It used to be. For years, you just knew a few things. One, Amazon would probably have it. Two, it'd be a good price. Three, you'd reliably get what you wanted in just a few days.

Now its a mire of junk and finding something solid is hard. And even if you find it, you get to wonder if you got a counterfeit or not.

I imagine in other countries Amazon largely skipped the build up phase where they bought and sold everything themselves. Now they're just an ebay without the auction.