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#amazon#brand#same#brands#more#don#knockoff#buy#name#https
Discussion (187 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
"Knockoff" seems to be literally describing itself.
[1] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/amazonbrandfilter/m...
Yeah. I don't know. I don't love that they're just ripping the list like that, I wouldn't mind as much if they at least helped contribute to the list. That is far and away the hardest part of this thing.
But it is what it is, I'll be more peeved if they monetize it (which I'm unsure if they're doing).
Maybe I should put one of those buy me a coffee links on the repo, I'd probably be better about focusing on it then.
Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amazonbrandfi...
TIL, thanks for your work!
I wish there was something like this but that filtered out AI books.
edit: lol. tried searching for USB C flex cables. WHOLE search result page is gone. Love it! :-D
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amazonbrandfi...
I'm a Firefox user myself. It is cross browser but it started Firefox first.
FSL (vs a copyleft license or just plain old OSS) implies they want to turn this into a revenue source for themselves ultimately, unfortunately.
>Maybe I should put one of those buy me a coffee links on the repo
Absolutely :) Cool project.
If you're able and willing, create an issue on the addon repo: https://github.com/chris-mosley/AmazonBrandFilter/issues
And I'll build a version for safari for you to test.
You could always release the plugin code MIT and keep the brands.txt file proprietary or under a more restrictive license if you don't like what they are doing. After all, you did explicitly allow this.
But if ya want some proof I'm about to update the filter list with a bunch of mosquito repellents in like 10 minutes :)
This is an example: https://www.amazon.com/MiiKARE-Universal-Rotating-Adjustable...
You'll find lots of different manufacturers selling this on Amazon, but there is no well known brand that makes these.
I don't have Amazon Prime.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FS1H4SQQ
and I am really happy with the first one I bought and bought a second one for a co-worker who liked mine. At my food co-op I found something from the highly reputable Aura Cacia brand that was almost twice the price and I think very similar in quality.
Indeed - they're legitimately solving a real problem. It's just an interesting dynamic that a whole new product category is produced overnight, with no clear leading brand. Usually someone makes a useful product. It gets known. Then others enter in the market to compete. Here you just get 5 companies entering the market altogether.
As for the essential oil diffuser: That category was established long before these brands became a thing. But oh boy the overpriced ones in stores are really not worth it!
i wonder if it would be faster to 3d print that gadget than amazon prime it
We use the 3d printer explicitly for the one-off object scenario.
How future generations will look back at our convenience online ordering practices and be absolutely horrified at how we thought it was no issue to get some bit of plastic made in Asia and shipped over to US or Europe, then next or same day delivered just for for a few dollars/pounds.
Sorry OP, not aiming at you. You just triggered a sad rant.
Our great-great-grandchildren will probably be getting their gadgets via some kind of Star Trek replicator rather than a container ships and no doubt some moral hazard will be involved in that practice.
Generally though, things are getting better, no?
For example its the same as flying on planes. Number one worst offenders for C02 is frequent flyers, yet whenever you question anybody on it the argument is always "the planes are flying anyway why does it matter if Im on it or not".
> critical things
You miss the whole aspect of production and waste pipelines, which was kind of the point.
The real knockoff problem I see is that you buy what you think is BigBrand and get shipped Knockoff because someone is mingling inventory.
- Coming from the same factory line with the same quality control, just rebranded (Costco famously does this a lot)
- Factory seconds, goods with very minor defects (sometimes not even in the product itself but in the box etc)
- Manufacturers copying specs and running illicit production lines without the company’s authorization
- Complete knockoffs, where the external design was copied but the product is totally different
Ultimately for most of these Amazon brands you have no idea which of these you are getting. Just because a product looks the same doesn’t mean it is the same. And in a lot of cases, e.g. with battery operated electronics the knockoff manufacturers skip a lot of safeguards and it ends up burning your house down.
Whereas if it's costco it will at least be easy to get your money back if it dies in six months.
Occasionally there are even knockoffs that improve on the original product in some way, although usually they are just nearly as good at a much lower price.
