Amazon Loses Huge Footwear Company Because Of Fake Products, a Problem It Denies Is Happening (cnbc.com) 347
Several sellers on Amazon had noted earlier this month that the platform is riddled with counterfeit products and that things have gotten worse after Chinese manufacturers were allowed to sell goods to the consumers in the United States. Amid the report, the German footwear company Birkenstock has announced it will no longer sell its sandals on Amazon. The company added that it will also ban any sales of its products by third-party sellers on Amazon, effectively making its products unavailable on the world's largest online store, according to a report on CNBC. From the report: "The Amazon marketplace, which operates as an 'open market,' creates an environment where we experience unacceptable business practices which we believe jeopardize our brand," Birkenstock USA CEO David Kahan wrote from the company's U.S. headquarters in Novato, California. "Policing this activity internally and in partnership with Amazon.com has proven impossible."
Amazon is awesome for knockoffs! (Score:2, Insightful)
Just saying.
Re:Amazon is awesome for knockoffs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, but it is often illegal, and that is the problem...
Society has rules, you don't have to agree with them, just follow them. There is a process to change them if you don't like them...
That people don't take the actions to change them is not the fault of the rules, or companies, it is the fault of lazy people who can't be bothered...
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playing by the rules means you lose and some 'unethical' entity wins.
corps have zero ethics and break rules, knowing its just a matter of numbers and costs/profits. we get laws made by corps that are not constitutional and they fully do this knowing it buys them time and that's all they really needed, anyway.
cops and judges and the whole legal system is not about fairness or even justice. there are so many levels of 'laws' and rules, its all ruined at this point. so stained and full of holes and exceptio
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Re:Amazon is awesome for knockoffs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Drop the tax rate and compete.
Actually net US corporate taxation is lower than most of our competitors. Yes, we have higher rates but those are offset by many more exemptions and exclusions. People who point to other countries want to adopt their rates but not their rules; adopting both would result in higher tax revenues and more incentive to shelter income.
We are getting one upped by others because they know how to compete - we don't.
It's not know-how. Primarily it's low wages. China has a per-capita GDP of $15,000, vs. $57,000 for the US. China's median private sector salary is $4,755 per year, vs $42,233 for the US. It's even lower What's more income inequality is greater in China than it is in the US. There are 21.6x fewer people in the top decile by income in China than there are in the bottom decile; that figure is 15.9 for the US. This basically means your work force is poor, and legally prevented from unionizing. On top of that regulations are spottily enforced in China if at all. All the complexity of environmental, worker and consumer protections go away if you're willing to grease a few palms. In business this is we call a no-brainer deal.
The irony is that culturally speaking the Chinese people hate the idea of corrupt officials. But they live in a system we're they're not only not allowed to vote, they're not allowed to know or publicize unflattering news. So going by the example of the country we have the greatest trade deficit with, the way to compete is to suppress wages and unions, provide a system of graft as a way to get around environmental and safety rules, take away individual voting rights and freedom of information, and basically run the place so that business owners (for a price) have their interests set above everyone else's.
OK, copying our #1 trade deficit partner turns out not to be so attractive. Well, who's #2 on the list? It's the European Union, where wages are high, regulation is high, bureaucracy is high, worker and consumer rights are high, and income inequality is low.
Hmm. Interesting choice.
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If it's this that's being referred to, it's Oregon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The whole thing started over something that happened in Nevada. The participants are from Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and New Hampshire.
Regardless, it's hard to take people seriously when they can't get simple facts straight.
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I was making a comparison between two similar acts, one championed by Liberals, one Championed by Conservatives.
And completely random note
A Citizen's Dividend of 17% would end poverty.
No it wouldn't, it would simply shift the definition of poverty. American "poor" are rich compared to most of the rest of the world. We still call them "poor" because poverty is always relative.
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No it wouldn't, it would simply shift the definition of poverty.
"a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information."
Did I say I would end "relative poverty"? Even my parents are relatively-poor compared to me.
Oh, and to put another figure to it: 134 million households, 2/3 of all households are 2-adult. Targeting incomes under $30,000 would be 28% of all households--call it 30%? 5/3 adults * 30% of 134 million * ~$7,000 = $469 billion. Tac
Re:Amazon is awesome for knockoffs! (Score:4, Insightful)
One, your rant is interesting because your sole fix for a really bad economy is taxing people more. Can you name a single example where taxing people more, improved things?
Two, you can tax 100 % of the people you think aren't paying enough, and it won't help anyone. The rich can always avoid taxes, where the middle class cannot. The bottom 50% don't pay taxes (because they are poor).
