Why Chinese Sellers Are Quitting Amazon (restofworld.org) 129
An anonymous reader shares a report: You might have seen the headlines over the past year: Chinese sellers are leaving Amazon. Since early 2021, the e-commerce giant says it has banned 3,000 Chinese accounts for using paid reviewers to artificially inflate ratings, a practice known as "brushing." The narrative sounds pretty simple, right? Dishonest Chinese sellers gaming the system! Of course they should be punished. Amazon has said that it issued the bans after repeated warnings over manipulated reviews, and that no seller has been targeted by nationality. Meanwhile, in Chinese media, the sellers have a different account. They describe paying ever-rising costs, while struggling with restrictions on how they sell on the platform. When they have brushed up their ratings, sellers told Chinese tech media Pingwest, it's because Amazon's stringent requirements have pushed them to, in order to survive. (A Chinese e-commerce industry association estimates at least 50,000 banned.) Either way, the relationship has somewhat soured.
In 2012, when Amazon entered China and aggressively recruited sellers onto its third-party Marketplace platform, merchants treated founder Jeff Bezos with reverence. Many of them considered him a role model, and resonated with Amazon's lofty principles of "putting the customer first" and "creating long-term value." Amazon Marketplace was appealing to Chinese sellers in two important ways: there was almost no barrier to entry, and they could mark up their products as much as they liked. Products that cost 5-6 yuan on Taobao could be sold for $20 (about 140 yuan) on Amazon -- a markup of 20-30 times the original price! Not percent, but times. Lured by the crazy-high profit margin, the number of Chinese sellers on Amazon climbed sharply.
Within a few years, Marketplace growth took off. Between 2014 and 2015, sales from Amazon's Chinese merchants tripled. By 2017, one-third of all international sellers on Amazon were from China, and Marketplace's sales volume had surpassed that of the main Amazon platform. Here comes the catch. Despite all the PR around Amazon Web Services, we know that Marketplace is Amazon's real moneymaker. Recall that Amazon charges for commissions, advertising, logistics and warehousing. And warehousing costs alone have soared since Chinese sellers came on board, continuing to grow with a nice 11% bump just this February. Costs to advertise -- something crucial for smaller sellers -- surged 50% during the pandemic. But the thing is, it's hard to sell if you're not part of Prime, wherever you're based, and that probably means signing up for all the above charges. And this is the case inside just the Amazon universe.
In 2012, when Amazon entered China and aggressively recruited sellers onto its third-party Marketplace platform, merchants treated founder Jeff Bezos with reverence. Many of them considered him a role model, and resonated with Amazon's lofty principles of "putting the customer first" and "creating long-term value." Amazon Marketplace was appealing to Chinese sellers in two important ways: there was almost no barrier to entry, and they could mark up their products as much as they liked. Products that cost 5-6 yuan on Taobao could be sold for $20 (about 140 yuan) on Amazon -- a markup of 20-30 times the original price! Not percent, but times. Lured by the crazy-high profit margin, the number of Chinese sellers on Amazon climbed sharply.
Within a few years, Marketplace growth took off. Between 2014 and 2015, sales from Amazon's Chinese merchants tripled. By 2017, one-third of all international sellers on Amazon were from China, and Marketplace's sales volume had surpassed that of the main Amazon platform. Here comes the catch. Despite all the PR around Amazon Web Services, we know that Marketplace is Amazon's real moneymaker. Recall that Amazon charges for commissions, advertising, logistics and warehousing. And warehousing costs alone have soared since Chinese sellers came on board, continuing to grow with a nice 11% bump just this February. Costs to advertise -- something crucial for smaller sellers -- surged 50% during the pandemic. But the thing is, it's hard to sell if you're not part of Prime, wherever you're based, and that probably means signing up for all the above charges. And this is the case inside just the Amazon universe.
Oh no (Score:5, Funny)
Please don’t go
Re: Oh no (Score:5, Interesting)
If I want to play that game, I'll buy from Aliexpress or Gearbest.
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"If I want to play that game, I'll buy from Aliexpress or Gearbest."
Except for the fact that the majority of the products available on both of those platforms aren't stateside when you place your order.
We 'Murkins like to satisfy our needs for Chinesium in 72 hours or less (with tracking) as cheap as we can.