Unless it's high-power LiPo or Li-Ion, that's extremely unlikely.
We don't know that. Look at Project Farm's review videos, he tests a lot of knock off and brand name products and it's almost always a get what you pay for situation. Knockoffs look similar, but use cheaper materials almost always.
The question is almost always, do you need the quality that you get from name brand. Not "why can I get name brand quality of half price"
Now all the 40 cent items cost $2, and have $3 shipping. Or you can buy the same thing on Amazon for $6. Their search also used to be a lot better, today it's worse than Youtube search.
The value prop of Amazon is (was?) getting your item fast (not cheapest anymore and certainly not highest quality).
Amazon used to be the cheapest and fastest with the best customer support. They have slipped backwards on all those fronts.
https://www.geekwire.com/2019/lawsuit-ruling-dog-leash-purch...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1k2ydn1rz8o
It seems like the retailers can be held responsible should "ASDAS_A!kr" drop off the radar, but might still be easier to sue local.
(I know "local" companies still find ways to settle / weasel their way out of responsiblities, but at least you know where to reach them...)
If it's an old and established US mark like Philips or Maytag or something? ZGGCD is the way to go.
I don't think commerce (especially at Amazon) works the way you think it does.
There is a very good chance that when you buy something at Amazon that says it's BigBrand ... it's just a knockoff. Or a fake that has infiltrated another part of Amazon's supply chain. There is big money in lying to customers through Amazon.
While I have my own disdain for the current length of copyright law, it’d be great if China at least had some variety of it. This sort of crap may be an eyesore for the big companies, but its a death-knell for small startups, and Amazon is enabling it.
So far, you think there is some universalism sentiment. You're wrong.
In any case, I gave this a try to see which of my brands it would filter out. It's weirdly inconsistent.
One of my brands was filtered out because there's no brand name at the beginning of the listing. That's just an outright bad rule, because Amazon generally decides whether or not the brand name appears first. This brand is trademarked and has Brand Registry, so it qualifies for that treatment, just not getting it right now. Also, a number of other brands without brand names did not get the same treatment (and these are very much the type of products this is designed to filter out).
On another one, it misunderstood the product model, which is at the beginning of the product name, as the brand and hid it based on that. That one was a bad one because the model is only three characters, which is extremely unlikely for a brand name.
One product I sell is a hunting accessory, so I did some searches there. It hid everything by the brand KUIU, which is a well-known and very high end hunting brand. Definitely wrong there.
So yeah, sort of an interesting idea, but the execution is pretty sloppy and the creator clearly doesn't have a full understanding of how Amazon listings work.
"No brand name" flag is tricky because the Amazon catalog team actively does A/B tests to hide brand names as part of their goal of commodifying all the sellers to increase price competition, when they see you're selling a commodity item.
Same goes to wellknown brands that get caught in the crossfire because they're using their brand name from another language but don't make sense in English.
Agreed that it's an interesting idea, but execution has a LOT of false positives.
- Return experience is TERRIBLE. I'm not kidding, with Amazon you've got one click to a QR code and a UPS store dropoff. Some of these mfgs you are jumping hoops for a week plus! And then have to box, buy a label, often pay for shipping and more. IF you can even get in touch with someone.
- Shipping experience is TERRIBLE. How does FedEx stay in business? I'm serious - the express port of their name is a joke. Stuff will randomly get stuck in a warehouse for a week. I've had their call center tell me that for SURE it will be delivered x date (because the online tool shows that date) but the package is still out of state at 9PM. So they'd need to get it in state, then to distribution center and then to a truck to my house by midnight - surprise surprise that didn't happen.
- I've gotten used products from the mfg? Do they get amazon returns back and then try to ship direct with those? How does this work that the new product is under the amazon.com seller and the mfg has the USED?
- You get on more mailing lists going direct. ULINE and friends now ship me these huge catalogs following tiny tiny purchases. Catalogs are still a thing!
