
You might literally be buying trash on Amazon - mudil
https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-might-be-buying-trash-on-amazonliterally-11576599910
======
daotoad
I don't care if people sell clean, safe, reasonable things that are gleaned
from a dumpster. That's waste reduction and a net good.

What I hate are all the low quality and fraudulent items on Amazon (It's not
quite as bad as Ali Express, yet--Ali Express also happens to sell everything
ever conceived and people generally accept that a certain portion of things
are counterfeit, Amazon pretends to enforce quality.)

This is the opening that Sears should have been waiting for. They used to
provide the service of selling a curated selection of pretty much anything you
would need. Back in the day they had 3 of everything, you needed a widget, you
could go to Sears by buy the "good", "better", or "best" version of that thing
at a competitive price.

Sears, if it were managed worth a damn, could do that. They still have stores
all over the place to serve as distributed warehouses, show-rooms and customer
service centers.

Maybe Target will figure this out. I don't think Amazon will. The closest
Amazon has come to addressing this is making their own house brand (a la
Kenmore). Which is fine, I guess, if you don't have congress calling you a
monopoly. If anything is going to bring Amazon down a peg, it is going to be
the ingenuity of fraudulent sellers outstripping the ingenuity of their anti-
fraud systems and policies.

~~~
tjr
_I don 't care if people sell clean, safe, reasonable things that are gleaned
from a dumpster. That's waste reduction and a net good._

Years ago, I lived in a city that decided to offer a "garbage collection
amnesty week". For one week (with your regular pickup day, Monday-Friday), you
could put out as much garbage as you wanted at the curb, and it would be
collected for no extra charge.

The city apparently vastly underestimated how much garbage was going to go
out. It was not all collected that week. There was junk sitting out on the
curb, all over the city, for 1-2 months.

There were also people driving around, searching for cool stuff. For example,
one of my items out on the curb was an old bird cage. One morning, the bird
cage was gone, and there was someone else's old doll house in its place. A
friend of mine found a complete metal suit of armor; not really functional,
but a nice decorative piece.

There can definitely be value left in someone else's trash. But if ordering on
Amazon, as a paying customer, I would at least want to know up front if I'm
buying something that came out of the trash, and make my own decision on if I
wanted to buy it or not.

~~~
on_and_off
I don't know if that a French thing or not, but in France, in many cities
there is a day designated as "encombrants" (~ bulky). Basically for when you
want to throw out large objects.

There are people roaming out the streets on that day and hoping to find
something worth reselling before it gets picked up by the city.

As far as I know, we haven't encountered the issue of too much stuff being
thrown out that day, but maybe this is because this happens regularly.

~~~
bombela
In California you get only one day a year of free pickup for bulky items. Its
restricted to appliances, furniture, and mattress. Furthermore, you have to
schedule in advance with the company handling your garbage pickup.

~~~
inferiorhuman
Recology SF and San Mateo allots two bulky item pickups per (single family)
household per year. Up in Novato/Sonoma it's 4x annually.

------
blago
Their enforcement is so bad that they are banning legitimate sellers with
little explanation or chance to appeal. The process is opaque, Kafkaesque, and
irreversible.

My listing was removed because of a single review that read: "...round,
difference from the regular models. i think they are not original from same
factory./..."

"They" are pencils. Different models come in different shapes and colors.

I am accuainted with the brand and factory owners, and persoanlly buy directly
from them.

I presented invoices and contact info of company officers but Amazon rejected
my appeal because "We received your submission but do not have sufficient
information to reactivate your listings. ".

From that point on they stopped responding to my emails.

~~~
ikeboy
Yeah, we got banned after TP-Link falsely claimed we were selling counterfeit
routers. The article briefly mentions brands abusing the reporting system, but
talk to any sizable reseller and you'll find it's very prevalent. My estimate
is 90%+ of large Amazon resellers have received false complaints of
counterfeiting or other infringement. I've talked to multiple sellers who get
such false claims weekly or even daily.

In my case, tp-link filed 28 complaints over six months, or roughly one every
week. Eventually it took down the account and we're currently suing them in
federal court.

~~~
morio123
Maybe don’t sell a TP-Link branded router unless you are a licensed reseller?
You are part of the problem everyone is complaining about.

~~~
ikeboy
How am I part of any problem?

Are you familiar with the first sale doctrine? My actions were perfectly legal
at all times.

I did this professionally, had bought hundreds of tp-link routers from
legitimate suppliers. It's not like I found them on the street or anything
like the sellers described in OP. I had over 50k invested in a specific router
model at one point.

------
hirako2000
I can't be happier to see amazon struggle to keep their marketplace clean.
It's the beginning of the downfall. They thought they could just be a logistic
company while eating up all the margin, profiting from defenceless sellers. I
guess they got totally outsmarted.

Can't keep a marketplace at the same level of standard as a direct seller.
Selling millions of products doesn't seem to scale well. Worked for books, but
even there, opening the door to seller accounts flooded the lists with copies,
a ruin for publishers who touched the devil rather than staying away from it.

I like amazon for many things they do well, but the truth is that they were
never profitable with their previous business model. Now they've been turning
directions to make a profit, it's the snowball to their death.