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"If I want to play that game, I'll buy from Aliexpress or Gearbest."
Except for the fact that the majority of the products available on both of those platforms aren't stateside when you place your order.
Neither are a lot of the Chinese products available from Amazon.
Re: Oh no (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll clarify:
If I wanted to get ripped off by Chinese sellers, I'd buy from China.
Re: Oh no (Score:2)
I understand and totally agree with you. Every time I've bought something from China I've got fucked.
Re: Oh no (Score:2)
So I take it you get fucked a lot.
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Neither are a lot of the Chinese products available from Amazon.
The article is specifically talking about what Amazon charges to sell products through their (stateside) warehouses. Other Chinese sellers don't matter, they're not who we're taking about.
Chinese sellers on EBay (Score:2)
Are pretty good in my experience. And sometimes small parts free postage cost less than local postage!
But Amazon is much smaller here in Australia, the major retailers all have online shops that people use.
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The main advantage with Amazon is that they have a good return policy if the goods are fake or defective. With AliExpress you basically have no comeback.
I've had a few things from China via Amazon, a lot more from AliExpress. Wouldn't buy anything expensive that way, but for basic stuff and as long as you avoid obvious fakes (2TB flash drives, 200W USB chargers etc.) you can get some good stuff there. My most recent order was for some LCD modules for a hobby project I'm working on, and they came very well p
Re: Oh no (Score:2)
Re: Oh no (Score:2)
Good luck getting your money back if your the victim of the Chinese shipping scam. Where they "sell" you something you want but send you some worthless piece of garbage that generates a tracking number showing you were delivered an item. PayPal's policy states you have to return the worthless piece of garbage for more shipping than you originally paid to get your money back. PayPal's forums are full of people complaining about this type of scam. PayPal doesn't give a fuck since they're making money off the
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Good luck getting your money back if your the victim of the Chinese shipping scam. Where they "sell" you something you want but send you some worthless piece of garbage that generates a tracking number showing you were delivered an item. PayPal's policy states you have to return the worthless piece of garbage for more shipping than you originally paid to get your money back. PayPal's forums are full of people complaining about this type of scam. PayPal doesn't give a fuck since they're making money off the scam.
Your first mistake was using PayPal in the first place. You should have used a credit card directly, then opened a complaint with AliExpress directly. That way, if AliExpress refused to refund the fraudulent transaction, you could have issued a chargeback with your credit card company. AliExpress will probably ban you for doing that, but if you're finding that they are refusing to refund fraudulent transactions, then you shouldn't care if you get banned anyway. But you can't do that, because you used Pa
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Right. I've accidentally bought from Chinese sellers on Amazon, and always regretted it. If I want to play that game, I'll buy from Aliexpress or Gearbest.
I've just had a quick look at Gearbest online and Trust Pilot rates them at 1.5 stars and a "Bad" rating, with lots of comments from customers about non-supply, no refunds and bad communication.
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I've just had a quick look at Gearbest online and Trust Pilot rates them at 1.5 stars and a "Bad" rating, with lots of comments from customers about non-supply, no refunds and bad communication.
That's the very same game I was thinking of.
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I think the economics of that kind of selling favors junk rather than nice stuff. I've been thrilled with the low priced (not "cheap") power tools I bought on taobao, but that stuff probably wouldn't be sold overseas. It's heavy and might not seem like a good deal when you could buy a bottom of the line drill from an American home goods store for around the same cost (after shipping and needing some extra profit for the extra risks of international sales). But these tools aren't bottom of the line.
It's defi
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Yeah, so sad, less fake crap to buy that breaks in a hour.
And this is bad why? (Score:5, Funny)
*flat voice*
Stop. Don't. Come back.
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Some of them make good stuff. Amazon was a decent platform for them because Amazon has a good return policy, so if it was junk you didn't lose any money.
Not all Chinese brands are crap. Anker and Lenovo are good examples.
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*flat voice*
Stop. Don't. Come back.
If you'd prefer a more British meme...
Oh dear... So sad... Never mind.
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What exactly is my benefit if I don't get what I want, no matter how cheap?
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If I want cheap shit at cheap shit prices I'll go to aliexpress.
If I want a shitty search engine but good return policies I'll go to amazon.