It took me well over a month of back and forth to get a refund, and only after I repeatedly threatened them with a chargeback. I ordered the exact same tent on Amazon and had it the next day. As a bonus, it was now discounted on Amazon but not on the manufacturer's website.
I only order from Amazon a handful of times a year when I can't find an item elsewhere, but manufacturers are really doing their best to push me towards it.
- shipping sometimes goes to from day(s) to weeks
- suddenly their ads start going to email
- please review us emails
I'd rather bezos get his cut.
I'd buy more from such if it was easy to hide my personal info from them.
No business gets my real phone number, and the email I provide is companyname@mydomain.com. The minute I start receiving unsolicited email, I revoke the alias and spam will bounce.
IIRC amazon yeets you out of their marketplace if you sell items cheaper than on amazon.com. Which you can work around by giving our coupon on your website, but that results in email/sms spam.
You're talking about buying from a local shop. Unless that local shop is also the manufacturer, then that's a whole different discussion. :)
I pay $100 per year for a private mailbox near my apartment, registered under an LLC with a registered agent (not in my name and in another state) where I get deliveries in that name. that llc uses a fintech bank where I can spin up as many debit/credit cards as I want, I rotate them just like api keys. I also keep a twilio phone number that only receives texts with a webhook that goes to my discord. any sort of loyalty card etc goes under that number. I can enable phone calls if I need to, and of course a 2nd/3rd email account attached to this.
We've been dealing with different Amazons. Also, credit cards in my experience are built to deal with that stuff. Have you encountered protection issues by using your credit card? The only chargeback I've initiated was against Amazon and my credit card company handled it swimmingly.
I keep doing it anyway, but it's certainly not because it's a better or cheaper experience.
If you see something that looks like obvious dropshipping, chances are you can find it for a fraction of the price without the middleman on Temu, AliExpress or DHGate.
Counterfeit goods are clearly bad and a problem, but knockoffs that aren't counterfeit seem to be a good thing from an economics perspective, right?
A knockoff that isn't counterfeit isn't deceiving customers -- it is just competing and competition drives benefits to consumers.
There are many knockoff goods that reach comparable quality as the original, luxury good. We shouldn't support the idea of brands for their own sake. Today, many luxury brands are actually degrading in quality as the only thing customers are buying them for is the status signal more than the actual quality.
What is critical is a customer is informed about the trade offs between the goods to make an informed decision.
When I recently was buying camera gear, I bought some of the peak design bags and accessories (which are amazing). I then also bought some knockoff gear that is compatible with their system. Real:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F94FQRB $29.95 Knockoff: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYCB594Y $5.01
I knew what I was buying in both cases. I wouldn't trust the knockoff clips to hold my $3K Canon, but I am ok with the knockoff clips to hold an old, light film camera I also brought on the trip. I made an informed decision and my choice also helped contribute to competition between vendors, which is good for the market as a whole and consumers broadly.
If everyone used these chrome extensions, economic theory predicts that prices would rise for consumers and quality of the original brands would degrade through reduced competitive pressure.
What could be more informative for consumers that simply eliminating knockoffs from their search results would be to increase information. Maybe adding a visible indicator of which company is the established or originator of the design and which are knockoffs would be better than simply filtering them out.
Amazon doesn't give a shit if you're being hustled. If they have to issue a refund, that's the sellers problem, in all other cases they make money. There is so much junk of Amazon that's just not worth it. The only reason I ever shop at Amazon is if I truly cannot get the item elsewhere. They aren't cheaper, they're certainly not faster (in my area) and with every purchase you're at a much greater risk at getting scammed, compared to shopping at sites that don't do the marketplace crap.
In a sane world Amazons customers would be leaving in droves, and I cannot figure out why they don't.
Their logistic network is where prime holds its value.
Costco is great for curation, but only for the items they carry.
A combo of Amazon for the random junk I don’t care much about and Costco for consumer staples works out well.
And no online vendor gets remotely close to Amazon for speed of shipping, ease of returns, and product selection. Usually matches the best price I can find on most things too - outside of stuff I buy direct from China.