~~~
neonate
Is there any evidence that any of this is affecting Amazon adversely? Or are
we just wishfully thinking that it is because it should?

~~~
pizza234
I'm buying less from Amazon due to flood of garbage they allow.

In some cases, there are hundreds of junk items before finding something
acceptable. This is complacently allowed Amazon, in several ways: 1. they
don't calculate shipping costs in price sorting (allowing dishonest sellers to
sell 0.01$ items, with high shipment prices), 2. they hide where the item
comes from, 3. they don't police items which should be grouped together (I
think I once saw an item replicated more than a thousand times).

This makes the buying experience really tedious, and I don't think I'm the
only one who thinks this is a problem.

But of course, while this affects Amazon adversely, I think it's a stretch to
qualify it as "the downfall".

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
I remember once listing some item. I think it was an adapter for a USB-C
dongle.

The seller listed the dongle as one dongle per model it covered.

Example:

DONGLE for iPad Pro

DONGLE for MacBook

DONGLE for MacBook Pro 13-Inch

DONGLE for MacBook Pro 15-Inch

DONGLE for MacBook Pro 16-Inch

DONGLE for Samsung Note 7

DONGLE for Samsung Note 7 (GTA Edition)

and so on...

The first four or five pages were flooded with THE SAME DAMN ITEM. It was not
the one I wanted. It was one of those "$0.01" parts with a $7.99 S&H.

This makes the "Sort by Price" worthless; and that's what I used to use to get
myself into the ballpark of where I wanted to be.

~~~
robryan
There are lots of duplicate products with slight naming style variations. No
one seems to have solved grouping products together where the same UPC hasn’t
been provided from each seller. Would require building a parser/ some AI that
understands aspects of the title: brand, line, size etc

~~~
dawnerd
UPC wont do much. There's somewhat of a scam where sellers will reuse old
discontinued products or buy upc codes from ebay in order to get around any
filtering Amazon has.

Ideally Amazon should require the UPC to be fully registered and verified
instead of just taking whatever a seller enters at face value.

~~~
robryan
eBay have been trying to enforce UPC/EAN for some years now but don't seem to
be making a lot of progress either.

Amazon have also made the burden of proof for getting changes to a listing
made so high that it isn't really worth the time to point out the issues to
them unless it is a product that sells well, so the long tail is a mess.

------
apotatopot
I got an MSI motherboard from Amazon that was listed as "new", but was
obviously heavily used and no longer functioning. No anti-static packaging, it
was wrapped in cheapo foam paper and had what looked like scratch marks all
over it.

That's probably the worst shape item I've received, but I've also heard and
got counterfeit baby items, which could be extremely unsafe. I'm being
extremely careful with Amazon moving forward.

~~~
reaperducer
_I 've also heard and got counterfeit baby items_

This is a big reason I have the rule "Never buy from Amazon anything that goes
in or on a living thing."

No food. No pet food. No personal products. Amazon simply can't be trusted.

I know the violation of trust is from Amazon's "partners" but Amazon allows
this to happen, and makes a profit off of it.

~~~
crazygringo
Huh? I order food and personal products all the time.

Nobody's counterfeiting my bulk name-brand orders of flavored almonds. Or my
hair products.

Counterfeiting tends to happen with high-value electronics, or occasionally
expensive textbooks. I've never heard of it happening with food or personal
hygiene. I mean, I just don't think the profit margins are there.

~~~
reaperducer
_Nobody 's counterfeiting my bulk name-brand orders of flavored almonds._

How would you know?

 _Or my hair products._

Maybe not yours, but there have been plenty of stories in the press and on the
internet about fake personal care products being sold on Amazon.

------
4ec0755f5522
Amazon is eating itself alive. The general population may not have figured it
out yet but high-users (Prime members) definitely see the problems and most
importantly DO. NOT. TRUST. AMAZON. ANYMORE.

The brand is halfway down the toilet in terms of online retail and I do not
think they can turn it around in time. Their whole strategy is based on speed
and they've found garbage third party sellers a speed advantage. They are not
competing on quality at all. They are not offering a quality experience, they
are not selling quality, it is not in their product plan.

So if you are shopping for quality experience or quality product you do not
shop on Amazon. It is only a matter of time I think before this awareness hits
critical mass.

~~~
dang
_Please don 't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or
phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

------
vector_spaces
This is the _top listing_ returned in Amazon's search results for the main
textbook used in upper division and first year graduate level statistical
inference courses in North America

[http://imgur.com/a/nYmkFie](http://imgur.com/a/nYmkFie)

Notice the black mark on the bottom right corner? That's to conceal text
saying that it's an international edition not to be sold outside of India --
editions that tend to be dirt cheap compared to North American editions but
have poor print and binding jobs, usually no preface or solutions to problems
in the appendix, and missing chapters. Notice that it's original price was
listed as $999.99 and it's listed as 98% off? The listing price of the NA
edition is actually about $100.

This listing shows up _before_ the legitimate listing in the search results.
It has been this way for many months. I'm fine with international editions
being sold on Amazon -- so long as they are clearly labeled as such.

When this problem has become so pervasive and even impacts Amazon's original
core business to this extent, I find myself looking to other retailers... Only
to find it impacting many of them as well. I bought an international edition
from a third party seller on hpb.com, and my partner is finding shady probably
factory produced stuff littered with obviously fake reviews on Etsy now.

