I think this is basically becoming a de-facto monopsony for some folks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony

it's a genius business for a "retailer"

normally they'd need to pay for storage, stock, liquidation of stock they didn't sell, returns etc

and instead now you pay for all of that for them

and what do you get in return?

   - a listing on page 17 of their ever increasingly shitty website behind legions of MINFARTO, PATRONICS and GIBRANKER aliexpress garbage
   - customer service staff with an inability to understand simple english or basic problems
   - your genuine stock mixed with counterfeits, that then they penalise you for
   - paying to give your sales information to them as a potential competitor, as if you do well they'll ripoff your product

and they take essentially absolutely no risk whatsoever

not a good deal at all

I would believe those are actual brand names.

Has anyone created software or a web site to generate hilarious Amazon brand names automatically? Looks like it: businessnamegenerator.com, namesnack.com, etc.

As the NYT noted, "Amazon is to fake products as Facebook is to fake news."

I mean, MINFARTO has legs.

But then again, I remember seeing COBY products right next to SONY products and I guess they're still around. :)

SQMY is my fav SONY 'tribute brand'

My favorites are HILETGO, KeeYees, AITRIP, "Oi ya gai", Treedix, and Gikfun.

I bought products from all these Amazon vendors last year, hilariously they're still around.

YoDoIt, the iFixIt knockoff, always gets a laugh from me

HiLetgo is legit, they've been around for quite some time and make decent ESP32 boards among other things. You can tell the FBA placeholders from Alibaba drop shippers because they're almost universally six letters and all uppercase like MOREPI; because this is enough for them to get a trademark to participate in the Amazon Brand Registry and get reduced seller fees.

Nothing can beat ASHAMED. (Yes, really.)

Oh and if you want your inventory isolated so that it doesn't it mixed in with counterfeits... that's another fee.

Yeah, there is no risk spending billions on fulfillment centers. Amazon has never blown billions by spending too much on that.

And the vast majority of the products are just rebrands from Alibaba. As a matter of fact, there's an entire economy centered around finding products on Alibaba to resell on Amazon.

It's a super interesting segment there are like millions details for the system to work even if the basic product is the same you can have your own barcode and serial number label attached, you can personalize the packaging, you will have to translate the manual, the are entire microverticals that exist just between the no brand manufacturer and the guy flipping the product on a marketplace even before shipping takes it out of the factory you're already paying like four or more services provider, plus coordinators to make all that happen.

Not to be confused (as I was) with FOB, free on board, a term in commercial sales law, especially wrt international shipping: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOB_(shipping) I wouldn't be surprised if the similarity in acronyms isn't coincidental as in the abstract there's some conceptual, if not legal, overlap, and Amazon may have been aiming for something that read like authoritative legalese--the legal department must "always be selling" no less than the sales department. But neither would I be surprised if it was coincidental.