Three, the Number One indicator of Poverty is ... single parent homes. The Number one indicator of crime is poverty. The black community, supported by the Democratic Welfare state has a 75% single parent home. Taxing the rich isn't going to fix this problem, and the DNC loves its economic slaves which vote as a block at a rate of 85%-95%.
So, while you can spout statistics all you want, until you look at correlation between single parent homes and poverty, you're ignoring the real problem .
As for housing, HUD and Government subsidies PROMOTE being locked into poverty. Because if you earn enough money, you get kicked out and lose your subsidies. It is a vicious circle of poverty and dependency, all in the name of compassion (and the voting block for the same policies that you are supporting). Yes, I want to toss grandma off a cliff, and kill kittens (Just getting the inevitable Ad Hominem out of the way).
I want people to have opportunity, not guarantees. 40+ years of war on poverty, and we are no better off than before. Repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different results is insane.
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One, your rant is interesting because your sole fix for a really bad economy is taxing people more. Can you name a single example where taxing people more, improved things?
Current Federal taxes taken is $2.4 trillion; I modify this to about $1.2 trillion. I guess 1.2 is greater than 2.4 in your world.
Two, you can tax 100 % of the people you think aren't paying enough, and it won't help anyone. The rich can always avoid taxes, where the middle class cannot. The bottom 50% don't pay taxes (because they are poor).
I'm aware of that and accounted for it. You're in "repeat mantra instead of thinking" mode: you haven't engaged your brain in any way except to retrieve tired, old arguments.
Taxing the rich isn't going to fix this problem,
Let me repeat this:
Oh, and the top-tier tax bracket is bounded at 40%. Our flat-tax rate--if we used a flat-income-tax system--would have been 29.97% in 2013; in large part using the top-tier bracket of 39.6% as a sort of risk meter, I conjectured that taxing the richest-of-rich more than 4/3 the effective tax rate was poor tax policy
Let's put this simply: The group of people who end the day with MORE TAKE-HOME PAY in my system is EVERYONE.
As for housing, HUD and Government subsidies PROMOTE being locked into poverty. Because if you earn enough money, you get kicked out and lose your subsidies.
So let's quote myself again:
I wanted a system that would absolutely compensate for inflation, diminish (and survive) recessions, and eliminate welfare traps (i.e. adding employment should *always* add to your income, rather than competing with a welfare service; it's no good getting a $10/hr job and losing $9.75/hr of welfare, because then you get to work for 25 cents an hour and fuck that).
Congratulations: you took the solution I
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Taxes are regressive. All of them. The rich will pay to avoid them, the poor cannot. Guess who is impacted more by any / all taxes?
Welfare should be TEMPORARY, and limited in scope.
Minimum Wage is always $0, regardless of the starting wage.
The economy today has a much higher productive output per person, which means some things are possible which weren't possible before. If you're out of air in the tank and suffocating, pulling your mask off underwater means you drown; pulling it off when you're on land means you live. Same action, different consequences. You can't explain that.
If you are dumb enough to go diving, without a clear plan, reserves in the tank, and run out of air, I don't expect the government to suddenly provide you with a "Air Grant" and subsidies for being stupid. You went high risk activity and got the result you were looking fo
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I was more indicating the Bundy Brothers... in Oregon, apparently.
You mean where it ended in a shootout, and there's an on-going grand jury investigation into misconduct by the FBI, where the FBI is refusing to disclose information? And it's come to light that the FBI had tampered with evidence before the shooting and after the shooting?
Re:Amazon is awesome for knockoffs! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that we have accepted, in a large number of cases, ignoring laws we don't like, and people think that is how it is supposed to work for all laws.
^ This, right here, is correct...
If you get to pick and choose the laws you follow, then they aren't laws at all, but mere suggestions...
Civilization doesn't work very well when that happens...
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White Privilege right there. Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton, the finest examples there are.
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Well, to be fair, it is mostly people up north that get their panties all in a wad over the confederate battle flag.
Most folks in the south don't think it is the horrible symbol of racial bigotry, etc.....it is just a symbol of the south.
Hell, I associate it with going to Lynyrd Skynyrd concerts [youtube.com] (their backdr
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That pretty much sums it up. Everyone thinks someone died and made them supreme arbiter of which laws and regulations ought to be followed, and they all get quite unhappy when someone else's opinion conflicts with theirs.
Re:Amazon is awesome for knockoffs! (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that we have accepted, in a large number of cases, ignoring laws we don't like, and people think that is how it is supposed to work for all laws. You cannot say we are going to ignore laws we don't like, and at the same time want people to uphold / follow laws we like, but they don't.