I'm really curious what the evolution of this problem will look like for
e-commerce marketplaces.

~~~
nostromo
To me, this is a feature, not a bug. I'd be overjoyed to save _one thousand
dollars_ on a text book with slightly worse printing.

Saving a few dollars to buy trash... not so much.

Edit: thanks for the response below pointing out that the savings is not so
extreme. Still, when I was an undergrad, money was very tight for me, so if I
could find a way to save a few bucks, I was grateful for it.

~~~
vector_spaces
The listing price of the non-international edition isn't a thousand dollars --
it's about a hundred new, with several $50 listings for a used copy. Which is
pricey, but not as egregious as e.g. Stewart's Calculus which runs close to
$250 new for the latest edition

------
reaperducer
_She declined to comment on the Journal’s store._

The most telling line in the story.

Also, there's this:

 _“Sellers are responsible for meeting Amazon’s high bar for product quality,”
an Amazon spokeswoman said._

Apparently at Amazon, they mean "high" as in stoned. Certainly not "high" as
in good.

~~~
jotm
Sellers are responsible, so Amazon is not at fault.

~~~
uoaei
That's the narrative, yes, but all of this is predicated on the fact that
Amazon does not regulate its sellers appropriately.

~~~
jotm
That was the joke heh

Reading it now, it looks like a serious comment. I got defeated by my own
sarcasm.

------
droithomme
This article mentions a bunch of different practices, some Ok, others not, but
seems to disapprove of all of them.

Listing food items you got from the trash? Definitely not ok, whether listed
as new or not.

Reselling unopened clearance items you bought at Target or WalMart? That seems
perfectly fine, what's the problem?

Reselling unopened liquidation items you bought in a random grab bag at
auction from a liquidator who bought them as returns from amazon? That seems
fine as well. Should they be listed as new, like new, or used? That's
reasonable to discuss.

Reselling thrift store bought items as used? Sure why not. Tons of thrift
stores list items especially books on amazon. It's one of my main sources of
out of print books. Can't think of a thing wrong with this.

~~~
JohnFen
> Reselling unopened clearance items you bought at Target or WalMart?

I object to this because those items may have been purchased from retailers
that I do not want my money to go to.

But this, and the rest of the things you list, are actually OK with me, so
long as the listing clearly states where the item was obtained from.

~~~
thenewnewguy
Your money isn't going to them, they already have the money regardless of
whether the item is sold on Amazon or not. If you want to support specific
retailers buy from them directly rather than via a marketplace that allows
third parties to list on it.

~~~
JohnFen
Yes, but I prefer to stay out of that chain entirely. If someone wants to do
business with an entity I object to, well, that's up to them. But I don't want
to inject myself anywhere in that chain.

> If you want to support specific retailers buy from them directly

Which I do. The third party marketplace Amazon runs is a significant factor in
why I've decided to reduce my use of Amazon to "last resort" status.

Although I'm not talking about supporting specific retailers here, I'm talking
about inverse -- intentionally not supporting specific retailers.

------
adamc
I think the way I'm coming to see Amazon is like a street vendor. If it's
something I would be willing to buy from a random guy on a street, then sure,
I can buy it from Amazon. If I need more assurances... it's a poor source.

~~~
par
At least with a street vendor I can see what I am getting before I pay for it.
Amazon is arguably worse than a reputable street vendor.

------
mortenjorck
_> In his view, [former FBA manager James Thompson] said, “Ultimately
consumers are the police of the platform.”_

While a current Amazon spokesperson disavows this view in the next paragraph,
it’s clear from the rest of the piece (and other pieces, and countless
anecdotes) that this perspective was foundational in the development of
Amazon’s marketplace and cannot be eliminated by the words of a PR rep.

It’s also clear that Amazon is making efforts to redress this with various
policy changes and programs. But it certainly appears the problem is cultural,
and that only a cultural shift will be able to turn the tide of trust that is
slowly draining from Amazon’s supply chain.

~~~
LoSboccacc
Amazon gets its cut anyway and if you order again after a return they get it
double, there is very little incentive for them to change

------
acheron
I've never had an issue with the supposed "co-mingling". If I'm careful when I
choose what product I order, I have no problem. That said, choosing a good
product is definitely becoming harder and harder. Amazon reviews are mostly
useless, and some product searches are overwhelmed with the fly-by-night
Chinese companies' listings, to the extent that you can't find any legitimate
listings at all.

So there's a couple different problems. If there's actively fraud going on,
then yeah they need to fight that, but it's not usually true "fraud" when
TOPGOODTOYPRODUCTS lists their toy with an SEO-approved title. It's just an
obvious garbage listing that I don't want to see when looking for something.

~~~
ceejayoz
Some counterfeits are good enough you wouldn't _know_ if you have a problem or
not. If one out of 1,000 instead of one out of 1,000,000 is defective, 99.9%
of people will be "happy" with their counterfeit, and it may be outwardly
indistinguishable.

------
SkyPuncher
I'm now actively looking and buying from other places unless I desperately
need something in 2-days or less and know exactly what I need.

* Searching has simply becoming wading through pages and pages of Chinese junk with incorrect, misleading, or straight-up lies in the description.

* Similarly, the average quality of generic items is so poor, I'm trending back to brick-and-mortar stores. Walmart may have cheap stuff, but at least they put some effort into maintaining their brand.

* Who knows what product a review was actually written for. Lots of basic products are being sold to pump up reviews then being switched to a much more expensive item.

* I've also noticed I'll pay for many name brand items on Amazon that getting them directly from seller or another retailer.

* At least 10% of my orders from Amazon now have something wrong with them. What good is 2 day shipping if I need to return and re-order an item - taking nearly a week total.

