I miss the days of PriceScan/PriceWatch and other comparison sites.

Recently I bought some new camera parts. I noted the price of the body and lens I wanted on B&H, Adorama, Newegg .. and then went to Google shopping and found a smaller store called TriState Camera out of NY. Their website is old school; but I saved nearly $400 of the big retailers for the exact same parts.

> (and a lot of times, it's cheaper outside of Amazon).

is not true. Amazon does not let sellers list products on amazon for a higher price than than what they list on the sellers website. It's 100% against TOS and they will shut down your listing if it's your first offense and will permaban you from selling if you continue to do so.

It has gotten to the point if a 3rd party seller is on an Amazon page, it is a no-buy.

Also, Target does have 3rd party sellers, but it sounds like they are doing it in a more constrained way. The program is called Target Plus. https://digiday.com/marketing/target-third-party-marketplace...

IMO BestBuy would have been better off extolling the virtues of having a trustworthy supply chain that doesn't circumvent regulations like Amazon does. Their retail business also means they have a better distribution system then Amazon, at least for now.

I wonder how many people buy the marketplace stuff because I know that when I go to BestBuy it's because I want something immediately or I want something where I don't trust Amazon (chargers, memory cards, etc.).

You can filter out third party sellers on Walmart's website and just buy what Walmart sells.

a) an Oximeter

b) a medical thermometer

c) a blood pressure cuff

These are all fairly relevant devices. Spend 10 minutes really researching the categories, and actually read the reviews (in particular the 5* and the 1* reviews). Can you find a combination fo devices that you're actually confident buying? It shouldn't be this hard.

The argument is that in a free market a consumer should have a choice. You want a great branded product, go with a known brand. You want to save money, try the little guy, with all the caveats that come with it.

There's a level of savvy everyone should have but doesn't; and I'm just not sure the best way to facilitate it.

Amazon.ca has become such a cesspool and so much worse in the past 6 months, I've just stopped buying from it.

If it’s something I’d consider buying from AliExpress but need it before 3 months from now, then I’ll go take a look on Amazon and pay a premium on the cheap Chinese stuff they sell to get it in a day or two.

Anything else... like others are saying, major retailers or manufacturer direct are the way I go.

What are those things, really? I don't know.

I hit Guitar Center instead, and there's this clearly presented list of brands that I mostly kind-of recognize, a simplified set of products.

The thing that amazon does really well is deliver things fast.

Generally that is what I try to do for anything I want to buy — get it from the producer directly. Sometimes it is prohibitive in some way (e.g. shipping time or cost) or more expensive but most of the time the experience is perfectly fine and I can be totally confident in what I will be getting.

Something I’ve learnt - a reason I’m tempted to shop at Amazon is because I have an account there. But many suppliers now allow shopify or Paypal without needing to set up an account. By avoiding the temptation to set up an account (ie ignore FOMO of offers), using other sites becomes as seamless as Amazon.

I now believe shops that push customers to set up accounts and don’t use shopify etc, drive people to Amazon for convenience.

I boycott Amazon. I feel jerked around any time I use their site.

Is Consumer Reports any good?

Sites like Wirecutter aren’t completely useless because they give a relatively decent overview. It’s just worth being aware most review sites border on being advertising, so they won’t tell you if a whole product category is trash.

By now every product listing on Amazon should be treated like SEO spam.

Plus there's now all these sellers trying to buy a 5 star review by promising a gift card. I recently saw a baby carriage with lots of 5 star reviews from teenagers who tried it out with plush toys because they didn't have kids yet.

https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/ifytxk/ysk_t...

https://themarkup.org/banned-bounty/2020/06/18/how-we-invest...

I recently just got fooled again, I needed to buy a cooking butane torch for grilling cheese. The "best seller" was quite nice looking, had great reviews, great photos.

I actually got it in my hand and it essentially fell apart. I immediately threw it in the trash as there's no way I'm putting highly flammable gas into this junk. I went to a head shop and bought one for the exact same price with amazing quality... its funny how we started out with brick and mortar, migrated to online... and now I'm going to start migrating back to brick and mortar.

Even when purchasing from "legitimate" product pages, they'll send you co-mingled counterfeits. You have absolutely no assurance that what you're buying is legitimate.

even with Amazon as the direct seller I don’t find them to be cheaper than other stores for almost anything. it’s really only when the pricing is competitive and directly from them where it makes sense to buy given convenience of fast shipping if you have Prime.

the only thing I can think of is their own private label, but even there it seems extremely hit or miss just reading some of the reviews - sounds like everything is just sourced from bottom of barrel Chinese manufacturers that slap an Amazon logo on things.

I usually find a brand name seller with a website or a specific part number.

Or if I don’t know/care about a brand I read some reviews and look at review pictures I don’t buy the cheapest item and still scrutinize best selling item.

The top results could be garbage as people are saying, but somewhere in the first page of top rated results is the best item for a great price.

In a rural place, prime is a huge time and money saver, have had good customer service. I still don’t think other online retailers have caught up to amazon, I hope they do .

Can someone link a product listing that they received a counterfeit from?

"HIFI Audio Decoder Amplifier - Aimpire AD10 MINI USB DAC CSS XMOS XU208 ES9018K2M OPA2134 Audio Amplifier Decoder"

This is a fake. Strange how the URL says TOPPING but the product is from "Aimpire". Aimpire has been photoshopped into some, but not all of the product pictures (where TOPPING is still visible in a few).

Turns out that Aimpire has had a contentious relationship with Topping (the designer and manufacturer of the real thing), started making their own (inferior and unlicensed) versions of the Topping product.

Looks like this one is "sold by amazon.com". Huh. Guess it slipped by their counterfeit checkers.

This is a strange case. The reviews seem to say people are buying the Topping product but getting the Aimpire product. But if you buy from this page, you're knowingly purchasing the Aimpire version. Are people buying Topping from another listing and getting this?

EDIT: never mind, looks like this product used to say Topping and was changed, and that's why the URL is still the original wording. That's clearly a scam then.

Amazon has responsibility for the shit they sell regardless.