The Downfall of Amazon: Dangerous Products, Fake Reviews & Vanishing Brands
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https://youtu.be/1qWJXflTPZk

The quality of stuff being sold on Amazon has been a race to the bottom for a while now, somewhat following in the steps of Ebay.

In this video Louis has two crimp butt connectors: one bought from Amazon and one bought from a hardware retail store - the Amazon purchased one, which a regular user of the site may consider as reputable at a glance, fails to crimp the wires securely. The hardware store one however securely crimps the wires in place.

It’s a pretty mundane example, but extends across to other products in other industry verticals too. A pretty major concern raised in the video was that the failure of this specific product would cause excess heat, potentially leading to an electrical fire in the worst case scenario.

There’s also the issue of reputable brands not even listing their products on Amazon anymore, leaving users with mostly poor quality alternatives shown prominently in search results.

Personally I find myself preferring to shop at dedicated or independent online storefronts, where it’s a bit more obvious what exactly I’m purchasing, and where there’s at least some minimum guarantee of quality - in contrast to a Prime “dropshipped”, generic product from Amazon. Also kind of like the fact that by purchasing from sites that aren’t massive marketplaces or outlets, real individuals benefit from my custom, not massive behemoths that don’t need the sales to survive

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  • SkyNTPEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Man, my experience with Amazon seems to be wildly different than everyone else

    • Amazon is terrible for small stuff. It’s always cheaper at a box store.
    • For bulk/big/expensive stuff, Amazon is cheaper or same price for the same brand name thing 9/10 times.
    • Amazon almost always has a vastly better selection. This is the primary reason to use it IMO. You can find the most esoteric things that are about impossible to find locally in a reasonable time.
    • If you don’t shop for a brand you’ll run into tons of mystery brands. In my experience these almost always inexpensive but meet the requirements. They certainly don’t exceed them and sometimes assembly is frustrating, but if you are patient and careful, they pretty much always work well enough that I can’t complain about value/dollar.