~~~
mitchty
> I'm now actively looking and buying from other places unless I desperately
> need something in 2-days or less and know exactly what I need.

Even then, its getting harder to find somewhere I can "trust". Example, I buy
8TiB Seagate drives, used to be I could depend on Newegg to get them, but now
they have a market thing like amazon.

My last box from them was empty, literally. I'm down to B&H photo for buying
drives which is fine they're great but I'm getting pissed off at all the
things that used to work fine to buy on amazon but now its total sketch.

An Amazon example, I bought a NUC from some random store, but totes shipped by
Amazon we promise so I was like well eh, its like the only place on the
internet to buy this model.

Didn't even get sent, fortunately I got a refund but I'm DONE buying
electronics on Amazon or Newegg. I can't trust that I'll get what I want from
either anymore. This ignores the crap like getting a power brick and finding
out the stupid thing is a counterfeit and not the name brand it was supposed
to be.

~~~
yellow_lead
I would order from BestBuy. I just did this for an M2 and I knew that if
there's any issues, I can just take it to the nearest store. They also price
match, but you need to go in store or call a customer service line to do it. I
just went in store. Less convenient, but less risky for larger purchases.

edit - best buy may not have everything you need but typically you can find a
decent drive.

~~~
dragontamer
I find that Best Buy is good for prepackaged stuff: like a full laptop or a
full desktop. In fact, Best Buy prices are competitive if you're buying those
kinds of items.

Best Buy sometimes has GPUs or SSDs at good prices, but its less common. I
still price-compare at Best Buy because of that small chance that they win in
the price wars, but my #1 goto is still Microcenter (or Newegg if from
online).

~~~
setr
Cables however is outright offensive; they operate like an airport -
everything is $25 to $40

~~~
dragontamer
I dunno. I'd rather spend $25 on an unnecessarily expensive cable than get a
$10 cable that blows up my $1000 laptop:
[https://www.amazon.com/review/R2XDBFUD9CTN2R/ref=cm_cr_rdp_p...](https://www.amazon.com/review/R2XDBFUD9CTN2R/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?tag=theverge02-20)

The fact of the matter is: Amazon's cables have such low-quality assurance on
them, that they're untrustworthy now.

I think for cables specifically, Monoprice has created a good reputation and a
good price. Unlike Amazon, who hides behind "marketplace sellers" and
"comingling", Monoprice puts their own reputation on the line when they sell
cables.

[https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=5458](https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=5458)

Ultimately, if Amazon wants to be a "marketplace seller", they can. But Amazon
needs to do a much better job combating fake-sellers, low-quality products.
I'm not even anti-Chinese or whatever, I'm fine buying cheap Chinese stuff as
long as there's some long-standing brand name that is willing to take the
reputation hit if things go wrong. (Ex: why I'm fine buying cheap Chinese
goods from Walmart, but not fine with buying cheap Chinese goods from Amazon.
Walmart does step in and take responsibility)

Otherwise, its just Alibaba Russian roulette with your stuff. Maybe things
work, maybe things don't, maybe things will blow up your laptop. Maybe the
18650 cell will blow up in your vaping device and give 3rd degree burns on
your face. Or the 18650 cells will create a garage fire burning down your new
scooter. Etc. etc.

The problem is the distinct lack of brands and accountability on Amazon. If a
Monoprice or Best Buy cable destroyed laptops or caused fires, we'd all blame
Monoprice or Best Buy. But if an Amazon item does the same, we somehow don't
blame Amazon, but some indistinct unnamed entity.

------
turtlebits
There's so much Amazon bashing it seems to be a bandwagon.

I wish there was more focus on other stores getting what Amazon has done
right. The shopping (and return) experience at Amazon is so far superior than
any other online or brick and mortar store.

Things that suck:

Payments - What is the point of contactless payments when still I have to put
in my PIN, cashback prompt and finally accept the amount?

Online order/store pickup. Why do I have to wait in line and have my ID
checked?

Returns are the absolute worst - every experience I've had is at least a 10+
minute wait.

~~~
danShumway
> Returns are the absolute worst - every experience I've had is at least a 10+
> minute wait.

> The shopping (and return) experience at Amazon is so far superior

I don't get it.

An Amazon return process will also take me 5-10 minutes to complete online,
and then it requires me to have a printer and packaging on-hand to ship the
item back to Amazon. Then to get a replacement I need to wait multiple days
for both the return to process, and the replacement to ship.

I live in a suburban area, so for a physical store I drive 15-20 minutes, wait
10 minutes for the return to process, and then get in my car with the
replacement and drive back home. I can get the entire thing done in less than
an hour. I don't need to print anything, I don't need to box anything up. I
can go from noticing a part is defective to having a replacement _in my hand_
in an hour.

You seem to be optimizing for different metrics than me, or you live way
farther from most physical stores than I do.

It's annoying to type in a pin, I guess, but I'm happy to take that ~15 second
loss if it means I can save 2 days of waiting for a package to arrive.