No, the real problem is that there are far too many laws. The law is supposed to be something that nearly everyone actively agrees with, in its entirety. It also needs to prescribe responses which are proportional to the offense; that's where its legitimacy comes from. Things like "if you commit murder you can be locked up (and maybe killed)", "if you steal then the property can be taken back and you can be fined"... these are accepted by almost everyone, being impossible to dispute coherently. Turn about is fair play; the murderer or thief can hardly object to being subjected to the same treatment they practiced against others.
What we have, however, is a vast array of laws too large for any one person to comprehend, most of which carry disproportionate punishments. Most of which, in fact, have no proportional punishment, because there is no victim whose rights were violated, and thus nothing to be proportional to. Such laws have no legitimacy.
This isn't a matter of laws we like or don't like. Treating the law as if it were determined by some sort of popularity contest is actually part of the problem. The distinction is between laws which have a sound moral and ethical basis, vs. ones that have merely been made up by legislators for reasons of social engineering, demogogy, and/or personal profit.
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You've gone insane from wingnut propaganda. People call the toxic Conservatives bigots and racists because of the bigoted and racist things they say and do. It's a dead-end subculture that destroyed the Republican party.
Funny, I thought Bill Clinton was a Democrat. He was a member of a "whites only" country club and he was proud of the confederate flag even using it as part of his campaign logos and making a speech about how much he loved that flag. I thought it was the Republican party that ended slavery and ended segregation in the schools of the south and state democrats were the ones that opposed it. I thought Democrats in the US senate and House voted against early legislation to end segregation and extend rights to n
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I thought it was the Republican party that ended slavery and ended segregation in the schools of the south and state democrats were the ones that opposed it.
The R and D parties were different back then. Also the country is different now from what it was (which is why we cannot put a man on the moon like we did nearly 50 years ago).
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Protesting, and calling anyone who complains a bigot, racist or homophobe = part of the process of freedom of political speech = part of society's rules for the process of change.
I never said it wasn't. But I also noticed that you left out "rioting, blocking roads ...." all criminal acts included in my original comment, that gave a more complete context to my point, rather than the cherry picked version you responded with. I can't even give you 1/10 for that, because ignoring the bits you don't like, is EXA
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Yes, Dick Cheney outed Valerie Plame who was an undercover CIA agent at the time. We know this because Libby's own notes state Cheney told Libby about Plame. This was after her husband showed the yellow cake memorandum to be fake which of course upset the Bush administration because it couldn't use that lie as justification to invade and occupy another country.
Further, here is Representative Tom Davis talking about classified information when Valerie Plame testified before Congress about how much damage Che
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Or don't have the millions of dollars to buy governments like corporations in the US. We don't live in a democracy, we live in an oligarchy, stop being naive.
All that money doesn't do any good if the people would get up and vote and use their brains...
Bernie Sanders came close to it, but too many people are sucked into the Clinton machine...
Trump won for much the same reasons, beating out very well funded efforts to stop him.
The people are the ultimate source of power, if they would only use it, all those rich people would be powerless...
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They mention this in an article on a company that fake NEC products. In some cases they had researched and developed their own original products and branded them NEC. It's an amazing story.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05... [nytimes.com]
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The knockoffs on Amazon have been complete trash. Just saying ;)
Re:Amazon is awesome for knockoffs! (Score:5, Informative)
Knockoff doesn't have to mean low quality. Often times the quality is almost as good as the premium name item.
Just saying.
True, but you should:
1. Be clearly informed that what you're getting is a knockoff, not the real thing
2. Be supported by Amazon when attempting to return substandard goods
3. Expect that Amazon would insist on the above
That's not happening. My increasing reluctance to deal with non-"Prime" vendors is due solely to Amazon's lackadaisical attitude towards what is being sold. As long as they get their cut, they appear not to care. And the product descriptions on some of this stuff are misleading and so brief as not to provide any significant information about what is being sold. I'm talking about lack of dimensions, poor product photos, that sort of thing.
Amazon's on track to become as sketchy as Ebay.
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My increasing reluctance to deal with non-"Prime" vendors is due solely to Amazon's lackadaisical attitude towards what is being sold.
This so much! I only buy from Prime vendors for that very reason. And if at all possible, I will always purchase from the vendor of the product through amazon, even though it may cost slightly more, I know I will get it in 2 days and it will be legitimate.
Cutting corners (Score:2, Insightful)
Knockoff doesn't have to mean low quality.
True but let's be honest, it usually does. It's typically hard to make things cheaper without cutting corners somewhere. Some exceptions of course but not many.