Mostly I go to eBay because fuck both of those guys. The only thing I will say against eBay is that you only have 30 days to bitch about shit so you can't buy anything there and then stockpile it. Like I can't buy epoxy there because I'm going to run out, I have to buy it from amazon because if I don't use it for 33 days or something eBay will tell me to fuck myself if
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What are you doing??
Buy epoxy from a known brand from a reputable retailer. It's more expensive, but you get repeatable results.yippy can figure out a good protocol to maximize bonding strength for your specific application and stick with or so to speak. Plus you get the professional packaging with mixer nozzles.
I can think of many possible options, but stockpiling generic sketchy epoxy from Amazon or eBay don't fit into any use cases I can think of. Like if you need a bit buy a bit, or buy in bulk properly
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What are you doing??
Buy epoxy from a known brand from a reputable retailer.
Mostly I'm buying JB Weld Plastic Bonder. It turned out to have a jillion uses.
I can think of many possible options, but stockpiling generic sketchy epoxy from Amazon or eBay don't fit into any use cases I can think of.
I literally just bought two packages and they had both leaked. I would buy it locally but the LAPS doesn't carry it.
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Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe when I search for something I'll get real products instead of 17 pages of the exact same whitelabel product with random brand names like chryztal, qingfangli, engindot, ukoke, etepon, lanniu, mechrevo
Re: Good. (Score:2, Interesting)
That's honestly not foreigner retailers fault... That's Amazon algorithms... You search for a Chanel handbag... I, Amazon, return you a legitimate bag, but it costs over 10,000 USD... and this I make no commission... alternatively, I, Amazon return you a fake and almost identical bag,it costs 1,000 USD. You make the purchase because it's a steal, and Amazon makes its commission... Lesson 101 in the difference between online bargains and IRL bargains... China is not to blame in this, except in that they are
Re: Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or even better. Amazon returns you the $10K bag and then knowingly defrauds you by deliberately mingling chinese bootlegs with genuine items in their warehouse.
Re: Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
China is not to blame in this, except in that they are smart enough to make Knockoffs and poor enough to need our money...
This is not China where caveat emptor rules and if someone fucks you over it's because you're a dumbfuck who deserves it. This is the USA where fraud is still illegal and people who make excuses for it are pieces of shit.
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What are you, 12?
This anti-China rhetoric is giving me echo's of the anti-communist propaganda from the 1960's while all the time ignoring (or at least not mentioning) the foxes are already in the chicken coop in the USA.
Fraud exists everywhere and is rampant throughout the USA, you don't need China as a boogeyman to have your money fraudulently taken from you with almost everything you do. Just look at your political and financial leaders or the gross wealth inequality inherent throughout the US. Amazon it
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This anti-China rhetoric is giving me echo's of the anti-communist propaganda from the 1960's
The difference between between drinkypoo's comment and the anti-communist propaganda from the 60s, is that drinkypoo is right and the propaganda was just that.
Fraud exists everywhere and is rampant throughout the USA
And drinkypoo was pointing out that it is actually fraud and illegal in the USA, unlike in China.
I get it now. You have trouble reading. We can offer you a nice english as a second language school to help if you would like? That way you may be able to understand why your comparison to propaganda is silly and why your post is a strawman.
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And drinkypoo was pointing out that it is actually fraud and illegal in the USA, unlike in China.
It's illegal in China too, it's just the government doesn't care enough to enforce their own laws.
Re: Good. (Score:2)
I get the impression ripping people off is something to be proud of in China. Seems that pulling a fast one on someone shows a person's savvy.
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China is not to blame in this
Bullshit. I can go on Aliexpress and find dozens of branded Rickenbacker, Music Man, and other counterfeit bass guitars that are of absolute crap quality. It's not that China *can't* make good stuff - my Fender Modern Player Jazz Bass V is of outstanding quality, and the Modern Player line are the only legitimate Fender-branded instruments that were ever made there. But, my bass wasn't as cheap as the knockoff Fenders being sold, because Fender demanded a proper level of qua
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I think alot of the problem is the speed the counterfeiters work at. I might not like China as an authoritarian government, but they generaly do enforce the laws. I just suspect there aren't "big players" so its hard to track down in that crowded environment
You can rent sub office, get even a asic factory to make a bunch of stm32 clones and be out in a month after either selling most of your stock or dumping the rest on the local market. Lord knows you can just build clones of anything with stuff you buy
Re:Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't even have a country specific Amazon website here, and I was still buying from them (through other countries, such as .de, .it, .co.uk when they were in the EU). Plenty cheap and low quality options everywhere, so I went to Amazon for the almost-guaranteed quality product. However, I have stopped buying from Amazon about 4-5 years ago, because of Chinese random brand proliferation, exactly as you stated before. I stopped being able to tell between a good product and a shit product on Amazon.
