I buy Qunol for a friend and the only way it could be selling for $10 less on Amazon (including delivery) than it does at Costco is that it is a knock off. What is in those Amazon capsules we have no way of knowing. This would be a good use of block chain technology- tracing the product factory to buyer.
3
Recently I downloaded an app for my phone called “Fakespot” which analyzes an Amazon listing’s reviews and assigns a grade, A to F, as to the likelihood of those reviews being legitimate.
It’s been a real eye opener. Listings with unpronounceable trademarks, with hundreds or thousands of seemingly legitimate reviews, are frequently flagged as “C” — or less.
While shopping for a tension rod for a shower curtain yesterday, I could barely find a legitimately reviewed product among the dozen unfamiliar trademarked listings with 5-star reviews. Discouraged after a parade of “F” rated listings, I finally resorted to purchasing a recognizable name brand, Moen, with good but not great reviews — but with a Fakespot “A” rating indicating minimal deceptive reviews.
19
Amazon will do everything it can to squeeze more cash out of every crack. That's unavoidable. At least make it pay its fair share of taxes, it has so much money it would never know the difference.
3
As long as there’s a decent profit margin, this will be amazon’s practice. Most people will continue to buy wherever they find the cheapest price.
If you, however, value a particular brand over the cheapest price, it’s easy enough to do a search for your preference. Complaining about Amazon’s policies won’t change anything but our collective buying habits can. (According to this article, they already have!)
3
And these companies don't even bother to use grammatically correct English. Sometimes they use phrases that make little sense in English and are clearly translated from another language. I feel that they dump low quality merchandise on Amazon because they know most shoppers will buy the items simply based on price. That they don't care enough about the American cutomers to have the descriptions written in American or British-style English is a big turn off to me. I'll look for the item from another manufacturer.
That being said, with all the low quality Chinese junk sold on that site and the inability to send an email to Amazon for customer service (who really has the time to sit around, waiting for help while on chat on the computer or by voice, for a solution that can take up to 30 minutes or more??), I know use Amazon far less and buy my items elsewhere when I can.
11
What exactly is the complaint here? That you have too many choices? One person's off-brand cheap junk may be another one's treasure.
Let's take neckties. You can buy a piece of silk with a brandname like Armani on it for around $100. Most of the cost is in maintaining the brand by paying for celebrities and models to appear in adds. If the brandname is important to you, by all means go ahead and shell out the money. If you just want a nice silk tie, Amazon gives you plenty of options for less than one tenths of the price, but without the celebrity endorsement. Quality, you ask? It is often the same factory in China producing both items.
In all cases shoppers need to pay attention and make a calculated risk decision. Amazon is open for all consumer needs. If you don't mind paying a premium, there are plenty of other online shopping sites with gatekeepers keeping the riff-raff out.
6
@W. B. yeah, I'm only a few paragraphs in and realized the article is about the number of generic brands that are now available within a global market...not really an issue. I mean, you can buy designer or generic. Whatever.
T Bogus goods or bad service. That's what we get for the rock bottom prices. Try being an American seller on Amazon. In the early part of the 2000s, I used to sell goods on both EBay and Amazon as a way to make a few extra dollars. It was a pretty good way to generate some extra money and I prided myself on excellent ratings. Then along came the Chinese sellers and their goods. They undercut American sellers (familiar story) with dirt cheap prices and bogus goods. If they get a bad rating, they just change the seller name and start over and they get away with it because they sell so much. It's a racket. Amazon (and EBay) promotes certain sellers and they promote a lot of Chinese sellers, undercutting everyone else. I packed goods myself and mailed promptly, an invoice and personal note. But no one can compete with dirt cheap prices even if the merchandise is questionable. I stopped selling about 2008 on both EBay (they are worse) and Amazon. Now I constantly get offers to get free items from Amazon sellers, clearly from China, in exchange for writing a review. A good review. These items aren't about status, but the cheap price. Amazon hides the fact that most are sellers from China. The lure of great prices means buyers give up good service and honesty.
4
@gmt It's telling to see the same exact item with the same exact photos sold by multiple sellers. When I see that, I look for something else-it's a red flag.
3
I don't understand the point of this article. If you try buying brands you don't recognize, and you are satisfied, then good for you, and you'll try again. And if not satisfied you return for refund, and you probably will be more careful next time. Isn't this the beauty free markets? of course if it's a big ticket item, or not a commodity like gloves, you'll shop with more caution.
2
@Gene Miller
Beauty???
I don’t care about designer brands but I do want decent quality and something that I won’t need to discard and replace in short time. But there’s no beauty in spending large amounts of time trying to figure out which products are trustworthy and then wasting time on a return process and having to start over...
I used to do a lot of my shopping on amazon because it saved time for me. Now it’s precisely the opposite. And based on the comments here I’m clearly not alone in avoiding amazon now.
12
As I said to my dad when I installed the ... Munozooli ... faucet at his house, "It was probably so cheap because it's filled with spent nuclear material."
I am really trying to be better, but it's not easy. There is not even a filter on Amazon to permit one to keep things local / American, and the product descriptions often don't include manufacturer origin. They have a million other filters, but somehow not that one. I shudder to think of how many of these goods are made by Uyghurs in the so-called education centers in western China or children who are effectively living the lives of slaves.
Amazon, Walmart, etc. - all the companies that took off after Clinton's trade-shifting policies - have no incentive to budge on this. Amazon can make a lot more money selling stuff that has decent looking photos, a load of phony reviews (I am pretty good at sniffing these out, but Amazon somehow is not), and super-low prices than you can selling quality products that will not need to be replaced in three years, are made by companies that are paying decent wages and are not polluting environment by shipping them halfway around the globe, but look the same in photos.
I want to pin the blame on someone else, but really... I know how it is, and I need to step up to the plate. It would be nice to have a little help, though.
15
A major problem with Amazon is that while shipping to you is cheap or free, sending defective products back to China is not, often costing more than the product itself. So much for any supposed satisfaction guarantee.
The reviews are often blatantly fake, with comments not even about the product listing, simply copied and pasted from something else.
The marketplace is built to accommodate sleazy, fly-by-night sellers.
4
Turns out the thing Amazon is actually good for is buying books .
3
@Allright Unless they're counterfeit!
3
I have no sympathy for the "Ultra-Luxury" (and ultra high-priced) fashion brands whose products are copied.
As far as I'm concerned, they're just as much rip-off artists as the counterfeiters whose goods are, in many cases, indistinguishable from the "real things".
And I can't understand why anyone would pay their ridiculous prices. The appeal must be in the label because the product certainly doesn't merit them.
I stopped using Amazon for ethical reasons, but persistent quality issues were driving me off the platform as I made that decision. Hundreds or thousands of interchangable "brands," inexcusably cheap and lazy and forgettable.
5
This is precisely the reason Amazon is the behemoth it has become and why Jeff Bezos has become the richest man in the known world. You can never be sure if you are truly getting what you are plunking your money down for -- especially when I see the words NEW and USED next to an item like a blender- A USED blender? Ugh!
After a few bad experiences with counterfeit items and other seriously poorly made things like bedframes or intant pots, I have gone back to online stores like Target or simply going to a brand's own website. Beware Walmart's online store too, items are not always from Walmart but 3rd party sellers.
5
Everyone should watch John Oliver's Last Week Tonight: Warehouses, about the shameful conditions in Amazon for their workers.
You can look it up on YouTube; their weird addresses do not really work here.
2
Another reason not to shop on Amazon!
5
so online is a giant flea market.. some good products, many bad. why I tend to shop at traditional stores and their sites. They at least have some semblance of credibility.
4
Cheap stuff, fast, lots of it. Repeat.
I’m not against a free market, but Americans seem unaware, or unconcerned, about who profits from their purchases or how their purchasing affects the environment. You can’t buy cheaply manufactured gloves that are made in a Chinese factory, shipped around the world and hen delivered to you in a cardboard box and then claim to be pro-America or concerned about the environment.
6
I learned this the hard way a week ago when the internet enabled smart bathroom scale I bought almost three years ago got bricked through a software update that no longer included support for my model in the new version of the app. Granted, this can happen with any internet appliance but at least with established brands I have some idea of the type and length of ongoing support I can expect. It may sound like cynical consumerism but I’ve noticed myself caring more about the brands I buy as I get older, who they are and what they stand for is as important to me as what they sell.
2
My awareness of this problem on Amazon started last year when I tried to buy a decent but cheap AM radio for baseball games. I could not find ANY major brands in the first few pages of search results and all the radios looked alike, but with different brand names emblazoned on each of them. Using Amazon shopping web sites I was also able to determine that most of the hundreds of 5 star reviews were questionable. I held my nose and bought one because I was desperate, and of course it was total garbage.
Then, this year I needed to buy a high quality bathroom scale. Again, there were no major brand names coming back from Amazon searches, and all had fake reviews. I finally searched on other web sites until I chose a brand and model I wanted, then plugged that exact model into Amazon. Only then was I able to find the listing, with no fake reviews, and buy a good scale. This scale was not showing up in normal searches. It was buried.
This issue is probably killing the decent brands out there because no one can find their wares.
8
@C I would go one step further and just not even buy it from Amazon...
7
Move a company out of the country - and you will get exactly that - the "customs" and "traditions" of other countries. Employees of Amazon (mostly in China and India) have been selling internal data and other confidential information that gives an edge to foreign merchants "cartel style". I used to be a seller on Amz and know this is A LOT bigger than most Americans think or what the paid media will let on. Fyi, US customer data is also up for grabs. In other words, while it may look like Amazon is causing to drown the US in trademarks - it's really just drowning the country.
1
Stores filled with junk, cheap and convenient, perfectly sums up our consumer culture. Buy and discard. Buy again. Buy a lot.
79
This is the price we pay for leaving brick-and-mortar stores behind. Macy's is shuttering stores, but that salesperson on the floor was 1000x more credible than these bogus product reviews. Now that salesperson works in an Amazon distribution center while a robot measures their efficiency to mail our new low-quality no-name gloves.
163
I have a friend who had started his own e-commerce website for a particular type of household item. His success came from search engine optimization, so that if a consumer searched google for the product he sold, his site would appear at the top of the list. Top that off with good, quick service, free shipping, and reminders to re-order when the old product wore out, and business was good.