Re:Cutting corners (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cutting corners (Score:5, Insightful)
As I understand the term, it's only a knockoff if it's attempting to portray itself as a different company's brand. Supermarket own brand ketchup is not a Heinz knockoff, even if it's made in the same factory with the same ingredients, because it's got someone else's name on it and isn't trying to pretend to be Heinz ketchup.
If the shoes cost $20 to make and you can get shoes for the same quality as Nike and manage to sell them for $40, making $20 profit on each one, then you shouldn't worry about putting your own brand name on them. You'll get good reviews and the value of your brand increases. The problem is when you make an inferior product and put someone else's name on it, because then you get the benefit from their reputation and they pay the cost when their reputation suffers because of the substandard goods.
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The point is that they wouldnt sell under a non-premium brand, hence why this is an issue - they are trading on the value of the brand, regardless of the quality of the goods.
Otherwise the knockoffs would do just fine under their own brand.
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Hell No (Score:5, Insightful)
A few years ago, I purchased what I thought were genuine Nikon batteries for use in my cameras.
Once they arrived, I took a very good look at them and determined they were, in fact, counterfeit.
( They had official looking hologram stickers and whatnot, but were not the real thing )
I returned them and ended up purchasing the batteries through a local dealer instead.
Now, while some will say " What's the big deal ? ", if a problem develops within those batteries and
it ends up destroying your $$$$ camera, you can bet Nikon would tell me " Too Bad for you ". Otoh,
if a genuine Nikon battery does the same thing, Nikon would probably be a bit more sympathetic since
it is their official product that I'm buying.
Bottom line: If I cannot trust Amazon and / or the sellers who operate through Amazon to deliver genuine
products, I will simply cease using Amazon to purchase any of it.
It's that simple.
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A few years ago, I purchased what I thought were genuine Nikon batteries for use in my cameras.
Once they arrived, I took a very good look at them and determined they were, in fact, counterfeit.
( They had official looking hologram stickers and whatnot, but were not the real thing )
I returned them and ended up purchasing the batteries through a local dealer instead.
Now, while some will say " What's the big deal ? ", if a problem develops within those batteries and
it ends up destroying your $$$$ camera, you can bet Nikon would tell me " Too Bad for you ". Otoh,
if a genuine Nikon battery does the same thing, Nikon would probably be a bit more sympathetic since
it is their official product that I'm buying.
Bottom line: If I cannot trust Amazon and / or the sellers who operate through Amazon to deliver genuine
products, I will simply cease using Amazon to purchase any of it.
It's that simple.
Yes, and I'll bet you a donut and a cup of coffee that, if you open up those batteries which are remarkably similar on the outside, you'll find (if you're lucky) undersized calls of dubious quality. The batteries, if you dared to put them in your camera, which I wouldn't recommend, will probably last 1/2 to 2/3 the time a genuine battery would.
As Heinlein said, TANSTAAFL. Sure, there's a Nikon markup, but if you want 3rd party bateries, don't buy the ones that are trying to pass for Nikon. Buy some from
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A few years ago, I purchased what I thought were genuine Nikon batteries for use in my cameras.
Once they arrived, I took a very good look at them and determined they were, in fact, counterfeit.
( They had official looking hologram stickers and whatnot, but were not the real thing )
I returned them and ended up purchasing the batteries through a local dealer instead.
Now, while some will say " What's the big deal ? ", if a problem develops within those batteries and
it ends up destroying your $$$$ camera, you can bet Nikon would tell me " Too Bad for you ". Otoh,
if a genuine Nikon battery does the same thing, Nikon would probably be a bit more sympathetic since
it is their official product that I'm buying.
Bottom line: If I cannot trust Amazon and / or the sellers who operate through Amazon to deliver genuine
products, I will simply cease using Amazon to purchase any of it.
It's that simple.
Yes, and I'll bet you a donut and a cup of coffee that, if you open up those batteries which are remarkably similar on the outside, you'll find (if you're lucky) undersized calls of dubious quality. The batteries, if you dared to put them in your camera, which I wouldn't recommend, will probably last 1/2 to 2/3 the time a genuine battery would.
As Heinlein said, TANSTAAFL. Sure, there's a Nikon markup, but if you want 3rd party bateries, don't buy the ones that are trying to pass for Nikon. Buy some from a manufacturer like Wasabi (I've had good experience with them) or Digipower (likewise), who are trying to build a brand reputation.
I agree, if you are choosing a third party battery provider, that you find one that that has good quality. I've used Sterlingtek batteries in my Canon SLR cameras with no problems and they last just as long, if not longer than the manufacturer batteries. That being said, I knowingly went looking for third party batteries. I would be upset if I thought that I was buying a Canon battery but it turned out to be a knockoff.