~~~
turtlebits
Maybe you don't have Amazon dropoff locations, but essentially I walk in the
door, walk to a staff member handling returns, and they scan a QR code on my
phone and I hand over the item. Never encountered a line and am always out
within a minute.

It doesn't need to be packed in a taped box with a label on it.

~~~
rootusrootus
That's kind of cool, good to know. Unfortunately in my small metro area of
2.5M people, there are exactly three locations to drop-off, two of which are
downtown and not easy to drive in and out of.

Hopefully they are planning to expand those options.

------
dangerboysteve
I've had a few open boxes or obviously used items sold as new and unused from
Amazon over the years. Amazon always takes them back no questions asked.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Prime account? I have Prime and haven't ever had a problem returning things or
getting refunds, which I haven't had to do much of anyway.

I'm wondering if there isn't a significant difference between the shopping
experience of Prime and non-Prime users.

~~~
JohnFen
I've been a Prime member for over a decade (although I've recently cancelled
my Prime membership), and I've made very few complaints over the years. But
one of the many things that has soured me on Amazon is that the last three
times I needed to do a return (in every case because the item was damaged),
it's been a huge pain in the butt. And once, Amazon even claimed they never
received the return at all, and recharged my account for the ($20) item.

I know that others have a very different experience than I, and I don't know
what the difference is -- but Prime vs non-Prime doesn't seem to be it.

~~~
jdfellow
Funny enough last time I needed to do an Amazon return it was the easiest
thing ever: they take returns now at Whole Foods locations so all I had to do
was go to the cashier at the grocer around the corner. The Whole Foods
acquisition is still an odd choice in my opinion for Amazon, but this was a
great move.

~~~
JohnFen
That's fine if you happen to be near a Whole Foods. That said, Amazon also
uses UPS Stores in a similar way as Whole Foods for this, and that's what I've
used.

------
paggle
I just bought Christmas presents and I ordered only the books from Amazon.
JetPens packages stationery for less damage, Uncommon Goods has a curated
selection, and a wallet from Nordstrom has a better return policy.

~~~
markkanof
Agreed with all the examples you list. The flip side though is I have been
dealing with a clothing company (Zanerobe) who's return policy is store credit
only. The main problem with that is their product line is really small, so
basically my options are keep the pair of pants that I don't like OR just let
them hold my money as store credit forever. Should I have read their return
policy before buying, yes, probably, but I've gotten so used to places like
Nordstrom AND Amazon giving refunds for returned products for any reason that
it didn't even occur to me.

~~~
distances
Aren't refunds required for returns in US online sales?

~~~
paggle
The US tends to have very few federal laws of this type. Some states have
them.

------
paggle
This article finally captured the truth about Amazon - that it’s just eBay,
and should be used for the same purchases: things you can’t get anywhere else
and things that are impossible to screw up.

~~~
4ntonius8lock
Actually with ebay I can more easily trust. Because they don't co-mingle, I
know that someone with 100,000 positive reviews on ebay is unlikely to sell a
counterfeit. With amazon I don't have that trust, since even if the seller is
great, one single bad actor, who isn't the person I'm buying from, could
infiltrate the system causing me to get a counterfeit.

~~~
lame-robot-hoax
Exactly, despite them working on commingling and counterfeits, I’m still super
weary of ordering anything cosmetic on Amazon. Like, face serums or
moisturizers. I’m weary of rubbing anything on my face that’s from Amazon.

------
uoaei
Our Christmas bonus this year at our small startup was a large Amazon gift
card. I'm intensely conflicted on applying it to my account. But that amount
of money is not insignificant and I feel almost obligated to use it despite my
ethical qualms with Amazon.

How might my fellow HN denizens navigate this situation? I already asked HR
and they don't want to exchange it for cash because "we already bought it" and
"we don't want the bonus to be taxable income".

~~~
dwater
Gift cards are taxable income, but if you point this out to HR it probably
won't make them happier with you.

[https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-
topics/compensatio...](https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-
topics/compensation/Pages/Holiday-Gifts-Taxable.aspx)

~~~
uoaei
How the hell do I navigate this re: filing taxes? I'm an independent
contractor.

Obviously the best answer is "talk to a CPA" but I'm curious if anyone has
insight into how to wade through this.