Then along came the opportunity to sell as a third party seller on Amazon, since a lot of consumers searched for those products on the Amazon site. He sent a few pallets of his various inventory items to Amazon's warehouse and was listed on the site as "third party seller, fulfilled by Amazon" with prime shipping.
After about six months, he says that Amazon had tracked which of his inventory was the most popular, figured out his margins, and began to offer the same items for a few dollars less than he was selling them, undercutting him (in some cases selling for less than my friend's wholesale cost) and depriving him of sales that he would previously get.
At around that time, he sold the business and is doing fine doing something else not Amazon-related. But the story, when he told me about it, was an ugly inside look at the underbelly of what seems so benign and convenient.
311
Wegman’s does the same thing: they sell other brands then copy and replace in their store brand. I don’t like their store brands.
13
@Jeanine This sort of private label example is everywhere. Incidentally, Sotheby's is now selling wine branded with 'Sotheby's' - and it's not even private label! They are simply taking wines made by notable winemakers and adding their name to the bottle.
At least these Wegman's branded items are truly private labels. Which I don't like either, to be fair.
3
@Jeanine
I’m sure Whole Foods will be next thanks to Amazon.
9
I think the outcry of so many comments here is a little over the top. Sure there is a lot of junk to choose from on Amazon but there are 1,000,000+ products to choose from -including that brand name you might want. Some tips to streamline the process:
example: If you want an Energizer AA battery, then just do a Google search for, "Amazon Energizer AA". That will be the quickest most direct way to get right to that product page, instead of using Amazon's own search engine. Then order it from the listing that's from Amazon (Amazon as the seller -instead of some 3rd party vendor name), which is always listed first if Amazon is selling it themselves. That way there will be no worry about counterfeits.
On the other hand, if you actually want the ultra cheap knock off battery that ships from China, and costs 10% of the price of the energizer... that option is available on Amazon, too.
You have a choice.
Yes, I understand the problems caused by a behemoth of Amazon,s scale, but the genie is out of the bottle, and I doubt the 5&10¢ or inde hardware etc stores are coming back anytime soon. Learn to use/navigate Amazon well, and it can be a great resource for obtaining what you need -and avoiding what you don't want.
6
Eight year old me and ten year old brother compared the number of M&Ms in a store brought bag costing a nickel to a vending machine bag costing a nickel. There was consistently a significant smaller number in the vending machine M&Ms. With the help of a seriously amused mother we sent off a letter to the President of the company and within a month had a letter and package detailing the relative expense of various distribution methodologies and hidden costs for those that might seem less expensive due to no apparent retail labor costs. Probably a secretary also included two much larger bags of both plain and peanut M&Ms. Been scooping up handfuls ever since. I often search by brand names but, hey, where's the Fiesta Ware directly from Amazon? Buyers can't all become influencers. But buying less as income goes up and aches and pains are taking over anyway.
6
Amazon has a fiduciary interest in NOT safeguarding its supply chain from counterfeit products. If it’s something that needs to be reliable (emergency supplies or extreme weather clothing) or if it’s something you put in your body, buy it from the reputable brand directly.
2
@Sebastian As I mentioned in a comment above, always order from the listing that's from Amazon (Amazon as the seller -instead of some 3rd party vendor name), which is always listed first if Amazon is selling it themselves. That way there will be absolutely no worry about counterfeits.
Read online and you'll find people's complaints invariably point to the vendor being a 3rd party seller, instead of Amazon directly as seller (Seller, not just "shipped by Amazon").
I have made the 3rd party mistake inadvertently myself, after going to the list of "All available sellers" in the quest to save that dime. But pay attention before placing the order (as you must on Any online site), and there will be no surprises.
@Mr. P
But instead of doing all that, it is far easier and more reliable just to buy directly from the reputable brand name.
I don't buy from Amazon any more. But my daughters sometimes do, and my advice is similar to Sebastian's. For example they should never buy makeup on Amazon, brand name or not. They always buy online directly from the brand, or from an authorised stockist.
I note you are the third commenter to give very similar advice on how to shop from Amazon. Just noting.
2
I stopped buying on Amazon more than two years ago. Their business practices, packaging, monopolization of online shopping and server services were not worth the small savings or convenience. I recently searched for a product and found the site is now dominated by thousands of cheep knock-off products.
They keep making it easier and easier for me to completely disregard them as a company.
22
I actually reduced my amazon shopping significantly since this change. I find weeding through the influx of fake brands from China so irritating with the fake reviews and questionable quality (plus often receiving a product that is different from what is pictured).
Unless I know the precise product and brand that I want to buy i go elsewhere now. If I need to browse options to make a decision i go to other websites that only sell legitimate brands with enough history that you can reasonably trust what you see. Browsing for something on Amazon is now torturous.
22
Don’t care about brands - best quality at best price. - done.
I agree. The problem is that brand is probably the best proxy for quality we’ve had.
2
Anything to sell! The other side is counterfeits of well established brands. I was recently looking for Seiko diver watch at Amazon and I am not sure that if I order I will really get a seiko. I’m a Prime member, BTW.
3
Amazon is selling the same junk found on AliExpress. The only difference is you don’t have to wait a month to get your junk and you pay a lot more for it.
5
While I prefer to buy American I'm not actually seeing what any of these Chinese firms and their silly trade names are doing wrong, except for those who sell fraudulent knock-offs.
The worst thing that I can say about many Chinese products is that they are shoddy.
5
@MIKEinNYC The huge number of the Chinese sellers selling the same things can push out legitimate sellers, especially with their large numbers of fake reviews.
2
Amazon's the new digital Canal Street, lol.
6
Is this any different from those clothing ads that regularly change company names, and appear seemingly everywhere on the internet? Apparently they are Chinese companies that receive lots of complaints for lousy products. Don’t they also pop up when I’m on my digital NYT subscription?
8
I hate that Amazon is allowed to undermine the legitimate American compnay who may have spent years building the wuality and brand only to then allow a Chinese factory to sell a cheap derivative, and lazy consumers just buy it.
I’m with the other commentat9r below who said:If an Amazon product I'm interested in does not have a US track record, and a recognizable brand name, I won't buy it.
We consumers are tired of this fakery and exploitation of our market, and purchasing power. We choose well made, safe goods for the global citizen.
Lets start a new movement #wellmadegoodsglobalcitizen
4
What ever became of standing behind what you sell?
4
Margins are better if you grab the money and run before Amazon kicks you out. Then just post the same product under a different brand name, grab what money you can until you get kicked out again. Amazon’s brand is taking a hit because of these sellers.
1
I often use Amazon to narrow down my brand options, and then complete my order by buying directly from the (legit) companies marketing their wares on Amazon.
Sometimes, the items are less expensive on the sellers' websites, than they are from Amazon.
10
I am a contrarian at times. I am practical. I utilize Amazon a lot because I have little time to go shopping physically these days. I have found that I can return for free products that don’t work out. I use Prime for a lot of its features and it’s good value.
I have purchased some obviously made in China brands. One clothing line has been awesome. They typically don’t send cheap stuff. I have articles of clothing I got 3 years ago - all still just fine.
You have to be an aware shopper and read reviews which are not fake (people post photos). People are honest if something is not as advertised. The brand takes returns no questions. Amazon customer service has been stellar.
One brand of appliance from China that I tried purchased on Amazon sent a gift as an apology when I returned an item that didn’t work well. I was impressed that they did this.
I warn against stereotyping. It’s not a good policy for us to do that. Not everything that comes from China is junk. Not everything that comes from the US is good, either.
As much as people want to Amazon-bash, I believe that they have a lot going to fill gaps in some of our spaces that others can’t.
At least I haven’t suffered cybercrime issues with them as I have with some name brand retailers. In as much as people like to bash Amazon and Microsoft - in my experience, they have great customer service - Apple is pretty good as well.
Again, I just needed to offer up an alternate opinion.
15
I’ve stupidly bought smoke alarms on Amazon. I started to worry what if they don’t work. Sure enough after making some controlled smoke under them they never went off. The whole year I had the alarms in my house of 4 and the red lights flashed the pieces of...never would have worked.
5
I stopped buying anything but kindle books on Amazon. unless you know the exact make and model of what you're looking for, Amazon is no longer worth the effort of sorting through hundreds of these pseudobrands with their thousands of fake reviews.
the site is just an overwhelming mess of near identical garbage, impossible to sort through.
can't say my life is any worse without them.
28
I've encountered this rip-off. Folks walk into Nordstrom or whatever and don't get ripped off like that. Amazon has a problem.
7
Is Amazon actually worse than IBM? Forget their 14 principles, there’s only one: shoe me the money!
1
"...If a Chinese factory is able to give a better price than a seller in America, Amazon is happy with that...
For eyeglasses, so are many of its customers...
4
@W in the Middle I totally don't understand why anyone wants to buy online eyeglasses. I've tried just frames and most of them are sized way differently than the measurements indicated. What good are they if they fall off your face?
1
This is what wrecked EBay and now Amazon is going in the same direction.
13
@Cloudy I'm seeing a lot of Chinese personalized items on Etsy now. Cheap stuff that simply has a name or a phrase etched into it, diluting the Etsy name.
1
Don’t people realize amazon is the Walmart of the internet except Walmart is probably more socially and environmentally conscious.
6
These "pseudo-brands", as the author refers to them are not brands at all, but fake labels affixed to Chinese knockoffs to make it seem like the products are produced by legit U.S. companies. They we are drowning in them is the price Americans pay for our over consumption of cheap goods. That Amazon is stocking them is further evidence that Amazon will sell anything - there is no standard with them. The ubiquity of the pseudo-brands are what's killing legit U.S. companies and brands.
7
you get what you pay for
2
Aren't most of these brands the equivalent of ghost kitchens or restaurants, those brands that only exist on uber eats, door dash and such?
7
Buyers just need to be smart in new ways while exploring the on-line universe of shopping, especially Amazon. Don't buy products from unfamiliar brands or products that haven't received independent favorable reviews. For those unfamiliar brands or items, don't trust Amazon reviews or products marked as Amazon Choice. Great deals and speedy shipping can be had aplenty on Amazon but know what you're buying. Since we're on our devices when doing that shopping anyway, a few more clicks to do some research doesn't take much extra effort.