Re:Hell No (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Chances are that "counterfeit" was made in the same factory line as the "real" one.
There have been a lot of cases of third-party batteries being made to significantly lower standards. Often the counterfeit ones are the QA rejects from the real factory.
2) Nikon wouldn't know if you you were using the "real" one or not.
LiIon batteries must communicate with the charger, some communicate things like serial numbers so they can tell it's a fake. A common failure mode is for the battery to expand significantly, at which point it may be difficult to remove it from the camera without causing damage that was obviously not done by the battery and thereby invalidating your warranty.
3) Relying on corporations to be sympathetic is pretty comical. Nikon doesn't care about you.
He's not relying on their sympathy, he's relying on consumer protection laws (you do have those in your country?). If I buy a battery from manufacturer A and put it in a device from manufacturer A, and it destroys the device, then it's clearly the responsibility of manufacturer A. If you buy a battery from A and it destroys a device from B then you're likely to have a lot of effort proving responsibility, and that's assuming that A is not some fly-by-night operator and still exists when you hit the problems.
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Once upon a time I thought no inkjet cartridge would have a DRM chip, but look where we are now.
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Re:Amazon is awesome for knockoffs! (Score:5, Funny)
"Hello main man! This product is best product. I have much happiness after buy. You buy. YOU BUY!"
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A lot of times, "knockoffs" aren't even that. If you take a knock-off to be a close approximation in appearance to a known brand, in some cases you'd be wrong. In some cases they don't even have to design or reverse engineer the product. "Second Shifting" is a thing too. A chinese contractor that has an order for 20,000 widgets already has the tooling setup and the materials at hand. It's no problem for the night shift to keep the machines running for their own private production run of an identical product
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So they are just letting the fakes win? (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems like this approach would just let the counterfeit products completely control the Amazon market for their type of product.
I wonder if Birkenstock is aware of a website called Aliexpress.com... A quick search shows that $20 off retail is much more than one needs to pay for a counterfeit version of their shoes.
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No, this is likely part one of an overall strategy.
If you noticed the blurb, they've been "working with" Amazon to tackle the issue. However Amazon is unable or unwilling or a combination of both to give them the tools they've been asking for. I'm guessing they'd want something like YouTube's ContentID to flag things. Of course, providing such a tool would be against Amazon's M.O. since it would likely cut into sales to a noticeable degree. Thus the move to get out of Amazon completely.
Next step is likely t
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If you noticed the blurb, they've been "working with" Amazon to tackle the issue. However Amazon is unable or unwilling or a combination of both to give them the tools they've been asking for.
If they want Amazon to "solve" the problem like eBay then I'm glad. EBay basically gives brand owners free reign to delete listings for products that compete with theirs with no recourse for the seller even if the listing is legit. I used to sell stuff on eBay for a living and we had auctions halted and strikes against us for merchandise (like fancy hand bags) that we knew beyond any doubt was authentic with a complete paper trail to prove it. EBay threw small sellers under the bus. Hopefully Amazon wil
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They primarily sell the kind of trashy sandals worn by people who leave the house in sweatpants.
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The Nike and reebok problem..
They sell $3.95 shoes for $100 or more. It's still low grade china made junk but with a premium price.
It happened to me (Score:5, Insightful)
When you think of fake products, knock-offs and the like, you think primarily of fashion goods, like the Birkenstock sandals in the article. So, when I bought a Black and Decker electric knife recently, I never dreamed there would be a problem. The knife is a piece of crap. It was haphazardly packaged, and will not cut through anything. True to form, when I complained about it, they offered to take it back if I would return it. But then I thought, "What I bought was an errand." Instead of getting a legitimate product, conveniently delivered to my front door, I got a crappy product, and now I have to print out the return strip, repackage it, and then go down to the UPS store and stand in line to have it shipped off. They say they'll pay for the shipping and refund my money, but isn't my time and effort worth something? Why should I have to waste an hour dealing with something that is obviously a fake product? If they can deliver me a glob of shit, they can goddam well come around and pick it back up. Amazon needs to scrutinize their sellers better.
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Honestly Black and Decker isn't much better than a Chinese knockoff. They are the cheapest appliance brand for a reason.
Re:It happened to me (Score:5, Interesting)
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While I am sure that it probably happens that companies do extra runs as you describe, I think it's erroneous to assume that "there is no company that is designing knockoff electric knives". China is famous for selling all kinds of knockoffs of all types -- batteries, chargers, cell phones, automobile parts, and so on. I cannot accept the simple argument that "B&D stuff is crap." I have a couple of friends and family members who have B&D electric knives and they function just fine. I also have a
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Nope. Not so in my case. I just checked the instructions I received to make sure. There is nothing that says I can have UPS come pick up the package. In fact, the only place UPS is mentioned in the instructions is where it says, "We recommend returns be made via UPS insured freight or fedex insured only and you keep the tracking number so that you would make sure that we would receive the item."
