do something about it and at least try to collective some intelligence for what's good and what isn't.

For whatever it is worth, I find that I prefer going to a physical location to inspect an item up close, plop up a quick review to see if it is any good or not, and hope for the best that it's what it is on the tin. But beyond that, I am SOL when it comes to buying stuff online due to all the horror stories I have heard over the years.