8
This is a well deserved reckoning for 'brands' which have been exploiting sweatshop labor in East Asia for decades. Did they really believe they could maintain the facade of homespun retailers as quality cuts continued while consumer prices remained steady. Now the market of the multinational factory coefficient has come back to corner them with no room to complain. This should wake people up to the illusion of branding instead of steadfasting an outcry for consumer nationalism. The advertising hypnosis is finally revealing itself. Capitalism died in friendly fire.
5
Why is the fact of all these new brands presented as a big expose? If someone wants to produce a product, attach a brand name to it, and sell it on Amazon or wherever, what is the matter with that? Nothing, it seems to me. People are producing things and selling them. Great. They are trying to make a living and produce and sell things--often at low prices--which people want. Please quit beating up on anything "Tech" and anything connected with Amazon. What is going on here is just fine.
6
@Gordon Wiggerhaus Sure, it's "just fine" — except for the fake reviews, the rigged search results, the need to enroll in the brand registry, the resulting strain on our trademark system, etc., etc.
Just fine.
As a heavy Amazon users, I'm not afraid to say that Amazon has a big problem with selling "junk", designed online to look like "not junk". Perhaps this relates to brands, but with 4-5 photos and a plethora of [fake] positive reviews you can make any junky item look as good as a more expensive brand name of better quality. Getting the customer fooled enough to buy the item is your goal, and counting on a minimal number of returns probably comes 2nd.
I can't tell you how many items I've bought I received and instantly had a sink in my stomach when the quality was far less than expected. Some I kept, because they seem to work initially, and just because it looks and feels cheap doesn't mean its bad, right? Multiple failures in the first 30 days, thankfully amazon has a generous return policy.
I've tried clothing several times. Things like a bag of mens socks, which seem pretty simple. The equivalent bag of "Hanes" socks that you see in the store had amazingly lesser quality, almost unwearable on amazon. I now buy them solely in the store for a couple dollars more.
For some shirts? Found some great shirts that appear to be what I want with positive reviews. I received, and within moments I could tell they look no better than something made in highschool sewing class. The cut is basic, the material cheap and shoty, and it is likely a cheap knock-off of a brand's version.
Name brands may be more expensive, but they don't disappoint in this way + they hold up longer.
11
@MH I have found that laser printer drums and cartridges are a loss, even with the manufacturer's brand name. They've only lasted for a few days.
@MH AS for clothing, it seems that sometimes the sizes are S, M, L for the Asian market. Sure, I can return items, but is it really better to buy clothes online, have them shipped to my house, and ship back those that don't fit? It's too bad Macy's and Sears have closed in my town. That was a much better way to buy clothes.
I buy from eBay much more than Amazon. I filter by USA-only sellers with a very few exceptions. In addition, I check fora which recommend certain sellers and report back on what they got. The hobbyist fora aren't yet overrun by bots.
3
We are not alone in our critiques of Amazon - ABC TV Channel 7 On Your Side consumer advocacy responded to my query about 50 sellers offering 'womens' pants wide leg XL' at ridiculous prices ranging from $.01 to $.99 and $13 - $19 shipping prices. 7 On Your Side indicated that, of course, something priced that low is definitly too good to be true and mentioned the incredible sums charged for shipping the unwholesome products back to China for a miniscule refund.
When I contacted Amazon (it took a long time to find the so-called Customer Services Department) the response was to some problem the poor shil made up and not to my questions.
Maybe the various Consumer Advocacy organizations are the best way to go for making changes and publicizing the problem. This article, as well, goes a long way towards doing just that. Many Thanks!
6
None of the "brands" listed are considered designer brands.
They are mostly knockoffs made with inferior materials in sweatshops in China, India, Vietnam, etc.
The tragedy is whoever buys them from AZ thinks they getting a bargain.
They are not.
They are buying worthless rags that will wear off or malfunction after 2-3 washes.
I am a believer in the old dogma" you get what you pay for".
5
These pseudo brands, like pseudo stores at the local mall, cause me to go elsewhere. I buy name brands. Period.
3
“We work hard every day to protect the shopping and selling experience in our store,” an Amazon spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Bad actors that attempt to abuse our systems make up a tiny fraction of activity in our store.”
This is so not my shopping experience on Amazon anymore that I’ll try very hard to find what I’m looking for elsewhere, even if I need to pay more. Start with the mind-numbing array of identical versions of the same product, obviously stemming from the same source, with a cheap company brand slapped on each to distinguish. Add the frequently poorly worded and confusing product descriptions that make comparison shopping, if you dare, tedious and futile. Then add the rampant and blatantly phony reviews that accompany so many of these products. The end result is feeling like you’re swimming through a cesspool of lies and misinformation.
Beyond the ugliness of the shopping experience is the feeling that Amazon has been gutted by micropredators that have effectively either undermined higher-quality brands or driven US vendors out of business. We all love our $6 pair of gloves, but we’re enabling a race to the bottom that we’ve seen the disastrous effect of time and again.
14
I sell on Amazon. When I first started selling there it was a badge of honor conveying a quality item. Now Amazon has allowed the bottom of the barrel sellers and made overseas junk to flood the market. Horrible. And fake reviews produced by Facebook farms. It’s terrible and Amazon do3s nothing about it.
Moving to other marketplaces and wholesale to save my brand from being marked as junk.
NYtimes has covered why brands are moving from Amazon to their own websites and alternative marketplaces.
Support these brands and micro Indie brands!
14
Yeah, no. These aren't brands. They're Chinese knock-offs, blatantly stomping on brands and trademarks. Panasound instead of Panasonic, things like that. If I could click a button on both Amazon and eBay that turns off anything from China, I would totally do that. As it stands, both these websites are on the verge of jumping the shark, because there's so much trashy clutter from China, it's not worth sorting through for actual well-made, known brands.
8
Just use Amazon as research as to what else they throw up, then go straight to the US or European source and source website! Also, the seller doesn't have to pay commission to Amazon!
2
This is really no different than the brand dynamics with all large retailers. At first you go to a new store ( take Home Depot, Target or Lowe’s when they first started) for the brands they carry. Eventually though, if the stores (like those mentioned) become successful, then the store brand becomes more powerful than the brands they carry, which is why they all inevitably start building house brands and is where they can make real money. In this case, Amazon is both building house brands in the categories that are the most popular and allowing others to build new brands while they leverage Amazon’s brand. It’s been going on since the dawn of retail but based on recent articles in this paper castigating Amazon for offering private label, evidently only the folks at the NYT are ignorant of the practice.
3
Do you think Crocs is an innovative brand? Chinese people were wearing those cheap sandals and all Crocs did was import them. So why not source what you want direct from China just as some "brand" does?
1
I am proud not to recognize any of the brands mentioned by Mr. Herrman. As to his statement, "Gloves, however, have always just been gloves, purchased without too much thought", I take a strong exception. Gloves are a very important accessory of men's and women's fashion.
Men's gloves, worn in weather that is not cold, should fit tightly the hands. Motorcyclist's gloves should be gauntlets with the cuffs widening toward the elbows, but not padded as heavily as to interfere with the use of a sidearm in case of emergency.
The prettiest women's gloves are long, extending to above the elbow. A problem may be at a table, eating with the gloves on, as required by the protocol.
1
I want to buy products that are made in the U.S. but it's difficult to get that information on any product on Amazon. There's no information on where the seller is located or where their products are made.
11
I worked as a moldmaker for 40 years before recently retiring.The 2008 economic crash saw the loss of over 400 journeyman tool makers here in southern Ontario. That and the unstoppable competition from the far east killed the tool trade here. We regularly saw quotes for molds that barely covered the cost of materials. One by one our customers got their products made in China. A long time customer stayed with us and did rather well. One day I got up the courage to ask him why he still had his molds built here despite the costs. He said his customers were tired of having their stuff show up for sale on E-Bay and Amazon 3 months after having it made over there.
35
@Michael Carter That happened to a relative of mine. After he outsourced manufacturing a product to China (after having been in business for some years), inferior copies popped up on Ebay and Amazon for much less than he could afford to produce his product.
4
@Michael Carter
The 2008 Republicon bush/cheney super recession. Ah, yes. Maximum mess with many businesses and families still reeling or blown away.
3
Trademarks are registered for only a class of goods, and it has to be a narrow class at that. You can't get a trademark on gloves, for example, and expect to use the trademark on other products.
Trademark law is not really being abused, but instead the Amazon system that requires a trademark is being abused. But that is the way things like this work. Every system is gamed.
7
Carhartt might be unfamiliar in tony areas of NYC but if you’ve ever worked in construction, farming or other outdoors jobs, you know their quality. Their apparel is instantly identifiable.
14
@From Where I Sit
I’m not sure why Carhartt was shown in the logo graphic, but so was Nike swoosh, and The North Face, which makes me think they were just showing recognized brands mixed with these unknowns.
9
@From Where I Sit The author specifically said brands like "Carhartt, which you'd recognize"...implying that it was considered a fully recognizable brand
2
@From Where I Sit did you read the entire article? Carhartt is used as an example of a familiar brand, not an unfamiliar one.
1
I have become frustrated with Amazon because it has been taken over by garbage brands. I’m also dismayed at how Amazon listings seem to dominate my Google search results, even when I’m looking for information, not products. I’ve taken to filtering Amazon from my search results.
44
Almost all commodity items I purchase on Amazon seem okay. These include light bulbs, small electronic gizmos, small kitchen things, etc. Things I could also get in a $1 store. I wouldn't hesitate buying gloves either, except I really want to try on first so I don't have to return.
Now, with regard to Carharrt, the writer obviously lives in New York and has never shopped in MAGA country.
I was also confused by appearance of Nike logo and other well-advertised brands.
2
The author clearly knows what Carhartt is— they mention it as an instantly recognizable brand in the introduction. I’m guessing you were wondering about the brand logo in the figure? Looks like they salted a few “real” brands (Nike, Columbia, Carhartt) to show how they’re being diluted by the spam.
5
@gene miller
Most of the Amazon brands I have tried have been junk. Commodity items, you can do better on and better quality Walmart, Target, EBay, Jet online. They also offer free shipping and you don’t have to pay for a stupid prime membership
4
Thanks for clarification about Carhartt. My bad.
I bought a weirdly branded TV antenna from Amazon. The package came with a card saying that if I wrote a review, they’d give me a $20 Amazon gift credit.
I wondered if I’d still get the credit if I wrote a negative review, since they didn’t specify “good review”.
