
Amazon's policies promote counterfeiting - hop
https://www.elevationlab.com/blogs/news/amazon-is-complicit-with-counterfeit-sellers
======
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Apparently, the US Customs and Border Patrol is in charge of seizing
counterfeit goods.

[https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cbp-
interce...](https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cbp-intercepts-
over-3m-counterfeit-goods)

I wonder if contacting US Government representatives to ask them to have CPB
investigate Amazon warehouses as a nexus of counterfeit goods would be useful.

I bet if CPB officials raided an Amazon warehouse and went through and seized
all counterfeit goods in the warehouse, Amazon would quickly find a solution
to this problem.

------
NathanKP
Full disclosure I work for Amazon (on the web services side).

The author of this article clearly doesn't know much about selling on Amazon,
because what he is asking for is possible. It's called the Amazon Brand
Registry. You can contact the infringment team using the details here and
initiate the process of getting your brand / ASIN locked so that other people
can't sell it without your permission:
[https://www.amazon.com/report/infringement](https://www.amazon.com/report/infringement)

Also check this out: [https://services.amazon.com/brand-
registry.html](https://services.amazon.com/brand-registry.html)

If you have a popular product then counterfeiters are unfortunately
inevitable, but you do have options to fight back and stop them.

There is also Brand Gating which is a little harder to get. Look up ASIN or
Brand Gating for information. Basically you can order the counterfeit product
and report it to Amazon. It can cost a couple thousand in legal fees to
register your brand and get all the paperwork unless you are capable of doing
it all yourself, but it is possible.

~~~
prepend
Why is Amazon not actively seeking out patterns of counterfeiters and
suggesting this to sellers.

Just doing simple image machine learning should get 90% of scammers.

He AWS team is great about this. Looking for abnormalities. Looking for posted
AWS keys. Proactively. The retail guys need to get some of the cloud guy
smarts. Or ethics. Either/or will help stop this.

I don’t sell, but I can barely buy from amazon because of all the scam copies
and fake reviews.

~~~
btgeekboy
I see this sort of complaint ("I can barely buy from Amazon because of all the
scam copies and fake reviews") somewhat often online, and I don't understand.
I've placed 15 orders in 2018 so far (76 in 2017), and I've yet to find a
detectable fake. (One of those things was even a printer toner cartridge,
which I halfway expected to be fake given the stories you hear.)

What are people buying and receiving fakes of?

~~~
yoz-y
Anything and everything probably, it can be seen even in reviews. I was
looking up some gloves and often the reviews are split 50/50 between great and
complete garbage. I assume that the unlucky half got counterfeits. Recently I
have bought some plastic plates to put under a flower pot. The dimensions were
completely wrong: as in, the advertised plate was for a pot of 22 cm in
diameter and this was even printed twice on the plate itself - it was not even
18cm large. This was on a product with over 4.5 star average.

I still buy stuff on amazon because returns are very simple, but I got into
habit of immediately returning anything which is not good enough. I feel that
most of the stuff one can buy there is garbage.

------
dionian
I ordered an instant pot on amazon. instant pot box shows up, with mfr.s
packaging.... I opened it and similar-looking - but much cheaper - chinese
knockoff was in box.

if amazon's customer service wasnt so good i would have dropped them already.
(I know it's not them making the mistake, but still..)

however I buy stuff there much less frequently now since i have no way to know
if I'm getting counterfeits for certain types of goods.

~~~
vanilla_nut
This is a really important point that Amazon seems to completely ignore:
counterfeit goods aren't just a ripoff, they're downright _dangerous_. A fake
instant pot could burn your house down or scald you when it fails to
depressurize properly; a fake phone charger could overheat and catch your
bedsheets on fire; a fake smoke alarm could fail to detect smoke properly and
not activate in time to save someone's life.

I can't believe there hasn't been a slew of lawsuits over this, especially in
the highly litigious culture of the US. Could I just be mistaken in thinking
this is such a serious problem? Or has Amazon just been lucky?

~~~
d0lph
Agree with the rest, but the US is not highly litigious, common misconception,
probably created by corporations trying to defend themselves from "frivolous
lawsuits".