~~~
teachrdan
Add it to your income from that employer and pay taxes on it accordingly.
Alternately, you could donate it to a non-profit, get a receipt and have it be
a net zero on your taxes.

~~~
gbear605
Only if you’re itemizing though.

------
bcassedy
I think it's interesting how the perception of Amazon is changing. Even my
parents who are in their late 60s are avoiding Amazon because of
counterfeiting and poor production quality.

------
roland35
I am also finding myself use Amazon for less and less- I used to purchase a
lot from "subscribe and save" but I find it to be a frustrating experience!
For example, a pack of paper towels could change counts or sizes, and it's
hard to know if I am actually getting a good price.

I find that Target seems to be the most trustworthy, both Amazon and Walmart
have a lot of junk mixed in with their genuine products online. I think that
many brick and mortar stores are figuring out how to become more convenient
for busy people with things like drive up pick up (Target, Giant Eagle
groceries), same day delivery (Walmart), pick up lockers (Home Depot), it
starts to even the playing field with Amazon.

------
m3kw9
So you decide to get a jar, put crap in it , mislabel it and sell it, and it
worked. Makes you a fraud. What’s new?

------
OJFord
Well, yeah.

Sort by price, low to high, and observe two things:

1\. For all it's technical acumen, Amazon apparently can't figure out how to
order things by price

2\. Amazon sells a lot of tack, junk, trash, and tat.

------
netwanderer3
Amazon must be careful. They may be slowly losing it without even knowing.

When a customer considers buying something online, what are the main criteria
driving their decision-making process? The most important criteria are the
ones that will not change very often no matter what happens, and should always
remain true even in 10 or 20 years time from now. These are: "a wide selection
of goods, great prices, authentic merchandises, convenience (fast shipping
time to anywhere)".

Amazon do not always have the best online prices anymore these days. Based on
many online reports, they are increasingly letting in inauthentic merchandises
by 3rd party sellers. Their shipping time is still outstanding though, plus a
very wide selection of goods which are what keep them going mainly these days.

Amazon should be very cautious, if another platform could beat them to the two
main key criteria in the near future then they may lose some of their market
share. In the quest of chasing for growth, sometimes companies could overlook
these basic principles.

------
lucb1e
Wait but, if the product is indistinguishable from new (else it wouldn't be
news that you're buying "trash" from Amazon if everyone already knew that),
what's the problem? You get the same warranty, the product gets a second life,
it's good for the environment, it can be cheaper because it didn't have to be
manufactured again (good for you)... The downside is obviously that the "new"
status was a lie, but if it's truly indistinguishable, I really don't find it
all that objectionable.

~~~
rootusrootus
> You get the same warranty

What warranty? Are you referring to the "A-to-z Guarantee" that Amazon
provides on merchandise from third-party sellers? I'd hesitate to think of
that as a warranty.

~~~
lucb1e
I mean the general warranty law (European or the country's implementation), so
2 years on new electronics for example (European law) or "however long a
product may reasonably be expected to work" (Dutch implementation of that law,
which makes manufacturers go 'wtf' and they tell everyone 2 years and most
people don't know that they have any rights after 2 years, e.g. a TV
definitely shouldn't break after 2 years).

~~~
rootusrootus
That is interesting, I wonder how enforcement of that works on a product that
does not have a clear chain of custody back to the manufacturer.

~~~
lucb1e
I haven't been exact enough. I mention manufacturer because I guess that
vendors just copy the manufacturer's warranty statement for the European
market, but in reality it's the vendor that has to provide the warranty. I
don't think consumer rights laws care whether the vendor has a reliable
manufacturer to back them on this.

If you buy from cheap-electronics.example.nl and they order crap from China,
it's still up to Cheap Electronics B.V. (or whatever they're registered as) to
provide warranty. If there is no clear chain of custody, the vendor should
have thought that through before deciding to buy from them. The vendor is
legally not allowed to redirect you to the manufacturer: the vendor has to
handle warranty, not send the customer to the manufacturer.

(I know a thing or two about our warranty system because a company tried to
screw me out of a few hundred euros that I only got back after half a year of
weekly nagging, and not before I had sent a letter outlining exactly what the
law is and which steps and fees would be leading up to a court case which they
would definitely lose. As a student, I didn't have the money to pay a lawyer
for that stuff, and the law allows for self-representation in small claims so
that's what I prepared for. I should also give credit to the ACM/Consuwijzer
that have _excellent_ documentation understandable for anyone.)

------
aussieguy1234
[https://outline.com/LFSy2r](https://outline.com/LFSy2r). Step 1: Use bit.ly
to shorten WSJ url. Step 2: Outline shortened url.

------
ReptileMan
Can anyone compare uk, de and us experience? A lot of the ailments people
complain seem to be absent from the European stores and my experience with
them is very positive.

~~~
jasonwen
My experience too. Although I mostly order from Amazon Germany. The barrier
for selling from Germany is also higher as you need additional tax
registrations in Germany since this October.

------
hsivonen
What do folks in Europe use instead of Amazon.de for computer parts for a few
years old computers and accessories that are not the most common ones?

~~~
ClumsyPilot
alza.cz is a prague-based company that offers miles better shopping experience
than amazon does. You can sort and filter by technical characteristics, like
number of CPU cores, screen diagonal, weight, whatever you want. They deliver
across most of EU.

------
dfkhasfdhdsfi
Stay away from anything on Amazon that someone can arbitrage with a
counterfeit. Personally I have been burned on supposedly real brand name
refrigerator filters - the label looked like it was printed with an ink jet.
On the other hand the Amazon basics brand is decent and I trust it more then
the marketplace sellers, seems about the same as Walmart GV.

~~~
distances
Frankly, Amazon has such a poor name now that I would be embarrassed to buy
any Amazon Basics items. I definitely skip them, even for non-visible items
such as batteries.

------
neonate
[http://archive.md/UbD7r](http://archive.md/UbD7r)

------
bdcravens
I ordered coffee that I commonly get at the grocery store. I just got a
cardboard box filled with loose k-cups, with no expiration information. Not
sure if the paywalled article mentions this, but you can’t return food
products. I did leave a 1-star review and ended up drinking them (coffee is
less of an expiration issue) but I still wasn’t happy about it.