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Tools are an area where this seems to be a real problem. Another I've noticed is razor blades. I bought some Gillette Fusion blades last year which turned out to be very, very dodgy counterfeits, with obviously-fake packaging and blades that were downright dangerous to use.
This isn't just about shoes.
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I can totally believe that. That's a product ripe for exploiting. It's expensive, inconvenient to buy, and lot's of people need them.
BTW, not that I'm trying to sell a particular product, but since you mentioned razor blades, I've been using the Dollar Shave Club stuff for four years now and I am totally happy with them. I get five of the higher quality blades for $6 per month. Of course, they just got bought out by Unilever, so that might be the beginning of the end for DSC, but so far their products a
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Hand it to the delivery guy, leave it for them etc I've never had to go to the ups store ever.
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I'm sure this works if you have it packed and boxed and labeled correctly, etc. I don't have a box to ship it in (the original is gone), I don't have any packing tape, and no way to securely seal the lable to the package. Will it really work if I just leave the knife on the porch with the piece of paper with the return label taped to it and a note that says, "Hey UPS guy, take care of this"?
Don't have to wait (Score:2)
As another reply noted you can have the UPS just come collect the thing...
But if you prefer to drop it off in a store, you can just leave it on the counter in the store, you don't have to wait in any lines.
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This is where the reviews come in. If the buyers voice their experiences with that product openly and they are verified buyers of that item, then there shouldn't be an issue. I've also seen an item that has glowing reviews, but then you scroll down to see that all of the reviews are either not verified buyers of that item, or that they received the item at a discount or for free in exchange for an honest review.
Sometimes these reviews turn out to be legitimate, I also used to receive things from Newegg ba
"Branding" (Score:2)
Lev Andropov: It's stuck, yes?
Watts: Back off! You don't know the components!
Lev Andropov: [annoyed] Components. American components, Russian Components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!
I find it hard to get worked about about "branding" issues of Chinese knockoffs when most of the "branded" crap is made in China anyway.
Perhaps not in the case of Birkenstocks, which is perhaps why they are the only ones making a fuss over it. Otherwise it seems a tad overly hypocritical...
Amazon 'marketplace', wish I could disable it. (Score:5, Insightful)
When I go to Amazon to perhaps purchase something, I go there to buy from Amazon, not some unknown third party. I wish there was an option to disable the entire marketplace listings for my account. If there was such an option, I might shop there more. As it is I barely go there anymore.
I view Amazon now as I have Ebay for a long time, where I go to buy cheap trash I don't really need. And i don't buy cheap trash.
Other well known sellers are becoming like flea markets too, Newegg I'm looking at you. If I go to an online retailer I am going there to buy from them, not some guy on a street corner. That's how it feels now. :(
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At least newegg gives you an option to limit it to newegg itself as soon as you hit search.
But yes, my one experience with their 'marketplace' (flash deals) was shit. Item shipped significantly different than item pictured, far lower quality. On the plus side, they gave a refund and did *not* want their trash back. At least it only wasted a little time (and materials)?
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I wish there was an option to disable the entire marketplace listings for my account.
I'd love to have this option as well. Screening out all the cruft and crap at Amazon is nearly more trouble than it's worth now.
The other thing that baffles me about Amazon is that in their search pages, you can't jump ahead 5 or 10 pages...you can only advance 1 or 2 pages at a time. Depending upon what you search for and how you sort it, you might get 50 pages of irrelevant 99-cent items before you start to find what you need. Then you have to slog through them to get to what you really want. It's a perfe
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I'm willing to pay more at Amazon or Newegg...ONLY because I'm expecting them to stand behind what I buy there. When they start disavowing responsibility for stuff sold through their site, there's really no motivation for me to buy through them.
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I know which items are from a third party seller, yes you can tell at a glance. The issue is I don't care to see them, that's not why I am at Amazon, I am there to buy from them, and only them. Until recently I was very trusting of Amazon, now it appears counterfeits from third parties now get put in the same spot in the warehouse as legit items and sold by Amazon. Many Amazon reviews discuss this commingling problem and the resultant distrust.