The antenna actually worked very well, so I wrote a good review, and sure enough, $20 appeared the next day in my account as a gift credit.
So sleazy, though.
30
@Anne G
Also Illegal under Amazons Vendor Rules.
If I did it, my account would be suspended.
But somehow, when the Chinese do it, they are not !!
As well, that antenna if shipped from China, would cost 50¢ to ship 8000 miles to NYC, but if I shipped from my location in jersey - $4.00 minimum
For an American Company, Amazon very two faced.
Beware the behemoth that we have created.
5
Anne G, accepting payment for writing a review is a big no-no on Amazon. Let's hope nobody at Amazon can track you down. They might close down your account, or even sue you.
3
One reason Amazon is full of them is because they require you to input a brand name to sell something on their platform so even for generic stuff people often invent a brand out of thin air when creating a listing so it seems more legit vs just putting "unbranded" or something similar.
7
Fortunately, Amazon is just a click away from many other on-line 'stores'; any purchase that you want quality, price, and delivery can be compared easily by comparison shopping on Google. It is pretty easy to determine which 'brand'/'trademark' has legitimate reviews.
Many times, you can be driven back to Amazon for the price.
What's left is the fine print to make sure the Amazon product is not really a fake..Fortunately, you can also make sure Amazon will guarantee to refund your purchase including shipping costs. The transportation function of Amazon shipping to customers and back to Amazon is a win win for UPS, US postal service and warehousing jobs across the country and we buy and return these inferior goods, and probably is environmental friendly..of course the whole Amazon experience has killed the malls..
5
Are we ever going to step away from products that are one stitch away from the county dump? It sounds like an environmental catastrophe in slow motion.
45
Many of these products also game Amazon’s review system. I’ve looked up products like under cabinet lights (a category with many random brands from a China) and often the reviews will be about completely different products (hair clippers, dog bowls, etc.). Vendors appear to somehow be swapping out older products with high reviews for other (presumably brand new) products so it looks like they have dozens or even hundreds of positive reviews.
26
If an Amazon product I'm interested in does not have a US track record, and a recognizable brand name, I won't buy it.
34
Same here. I observed many of these are near exact copies of branded, known products with no hint of higher quality or an innovative feature.
4
Are there that many foolish or naive people who will order items with fake brand names? I guess as long as there are dumb people the sellers will succeed.
12
Carhartt, a ". . brand you have never heard of before . . ."
Really? What country are you'll from.
28
@Nick I know, right? I know the North Face, Columbia, Carhartt. What I don't recognize are the fake brands, say The North Mountain, Colombia, or Carheart, which are the nastiest things showing up on Amazon. Those things will destroy actual trustworthy brands if no one shuts that stuff down.
@Nick Actually, the article says, "On the first page you might see a brand you’ve heard of before, like Carhartt..."
Not sure why you inserted "never" into there.
2
The full article makes the case for fake brands but the headline with the picture is highly misleading. While not supported by the article, but not fully endorsed, the headline and online clickbait appear to say that Nike, Columbia, Carhartt, and The North Face are fake brands. I wish NYT would clarify.
There are two types of things to buy on the .com website: items that are purchased by Amazon and distributed on the website, and third party (3P) vendors who use the website as a storefront, with or without the option to have Amazon manage the fulfillment (shipping and returns).
If you are concerned about what you’re buying and/or don’t want to have the hassle of trying to get a refund from a non-responsive 3P seller, then filter for (1) Prime delivery and/or (2) seller as Amazon, Zappos, 6pm, or Shop Bop. Anything with Prime delivery will be fulfilled by Amazon out of our warehouses. Anything sold by Amazon or one of its subsidiaries is acquired directly and distributed by us.
If you want to know who sells and fulfills a specific item, look under the orange “add to cart” and “buy now” buttons. A small line will say “ships from and sold by amazon” or “sold by xxxx and fulfilled by Amazon.”
9
@Nuriya75 Do you work for Amazon? Amazon prime is flooded with junk sellers, and junk. So to say that third party sellers are bad is very wrong. I shop faster than Amazon, and my products are beautifully package unlike 98 per cents of the stuff I receive from Amazon prime.
Would I trust food products of bath and beauty from Amazon prime? Nope. Why I don’t trust how they handle the products, not how they store them. Beauty in particular need to be kept and certain temp to protect the products.
3
@Nuriya75
Nuriya, you forgot to mention that this is AMAZONS ULTIMATE EVIL GAME PLAN. They require ALL products offered by American Vendors (NOT Chinese) to be accompanied by a Manufacturer INVOICE.
Then they have the internal data. The source, the quantities and prices offered.
IF THAT product is a success, i.e. A high volume selling item, they then go to that SOURCE, or create a new copy of that item, and sell it as you guess it, as an AMAZON branded line.
The VENDOR that sold the product, will then RARELY IF EVER have the buybox again (the "buybox" is the vendor that is the first to appear on the list.
2
I have stopped buying things on amazon just for this reason. There is a bunch of nonsense brands with substandard products. The clothing and accessories are especially junk.
35
A lot of "brand names" have Pseudo value.
7
How about a "time-out" on the consumption of unneeded junk.
40
I can tell from some of the comments that people comment without reading the article. The point they make fits the title, but has little or nothing to do with the content of the article.
3
@Topher S This "headline" has been a boiling frustration for me. Can't even look at eBay and Amazon any more because of this issue.
1
So much for innovation. Must lead in the copycat game to make that money and fill those dumpsters! No time to waste!
No effort whatsoever to create sensible brand names. The IP lawyers just let their cats walk across their keyboards. Names that don't already have a copyright are good enough.
1
I'll bet The North Face brand, which is a quality American company that's been around for many decades, didn't appreciate having their logo included among the pseudo-brands in the graphic at the head of this article.
18
Yes, The North Face, a quality” American company which offshores a majority of its manufacturing to Asia. Tell me in the end what the difference is between an off brand Chinese product and one sold by The North Face. Buy a quality product which is actually made in the US? You bet. But companies like North Face or Columbia are American in name only.
9
@Eric Schneider Just because it is made overseas doesn't mean it is low quality. It all depends on the specs the manufacturer is obliged to follow. You should know that by now. As for The North Face, I don't know what their contracts are with their manufacturers, but I know that we backpackers were keen on their products for a long time. Maybe things have changed over the decades, but they have indeed been around for a long time for a reason.
9
@David Pratt
Often the difference between one brand and another is the willingness to stand behind the product. North Face replaced the broken zipper on a down jacket I bought years ago. I have a second North Face jacket and expect the company to stand behind it as well. I would not put such faith in a brand that comes and goes over a course of months or pulls out of the market when it gets flooded, and then moves on.
2
The listings for the gibberish "brands" are equally terrible, often containing seven different paragraphs and multiple graphics to describe an ice cream scooper. Real brands don't need that. Not to mention the "reviews" longer than a novel, praising said ice cream scooper. Sounds totally legit.
7
If it's amazon, I pass.
14
I canceled my Amazon account last year. Felt great about it!
3
The biggest impact of Amazon, though, is the fact that they provide a platform for cheap Chinese knockoffs. Why would anyone bother innovating and selling something on Amazon when a cheap knockoff with dozens of fake reviews will appear in a matter of weeks.
I don't have 15 minutes to cross-compare different USB cables and sort out Chinese-made products that will probably break in a few weeks from the stuff that is good. So I go to a reputable retailer instead.
Amazon has literally become the world's biggest junk store.
68
@john Yes it’s terrible. I sell there with great products. I want consumers to know that Amazon crushes small sellers if they don’t put their products into their warehouses. If you don’t use their warehouses and ads you don’t get seen. I don’t use 5e warehouses because of the nightmares on the Amazon forums about loss of product, how product is stored etc.
Truth - Amazon wants you to think that the only “good products” come from the warehouses. This is false. Those warehouses are loaded with atrocious cheap junk from overseas.
5
"Amazon has literally become the world's biggest junk store."
Indeed! That is why I 99.9% of the time don't shop on Amazon anymore.
These pseudo-brands are exactly why I won't buy clothes on Amazon any more. The quality is horrible. The colors are horrible. The sizing in unpredictable. The styles and overall looks are misrepresented in the photos. Even with the few items I've decided to keep out of the many I've ordered, it's usually out of a sort of desperation in terms of needing SOMETHING and not having the time to go to a real store.
Amazon is great for a lot of things, but their clothing is, overall, appalling.
12
Howard g -- A clever knockoff designed to fool unwary shoppers --
Howard G -- the bona fide brand - since 1951 -
Accept no substitute...
4
Jeez Louise, what a storm in a teacup.
If you want LL Bean brand 'Camp Shoes', then go to LL Bean's and buy them - they'll still come from China, but good luck finding them in stock in your local store. If you just want some soled moccasins then Amazon/Zappos will do you fine. And you'll have them tomorrow.
Most people - as evidenced by Amazon's success - simply don't care about the bragging rights of brand purchase. They want an adequate product at a fair price delivered to their door with a minimum of fuss. Most problems are prevented by reading the descriptions. In 21 years of buying from Amazon I've been very satisfied with the choice and quality on offer and can count the number of returns I've made in single figures.
And, if you are overwhelmed by choice I suggest you stay clear of the cereal aisle of your local supermarket.
4
@David Rose The problem is not that there is choice, it's that you have to vet each produce to the nth degree and even then there is no guarentee that what you have bought is what is represented, or comes from the seller that you were told it was.
If you haven't made many returns, you haven't done much buying lately - it's completely changed now.
8
I agree that chiice is what amazon offers. The issue is that “real” brands do not mean what they used to. They are made in the same factories as the copies but have the added sales/marketing/executive/profit bloat added on. But that bloat is made in usa.... and it’s mostly not worth the extra cost.
1
I wonder how many of the "job creations" in our current economy are actually facilitating cross-border commerce. And I wonder how many red-capped people who lustily cheer that job creation, and who think it outweighs the vileness and corruption of the current administration, and who decry "globalization" in knee-jerk fashion, also "sort by price" and buy on that basis, regardless of country of origin.
5
“it gives you more access to advertising solutions, which can help you increase your brand presence on Amazon.”
What this translates to is that brands, in order to protect themselves, must purchase --from Amazon-- their own brand name as a search keyword in order to increase their rankings. Right now, any black-hat company can purchase keywords and increase their ranking. Amazon is glad to play the cop, but only if you pay up!