------
yourapostasy
An interesting phenomena I'm starting to see involved in this is when the
trash retailing experience on Amazon affects entire product ecosystems. As
long as the trash dominates listings, better manufacturers and vendors seem to
begin to find it difficult to keep the trash out of their own supply chains.

A personal example is search in Amazon on "lightning splitter", for the
Lightning adapters that split a single Lightning port into one for charging
and one for audio.

This entire category is awash in pretty much all the sketch activity we talk
about here on HN. It's easy to find an example where questions were asked
about completely different products, and the vendor subsequently swapped the
product in the listing for the Lightning splitter. Also easy to find reviews
in broken English posted within 1-2 days of each other. The litany goes on.

That's not the interesting part. What I find interesting is Belkin, whose
business model seems to tend to be source from about the same as these vendors
in China, slap on a bunch of marketing with some so-so-but-not-spectacular QA
and support, and marks up the result 5-800%, is themselves caught up in this.
Their own offering in this category is complete trash just like all the other
listings, based upon reviews and first-hand experience, with exactly the same
failure mode (works for 1-6 months, then power and/or audio connection breaks
down).

Power banks seemed to go through the same sketchy phase, which I finally gave
up upon and just started only buying Anker brand. Even though they weren't the
absolute best, they were good enough, and I knew I wouldn't get utter trash
out of the box.

I have long suspected this entire state of affairs suits Amazon just fine. The
more product categories that trash themselves like this, the more of an
opening it gives Amazon to completely vertically integrate the entire supply
chain for that category under their Basics label, and shove aside most/all of
the trash vendors to the loud acclaim of consumers, who get so sick of the
trash experience that they welcome the creeping Amazon monopolization with
open arms and lusty cheers. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Amazon rolls out
tiered-quality offerings beyond Basics as this effort takes hold.

One possible way that might frustrate Amazon's efforts in this direction is
more companies like Anker spot these opportunities (with a basic business
model being "don't be completely toxic to your customers, build a reasonable
product with reasonable support at a reasonable price point") and fill the
empty niches, then exert absolutely tyrannical channel control. The
manufacturer claims the only authorized Amazon (or even a whole set of online
platforms) authorized channel sales to avoid commingling counterfeits, and
comes down like a ton of bricks on anyone that tries to mom-and-pop resell
online on staked-out e-commerce platforms.

This is a live economics and marketing exercise in the power and utility of
branding. Could be some interesting needs and solutions for supply chain
verification coming out of this as well, with subtle, secret but cheaply-
implemented, manufacturer-designed watermarks built into the products to catch
authorized resellers trying to sneak in cheap counterfeits amongst their legit
stock to illicitly boost their margins.

~~~
ikeboy
Note that Belkin is owned by Foxconn.

Otherwise, I agree with the dynamics you describe. There's two kinds of
brands, the ones that make cheap crap that kinda works and the expensive
decent quality ones. On some level, you get what you pay for.

Re counterfeits, Amazon's Transparency program effectively solves it cheaply
if you're willing to QR label all your products.

~~~
yourapostasy
Thank you for letting me know about the Foxconn connection!

That adds an extra interesting twist. Presumably Belkin is Foxconn's attempt
via the Belkin/Linksys/Wemo acquisitions to climb up the value ladder and
establish its own vertically-integrated manufacturer-to-retail value chain.
The question then turns to how much does Belkin outsource on the particular
product I gave as an example, versus using Foxconn's native design,
manufacturing, and QA capabilities.

What piques my interest is how even Belkin with Foxconn's considerable
expertise on tap, apparently cannot set itself apart from whoever (or multiple
whoever's) is supplying everyone the trash design and manufacturing of this
particular product segment (after trying three different suppliers at three
different price points, I've given up altogether and will check again in about
8 months). I'd love to hear Bunnie Huang's insights on this.

------
Trias11
+1 for Costco.

~~~
repler
100% agree. Costco actively curates the products they sell.

They even have "roadshows" where vendors literally compete with each other to
get selected.

Why this matters to me is that by doing so, they have earned my trust. I have
confidence that if I buy something at Costco I don't need to research it to
the ends of the earth. I know it will be of good to great quality, and
competitive on price.

It's almost literally the opposite of Amazon in this regard.

------
jostmey
I RECEIVED AN OPENED BOX OF BABY FORMULA FROM AMAZON.

I've basically stopped using amazon for all but a few purchases I can't get
elsewhere. They lost a lot of business from me

~~~
dang
_Please don 't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or
phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

------
ClumsyPilot
I applaud this as a recycling effort

------
einpoklum
> You are buying trash on Amazon

There, fixed that for you. Or maybe it should be:

> You might be buying from trash - Amazon

To be less facetious, though, Amazon is one of the corporations which scares
me the most. It seems to be sucking up so much of the economy, and only
getting more voracious over time.

------
notjtrig
I sell my trash on eBay as most of it is in pretty bad shape when I get it.
Any ideas where to get better quality trash than Bed Bath and Beyond, Staples,
Harbor Freight ewaste pickups and transfer stations?

------
ptah
good. recycling is the way forward

~~~
danepowell
Unless you're talking about, say, botulism-contaminated food products that a
grocery store discarded and a dumpster diver "recycled" on Amazon. Not saying
that exact case has happened, but surely there's a more nuanced take on this
than "recycling is good".