~~~
vanilla_nut
Out of curiosity, what countries are more litigious than the US and why? I've
always been told that the US is unusually litigious, but if I'm wrong about
that I'd like to know better.

~~~
d0lph
In this list, the US is #5, curiously having more lawyers per capita.
[https://www.clements.com/resources/articles/The-Most-
Litigio...](https://www.clements.com/resources/articles/The-Most-Litigious-
Countries-in-the-World)

------
fencepost
The writer advises people to "look at the seller," but Amazon's commingling of
products means that doing so is often useless. I believe I've also seen
mention that there's a way to prevent that by assigning your own numbers and
paying Amazon more, but for something like this where there is only one
legitimate supplier I'm not sure it would do any good. (edit: NathanKP posted
relevant links as I was posting)

What's amazing to me is that these days I'd consider eBay a safer option for a
lot of purchases - at least there I know what seller I'm dealing with.

~~~
CamelCaseName
You need not pay Amazon to label your products with your FNSKU to avoid
commingling -- sellers can do themselves with a printer and tape. Amazon
simply offers the option and charges $0.20/unit to do it.

~~~
fencepost
But if you're already the only legitimate source for that SKU what do you do?
If a counterfeiter orders one of your items then duplicates the packaging
including the SKU/UPC will it get commingled with your product even if it
shouldn't?

------
exolymph
Counterfeit products [1] and scams [2] are persistent problems on Amazon. It's
very unfair to the legitimate merchants who are trying to compete without
screwing over customers. They've been yelling at Amazon for YEARS to do
something about this. Presumably Amazon decided that making it harder to sign
up as a third-party seller would hurt their metrics more than it would help
customers.

[1] [https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-
starch...](https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch.html)

[2] [https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-fraud-scam-
sellers.htm...](https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-fraud-scam-sellers.html)

------
Lazare
I have absolutely started to reduce my purchases on Amazon due to my lack of
confidence in what I'm going to be getting. The counterfeiting issue is real
and serious.

At this point, I trust that if I go to the trouble to ensure it's not
"fulfilled by amazon" _and_ I'm buying from the actual seller, I'll probably
get a legit product. Otherwise, I have no way of knowing what I'm going to
get.

I continue to be mystified why Amazon doesn't view this as a huge issue.

------
mrarjen
Really enjoy this post and the reactions of it. I also have been looking
around on Amazon for small furniture and some other small products, but as a
consumer, a great deal of research is needed to detect fakes or sub par
products.

If you know what you want to buy, you are indeed best off buying directly from
the product creators site and not get tempted by far cheaper alternatives
amazon suggests... Birkenstock is a great example of this where it escalated
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/12/22/birkenstock-...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/12/22/birkenstock-
accuses-amazon-failure-tackle-fake-replicas/)

------
z0r
I think this is a pretty big deal and has been for at least a few years, yet
there have been no repercussions for Amazon yet. It feels like it should be
illegal to enable this kind of thing.

~~~
jimmy1
I think Amazon should go back to just being a bookstore, maybe seller of indie
items, kind of like that etsy-like nichce and focus on AWS, which is their
clear cash cow at this point.

This whole being an "everything" store thing is a drain on them, and a drain
on our economy. Plus they aren't exactly winning in some of the categories
they thought they would be now -- groceries for example -- Walmart has shown
they will fight to the absolute death on that, and I don't think they can win
in that space (buying Whole Foods was a nice gesture, but Whole Foods
reputation was fading from that "cool grocery store that has all this organic
stuff" to "just a really expensive grocery store" especially once all the
other grocery stores started carrying organics).

Of course the kicker is if they can release their fully autonomous drone
fleet. Which may be what, 10...20 years off after sorting through FAA
regulations at the minimum?

~~~
devmunchies
But wouldn't having a lot of consumer mindshare contribute to their cloud
infrastructure being more attractive? People choose names they recognize.