Say I wanted a good power bank. I go to Amazon.com, type in "USB C Power Bank". The first brand is mophie, followed by Anker (which are actually well known), then Omni, EnergyCell, lezchi, keymox, batpower, casesack, and finally a Samsung one. Uh, no, thanks. I don't trust Amazon for anything except music CDs (which I can get cheaper elsewhere).
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At least they were smart enough to put the Samsung one after some other ones less likely to start a fire
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I like that you got flame bait. Not because you're trolling, but it somehow seems appropriate in a literal sense.
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100% worth the karma would do again
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You funny guy :)
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We don't even have a country specific Amazon website here, and I was still buying from them (through other countries, such as .de, .it, .co.uk when they were in the EU). Plenty cheap and low quality options everywhere, so I went to Amazon for the almost-guaranteed quality product. However, I have stopped buying from Amazon about 4-5 years ago, because of Chinese random brand proliferation, exactly as you stated before. I stopped being able to tell between a good product and a shit product on Amazon.
Say I wanted a good power bank. I go to Amazon.com, type in "USB C Power Bank". The first brand is mophie, followed by Anker (which are actually well known), then Omni, EnergyCell, lezchi, keymox, batpower, casesack, and finally a Samsung one. Uh, no, thanks. I don't trust Amazon for anything except music CDs (which I can get cheaper elsewhere).
Amazon is still good if you're looking for branded products. If you're looking for a Gaggia coffee machine you'll find them, if you just look for a "coffee machine" it's a total mixed bag. Your Chinese products tend to be things you don't buy branded from a shop, like a powerboard, so they're just the same products but without the retail markup. I wanted a Sandisk Cruzer Fit (low profile USB stick, almost sits flush in my car stereo), the first result on Amazon was from the SANDISK store so it's not as big
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The problem is when I am looking for something priced, say, in the range of 15 to 50 bucks. I don't know what the "right" price would be, and I don't know which brands are better than others. For example, I was looking for a 24V 200W PTC heater the other day. I found a nice assortment on Aliexpress (which I looked at first), then thought "hey, maybe Amazon would ship it faster", and looked there. The results were all over the place, prices were all over the place as well, brands? I have no clue which brand
Re: Good. (Score:2)
This. I avoid Amazon unless I cannot find a product anywhere else, so maybe 2-3 times a year. Even then, I will identify the product *off* of Amazon, and do my best to ensure I am buying the real item.
Amazon's lack of quality control over their vendors is, imho, a mistake. They got some short term growth, but damaged their reputation in the process.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Informative)
This. Also, I have bought a few products that came with instructions for getting $x off your next order when you post a 5-star review, take a pic with your phone, and send it to their email. At that point I realize that they bought reviews and I bought junk.
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Every one of those could also work as the name of a pharmaceutical product or a "health" drink.
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Amazon probably has it's own data and decision makers, but it really seems to me that one of the more consistent user-experience problems with Amazon is they really really really really want to be product/category agnostic.
They want you to search, see their list, and go through it. There are some toggles, but that just seems to be how they want you to use their platform. They don't want you to care 'who' is selling it.
The problem of course is we do care. I as a consumer care if the product is an 'Amazon' pr
Buyers are onto the junk market scheme. (Score:5, Insightful)
As an example the electric PTO failed on my lawn mower, it is old enough that the part is not available from the mower manufacturer - a quick search on Amazon and Ebay shows all third party parts with some troubling reviews. Turns out I can buy the exact same part from the original PTO manufacturer direct in the USA, it is a USA made part and the funny thing is that it cost almost 60 percent of those knock offs that don't last.
People are catching on to the third party market.