Amazon could easily implement greater accountability for established brands and buyers by making the process for would-be sellers more stringent. But that is at conflict with how it makes money in the first place.
6
I've ceased to buy anything other than books and other media on Amazon. With media, the content is unique. You can't reproduce the contents of a book for cheap in a Chinese factory, there's only ever the one of itself. But for shirts or shoes or simple appliances there is a superabundance of cheap knockoff versions, as well as many American brands that send inferior quality products to Amazon by contracting with China and other cheap labor countries.
It's simply too much of a hassle to sort through hundreds of fake reviews to determine if a product is worth buying or cheap junk. So I'm skipping it. I buy from retailer websites or else visit a brick and mortar store for anything I want to verify the quality of first.
Funny how it's come full circle. The internet was meant to make shopping more convenient but charlatans have exploited its convenience to flood the market with knockoffs and cheaply made trash. The sooner other consumers wise up and start shunning Amazon's marketplace for Chinese bootleg wares the better.
10
@Joel
#metoo!
I have exactly been doing that, and actually bother to check out the company before i buy. I use Amazon as research as to what else they throw up, then go straight to the US or European source.
@Joel
But you're still aiding and abetting an unscrupulous merchant.
This is one of the many reasons I dislike shopping on Amazon. Women's clothing as a category is a nightmare. Full of so many off brands you can't find anything and the user experience is dreadful. Apparently I am the only person in America who thinks this, but I simply fail to see the appeal of the Amazon experience.
28
@Hector I'm a millennial and I actually remember when Amazon was a great place to shop years ago and I would buy everything on there. Best of all, when you ordered a third party item, 98% of the time, the item you bought was from a real reseller. That is how I aquired my Otter Box cases and which I believe an authentic Tignanello leather handbag.
Gone are those days though. Now Amazon is just filled with a bunch of counterfeit knock-off items from China. I too feel like an alien in feeling like I am the only person who does not shop on Amazon. With all of the counterfeit products and cheap-o items on their website these days, I don't even know why people are still shopping there or how Amazon is still making a profit. : /
3
I can't help but think of Ronnie Chieng's diatribe on "Amazon Prime NOW" critiquing American consumerism, not as ironic, but rather as fitting. His Chinese point of view that themes a comedy special that "Destroys America" is the very same one milking it dry.
1
@Mike
Ronnie Chieng’s point of view is not a “Chinese” pov. He is Malaysian of Chinese enthnicity and bred ina cosmopolitan city Singapore, and most people from that part of the world will be quite offended.
“ A fool and his money are soon parted”
“Cheap is as cheap does”
These axioms of commerce apply to the Amazon business model.
Instead of buying cheap brands you’ve never heard of buy quality from reputable American companies, which in the long run is actually more cost effective.
Case in point dress/business shoes: A pair of made in America Alden’s will run you about $500 to 750 these days depending if you go calfskin or shell cordovan.
I bought several pairs around 20 years ago in the 250 to 500 range which have only required the occasional new soles and heels and wear like iron. They look and feel great.
They're the cheapest shoes I’ve ever owned.
4
@winthropo muchacho
How nice to be able to afford to spend that much at once for shoes. Yeah, quality lasts and is cheaper in the long run, but not everyone can afford the cost upfront
3
And I buy second hand (er, recycled) Alden shoes on eBay. Same quality and less than half price. Many people apparently buy and wear them once for a wedding or job interview and that’s it.
I do not need more cheap Chinese junk.
1
Amazon isn't the safe market place it was a few years ago. Fake ads, fake reviews, fake products. Buyer beware indeed. I've been shopping more on Walmart of all things because at least there are fewer fakes. Gods Walmart! Amazon needs to get its act together.
7
Amazon has become a retail swamp to be avoided at all cost.
14
As others have said, Amazon reviews aren’t to be believed. I have been offered free products and/or Amazon gift cards if I would write a favorable review; gift cards for a positive review , and free products AND gift cards if I would take down my negative review. Equally suspicious is marketing Buzz Feed reviews with links to Amazon for oddball products. ( “Cleaning products we didn’t know existed and we really should have”) and their “promising review.” What is a “promising review” anyway? Apparently one person liked it and that she as enough?
5
@Olivia The products with thousands of reviews are most likely to have these generated by farms. I have sold on Amazon for years and many of my products have ratings under 30.
5
I sell used books on marketplace sites, including Amazon. I have been involved in marketplace sales for 20 years now, first selling on half.com. This article does not touch my market sector, collectible items.
One interesting point your readers might want to know about is that there are some really bad apples in the marketplace who steal folks’ ideas and trademarks and sell them as their own. Some people actually create original items for Amazon- perhaps an umbrella with Trump crying crocodile tears - you get my drift. If this “idea” of mine sells, you can be guaranteed someone else will steal it and hiring a lawyer to file a suit will cost a lot of money I don’t have. Amazon doesn’t have much in the way of human customer service or enforcement and my trademarked umbrella is now sold by others! They don’t all sell gloves or standard items - some of these things are unique.
This is one reason I stick to books and stay out of the fray. Thank you NY Times for writing about this.
9
One of the most frequent product questions is always “where is it made?”. The answer, for unfamiliar clothing and household brands, is almost always China. Even adding search filters like “made in USA” will not eliminate Amazon’s relentless push towards garbage.
It’s become exhausting to shop, and roulette when you buy. What good are cheap socks when they fall apart? We so distrust positive reviews, we head right for the negative ones to get a sense of the real issues. And these days we never, ever buy anything we cook or eat with, or anything for babies, kids or pets.
3
Amen. Twice this week I've just given up and not purchased a product at all. You can have 200 positive reviews, that don't look fake...then you check to see what else the company makes and it's all over the place. At which point all credibility is blown. What's needed is the ability to enter "-China" in the search field. Then it's possible we'd get somewhere.
5
I used to be a fan of Amazon. Good prices, quick delivery, the ease of shopping online. I hope that Amazon understands that they’re driving customers like myself away by allowing the proliferation of pseudo brands. I tried to buy mittens from Amazon recently, and it was too hard to wade through the huge number of search results. I still don’t have any mittens.
8
Alternative brands are just like “alternative facts,” a nice name for something that should be considered wrong, but now it is normalized because it happens so often.
9
We've learned that buying from Amazon is most often like purchasing the $5 t-shirts or hats from a street vendor outside of a stadium - cheap junk. We no longer trust Amazon to sell legitimate goods and, instead, buy local when possible or purchase directly from the reputable manufacturer. We no longer need Amazon (or Walmart) to be a "middle man".
9
The methods described by this article sound like typical 'anti-brand' tactics, used for defensive purposes.
Typically a 'brand' is used to build customer loyalty, good will and reputation. An 'anti-brand' is simply used to prevent intellectual property trolls from suing you for using your own name. It's for preventing identity theft, not for establishing a brand image.
It is a common technique used in open source computer groups. For example, 'VMEbus' is a the name of a computer architecture that was deliberately injected into the public domain in 1981 by European manufacturers who wanted to build a new market by overcoming U.S. export laws. By injecting 'VMEbus' into the public domain, the U.S. mainframe computer makers couldn't act as trademark trolls by filing for trademark protection.
Today that's not so easy to do. Trademarks, like patents, operate on a first-to-file basis. There are lots and lots of patent trolls that find a new invention they like, and then run down to the U.S.P.T.O. and file a patent for it. The patent would be invalidated in a fair fight, of course, because the troll never invented it. But if the troll is well-healed, then they will essentially use the patent as a financial tool to bludgeon their adversary into submission.
As for 'VMEbus', that name identified an open, reverse-auction marketplace. And by definition, nobody can own the name for an open market. Instead, the name must be systematically destroyed.
1
This article is thorough in its expose of inferior, mostly Chinese knockoff brands on Amazon. These are a menace to any of their shoppers.
I wish the author had also delved into the many brands Amazon themselves have created to siphon business away from legitimate brands. It’s got to the point where I feel like I need to do extensive research prior to shopping their site and when I’m actually on Amazon pages. I have no confidence in the products or information as it’s presented.
This will no doubt come to hurt Amazon’s business, long term. I used to shop the world’s largest store. I don’t want to shop the world’s largest dollar store.
7
I’m trying to buy most of my stuff in the secondhand market in person: responsible ecologically, economically and socially. Plus it’s fun.
15
I have encountered strange things like reading reviews for an off-brand Macbook charging cable (never go off-brand) and noticing that reviews older than a couple of weeks were praising some piece of kitchen equipment - they had somehow taken a listing for an old, non-electronic product and changed out everything, but preserved the review count and rating.
I reported this to Amazon, which I'm sure is a whistle in the wind.
15
This is old news. I have seen this many times. Amazon is not interested. They just want that stuff to move and take their commission.
26
Amazon has become a heaven for questionably sourced items, with their only benefit being a fast delivery. Thus, access to Prime Video and an occasional discount at Whole Foods seem to be the only true benefits of Amazon Prime. Well worth revisiting prior the next renewal.
6
This is why I have cancelled my Amazon prime account and have given up trying to buy products on there. It’s impossible to find “reputable” products amongst all these fly by night companies. I don’t want to endanger my family’s health and safety to save a couple bucks.
17
Great article. Another question is whether these companies manufacture the same products for bigger more “well known” brands...
7
I would also advise caution when selecting "Amazon's choice" products. The fact that they are being promoted does not mean that they have actually been vetted or are of high quality. I learned this to my detriment when purchasing electronics accessories. Sometimes paying a little extra for a reputable brand is worth it, especially if you are protecting an expensive investment (like a smartphone). In any case, a reputable company will respond when you have a problem.
Doubt that the same is true of these 'brands'.
19
This is why I only use amazon as a price matching tool in local brick and mortar stores. The brick and mortar store's buyer system is at least vetted and legitimate. I'll only use Amazon for brands I trust, and even then I'm cautious that the product will ultimately be fake, or come from a warehouse that does not store the product properly (e.g. dog treats). I wish more Americans would avoid these brands, so that Amazon would actually regulate these fraudulent companies.
5
Fantastic article! A question: Why do you often see the same item (same photos, same description) showing up under several of these trademark 'brands' ? I assume its the same company and posting mulitple Amazon 'brands' improves how frequently the product gets displayed? Would love to learn.