~~~
jimmy1
AWS was put on the map almost entirely by engineering blogs (which I am not
saying is a bad thing -- it's a testament to their services), like the famous
Netflix moving everything to AWS article. Before that it was blogs on S3 and
SQS. They were well known and generating a billion in revenue as early as
2011, and this was well, well before AWS was "mainstream" in terms of you
start seeing public adverts now for AWS everywhere.

------
nsx147
I have sold on Amazon for about 3 years now, over 2000+ skus FBA. The items I
sell are pretty easy to counterfeit (much easier than OPs). There have been
plenty of sellers come in and undercut price and subsequently destroy my
products ratings because customers received fakes.

I started moving my products into the Brand Registry and all of a sudden the
counterfeit sellers started disappearing...and now they don't exist anymore.
So at one point a few years ago I was on this guys side and was starting to
write up cease & desists but I believe Amazon is getting better at it. Haven't
seen any counterfeit sellers on my listings that last for more than 30 days in
a while.

~~~
CamelCaseName
With so many SKUs, it's easy to relax. OP has nine so one fake seller can wipe
out a substantial amount of revenue overnight for her.

------
kop316
I have all but stopped buying from amazon due to this problem. But I have to
say, this part bothers me:

"For the record, I love Amazon as a customer, I buy way too much stuff with
Prime, I'm a long shareholder, and think they are on track to become the
biggest company in the world (unless they get broken up for anti-trust
reasons)."

If you are actively losing money from this problem and still buy from them,
you are actively sabotaging yourself!

~~~
nicky0
Show me who among us is not contradictory in our behavour.

------
akeck
Because of the counterfeiting on Amazon, I’m becoming price-insensitive and
ordering direct from brand websites. I’d rather order once at full mark up
than burn time dealing with fakes.

------
jnbiche
I've become quite disenchanted with Amazon because of this counterfeit issue
along with the fake review problem. In addition, Amazon customer service --
traditionally excellent -- has only been good to acceptable recently (they've
started using Chinese agents who don't really seem to understand American
customer service and also sometimes struggle with English).

I _really_ wanted to drop Prime this year, but the wife uses it for some books
and movies she likes and begged me not to. However, I've started ordering my
stuff directly from sellers whenever possible. Occasionally, I order from
Amazon if I need something quickly, but prefer to order directly even then if
the seller has a rush delivery option (attention sellers! always offer an
expedited delivery option, even if you think no one will use it!)

~~~
ilamont
Chinese agents? Are you sure? I thought most overseas customer service was
outsourced to Phillipines or India ... or to Amazon's AIs.

------
oldcynic
This is ruling out Amazon for so many categories of product and has been going
on for years.

Yet they don't seem to be bothered.

So now I look on Amazon, then see if I can buy direct or from a different
retailer.

~~~
jeffwilcox
I've seen this especially in the power charger category... Apple power
chargers I end up always just having to go to the Apple Store for now. Sigh. I
want to use Amazon, but have had so many sketchy "Apple" products sent my way.

~~~
dahdum
It’s outright dangerous to buy that type of product from Amazon, even if you
buy “ships and sold from amazon” their inventory mixing means you can get
counterfeits just as easily.

If selling fake solar eclipse glasses didn’t hit them with the clue bat, I’m
not sure what will.

~~~
coatmatter
This is good article you've probably already read on the topic of counterfeit
eclipse glasses: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/science/eclipse-
glasses-r...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/science/eclipse-glasses-
recalls.html)

Perhaps the worst thing in my mind about the lack of education (for one reason
of another) with reference to eclipse glasses is that good pairs can easily be
shared around with minimal planning (I always buy extra new pairs as souvenirs
more than anything). The partial phases just aren't things that anyone stares
at for minutes on end, and totality requires that eclipse glasses be removed.

Hopefully there'll be more experience at hand and education by 2024 to avoid a
repeat of 2017 (which in the grand scheme, was mostly isolated cases of poor
outcomes - for most people, the biggest risk would have been driving to an
eclipse site).