Re: Buyers are onto the junk market scheme. (Score:2)
There should be no "3rd party market". If I buy it from Amazon.com then Amazon should be entirely responsible if I get ripped off.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly my thought. I ordered a keyboard from a UK store on Amazon, got it shipped from China instead. I had to deal with paying customs and weeks of delays. EU to EU shipping does not require as much documentation and the product arrives to your door. China to EU shipping is a pain in the ass. But they lie about it on Amazon.
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But I'd never purchase stuff shipped directly from China through Amazon. What's the point?
Well, to play devil's advocate, the point is that it was Amazon.
You didn't have to give your payment method directly to some Chinese company, you had Amazon customer service if something went wrong. You could use your Amazon wish list. Probably 20 other reasons.
Not saying that was enough to make it worth it ... but let's be honest, there were some upsides to buying Chinese stuff, if you were going to, via Amazon.
Re: Good (Score:2)
Amazon customer service will tell you tough luck you didn't buy it from Amazon you bought it from someone with an Amazon store deal with them directly. At which point you might as well hang up the phone and give up because there is nothing you can do.
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Amazon customer service will tell you tough luck you didn't buy it from Amazon you bought it from someone with an Amazon store deal with them directly. At which point you might as well hang up the phone and give up because there is nothing you can do.
Not in my experience.
I jump in an Amazon support chat (phone? what century is this?), tell them what the problem is.
They might ask me to try the seller first, but If I still don't get results, Amazon themselves give me a refund. Has happened many times.
Now, I do have to ask, not just give it up. But asking gets results.
Odd excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
"We have to lie and cheat to survive" falls flat here. Does that play better in China?
Go work for a company that doesn't have to cheat to survive instead of try to fly on your own when you can't make it. In other words, take a hint and move on. I hear owning your own biz is considered a "chick-magnet" in China such that it distorts competition and makes pressure to cheat.
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No. Not a chick magnet. Your information is wrong. You were fair up until that point then you basically said Chinese women are loose... Go back to your rocker.
Something smells like a CCP troll. Anybody else smell that?
Re: Odd excuse (Score:2)
Honestly, guys, how much is it worth the CCP to attempt to discredit some guy making a snarky post on slashdot. I canâ(TM)t believe you even bother to work on this web site, but itâ(TM)s even more pathetic that my snark warrants two of your responses. I guess I should be proud.
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> you basically said Chinese women are loose
No, I didn't. It could be when looking for a marriage partner. Ownership is a status symbol. Status symbols are common all over the world, it's just that different places favor different symbols.
I haven't read what the GP poster said... but you said nothing of the sort.
Asian women tend to be picker than western women in my experience. I think this is largely because they are more reluctant to separate/divorce (there's a fair few cultural issues with it), ergo want to make sure they can weather any problems in a relationship. Also you're quite right that different cultures find different things more attractive/suitable in a suitor, being an engineer in the west isn't special, being an engineer in
aliexpress (Score:5, Insightful)
I know how to find Aliexpress if I want low quality products at low prices. I do not use Amazon to get the Aliexpress experience. Less random junk from made up brands will be great for Amazon.
Part of the problem is that many reputable brands do not want to be on Amazon due to all of the counterfeit products you can find on Amazon.
Limiting the junk is step 1, limiting the knock-offs is step 2, then Amazon might have something useful.
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Limiting the junk is step 1, limiting the knock-offs is step 2, then Amazon might have something useful.
Go to Newegg. More useful I hear. ;-)
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Newegg is great if you want to overpay for everything.
Once upon a time they had awesome prices on almost everything, now they have pretty decent prices on small quantities of almost nothing.
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Newegg is great if you want to get ripped off even worse than amazon when they ship you a broken product, then ripped off again when they commit fraud against you during the RMA process.
At this point newegg's business model appears to be the same "sell suckers to chinese scammers" model as Amazon, only they don't plaster over that with customer service like Amazon does.
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That's a bummer. Back in the day I RMA'd some stuff with them without trouble. But their prices aren't good any more anyway so I wouldn't bother to go there regardless :)
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They were so brazen about it that they sold Gamers Nexus a defective part that Newegg themselves had RMA'd to Gigabyte and then tried to claim GN had caused the damage. Tech Jesus was so sick of their shit he literally flew out to their HQ and showed up on their front door step with a camera demanding an explanation.
