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Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by Animats on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @03:40AM (#27685998)
"Amazon has now become the Alibaba of the west"

Alibaba is much better than Amazon about seller verification. Look up, say, "PC power supply". On Amazon, you're lucky if you get the address of the seller and a product image.

Alibaba gives you multiple detailed pictures of the object, including its data plate. You get the full address of the seller, and whether it's the manufacturer or a reseller. There's usually a picture of the factory, info about their annual sales and number of employees, whether that's been verified by a third party, how fast they usually respond to inquries. Sometimes even what production equipment they use. What certifications they have and who does their certifications.

Many of those companies will accept an order for one unit.

Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by Scaevolus on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @09:14AM (#27688076)
Alibaba & Aliexpress _do_ have a clone problem, but the notable distinction is that they don't aggressively comingle listings like Amazon does. This means for some common consumer items (fidget spinners, etc.) you'll find a hundred listings with identical images, slightly varying descriptions, and different factories, but you can easily choose which seller to buy from.
Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by mmastrac on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @10:46AM (#27689172)
AliExpress can be pretty brutal. I went looking for a lithium power pack and it was clear that almost all the listings were the same crap with differently inflated capacities that were physically impossible.
Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by quickthrower2 on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @12:15PM (#27690324)
You are brave buying a high energy chemistry experiment from Alibaba. I’d stick to regular retail for that!
Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by atatatat on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @01:09PM (#27690961)
Like where?
Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by quickthrowman on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @01:45PM (#27691425)
I buy all my 18650 cells from https://illumn.com
Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by mmastrac on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @05:35PM (#27693646)
I think it's a lot easier in the states to find high energy chemistry than it is here in Canada. Prices are much higher because the market is much smaller.
Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by diggernet on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @01:27PM (#27691189)
Maybe DigiKey.com ?
Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by atatatat on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @12:14PM (#27690308)
Where did you end up?
Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by mmastrac on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @05:34PM (#27693635)
I found a manufacturer that seemed legit and orders a suitcase of LiFePO batteries. Will take about 60 days to arrive via ship but it was a huge pain to sort through the fake sellers.
Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by azernik on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @08:56AM (#27687902)
Notably, Alibaba's core business is B2B. Business customers have very little tolerance for bad shipments, and are frequently repeat customers such that they would quickly have left Alibaba if they could not get predictable quality.
Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by me_me_me on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @06:09AM (#27686795)
And also, often more then not Amazon listings are just Alibaba's products resales that you can get faster for some stupid high markup.
Re:A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing by sooheon on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @04:54AM (#27686411)
Yep. You will also often immediately get connected to a sales rep via chat, and they will follow up you all the way through to shipping and for any repeat orders.