------
fpvracing
I designed a hardware product but haven't brought it to market because even if
it is successful, Chinese manufacturers will reverse engineer it and then have
a cheaper clone on the market within weeks, long before I can recoup even the
cost of manufacturing, let alone make a profit. And since I can't afford to
pursue legal action, it seems pointless to manufacture the product, and
everybody loses. I wonder how much innovation is stifled this way.

~~~
toomanybeersies
I remember a while back there was a kickstarter for a phone case that folds
out into a selfie stick, it got successfully funded.

Within weeks of the kickstarter finishing, before the kickstarter had even
delivered or even started manufacturing the cases, they were for sale on
Aliexpress.

It seems so easy for someone in China to do this. Look for successful product
kickstarters and you already have market validation. Something like a selfie
stick case would be so easy to set up a production run for.

~~~
Spooky23
An engineer friend noticed this with civil engineering applications as well.

Chinese companies troll RFPs for bridge and other designs. In this case, my
friend saw a unique bridge/overpass that he was associated with in some
obscure province that was completed before the original. He knew it was their
design because it did not include changes that were made after the contract
award.

------
mullingitover
My mileage apparently varies, because I've been shopping heavily on Amazon for
_years_ and have never had a counterfeit item show up on my doorstep.

~~~
bencollier49
The things which really get my goat are the awful-quality print-on-demand
facsimiles I sometimes accidentally buy when I'm looking for an old book.
Seriously putting me off Amazon. Nationalise and break them up already!

~~~
cimmanom
Try AbeBooks instead.

------
Khaine
I've basically stopped buying things from Amazon because it is so hard to tell
where your goods are coming from. With co-mingling even if you buy from a
legitimate seller it is impossible to ensure that you get a legitimate
product.

I'd rather spend a few extra dollars and remove all of this hassle and buy
directly, or from a more trustworthy place.

------
stevbov
Last year I had two products I bought on Amazon arrive that were obviously
previously opened. No warning at all when making the purchase. They didn't
appear to be counterfeit but I still returned them. Now I avoid Amazon
whenever I can.

------
sokoloff
> Jeff Bezos, if you're reading this, come on - this is day 2 activity.

It's always "Day 1" at Amazon.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTwXS2H_iJo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTwXS2H_iJo)