Re:aliexpress (Score:5, Insightful)
AliExpress of course does have low quality stuff, but they have plenty of good quality stuff as well. And it's easier to tell than on Amazon.
Sort by number of items sold, then look for the reviews from eastern eurpoean dudes (just don't trust the star rating). Memory/drives will have hundreds of reviews with detailed diagnostics, batteries will be thoroughly tested, langerie will be worn (yes, by the men).
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but they have plenty of good quality stuff as well
This! There are actual sellers of properly designed products who put their primary store on Aliexpress.
langerie will be worn (yes, by the men).
... I think i'll take the rip-off product which hasn't been pre-worn by a man :D
Re: aliexpress (Score:2)
Amazon is not good at detecting fake reviews IMO (Score:5, Informative)
Amazon blocked my account from making reviews, all of which were legit, often with photos or videos backing them, and removed them going back many years. They mishandled a call I had with their support team about it, ignored emails to the provided email address to dispute it, and eventually, months later, their social media team sorted it out on the second or third attempt.
In short, they don't seem very good at determining fake vs legit reviews, and they don't seem equipped to address that weakness either.
Re: Amazon is not good at detecting fake reviews I (Score:3)
Review too frequently, then fake. Easy rule for a dumb company... Just gonna throw this number out, bet you reviewed more than 1 in 10 products bought... I worked at Amazon, I understand how stupid they think. Honestly why isn't that an article? American Amazon employees are quite twice as fast as Chinese sellers are leaving the platform... Guess Irony doesn't sell news
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Review too frequently, then fake. Easy rule for a dumb company
I suspected this also, but have no evidence to support it. However, if it is true it's silly since they literally show pages dedicated to encouraging you to review all of your recent purchases following submitting any review.
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Doing what a website is encouraging you to do? Sounds like a bot.
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I had a similar experience trying to leave a positive review of a water pump. Meanwhile half the reviews I see are
PRODUCT GOOD I AM SATISFIED WITH PRODUCT
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Probably got removed for the photos and videos combined with too many perfect scores and saying the name of the product repeatedly. The vendors that pay for product reviews like to ask for photos and videos, but most "normal" reviewers do not provide these.
Amazon does some bad faith stuff to sellers. (Score:2)
But charging whatever they want for their services isn't one of them. Nor is policing their review system.
So they admit to doing it... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The world's smallest violin playing just for them (Score:5, Funny)
... for just $39.28 + $5.99 shipping. Arrives in two to three weeks. Buyer pays return shipping.
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Buy it for $45.27 and the shipping is free. Buyer still pays the return shipping.
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Or make it free but charge $45.27 for shipping. It doesn't make any sense to return a free product, and since the item was delivered the shipping fee is non-refundable. You don't have to deal with returns. And since it's Amazon, you'll have people rating your product 5 stars on the easy shopping experience before they even get the item.
I'm kidding here, but it's based on true stories so that's sad.
Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not let them sell on Amazon China then? (Score:2)
How about allow these companies to sell in China? Then the Chinese people can decide for themselves if these companies are cheating or not.
Not surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know if you all have noticed, but the Amazon recommendation engine has been completely replaced with sponsored recommendations... in other words, ads.
Once upon a time, shopping on Amazon was an enjoyable experience, because you would search for one product, read about it, and have useful recommendations provided for alternative products or useful accessories to consider. Since then, they've wiped out the recommender widgets entirely, and replaced them with similar-looking widgets, but they are just dozens of identical products with varied brand names and colors, and every single one of them has a "sponsored" tag.
So where Amazon used to help shoppers find exactly the product they need from a wide variety of options, they've since gotten greedy, started forcing sellers to pay to even show up in recommendations and first-page search results, and replaced useful tools with redundant ads. Sellers have to pay to show up in search, pay to show up in recommendations, pay to be part of prime, and then probably pay for SEO and a fake review shop to game their rating, otherwise they won't sell a thing. Same old story of greed ruining the very thing that made a business successful to begin with.
Chinese when i want it. (Score:2)
Load of B.S. (Score:3)
There's no way the Chinese sellers held Bezos up as some sort of "role model" for the reasons stated here! They've never shown ANY interest in putting the customer first! When you get any "customer service" from these merchants at all? It's in the form of "Don't bother returning it. Just keep it and we'll refund you anyway." And that's only because the return shipping and trouble to deal with the return shipments costs them more than the product did.
