On a counter point, I regularly order from smaller shops because they offer the same service (next day delivery for 99% of orders) for a lower price (usually about 5-20€ per item). Amazon is quite pricey for some product categories.

I wonder if this knock-off problem I keep reading about is something specific to the US. I've ordered ~200 things over the last 3 years from Amazon, and I've never received a knock-off either. I've never even heard of that happening outside of internet comments. Plus sending things back to Amazon is usually fairly trivial.

>I've never even heard of that happening outside of internet comments.

Amazon itself has admitted it has a counterfeit problem to it's investors

https://qz.com/1542839/amazon-has-finally-admitted-to-invest...

Beyond that there's been documented cases by manufacturers such as Birkenstock and Apple plus the eclipse sunglasses.

No, not US specific. I see some of sellers in my country includes stickers or keychains just to change ASIN.

One aspect is that not everything has counterfeit counterparts, e.g. there is no counter-counterfeit to, specific counterfeits, products that require exotic parts, or foods.

I’ve never seen a 4-cell(Lipo) knockoff battery for Lenovo X200 and I know the reason is because it is not easily possible to source appropriate components.

So there could be specific usage model for Amazon of a person that could completely avoid receiving unexpected items.

How would you know whether what you received was authentic?

For example, one wouldn't know their bike helmet was a knockoff unless they had fallen and hit their head.

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/16/647377213/fake-bike-helmets-c...

Just to add one more data point, I received a fake i7-8700k from Amazon UK, in addition to a couple other fake items over the years. Amazon is my last choice nowadays.

In case anyone's wondering, the fake i7 was some sort of Celeron with an i7 sticker on top - the real one is engraved/printed and has a different shape.