------
thro1237
Isn't it possible to bring a class action lawsuit? This is precisely the kind
of things that a class action suit is a good remedy for.

~~~
Spooky23
It is. But read before you click!

“Any dispute or claim relating in any way to your use of any Amazon Service,
or to any products or services sold or distributed by Amazon or through
Amazon.com will be resolved by binding arbitration, rather than in court,
except that you may assert claims in small claims court if your claims
qualify. The Federal Arbitration Act and federal arbitration law apply to this
agreement.

There is no judge or jury in arbitration, and court review of an arbitration
award is limited. However, an arbitrator can award on an individual basis the
same damages and relief as a court (including injunctive and declaratory
relief or statutory damages), and must follow the terms of these Conditions of
Use as a court would.”

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=508088)

------
theonealtair
This is why I only buy Apple products from Apple, Amazon is flooded with
counterfeits.

------
jamesgeck0
Counterfeiters on Amazon have been hitting the board game market hard. From an
interview [1]:

> We feel, and this number is speculative (but it's going to be somewhere on
> that range), that Asmodee North America’s sales are going to be affected
> somewhere between five and ten million dollars, this year alone. We believe
> for some games, that more than 70% of all sales in the U.S. market have been
> counterfeit.

1\. [https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/39296/icv2-interview-
asm...](https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/39296/icv2-interview-asmodee-
execs-counterfeiting)

------
cjcfjrf
Not only that, Amazon India openly allows misleading product description and
the cse "overlooks" it when you talk to them. In India it's a standard
practice to overstate objectively wrong things about products. Eg. Hard drive
model number product make: pvc dumbbells vs cheap plastic filled with sand.
Yes that's a thing on the site. The attitude of Amazon India is we don't care
about bad publicity as long as people are buying from us so not even shaming
them here, just mentioning.

------
Keverw
I always thought the counterfeit good program was fulfillment by Amazon mixing
items with the same UPC code.

I ordered a power supply once and it had all chinese writing on it, and plus
it didn't power up unless I kept turning it and fiddled with the connector.
Was concerned, so sent it back. Didn't want it to catch on fire. It had a
English brand name on the listing though too.

I was looking at new earpods, and even in the reviews people mentioned they
got fakes. [https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MD827LL-EarPods-Remote-
Mic/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MD827LL-EarPods-Remote-
Mic/dp/B0097BEG1C/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1519959044&sr=8-3&keywords=earpods)
\- I went to a local walmart instead and bought it online. Even Walmart,
NewEgg and Sears website's have the same program as Amazon with counterfeits.

I don't trust them as much as I did when shopping online. The NBC nightly news
did a story about this last week.
[https://youtu.be/klbPhwE44hI](https://youtu.be/klbPhwE44hI)

"Ships from and sold by Amazon" I guess to look for... I still use Amazon for
AWS and Kindle though... But for Physical products I feel like I got to be
more careful. Edit: It looks like from "0xcde4c3db" Post, it still can happen
even if sold by Amazon. Wow.

One of the things they recommended to do is to buy directly from the brand's
website, which is kinda annoying since need a bunch of accounts, and Amazon
Prime is a nice benefit too you can't use externally. Which is a great thing
for digital nomads who don't want to wait for a package in the same area too
long.

Another thing is fake memory too. SD Cards and flash drives. If you search
"2TB USB flash drive" on Amazon and scroll down some. There's some 2-2.5 star
ones where some of the reviews mention it's fake. One of them even mentioned
no company currently makes a 2TB USB Flash drives. However they do make 2TB
USB SSD's.

Plus I wouldn't want to try your luck with some of these items, as if you they
are fake and you return it. I'm unsure if Amazon counts those returns towards
the total returns before they close your account. I wouldn't want to risk it
and be proactive. If i'm unsure about a item, it's less of a headache to just
buy elsewhere.

I hope they solve this somehow, as Amazon is really convenience and I really
want to trust them more. There's really no other online store like them that's
a one stop for all. Still like Amazon but got to be more careful with all
these stories lately.

~~~
CamelCaseName
>"Ships and sold by Amazon" is something to look out for I guess

Don't get too comfortable. Malicious sellers can open a vendor account with
Amazon and sell their counterfeits this way.

------
dalbasal
A large chunk of the most important and/or profitable tech businesses are
really private “markets.” That is, they don’t just sell goods and services. I
would put all advertising businesses in that category too

Amazon is an obvious (and very literal) example, as are app stores. But,
Youtube is another example. People post videos. People watch videos. People
place ads on videos. Google is at the centre coordinating this stuff.

Very few markets are cleverly designed or run. Adwords was an example of a
clever one. The auction, is the centrepiece and it reached its current state
pretty early in adwords’ history. It was designed cleverly, with a ton of
attention to incentives and 2nd order effects.

Youtube, as a marketplace, is terribly designed. The “monetisation” systems
are almost designed to produce spam, and discourage unique “maker” content.
The differentials in earnings of similar content on youtube, vs any other
medium are immense.

Why does a podcast, TV show or other medium (lets assume it’s the same
content) make so much more than a youtube channel. How is it possible that a
million views a week is not enough to pay for a 2-man basement operation?

The big boys need to get some economists on board, good ones.

------
peterwwillis
Amazon will replace whatever stupid crap you end up with. This is why it
doesn't hurt their brand. You know they will fix it, so it's just a minor
inconvenience to the customer, most of the time. Meanwhile, it shuts down
businesses.

