Yeah, the problem is Mom-and-pop shops just can't survive on the customers who are willing to spend extra to make sure they get a quality product. It's not just that there aren't enough people in this country who're willing to pay extra... it's that you can't even get those quality products anymore. Stuff made ten years ago in every category from mattresses to washing machines is more durable and will last longer than stuff made today. A mom & pop shop has to find and source stuff that's not garbage, and hope people are willing to shell out extra for it, but where can they even get the inventory? Most of the quality manufacturers have been put out of business by the tidal wave of Chinese-made garbage, and the few that haven't still source most of their parts from China, which makes them less reliable than they were even a few years ago.

What mom and pop shops are you going to? Seriously, if you peruse Aliexpress for a bit you will see that every “local” store has all the same junk. It’s not like John Mitchell from Wilmington Wisconsin is doing anything other than sourcing from the same wholesalers.

I mean, that's kind of what I'm saying. It's hard for local stores to find consumer goods that aren't junk quality. Portland, Oregon where I live does have one of the better local economies for well sourced / locally produced stuff, e.g. we still have glass manufacturers, make a lot of shoes, and anything made out of wood, pretty much all your furnishings and most of your food you can buy from local makers and growers. And there are small shops that are still sort of affordable where you can get quality stuff. But if you want to buy a can opener, yeah, you can either go spend $100 at William Sonoma for one made out of titanium, or go buy one at Kroger that'll break in a day. Shit outta luck.

[Edit] I feel like here's a good place to sing the praises of my made-in-America, wool and cotton non-offgassing mattress. https://joybeds.com ...I think I was order #700 or something, and I feel like they're not getting the love they deserve. I'm in no way associated with this company but talking about finding quality goods and buying locally, it was really hard to even find this company, and felt like I was taking a big risk buying it online from a manufacturer with so few sales. We need more of this.

Regarding your last remark, and circling back to the main article: now the review market and culture is broken as well. Even when legitimate companies come on line, it's difficult to know about them because they don't get reviewed, and if they do, you never know if there's some financial conflict of interest, or if the reviews are legitimate, or what. If they do get reviewed, there's no follow-through to see if quality has improved or declined, etc.

It's remarkable how, when information is so much more accessible, it's become useless by deception and fraud.

It's especially sad in that it affects companies trying to establish a foothold by providing good business.

This, exactly. The massive flood of fake online reviews, not to mention the broken weighting systems that enhance the effect by grading products on a curve, has created a situation that's stacked against legitimate businesses. Not only are scammers filling their own products with fake positive reviews, they're also spamming real businesses with negative ones.

One of the weirdest things that happened to me this year: I received a book from Amazon I hadn't ordered. It was addressed to me at my house, apparently printed off an Amazon press in Poland, but listed by a "company" in Vietnam. It was called "Daily Business Plan" or something, with a generic stock photo on the cover. Inside, every page was the same - blank except for lined horizontal rules and the days of the week, Monday through Sunday. There were no dates, no year, no page numbers. No bibliographic page. I let Amazon know about it. I can only assume that the seller was trying some kind of scam to write "verified buyer" reviews for themselves...

That's their point; it's no longer possible to source reliable products for the mom-and-pop stores.

> Scamazon, Wak-Mart, and Turget

Are those nicknames for major retailers or are they knock offs themselves? After shopping at Wu-Mart in Beijing, I really can’t tell anymore.

> This is why we can't allow the concept of mom-and-pop shops to die off

In Beijing, I was much less likely to get scammed at Walmart or Carrefour than at the many local mom and pop shops.

I shop at Target online regularly. I don’t see very many products being sold by 3rd party sellers. If I did start seeing them, I would slowly move on to another online merchant like I did with Amazon.

This is a reason I invested heavily in Target. They seem to have a much better formula for vetting and regulating third party sellers, and they've invested a lot in building up a marketplace that's somewhat more trustworthy.

It is unfortunate that Target even got into the 3rd party retailer game, as customers are now at risk of Target starting to commingle inventory like Amazon.

But at least Target and Walmart allow you to filter search results for items sold only by Target and Walmart, hopefully restricting to items sourced directly by Target and Walmart.

If they commingle, I don’t feel that it will matter if you filter by seller. That’s one reason we buy much less from Amazon.

It would not matter, but Amazon used to advertise that they commingle, so I know they do, whereas I do not know for sure if Walmart and Target do or do not.

You’re right. I rarely see 3rd party sellers on Target. As for Walmart, currently there is no commingled inventory, though things could change.

Lasko fans are the way to go. I have one of their utility fans that is good for continuous duty, it's lasted 10 years and shows no signs of quitting. I got mine on amazon but I've seen them in hardware stores too.