Lots of the random crap I buy on Amazon I want the marketplace for. Like I needed a dozen plant domes this spring. I wanted them tomorrow, not next week and I didn’t need qty 100. So having the option for that vs. a gardening warehouse that targets large growers is quite handy and exactly what they excel at for me. I could care less which random brand sells the thing to me since they are all the same.
Because Costco does not sell a lot of stuff that I want.
I don’t know if it will ever happen but the only solution imo is better curation from an online site.
I realize this is one of Claude's copy tells (using excessively hyphenated words) but in this case I can't figure out what it means.
I see "HORUSDY" type brand names all the time. It's crazy that any shirt/pants/etc results in one of these.
I don't even know why that is legal.
After 30 years of the web, a "common" component model and "UI standard" is now inadvertently metastasizing into existence. Sadly, it is a crappy standard with many of the UI decisions (cards with icons on their own line) being utterly brain-dead.
My Chipotle meal cost $17 yesterday. It used to cost $8. The $9 difference is going to come out of my budget to buy authentic brands and buy local stuff.
If you don't like it, make my Chipotle meal $8 again or double my salary, reduce my taxes, and don't pull random geopolitical shit that crashes the S&P500 every other weekend, and then we'll talk.
So why do they keep telling us it's 4%?
We need to realize that the cost of food at grocery stores has gone up a lot too.
I have no incentive to change anything about my spending habits. If the "system" changes itself so that I have a ton more disposable cash lying around then sure I'll re-consider the authentic brands.
About the only situation I still buy authentic brands is if there's an electrical safety or lithium battery involved.
Rice lasts a very long time. Tortillas last a long time in the fridge (you can probably freeze them?). Freeze the meat. Beans last forever. Sour cream and cheese last a long time in the fridge and you'll certainly use them for other things.
Guacamole/avocados/other veggies are potentially harder to deal with for long term storage, but that depends and it looks like there are some options. Salsa also keeps for many, many months.
As far as time goes, if you're single, many of the ingredients could be cooked in a batch and then frozen, even as whole burritos.
But it's an uphill battle and you won't win.
Nobody cares that buying new ingredients to make tacos for a party of 1 is expensive.
If they aren't doing it yet, they will soon be telling you that you aren't holding it right, wherein:
You should enjoy leftovers. You should embrace and cherish the idea that electing to have some tacos one night dictates your meal choices for the days that follow.
That extra chopped onion that is all stinky and sulfurous by day 2? The meat that isn't ever going to be remotely the same again? The tomatoes that are reverting to slime? All that extra lettuce? That fresh cilantro that doesn't have any other culinary use in your chosen diet? Buck up and eat it, or shut up.
People are broadly incapable of having non-disingenuous conversations about the cost of preparing fresh food in small quantities.
---
Tacos for 2? Or 3? Or 8? Or 16! That's really easy and efficient to make for a one-time meal at home. It scales up very well, indeed. It's a great way to feed a bunch of people relatively inexpensively.
For a person cooking for themselves who isn't inclined to eat the same thing for multiple days in short succession, tacos get do kind of expensive -- expensive enough that buying them hot, fresh, and pre-made becomes very attractive.
(My personal favorite is when they tell me that I should try having different taste and just change my preference for the foods that I eat instead of complain about the price. Or when they tell me that I'm a very poor meal planner just because I want only one burrito: FFS.
Sometimes a burrito is just a burrito, and that's OK.)
Sort of yes?
But with those ingredients costing $20-25 you would be able to afford to make how many burritos?
There's no way your purchases wind up being $20-25 per burrito, right? That would be nuts.
Economic literacy is truly dead, isn't it? Good lord.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRtoUoBgjDw
I have no idea where you're coming from with the "dealing with food waste" part so I'll just ignore it.
Edit: appears to be using blacklists.
[1]: https://sell.amazon.com/brand-registry
[2]: https://archive.is/IQs4i / https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/style/amazon-trademark-co...
$39 instead of $224 for a pet bed. I know which one I'll buy.
There are plenty of categories of items where the cheap knockoff is perfectly adequate.