You'd think politicians might care about this, but they're too busy handing
out billions to get them to move to their state.

~~~
oldcynic
It's hurting their brand, even if they haven't realised.

I don't want 3 attempts and returns to buy a battery, or charger, or any of
the dozens of categories this affects. I don't want to be buying co-mingled
inventory on lines I _know_ are prone to counterfeiting.

So I think of Amazon as 2nd rate - (because of this). So do many of my friends
who have been affected by this as it's become far from rare.

------
sitkack
They sold me a counterfeit Horowitz and Hill [0], since it was outside of the
return window the support person basically said, "you have an interesting
memento".

[0] [https://artofelectronics.net/the-book/counterfeit-
editions/](https://artofelectronics.net/the-book/counterfeit-editions/)

~~~
Spooky23
File a credit card dispute.

~~~
ceejayoz
That's a great option until you realize they can close your Amazon account for
chargebacks, which in my case would mean the loss of thousands of dollars
worth of Kindle books.

~~~
jpindar
You know you can download them and remove the DRM.

~~~
DanBC
Has the latest DRM been cracked yet?

~~~
jpindar
I don't know if the new DRM that is applied to the books as they are on the
device has been cracked, but there are links to download books to a computer
(on the "Manage Your Content and Devices" Amazon page), and those can be
unlocked by a Calibre plugin.

------
hapnin
Ironically, Alibaba is trying to fix counterfeits in the supply chain. Amazon
should follow suit.

[https://medium.com/@alitech_2017/blockchain-based-qa-the-
end...](https://medium.com/@alitech_2017/blockchain-based-qa-the-end-of-fake-
products-in-e-commerce-6f9b28a75735)

------
tylerjwilk00
I have been purchasing more and more from Walmart. Initially I thought it was
hopeless for Walmart to catch up to Amazon but counterfeits are destroying my
trust in Amazon and Walmart has really stepped up their online ordering the
last couple years. Amazon is feeling increasingly like eBay.

------
hoelle
Jeeze, looking at the product page it's really hard to spot the seller and
make sure you've chosen a legit vendor.

Also, Anchors are a great idea. I'm a VR developer and my desk is pretty
crowded with headsets, so I just ordered a few to try them out. Hopefully the
real ones arrive!

------
siner
Oh my god, I want this product(original) but it is not available on amazon.de!
It would be amazing to get your products in Germany. I just ordered it on
amazon.co.uk as shipping was less expensive than getting it on
www.elevationlab.com.

------
jmartinpetersen
Are there the same problems with counterfeiting in their grocery department?
How can you be sure that your organic flour, almonds and coffee or are really
what they claim and not some relabelled non-organic GMO product?

------
RyanShook
Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s response when asked earlier today why inflation has
remained so low for so long: “It’s a phenomenon we don’t completely
understand... it could be partially explained by the Amazon effect.”

------
enknamel
> And Jeff Bezos, if you're reading this, come on - this is day 2 activity.

That is a serious burn. It really drives home the point of how serious this
issue is.

------
CamelCaseName
You should not have left a one star review on your competition. That's a
surefire way to land in hot water if they report you.

------
wybiral
Amazon should do what they can to weed out this kind of thing.

But consumers can also be more aware of the sellers on Amazon.

~~~
0xcde4c3db
You can "buy from" a seller that provided 100% legit units and still end up
with a counterfeit because Amazon threw them all in the same bin
("commingling"). This is the basis of the Daimler lawsuit: there were
counterfeit items "sold by Amazon.com", whereas Amazon had previously gotten a
pass because they weren't actually selling the counterfeits themselves.

------
DrScump
I wonder how tolerant of Ring product knock-offs Amazon will be now.

------
JohnJamesRambo
What do people here think of rfid blockchain products like VeChain that are
hoping to solve this problem? Is it a solution?

------
IntronExon
I used to shop waaaay too much on Amazon, but I’ve largely stopped and almost
entirely as a result of counterfeits. If I wanted the experience of shopping
in an open air market, I’d hoof it to one. I also really feel for people like
the OP who do nothing wrong, but have a good idea and market it successfully.

Amazon, I’d be back in a heartbeat if you fixed this. Sellers and buyers
deserve better, and this kind of thing, along with bullshit reviews are a
cancer in your business. If you wait for the first frank signs of disease to
register, you’ll already be in terminal decline.

------
sneak
Dear OP: I’d prefer a cheaper, “counterfeit” version of the product you
discuss to the one you produce.