The signal to noise ratio is way too high due to the flood of ma
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That strategy used to work, but not anymore. For "more efficient logistics", Amazon mingles counterfeit crap with their own. I've had to return camera batteries that were clearly fake, and water filters that were used, which I purchased directly from Amazon.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Search for whatever you're looking for. In the results, scroll down to Seller filter. Select Amazon, Amazon.com, or Amazon Warehouse Deals (used, scratch and dent, returns, etc) as appropriate. Presto, you just eliminated anything not sold at least by Amazon.
Summary leaves out a key part of the quote (Score:5, Informative)
Summary quotes the Birkenstock CEO as saying "The Amazon marketplace, which operates as an "open market,” creates an environment where we experience unacceptable business practices which we believe jeopardize our brand." It leaves out a later sentence in the same paragraph, which it probably at least as much of an issue as the counterfeiting problem: "It also includes a constant stream of unidentifiable unauthorized sellers who show a blatant disregard for our pricing policies."
Birkenstock wants all dealers to sell at full list - stores were selling on Amazon at a discount, and undercutting other dealers, who were complaining to Birkenstock.
Re:Summary leaves out a key part of the quote (Score:4, Interesting)
Summary quotes the Birkenstock CEO as saying "The Amazon marketplace, which operates as an "open market,” creates an environment where we experience unacceptable business practices which we believe jeopardize our brand." It leaves out a later sentence in the same paragraph, which it probably at least as much of an issue as the counterfeiting problem: "It also includes a constant stream of unidentifiable unauthorized sellers who show a blatant disregard for our pricing policies."
Birkenstock wants all dealers to sell at full list - stores were selling on Amazon at a discount, and undercutting other dealers, who were complaining to Birkenstock.
I used to be 100% against such policies until I realized the advantage. With MSRP policies, vendors have to compete on service and customer satisfaction. Without minimum pricing policies, the main competitive advantage comes down to price. Minimum sales price policies protect small vendors against large ones, to some extent. The big companies might be getting a volume discount from the manufacturer, but at least the small businesses have a chance at competition on their merits (service / reputation / customer satisfaction), rather than on price.
Another point is that the manufacturer dodges the potential legal problems of preferring one reseller to another. They can point to their MSRP policy as proof that they don't play favorites (they don't illegally play favorites, anyway) with their resellers.
I'm not saying MSRP policies are good, but they aren't 100% bad either.
Amazon is a crapshoot. (Score:4, Informative)
It's just like what Ebay has been for over a decade now. You can not be sure you are buying anything that is real. I used to use the "prime" as a real item indicator, but even thouse are now turning out to be china junk sold as real with a username that even looks real.
"SandiskMemory" is NOT Sandisk... in fact Sandisk does not have a direct amazon store so anyone using the seller name SanDisk is selling china fake junk.
Amazon refuses to fix this because they are making mad profit off of it.
Selling $10 Beach Sandals For $135 Doesn't Help (Score:2)
I have some sympathy for Birkenstock, but not much. For the amount of money they are asking for essentially a good name, they can spring a few extra coins (or whatever) on holograms or some other identification that shows it's THEIR genuine product.
Other than that, knockoffs are knockoffs and if a customer just wants the design and not the name, they should have the right to buy that if that's what they want.
I can tell you from my own standpoint, I feel a hell of a lot better scuffing up and getting sand in
Hardly Matters (Score:2)
Commingling Inventory (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem raised in the article is the commingling of inventory. Many sellers of products provide the products to Amazon, and they are shipped out of Amazon warehouses. When multiple companies are selling the exact same product, Amazon commingles the inventory, as they consider the products to be fungible. In theory, that's fine. However, if some of the companies are selling knock-offs, you have a problem. People ordering from the knock-off seller have a good chance of getting the real thing and writing a great review. People ordering from legitimate sellers get knock-offs and write terrible reviews.
I've seen a number of products myself where the reviews clearly indicate that people are receiving different products, and there's no way to tell which one you might actually receive.
If Amazon were to fix this one problem, they would be in a much better position to manage counterfeit products.
Re:Commingling Inventory (Score:4)
This is one of my main complaints -- you find a specific item and there's a dozen or more sellers of the item, including Amazon itself.
I usually filter by Prime and try to choose Amazon as the seller to make sure I have the best chance of getting the real product and a recourse for a failed product.
I think Amazon could benefit itself and its reputation by forcing greater differentiation of products by seller. You would think they would want to for brand identity purposes and to claim more sales, especially when the alternative sellers are often underpricing Amazon. I know they're making money either way, but usually they're making more when they are the seller and not just the transaction handler.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/08... [cnbc.com]
More info
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/... [amazon.com]
https://www.internetretailer.c... [internetretailer.com]
30% is a lot of money (Score:4, Informative)
- 30% is a lot. Last I checked, it was 30% of the sale price AND shipping
- Amazon doesn't make anywhere near 30% on just about everything else they sell, themselves. Much of their stuff is sold at a loss.