The Chinese sellers wanting to ship product overseas are only interested in maximizing their profits by any means possible. Amazon sounded good to them when they knew they could mark things up by huge amounts, vs the relatively small markups they'd get negotiating with resellers. Once they started getting hit with the true costs involved in the sales and returns, they complained about the "high costs" because now, it made those small margins they always made before by just flipping their product to a middle man who bought in bulk to resell.
The real problem with the vast majority of their goods is the inferior quality. I bought a plastic snap-on cover for an Apple Macbook Pro a while back, thinking it was simple enough that they couldn't screw it up - as long as it fit properly. (Early reviews all said it did.) Within a month, it was in my trash can because it had a faux wood-grain finish that was made with some kind of SUPER THIN coating over the plastic. Simply opening and closing the lid caused it to flake off around the edges, exposing white plastic underneath. Nobody wants a multi-thousand dollar new Mac laptop to look like crap because of the protective "designer" cover!
Then, I bought a plain black plastic cover from another Chinese vendor on Amazon - realizing I should give up on the fancy printed stuff. Again, in my trash can after a month or two. Why? Whatever "satin finish" black coating they had on the plastic would leave permanent fingerprints behind wherever you touched it. It was like oils from your skin just embedded in the stuff. I tried to clean it with several different products and it wasn't fixable.
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Amazon sounded good to them when they knew they could mark things up by huge amounts, vs the relatively small markups they'd get negotiating with resellers. Once they started getting hit with the true costs involved in the sales and returns, they complained about the "high costs" because now, it made those small margins they always made before by just flipping their product to a middle man who bought in bulk to resell.
It's called "Breaking Bulk". The TFA doesn't understand why retail and wholesale prices are so different.
violin. tiny. (Score:2)
Optimizing beyond reality... (Score:2)
If you just keep pushing for the highest rated company's products, then you'll get more of the people who realize they have to cheat. Punishing the companies for winning the game Amazon set up is dumb.
Which country is the one with freedom issues? (Score:2)
Does this mean Amazon will only have 10 products (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
If all Chinese sellers leave, then that means 99.9999% of products will disappear.
That would make Amazon a much better shopping site. As it is now, I wade through page after page of essentially the same thing, under different names, with slightly different appearance. I suppose that Amazon is not really a shop in any sense, where the shopkeeper selects products they want to sell, based on quality, value for money, and so on. It is just a vast bazaar, probably swarming with crooks. Perhaps a legitimate complaint from sellers, wherever they come from, is that Amazon behaves like an open ma
Because God loves America (Score:2)
...just a bit more than he loves everyone else.
Perverse Incentives (Score:2)
there was almost no barrier to entry, and they could mark up their products as much as they liked. Products that cost 5-6 yuan on Taobao could be sold for $20 (about 140 yuan) on Amazon -- a markup of 20-30 times the original price! Not percent, but times.
Well, anyone with a brain could have seen this as a perverse incentive that would degrade the quality of offerings.
Amazon, again (Score:2)
Obligatory "And nothing of value was lost"... (Score:2)
That explains soooo much.
Re: (Score:2)
I appreciate the thought, but the US unemployment rate is 3.6%. That means if those manufacturing jobs came back, there wouldn't be enough people in America to do them all.
Re: (Score:2)
U6 unemployment rate is 6.6% (https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_u_6_unemployment_rate_unadjusted [ycharts.com]), but what's more interesting to me is the "Not in workforce" of 99+ million, or 29.9% (https://www.usdebtclock.org [usdebtclock.org])... which tells me if too easy for Americans to not have a job.
Re: (Score:2)
what's more interesting to me is the "Not in workforce" of 99+ million, or 29.9% (https://www.usdebtclock.org)... which tells me if too easy for Americans to not have a job.
Really? That's what it tells you? Not that it's too hard for Americans to find a job? We do have a homelessness crisis that's bad and getting worse, maybe you've heard of it.
Re: banned (Score:2)
Me barbarian, me not smart.
Re: (Score:2)
Tin can opener was made of... You ready for it? TIN!
You bought a tin can opener. You know, a can opener made of tin. Not an opener of tin cans.
Duh...