~~~
DanBC
I can understand wanting to have a similar but cheaper product. Good enough is
fine for most people. I don't understand why you'd want counterfeit branding
too.

------
hemoglob2
while i agree with your post, "The current counterfeit seller,
suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd (yeah they sound legit), " could be construed as a
racist comment

~~~
sdrothrock
I think it could be CONSTRUED as a racist comment, but the person thinking of
it that way would be really stretching, in my opinion.

1\. All of these counterfeit items are coming from China.

2\. The legit seller is ElevationLab, which "suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd" is
not.

3\. "suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd" is a Chinese name.

4\. "suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd" is a very customer-unfriendly name -- not
something you'd see from a big foreign-facing Chinese company.

So all in all, it doesn't seem racist at all to point out that this company
name seems illegitimate.

If the author had MADE UP a "Chinese-sounding name" like "nihaobaobaomao,"
then yeah, I could follow an argument pointing out that statement as being
reasonably construed as racist. But in the context of talking about Chinese
companies producing cheap knock-offs, I don't see a problem with naming the
company and pointing out that the name itself does not sound like a legit
company at all.

~~~
shard
Some counterpoints and comments.

1\. So many legit items come from China that as a consumer you can't dismiss
something out of hand just because it came from China. 3\. Huawei is a Chinese
name, Xiaomi is a Chinese name. See #1. 4\. This is a legitimate point. The
company did not optimize their name for a non-Chinese audience.

I think the main thrust of why that comment has racist tones is because it
feels like the main complaint is that it's a foreign (non-Western) sounding
name, hard to pronounce and funny looking, therefore it cannot be legitimate.

(Actually, I don't know if you did it on purpose, but nihaobaobaomao is a
great name... It's very cute and sounds like "Hello bundle kitty"...)

~~~
sdrothrock
Great comments, but I think I disagree with some of them. :)

> 1\. So many legit items come from China that as a consumer you can't dismiss
> something out of hand just because it came from China.

This is true, but I don't think it's a counterpoint. Regardless of how many
legitimate products come out of China, the fact remains that the huge, huge
majority of counterfeit products are from China. So if you're looking at a
counterfeit product, the odds are that it will be from China, regardless of
how many other legitimate products out there are from China.

> 3\. Huawei is a Chinese name, Xiaomi is a Chinese name

Those were ones I was thinking of, which is why I added the "not something
you'd see from a big foreign-facing Chinese company" bit.

It's a foreigner-unfriendly name, terrible for marketing, searches, and sales.
I can't imagine a legit company trying to use it overseas. Something like
Huawei or Xiaomi (or in other cases, Samsung, Hitachi, BMW, Volvo, etc.) are
short and sweet, simpler to digest and remember.

> I think the main thrust of why that comment has racist tones is because it
> feels like the main complaint is that it's a foreign (non-Western) sounding
> name, hard to pronounce and funny looking, therefore it cannot be
> legitimate.

I do completely agree with that, but in my opinion, with the evidence in this
case, the complaint itself couldn't reasonably be construed as racist. In
hindsight, my argument about "shorter, more professional names" is basically
this quote ("hard to pronounce and funny looking") boiled into more reasonable
terms...

> Actually, I don't know if you did it on purpose, but nihaobaobaomao is a
> great name... It's very cute and sounds like "Hello bundle kitty"...

You caught me. :P

I couldn't bring myself to type something really stereotypically racist.

~~~
gae_supeu
> > Actually, I don't know if you did it on purpose, but nihaobaobaomao is a
> great name... It's very cute and sounds like "Hello bundle kitty"... > You
> caught me. :P > I couldn't bring myself to type something really
> stereotypically racist.

Hello cat buns!? Of course that's racist; accusing people of eating cats....

:)

(Yeah, that's how I read bao at first...)

More seriously, consider Fenix or Anker; they have "short professional" names,
but are not particularly western (esp. the spelling). Both are newer
companies, based in China, sell fairly heavily on Amazon, and are frankly some
of the best providers of their product niches.