Now why somebody would want to give up 30% of the price (PLUS shipping) is beyond me. There are very few things that have the kind of markup it would take to make any money after that huge commission. I suppose that there's always somebody dumb enough to think that if you somehow sell enough stuff for a loss, eventually, you'll make money...?
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Depending on the sale it's typically about 8-15%. Some high-risk items are 45% (software licenses and other intangibles like digital music and books).
Who is losing who? (Score:3)
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You get what you pay for. I regularly (every week) order things from Amazon for a variety of electronics and components, their search is fast and consistent. I stay away from lower stars and if I want guaranteed quality (after prototyping), I happily pay 20% more at Mouser or other retailers. I like that when I don't get the quality I need, I ship it back for a full refund where most retailers will charge you a restocking fee even though they shipped you garbage.
Oh noes! (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue here, really, was that some vendors were actually willing to discount Birkenstock products instead of sticking to full retail price - and that made BIrkenstock's brick-and-mortar and small-web-site retailers cranky. So Birkenstock would rather lose a huge outlet for their products than lose a lot of smaller ones that don't want to compete on price. That's their call. But this is only marginally if at all about knock-offs. This is about competition and price, and Birkenstock is chopping off a venue where shoppers might save a few dollars on shoes so they could spend it on tofu instead.
Converse (Score:2)
Actually I've had a problem recently in that I wanted to get some good Converse knockoffs and Amazon was facing limited supply because of attempts on the part of Converse to crack down on this helpful customer-friendly business practice.
[Birkenstock] added that it will also ban any sales of its products by third-party sellers on Amazon
How can they even do that? Amazon isn't their site, and they aren't even going to be an Amazon seller any more. I suppose what they mean is that they won't sell to resellers who sell on Amazon, perhaps? Good luck with that whackamole game.
I guess we'll all turn to Birkens
Shoes? (Score:2)
Shoes, like monitors, are something I simply can't bring myself to buy over the internet.
Comfort of a specific shoe is such an individual thing, I couldn't do it without trying them on.
They are trying to scam YOU, so hit them back (Score:3)
I have returned small counterfeit or complete no-name imitations that were sold as the real item before. But then I realized that when a seller does that, they are basically trying to scam you and hoping that you won't do anything about it.
After realizing that, I just hit them where it hurts - give them a one-star rating of the vendor/transaction (not the product - remember that there are two different ratings on Amazon), and make clear on the review what the problem was. This will affect their ability to sell on Amazon, eventually.
The only time so far that I've had to do this for a small item the vendor refunded my purchase price and shipping without asking for the apparent counterfeit (and/or used) item back.
So remember, they're trying to scam you and get away with it - act accordingly!
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Actually it probably is... European trade rules prevent a company from "constructing" a limited market or artificially inflating prices for their goods through restrictive contracts to resellers or other like parties. Basically they have the choice of selling to the resellers or not. They aren't allowed to put restrictions (other than in some specific cases territory limits) on how the resellers sell the products or enforce minimum pricing for those products. I suspect that they need their resellers more
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Have you not seen "Not for Resale" on items before?
Generally you can't stop individuals from reselling used items, but you can refuse to sell in bulk, insisting on only selling things in lots of 5 or fewer. Effectively this makes large scale resale operations impossible.
Or you can set it up so that you sell in large lots only via contracts that specify not for resale less than a set price. This means you can sue if someone sets up a large scale resale operation.
Often these techniques are used to grant pe
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They can be resold as used, but not resold as new...
They probably don't care as much if the items are resold as used on eBay and Amazon, but they can enforce not reselling them as new...
The "first sale" rules do allow you to resell stuff that you purchased, but it is no longer new.
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First sale doctrine anybody ?
Sure, but you should learn what that is before you toss the term out... :)
It allows you to resell an item that you purchased, but note that the item is no longer NEW... it is now USED...
Yes, even to a toaster oven, there is a legal definition of "NEW" and if you buy it at Walmart and resell it on Amazon, it is actually no longer "NEW".
Now does anyone care in that case? Probably not, unless the toaster over maker wanted to put a stop to it.
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Has nothing to do with selling something 2nd hand.
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Buying OEM (Score:2)
Perhaps it's not as big of an issue for some types of products, but I certainly don't want a counterfeit battery in a phone that costs nearly $700.
Not a problem if you buy the battery from the OEM. Not saying you should have to and it's typically more expensive but it's always the way to be most certain the battery is authentic. If the OEM can't weed out the fakes then the fakes are probably pretty darn good anyway.