8
@Je Suis Charlie I think what you're seeing is the same item is bought from the same factory in China and branded whatever brand the buyer wants it to be. So you might see a Je Suis Dutch Oven and a Stanwood Dutch Oven. Although we're not the same company we bought it from the same factory and used the factory's photos for our Amazon seller's page.
3
I’ve seen that too? I was looking for some lined sweatpants over the holidays as gifts and it seemed that so many different vendors were using the exact same picture. I wonder if it was all the same vendor!
I was looking for info on a particular new product and a link sent me to an amazon item. The headline advertised the item as being made of silicone, which is what I wanted. The small print, buried deep in the text described the product as being made, instead, of BPA-free plastic; not at all what I wanted. I sent a question asking about the discrepancy and the following day received a reply from amazon informing me my question wouldn’t be answered. That’s a trustworthy, value-added retailer response. (Not.)
16
Shopping for a mattress on Amazon was an experience. One of the best rated sellers had some bad reviews stating that the product came complete with bed bugs. The reviews, as we known, do not always give a real picture of the product.
I live in a rural area of N Cal. We do not have much choice here when it comes to shopping. If it doesn’t come from Walmart or Amazon then it’s a two to three hour round trip to shop in a big town.
6
Amazon has gone the way of EBay, overrun with Chinese goods of questionable quality and worse there is apparently no way for the customer to be sure what they are getting is coming from a reliable seller. I’ve had lots of problems with purchases in the last 18 months or so and now only use Amazon as a last resort source for anything.
Apparently a sales environment run mostly by computer formulas and no human control cannot maintain a safe place for humans to buy.
44
Back away from Amazon. You can find almost everything you need elsewhere at comparable prices and don't have to waste hours sifting through counterfeit and poorly made merchandise or trying to figure out if the reviews are fake.
The only purchases I make from Amazon any longer are items that can't be found in local stores or on other sites. I feel much better not supporting a company that doesn't care about its employees or its negative environmental impact.
57
I only buy brands I would otherwise buy like at Target or something. Occasionally buy random brand stuff but mostly no. Too many of these brands are annoying me and pushing my family away from Amazon.
12
Non brands and counterfeits are the #1 reason that I am moving away from amazon shopping nowadays. Forget the environmental impact of so many boxes, their treatment of workers, etc. Those made me feel bad but I still shopped there. With the fakes, I am moving to offline shopping, Target, Walmart, etc.
28
@FFNY I've been doing the same thing for a while now and have not regretted it!
The sad truth about all this is that the big brands ARE made in the same factories as these knockoffs, and why should one pay two or ten times as much for the same thing. if you walk into WalMart you will see not only store brands (what are they but knockoff items) and made for WalMart regular brands (inferior products for lower price) all made somewhere in Asia. This isn't much different from Amazon's perfidy. I think we can all zero in on the real culprits: former American manufacturers who have internationalized for greater profits. Free trade has worked all-to-well for some, not so much for the end user and the blue collar guys.
21
It’s not actually true that the products are made in the same factories. Although, in China and Mexico you may find a second shift producing an unauthorized knock off.
1
In an America where most consumers have fewer and fewer dollars to spend, branding loses its power. Branding was always a way to add intangible value to products and take higher margins; it's why people pay so much more for luxury cars. It's also why most people don't buy luxury cars.
I buy these "pseudobrands" on Amazon because I don't care at all what logo my socks have on them. On the occasions where I spend more, I'm going to use that money to support ecological responsibility, not cachet. Apparently others may feel the same.
4
@Dan - I don't care about brand nearly as much as I care about reliability. socks are one thing. $400 air purifiers are another. While "name brand" does not necessarily equal reliability, pseudobrands carry NO promise of reliability--or even that they will be around in a month.
13
@Mary Anne Graf
True, and I wouldn't buy an off brand $400 air purifier.
Many of the "off brand" items on Amazon, especially those that look nearly identical to a brand-name product, are basically products that are manufactured for a specific, well-known brand; the factory then churns out more of the same without the brand name - and these end up on Amazon as brands such as FRETREE and Pvendor.
6
Or so you think...
2
But probably without the attention to quality control that the name brand company (in theory) insists on.
I too went looking for gloves on Amazon, but the white cotton type that I put on after I've heavily moisturized my hands in winter, not the winter outdoor kind.
I couldn't decide, so I ordered 2 packs. Turns out both were made in China, but one was shipped from and distributed by a company in California. The other came directly from China. The direct-from-China gloves were shoddy and ill-fitting, because they "fit either hand." The California company's gloves were nicely made, clearly left and right, of a much sturdier material.
I will follow the suggestion made by "Passion for Peaches" to do more research on who is the seller next time I buy from Amazon, which is becoming less and less often, because of experiences like this.
18
Buyer beware of knockoffs sold under name brands on Amazon. Also toiletries and supplements tend to be old and often dried up.
We need an Amazon alternative with vetted products and also one that has respect for its employees.
33
Amazon "has created hundreds of its own market-researched brands," I read here. Recently, when shopping online (which means looking on Amazon) for a pair of bookshelf speakers, I found at the top of my results list a few models by a manufacturer I'd never heard of, each with hundreds or even thousands of "4+ stars" ratings. I was suspicious and tried, unsuccessfully, to determine whether Amazon has any financial interest in that company. I did find an existing body of online material on the brand, seemingly by objective third parties, including reviews (video and written) and comments by "ordinary folks" on various discussion boards. But I still wonder, how hard would it be in this day and age for Amazon to engineer that whole backstory?
4
Who even makes these products? I think that is the most concerning thing about all of this. It does not just go for these brands, but also the larger name brands that the author mentioned. It is something so important to think about. People buy these items because of how cheap they are and the positive reviews, but do not give a second thought about who made their goods.
9
“'If a Chinese factory is able to give a better price than a seller in America, Amazon is happy with that,' said Kian Golzari, who works with marketplace sellers and corporate clients to source products from China."
So is Amazon or the Chinese factory paying for the negative externality of pollution created by shipping cheap goods from China to the US?
23
Nope. The people of Tuvalu and Kiribati are, though. With Bangladesh, South Florida, and Louisiana soon to follow.
Hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese citizens pay for these negative externalities as well, in the form of respiratory illnesses and shortened lifespans.
2
Amazon allows any third-party seller to enter its "approved" review program, Amazon Vine, for $60, for five reviews of an item. As far as I know, Amazon does not vet the items.
18
All of these products are of marginal quality and have not been tested and certified as safe by Underwriter Laboratories. Sure you might not care about a pair of gloves, but you sure should be concerned about electrical items or dishes. I know of one local case where a person bought LED holiday lights, only to have them overheat and catch fire.
If Amazon really cared, they would ensure every item sold, met minimum regulatory requirements for safety.
43
@nwsnowboarder Not to mention the content of the many food supplements, and foods, with brands no one ever heard of that are sold by third-party Amazon sellers.
1
I hope someone from Amazon is reading this and noticing how many people are saying they won't shop at Amazon anymore due to poor quality items. There has to be thousands of people out there who are fed up.
103
@Linda I'm one of them. After almost 20 years as a prime member, I did not renew this year. Shoddy workmanship, outdated goods, substituting version three when I ordered version four (the newer model.) I regret getting addicted to them in the first place.
17
@Linda
I'm avoiding Amazon because it's too invasive.
Like kudzu, if you live down south, it's going to
smother everything.
4
@Linda, it won’t matter until people actually stop shopping amazon. A few hundred huffy comments don’t affect Amazon’s profits in the least.
1
I went to amazon looking for a sneaker. I searched on the brand name and ordered the sneaker. It wasn’t cheap, but it cost about $20 less than it was being sold for at a department store. The shoe maker ran out of the shoe, so I couldn’t buy it there. It was a shoe that I could wear with professional clothing at work.
My daughter immediately knew that the shoe was a knockoff. I immediately wrote the seller that it was not the shoe that was advertised and asked for my money back. The seller had pretty high ratings.
I don’t buy shoes, clothing, or anything substantial from amazon unless it’s a cheap item that I can’t find elsewhere.
18
Folks should start using fakespot.com to check and see how reliable the reviews are. I wish there's a way to add a fakespot plugin to amazon so I can automatically filter out those with unreliable reviews.
21
The same thing that is happening to truth in politics is happening to Amazon. Like the censorship of noise that is leaving voters confused and apathetic, the onslaught of fake and knock-off brands is going to turn people away from Amazon.
Like politics, in the beginning we thought the internet would be our savior. We thought that through a review system we would have the best, up-to-date knowledge about a product's quality and value. But instead, we have the opposite. It is quite stunning actually. Trying to figure out if a product on Amazon is of good quality and good value is becoming next to impossible.
80
It’s worth noting how Amazon pushes these brands. You can filter for specific brands, but the Amazon algorithm will not filter out these no-name brands in the results, making errors on the consumer side likely.
36
Recently I wanted to patronize a yarn shop here in San Jose. However over the telephone 2 different sales clerks told me they did not have what I wanted and Amazon would be a better choice.
So I been thinking about this item that used to be a Yarn store staple is not on their shelves nor is it stocked over the holiday season.
Face it world. we may not like it but Amazon is winning.
17
My wife and I do not shop on Amazon anymore due to the proliferation of no-name brands with dishonest marketing tactics and poor quality.
We have come to the conclusion that we cannot trust Amazon to safeguard the integrity and quality of the products offered on its site. Their review system is routinely manipulated. There is no guarantee that the products being sold by these no-name foreign vendors have met any safety standards for the use of toxic substances like lead paint, and at the end of the day there is no accountability, commercial or criminal, for vendors who want to cheat the system.
As a result we do not feel comfortable having Amazon products in our house or in contact with our two small children.
267
@Schultzie
Exactly why I don't buy from Amazon. Thank you for your comment.
5
I shop on line but mostly directly from the manufacturer or from reputable stores that have on line catalogues.
I also hate to return items because of the hassle so if I am buying something that I want to touch, feel, see in 3D or try on, to the brick and mortar store I go.
Bought a tv from Best buy on line, it arrived with broken screen, easy return at the store and exchanged for another. Amazon is only convenient if you are lonely at 3 in the morning and want to feel better by spending dollars on gimmicky soon to be landfill junky merchandise.