~~~
droithomme
Well the only dumpster food item they confirmed sold on amazon _the WSJ
personally dove for and placed on amazon themselves_.

Then they quote some basically anonymous people saying they list trash salvage
on amazon sometimes or did in the past, without verifying so or giving any
examples of what sorts of things they sold.

Is anyone other than the WSJ listing contaminated food on amazon? No evidence
is provided.

~~~
penagwin
Given that it's potentially profitable and works, who cares if it's done in a
widespread way? That fact that it easily could is the problem IMO.

~~~
droithomme
> That fact that it easily could...

It's also easy to add poison dust to toys one resells, or razor blades to
candies.

However, both these acts are illegal.

What is also illegal is what the WSJ did. Selling food items of any kind in
interstate commerce, including all internet sales, is strictly regulated by
the FDA, and sellers _must_ have a facility license.

[https://www.fda.gov/food/food-industry/how-start-food-
busine...](https://www.fda.gov/food/food-industry/how-start-food-business)

> If you are importing food products, conducting internet sales, and/or
> shipping food products outside of your state, you _must_ register as a
> facility.

WSJ is not registered with the FDA as a facility and therefore is in violation
of federal law. They should be charged, prosecuted, and fined. Given the
violation was willful, egregious, and put people at risk, criminal
prosecutions with jail time should be considered as well.

Selling food taken out of dumpsters in interstate commerce is not legally
permitted.

Amazon's solution here is simple. Anyone listing food needs to prove they are
an FDA registered facility. This includes all amazon properties as well.
Amazon is also engaging in illegal activity if they are not FDA registered and
following all regulations. Which they clearly are not. Enforce existing laws.
Including maximum fines and prison time as necessary.

------
wildduck
one man's trash is another man's treasure. It is just supply and demand.

------
decebalus1
I have mixed feelings when I see these articles popping up recently along with
the general consensus on hackernews about the fact that Amazon shopping should
be avoided. On one side I'm glad, considering Amazon has gotten too big and is
in need of a readjustment. But on the other side, I feel that this is an echo
chamber, considering the continuing growth of the company.

I am privileged enough to actively reject everything that has anything to do
with Amazon. I buy most things locally and sometimes I pay a premium for that.
No regrets, I consider this the capitalist democracy of voting with your
wallet in the free market. I have not bought anything from Amazon for the past
4 years, since the first time I heard about the warehouse working conditions.
I correlated that with the toxic environment they are cultivating for white-
collar workers and just decided that Amazon is a company I never want to deal
with.

~~~
lotsofpulp
>But on the other side, I feel that this is an echo chamber, considering the
continuing growth of the company.

It may take a while for Amazon to lose its good will, but eventually people
will realize it's not worth shopping on a website full of unvetted cheap
garbage, even if it saves a dollar.

It costs a lot of time and effort to re-pack and return items. Even my parents
are befuddled by Amazon's website now, where they have to carefully tip toe
around a minefield of gibberish to make sure what they are buying is shipped
and sold by Amazon.com. They say screw it, and just go to Target/Costco/Best
Buy or any other decent website.

~~~
rootusrootus
I only speak for myself, obviously, but from my perspective if Amazon wants to
stay successful they need to focus on reliability over price. I don't buy
stuff on Amazon because I want to save a buck, I do it because I can just open
up the app, pick what I want, and know that it will be here in a day or two.
It's 100% about the convenience. I can tolerate spending a bit more, but I
have an extremely low tolerance for counterfeit, low-quality, damaged goods,
etc.

If Amazon doesn't address this fairly soon, I'm probably going to look for
other options, and once I switch, the odds of coming back are pretty low. It
could be as simple as allowing me to opt out of seeing anything that is not
"ships from and sold by Amazon" (and guaranteed no commingling).

~~~
zucked
I worked on eliminating Amazon from my life ( my account is from 2007 and I
begrudgingly subscribe to Prime) and it was HARD.

The thing that constantly kept hooking me back in was the the 2 Day shipping.
I've ordered from Target, eBay, and the OEM's directly.

MOST of the time, the non-amazon option has a decent fulfillment lead time.
But once in a while, they'll take 3 days to ship the package, then they'll
ship it with UPS Ground, which is slow a shit. Realistically, that often means
it takes upwards of 8 business days, or nearly two weeks, to get your stuff.

I think they understand this very well as they continue to invest in the
logistics network and do jack squat to address the real issues facing Amazon.

------
StanDavis
paywall

~~~
mc3
[https://outline.com/6L5uuw](https://outline.com/6L5uuw)

------
mvanbaak
Anyone has a non-paywalled version?

~~~
Wowfunhappy
This article appears to be exempt from the WSJ's paywall. It worked for me
anyway.

~~~
mc3
Welcome to the non-idempotent web.

------
klyrs
Extreme optimism: well this takes the punch out of previous reporting that
amazon returns are being sent to landfill...

~~~
droithomme
Returns are auctioned off in grab bags of random items. There's dozens of
youtube channels of people going through these boxes and talking about how
much they'll relist each item for, keep some items, throw away a lot. One key
is you need to be near the auction site to personally pick up your wins since
otherwise the shipping is too high. One exception is some lots are for _entire
truckloads_ of items, which sometimes come with free shipping by truck, and
free the problem of what to do with a truckload of random returns such as
80,000 lbs of cracked large panel TVs.

