You’re assuming that scams don’t make their way into regular distributors as they try to cut corners and maintain competitiveness.
You already see established brands lower the quality of their products after the first round of reviews online. If found out, they just blame manufacturing. Sorry.
In most ways, buying from a brick-and-mortar establishment is a better choice than buying online.
In my mind we’re talking about what is a better solution to the problem, and it’s that companies WILL protect their IP. If someone buys fake Patagonia, Patagonia loses out on a sale.
Amazon doesn’t own much of anything IP-Wise on their marketplace in the grand scheme. And they don’t care who buys what as long as products are moving. It’s easier for them to just pay out returns than handle the actual problem.
And when you have a dispute with a seller that came through a marketplace, your dispute should be with the marketplace and it is then up to the marketplace to recover the value of the goods from the seller.
All you need is a system to authenticate reputable sellers. Instead of looking at the stars on a product and clicking “buy now,” folks just need so ask: do I know this seller? Is this the ACTUAL publisher selling me this book?
I’d rather go into a real shop anyway. Unless it’s buying some hard-to-find item there’s no excuse.