36
While I don't question this story's right to exist, after the story: 'Justice Dept to seek shorter sentence for Stone after feeling the obnoxious breath of an orange tornado', or words to that affect, this story hardly feels like a Clear And Present Danger to the Republic.
I read about half of it, then quickly went to the Readers Comments which, as usual, didn't disappoint. Aliexpress, huh?
Who are they? I may look into them, thanks.
7
@L.Braverman
I guess it depends on whether you feel product safety is important. Are those no-name Chinese products safe? Are they soaked with harmful chemicals? Do they meet basic fire safety guidelines? There's no way to know. All we know is that these are manufacturers ready to cut any corner and who will dissolve their company and form a new one at any sign of trouble.
5
Yes, you can buy the same cheap Chinese-made products on Aliexpress or Amazon. A product that costs you $20 on Amazon will probably cost $3 on Aliexpress.
But it will arrive in two days if you order on Amazon, but if you order from Aliexpresss, you have to wait a month to get it. This might make sense for a reseller or someone who needs items that need to be replaced on a regular schedule.
In my experience, though - if you can wait a month for a product to arrive, you *usually* don’t really need it.
2
It’s not just pseudo brands, it’s pseudo products. Countless times I’ve looked for a specific product on amazon and found countless Chinese made knockoffs. If it’s made in America or Europe and sells, there will be numerous illegal copies of it selling on Amazon. There will be twenty of them, each with a different nonsensical name you’ve never heard, with more or less identical pictures and descriptions, and the all cost less than half what the actual product costs. Weeks later, the names are changed but the story is the same. It’s like Rolex watches in Times Square on a global scale. I called the manufacturer of one of the products I was looking at to see if they’d made a budget Chinese model and they just sighed and said “again? We just got the last one taken down after winning a lawsuit against amazon. The lawsuits and loss of business is bleeding is dry”. Amazon should be put in the position of verifying the legality of these products. I know it would cost money, and if they did that Jeff Bezos might only be the third or fourth richest person in the world, so they obviously won’t do it willingly. Amazon is a massive predatory parasite that answers to nobody. It’s crazy.
154
Ironic that many of these pseudo-brands--especially in the apparel category--run display ads that turn up on the New York Times site with annoying frequency. (Ads are cookie-driven, of course, so what I see is probably not what a reader in the U.S., for example, will see.) Trying to filter them out of a product search in Amazon is a near impossibility, but one dead giveaway--on Amazon Japan, at least--is the horrific quality of the product descriptions, many of which, in Japanese at least, seem generated by machine translation and are wonky enough to provide a laugh even when I don't choose to buy the product. Still, the trend is more frustrating than anything else, even when you KNOW (or strongly suspect) that your familiar name-brand products might be coming out of the same factories that produce these unpronounceable simulacrums.
50
Absolutely! Poorly translated product descriptions can be quite entertaining.
Yes, I strongly suspect a lot of the knockoff brands are made during factory "downtime" for the main vendor. Still, it seems like a very shady business practice that I don't like supporting.
15
@Shirokuma I see those ads popping up all over the NYT. The clothes look so interesting, but I always go to review pages of online companies. All these stores with darling fashions are one star ratings. Cheap fabric. Poor quality. Weird sizes. Products don't ship for months. It pays to go to independent review sites to see if online stores are legit or not.
5
I accidentally ordered from one of these Chinese sellers. Thus began a four-week odyssey to get a refund for a $50 shipping fee on $4 of merchandise. Caveat emptor, indeed!
35
Call me crazy but I buy only books from Amazon. When I need gloves I go to LL Bean's site (or its store). Dresses? I go to a real store and try them on.
59
The irony is that more and more--maybe even most--of LLBean's merchandise is made in China. Almost gone are the days of U.S.-made LLB products. I stopped buying from them as well more than a year ago when they sent me a pair of "made in Maine" boots stamped "made in China." Consumers need to be more creative and anachronistic... shopping nearby in actual stores (gasp!) may be the next step.
6
Even some of the books are knockoffs! Support your local indie or Barnes& Noble or Powell’s if you need to order online.
4
@lesetchka ...try your locally-owned independent bookshop (at least as your first option)...support your local economy...
6
Buying generic products on Amazon is such a chaotic nightmare. I can’t stand browsing all these made-up brands that all come from the same Chinese factory and that have no distinguishing features.
This is why I generally stick with reliable, trustworthy brands.
59
I had noticed that when I'd look for an item on Amazon the first things that would come up in a search were from these bizarre brands and sellers I'd never heard of before. Now they need to write an article about the ads that show up everywhere on the NYT site and other websites I go to like weather.com that are mostly from companies in China I've never heard of selling cheap clothing and shoes. Sometimes the ad will be exactly the same as another other than name of the vendor. Neither are ever a vendor I've heard of before.
23
Even brand names are not always brand names because the brand name is leased out to others. or the quality varies depending on which factory in China they were manufactured.
4
Interesting article, however I thought it lacked a perspective on the human cost associated with “pseudo” brands. How are you supposed to check if the factory is audited? Not that big brands are necessarily any better, but at least it is easier to check or pressure them on transparency. I have no hope that “pseudo” brands provide a safe work place and a living wage - after all Amazon isn’t providing the latter.
13
Part of the problem is the US Postal Service. It can be cheaper to mail a product from China to a consumer in the US than it is from a US producer to a US consumer. This is an unfair playing field for American merchants and producers. Postal rates are regulated by international agreements. Agreements that make it cheaper to mail consumer products from China to the US than it is for the US marketers to mail to customers in the US are clear subsidies for foreign distributors. Making it more expensive for foreign retailers to ship direct to US customers should be a major to do item for this administration.
36
I teach undergraduate business students. For a few years I've been asking them "what will come after Amazon?, and "how will it end?". There will certainly be a (profitable) next. I think this story tells us some of how it will end. A machine so efficient at pushing product, pumping brackish quality; a victim of it's own success. A negative shift in consumer attitudes and broad exiting of this marketplace may come sooner and swifter than any of us expect.
60
You can go to the manufacturers' sites and buy directly from them. For instance, I like the wildlife t-shirts made by The Mountain, but when I look at the shirts on Amazon, some reviews warn that they ordered one and it was fake. So I went to the manufacturers website so I know the shirts were quality, not fakes. The prices were the same as Amazons and shipping was free with a certain price point.
Or, for outdoor gear and clothes, go someplace like REI. You get the real products and you get cash back at the end of the year if you are a co-op member.
124
@Linda Yes! I agree with this. And, I particularly love REI. I am a member; we don’t have a retail REI store closer than 70+ from my home but I do shop them online and when I’m in a city that hasn’t a store. Great business model and they stand behind their products.
4
The other great thing about REI - you can always take a product back. Always. For any reason.
In order to be able to stand behind the products they sell to that degree, they must be excellent curators.
For any substantial purchase, I’m willing to pay a premium price for the service of curation and a guarantee. I may buy some cheap socks from Amazon, but when it comes to an avalanche beacon, I’m not taking any chances.
2
Thank you for sharing this. I had not thought about why the products I ordered so often arrived much smaller than I expected or weren't quite what I wanted. The size descriptions are buried down at the bottom of the page and the pictures are greatly enlarged so you think you're getting something larger.
I recently bought a shelf unit that had good reviews overall. It took me forever to put together and was rickety. I had read reviews about things like this before but thought the reviewers just had unrealistic expectations. Now I have first hand experience and won't make that mistake again. I gave it a poor review, which was also buried.
I was just looking for oven glass casserole dishes with a lid to replace one I had loaned out. The brand name ones were buried at the bottom of the lists. And that's how they get you. Brands are usually priced quite a bit higher. Then they show you the "amazon" no-name pick, priced significantly lower, and, if you squint at the dimensions it's quite a bit smaller. Took me a long time to find the description of the "oven safe temp", which was lower than expected. I ended up not buying.
I went to a retail store, found the brand name I was looking for; paid more, but I know I'll be satisfied.
This is probably what's killing our retail stores. Trying to compete with foreign, poorly-made imitations whose ratings are propped up by Amazon Eventually this will hurt them.
And I will be buying less from Amazon in the future.
97
The only time I ordered something on Amazon from a brand like this it took 5 weeks to arrive and was shipped from China. If this had been mentioned in the listing, I wouldn't have bothered. It was my last time ordering an item like this. I reported the listing and the seller.
15
We should also let go of the idea that Amazon itself is a brand. The products it, essentially, copies and then promotes as some kind of Amazon original is--just like its fraudulently-claimed 'Amazon Original' streaming content--nothing more than repackaging. Amazon makes nothing.
36
To be fair, many brands don't make the products they sell. It's repackaging in some form. What's more harmful are the shoddy products from pseudo-brands that use Amazon shipping. They get that valuable "Amazon Prime" logo that gives shoppers a false sense of confidence in the product.
3
I have learned to always look up the storefront for the “sold by” company listed on any Amazon item. If their inventory is a hodgepodge of unrelated goods, I don’t buy from them. They could be selling odd lots from auctions of damaged shipments, gleanings from dumpster diving, junk obtained from liquidators. Buyer beware. Never go for the quick click, on Amazon. Do a little research.
299
@Passion for Peaches , I tend to buy items that are recommended by Amazon. I figure they've done a little due diligence into quality. Amazon no doubt doesn't want to be known for selling lousy merchandise.
Amazon recommendations are algorithmic and subject to manipulation. You can find some recent discussions of the recommendations' lack of substance elsewhere. I had assumed that they had more meaning, but apparently not.
25
@Eric, Mike is correct. The Amazon recommendations are based on price and ratings by reviewers. There are a lot of paid reviewers on Amazon, so that is not reliable. Amazon does no product testing.
19
Facebook is also flooded with Chinese stores selling everything from shoes to leather jackets, etc. Over a 1000 brand names no one has ever heard of, all at low prices. They have mastered the art of selling on Facebook and Amazon. A lot of the goods are of poor quality. Buyer beware.
58
It’s gotten so I always assume a company is a scam when I see an ad from them on Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest. It’s negative advertising now.
3
@Douglas Ritter
Yup, I fell for a small sling, over the shoulder bag and the zipper broke IMMEDIATELY. Never again. Banggood or whoever it was. Also clothing sizes are always way off.
4
“The wording ‘FRETREE’ has no meaning in a foreign language,” the trademark says.
The strongest trademarks are those that make no sense, either as a symbol or a word, if they are eventually associated with a product or line or products. Such trademarks can't be genericized, a concept, for example that costs Coca Cola a great deal of money each year as it attempts to keep "Coke" from being used for all colas. At least at this level, these people know what they are doing.
4
@Padfoot But, how many of these brands (built on inexpensive products that won't ever be market leaders) will gain enough recognition to hit the level of Coke, or even something like Anker, or TCL, or Husky, or Eno? Given their business strategy, it seems incredibly unlikely.
1
@John You're correct about the low probability, but a few of these companies will survive because they will fill a niche and improve the products. I'm a biologist and this is what evolution looks like.
2
@Padfoot Except that the vast majority of those trademarked names are unpronounceable. "Fretree" happens to be an exception. A random string of letters that bears no resemblance to an actual word will never work as a brand name and won't be recalled by a consumer to be associated with any product.
Making matters worse, if you actually manage to find the name brand product you were looking for on Amazon, you have no assurances that the item you'll receive is genuine. Amazon does absolutely nothing to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods on its site. Shop elsewhere!
365
@Aaron G.
Memory Cards are a perfect example. I thought I read where Amazon China allows vendors the ability to edit reviews.
4
I really hope this is the start of Amazon's unraveling in the retail space because of their hubris. The company is apathetic and indifferent when it comes to assuring quality and they allow flooding their online store catalog with cheap knockoffs, backed by bogus and fake reviews.
And if you're a seller in the U.S. trying to source and market high quality products, forget it.
These so called "Chinese entrepreneurs", or retail scammers, will take down any non Chinese sellers because they are using AI and bots to flood competitors with bad reviews. I know because I looked into becoming a FBA seller but realized how unethical and cut throat these Chinese hackers operate, and Amazon could care less about cracking down, so I said bye bye.
I'm at a point where I don't trust Amazon for shopping, and if the company continues to lose this trust factor, consumers will abandon them quickly.
25
@Aaron G. I bought a prestige cosmetics brand item on eBay recently; the product has been discontinued and i thought I’d found a legitimate product. When I received it, it was so clearly a counterfeit item, that I photographed it & described the differences in detail side-by-side the authentic product, dealt directly with eBay and was refunded my money. The seller is still selling the product, now at double what I paid. I don’t believe eBay OR Amazon actually take action against these counterfeit sellers – despite saying they do. Buyer beware!
30
This deluge of garbage is one among many reasons that I no longer use Amazon to shop for anything online. Not that I strongly identify with so-called "real" brands, but...something about the structure of Amazon's search engine and sorting of products feels like an insult to one's intelligence and faculties.
The only "deals" to be had are on items which are limited in function and durability, and ludicrously damaging to our environment. In my experience, anything useful to be had from Amazon's shelves are at or sometimes above retail. Go to your local stores, if they're even still around.
122
Amazon is full of junk products. I ordered a broom from one of those brands and it did not work. It kicked debris into the air instead of sweeping across the floor like a normal broom would. I returned it and wrote a negative review. The seller then began to message me multiple times offering to bribe me to edit my review. I refused. It was scary and made me realize what a sham store Amazon is. I now check other websites (Target, Walmart) to see if a brand is real before purchasing anything on Amazon. I also go to the Fakespot site to see if the reviews are fake. The only thing keeping me own Prime is the streaming video library, but now I rarely order products from Amazon anymore.
64
I wish Amazon had a “filter out Chinese knockoffs” setting. It strikes me as somewhat insane that people buy items such as smoke alarms and things that plug into their IT networks from these “brands.” Buyer beware.
211
@Aaron There’s one trick that helps. Amazon’s default search order is “featured”—as in cheap stuff from China. Reset to “priced high to low”. That increases the odds of recognizable brands showing up first. Not perfect, but it gives you a fighting chance.
5
That's what propaganda is for, to make a product you didn't even know existed, indispensable. The name 'consumption society' is truly applicable to us, as we become addicted to a digital system in full control of our minds. Akin to slavery, right?
9
Amazon, like Walmart previously, is pushing Chinese economic interests at the expense of American companies & manufacturers...those of us who buy on price & convenience alone are complicit.
169
Ah yes, this accounts for my strangely named 'Pluteck' alarm clock. I am not a brand obsessive by any stretch but I do think this is weird and wonder why Amazon doesn't seem to mind these often low-quality unsafe items being sold on their site.
25
This past season I decided I wanted a necktie in a red-and-white candy-cane stripe. That seems like an obvious pattern that would be readily available, but I had to resort to ordering it from an unknown brand on Amazon that turned out to be a Chinese one like the ones in this article. Let's just say it was not top quality: The stripes were not woven into the fabric (which I didn't expect), and they weren't even printed onto fabric that was then made into a tie. The stripes were stamped onto the front of a previously assembled plain white tie; the pattern doesn't show on the edges, the pattern on the back is not aligned with the stripes on the front (stamped separately), and the edges of the pattern are fuzzy. Embarrassing.
I've also seen many many such vendors on eBay, selling clothes that reviewers all say "runs small"; it looks like it's about to fall apart when brand new. I will make a point not to buy anything from these vendors again.
36
This is all a sad commentary about our quest for status and status symbols.
17
It's more a quest to make money. The brands aren't meant for status, but to create a spot on the Amazon Marketplace.
14
How does one gain status by purchasing goods with unknown, even unpronounceable, brand names? It seems to be all about lowest price with zero regard for quality or expectation of the seller standing behind its products.
56
As Amazon plays such a pivotal role in promoting and profiting from mass marketing of Chinese-made consumer goods, how is the consumer protected in terms of product safety (not to mention quality)? What recourse does one have if an electric appliance is faulty and causes a fire? A food or medicinal product makes one sick?
Good luck assigning liability and fault If sellers come and go, use a multitude of brand names, and source their wholesalers from vast supply chains. Would be interesting to hear how Amazon protects itself from these risks.
77
@Michael Amazon insists that all third-party sellers offer a full return policy. But I don't think they insist on withdrawal of faulty items from sale.
@Michael Buildings full of lawyers and lobbyists they have. And a trillion net worth. They’ll be fine. Don’t you love metrics driven firms in a winner take all society? Greed always wins over compassion or morals because the game is rigged.
Who do we want to be America? Anyone proud?
2
I was just looking for gloves and noticed FRETREE! I ended up not buying because I don't trust the quality of many of these weird brands with poorly photoshopped pictures.
I tend to only buy from established brands that have been around for a few years. It's harder and harder to find these legitimate brands on Amazon. For many of these random brands/products that pop up with clearly fake reviews, it's difficult to actually trust that the product will last. Are $8 gloves worth any amount of money if they happen to fall apart due to lax manufacturing standards? Why risk it when buying Carhartt is usually a guarantee that it will last several years?
I'm not sure I've met anyone who actually enjoys searching through no-name "brands." Amazon has too many products. It's very interesting and telling that Amazon's brick-and-mortar store only carries real brands that have built up a reputation.
131
@John
I've had the same experience. In the long term, Amazon is hurting its own brand by showcasing too many cheap knock-offs by fly-by-night companies. If it's not careful, Amazon will eventually be viewed as the digital equivalent of that seedy discount store with weird off-brand merchandise.
290
Not if they’ve totally cornered the market in online retail and completely crushed the possibility for competitors to emerge. They’re pretty much there already.
10
lots of options if you go to Macy's or Nordstrom or brand specific sites. amazon has growing competition from reputable stores as they figure out how to deliver an excellent on line experience and free shipping. How is Amazon's net not gross bottomline looking lately?
15
A long time ago the 3M company, the manufacturer of Scotch Tape, began selling a very similar product called Rocket Tape for less money — I suppose to attract customers who cared more about price than brand name and to compete with the other brands also selling cellophane tape.
I wonder if many of these unfamiliar brands are just attempts by brand name manufacturers to do something similar.
4
I thought the same thing about a few expensive specialty tools I was looking at. Amazon had options for products that looked the same, sometimes even with a name identical or nearly identical to the original, for less than half the price. I contacted the actual companies to ask the same question you and. They both said that they are constantly fighting amazon to take down the listings as they are illegal fakes. As soon as one is removed, an identical listing with a different nonsensical name pops up. It’s basically a tacit agreement between Jeff Bezoar and unscrupulous Chinese manufacturers to help each other get rich by ripping off the rest of the word.
33
No. Most of the these brands are owned by a single person or small business that sells a variety of cheap Chinese merchandise. Often there's not even branding on the product. I can buy the same Android TV box made in China with a dozen or more different brand names. Not only is the hardware the same, but so if the software. The only difference might be a slightly customized launcher software that features the brand name on the screen.
3
You can skip Amazon and go straight to Aliexpress where you can get these same items for a tenth of the price and 10x the shipping time.
15
Ok, but I don’t want the same items. I want items that aren’t cheap fraudulent knockoffs.
11
The proliferation of these non-brand "brands" is one of many reasons why I do less and less shopping on Amazon nowadays. I needed padded bike shorts recently and it was extremely overwhelming to choose from literally thousands of options, many of which are probably manufactured in the same factory to the same specs, just sold with a different "brand" and priced within a few cents of each other. I wished there was an option to filter only "real" brands, like those I might find in a sporting goods store.
316
@OKKO -- You don't even have to go on Amazon, etc. as the first step. In recent months, ads from fast-fashion brands nobody every heard of a year ago have absolutely blanketed struggling newspaper and online-forum websites.
This happens in electronics too. I first noticed it a couple of years ago when looking for laptop batteries (an area where I'm more than a little suspicious of a too-good-to-be-true deal from a company I don't know). There are dozens if not hundreds of brands I'd never heard of, and no- I'm not betting against your theory that they're the same goods from the same factory.
20
@Ad absurdum per aspera
I agree. My last two purchases from Amazon were clearly manufactured in China. I ended up sending them back because they seemed cheap. I also don't know what kinds of regulations (if any?) the manufacturers follow in terms of user health (what kind of plastic? What kind of dyes?) and environmental health (what kind of factory is producing these goods?). I also stopped ordering a facial lotion from them, again for health concerns. Too bad that Amazon is choosing this route--it's going to lose customers who pay attention, though it may keep younger customers who think this is normal.
21
@OKKO
The next step is to do NO shopping on Amazon. Seriously.
66