Home products I guess, a recent teak of my knee led to using Voltaren to settle it down, bout a tube locally, but after three weeks and a tangle-footed fall, the need for Voltaren continues, so I order a 2-pack of the 5 oz from Amazon… It came, but only one! Online chat, missing item, they refunded the full amount! I turned around, ordered another 2-pack, will find out tomorrow (Fri) if it’s the same screwup or will I actually get the 2-pack as ordered… Refund already came through…
A crazy business, so if only one arrives, do I again complain about the missing item?
I would. In fact, I’ve done it. Not with that product (I don’t remember what it was now…don’t think it was Amazon). I basically notified them that “I got what I paid for, so no problem, but you have issues you need to fix in your shipping department”. Or words to that effect.
I figure if I like the product, I want to be able to continue to obtain it. So I don’t want them to go out of business. Not that Amazon is likely to, but whomever sold the product through Amazon might.
I’ll see what’s up with today’s delivery, maybe a lot is mismarked, but in the ad, definitely a “pack of 2”, so mis packaged, or maybe in the wrong spot in the warehouse…
Well, good news after all, today’s delivery was as Ordered, a pack of Two, so not a problem after all. The boxes they are packeting in are identical, even marked: "CONTENTS SOLD AS A SET DO NOT BREAK’ and the lot numbers are also the same. The only difference I found was the shipping weights on the label, yesterday’s single tube was 0.7 pounds, todays was 0.9 pounds, so the 2-pack bulk packing machine is what messed it up, not the picker…
Yesterday, along with the refund, they added a $5 credit for my next order, it hadn’t shown up on my reorder, so on some further order…
In the end, all is well…
weco
Nope, no counterfeits, never have even heard of any… Maybe a grumpy rumor spreader…
Counterfeits are a huge problem. If I order a name brand, I try to order it directly from their “store” on Amazon (or directly, skipping Amazon altogether). I won’t buy (just to pick something) a Schlage lockset from some “locksRus” store.
Long time Fool swapusa has been selling on Amazon for a long, long time. He has posted many times on the paid Amazon board about the problems he has had doing that, with counterfeits (or in his case I think, copycats) being just one issue. He posted last September:
1- Amazon has been flooded with a new wave of Chinese sellers who have shipped large volumes of merchandise to Amazon’s warehouses. I can see this clearly in all categories of items we sell from backgammon sets to playing cards, poker chip sets, home fitness accessories, etc. All private branded with funny brands that can only be the work of Chinese sellers. Gone from 1st page of search results for most items are the American company names that I have been used to seeing on search results for years.
Amazon removed over 50,000 Chinese sellers from its retail pages in 2021 for a variety of reasons including counterfeits; the largest category seems to be “brushing”, that is, putting up fake reviews, encouraging people to leave positive reviews, buying their own product to make it seem it is widely used when it is not, and a variety of other strategies. Walmart.com is not so strict, apparently.
Ever since [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) Inc. began kicking tens of thousands of Chinese merchants off its platform last April for faking customer reviews, the purged sellers have searched for new ways to reach the millions of bargain-hunting American consumers. That’s tough for companies with no brand identity or marketing budgets in the U.S. So for many, the best Plan B has been setting up shop on the e-commerce arm of Walmart Inc., which boasts the sort of logistical support and online traffic closest to Amazon’s.
The timing was serendipitous for Walmart, which in early 2021 started an initiative to attract non-U.S. merchants to its e-commerce site. By yearend, Chinese sellers accounted for an estimated 1 in 7 of those joining its marketplace. But industry veterans say that means Walmart and other online retailers could face the same problems that led Amazon to ban so many Chinese sellers in the first place. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-26/amazon-s-…
[Disclosure: I opened a mid-sized position in Amazon just before the earnings release last week. To quote the above article, it was “serendipitous” for me as Amazon took off just days after my Facebook position cratered.]
Interesting re: counterfeiting, I guess my purchasing is limited to known products/seller, whether local or online, as I’ve never had a problem, or been concerned… A key warning sign would be a price too good to be true I suppose…
But the top ones “break the first day” and the bottom ones come from a restaurant supply store and mine have lasted almost 30 years. Look similar. Not the same.
Amazon removed over 50,000 Chinese sellers from its retail pages in 2021 for a variety of reasons including counterfeits; the largest category seems to be “brushing”, that is, putting up fake reviews, encouraging people to leave positive reviews, buying their own product to make it seem it is widely used when it is not, and a variety of other strategies.
I purchased a highly ‘amazon’ rated item that broke after 2 minutes of use. The company replaced it time and time again, until I said enough. They offered a giftcard if I’d change my feedback to a positive Amazon review. Not doing that…
A year later they contacted me, writing that they had a ‘new product’ and would love to send me a free one if I left a postive review. They listed all I would have to do was buy the product through Amazon, leave a positive review and they would send me a paypal/or something credit.
I purchased a highly ‘amazon’ rated item that broke after 2 minutes of use. The company replaced it time and time again, until I said enough. They offered a giftcard if I’d change my feedback to a positive Amazon review. Not doing that…
A year later they contacted me, writing that they had a ‘new product’ and would love to send me a free one if I left a postive review. They listed all I would have to do was buy the product through Amazon, leave a positive review and they would send me a paypal/or something credit.
Wow! Can’t say I’ve ever had anything but a positive experience. Sorry to hear this.
"the need for Voltaren continues, "
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Howie52
DW uses the cream for pain from arthritis in her hips. No really sure that it helps - but the
cream is not marketed for the hips.
My overall experience with amazon has been good except for this surprising one.
I really wanted the item, it wasn’t cheap and had great reviews. In (some) fairness to the company, they did send replacements, promptly, no questions asked. After the last replacement they refunded my money and didn’t even want it sent back.
But I was surprised at being asked to change my review and them contacting me later.
I wonder if that’s how they make their money - selling things, which work once and profiting from people not returning items.
I have been a Prime member since the beginning and since Amazon doesn’t really care if my kids use my account, someone in my family is getting at least one delivery virtually every day. The savings on shipping have been immense and pay for the prime by April and I get the rest of Prime for free (music, streaming, etc).
The problems I’ve had can be counted on one hand. Twice it was shoes of the wrong size. No financial problem; sent them back and got the right ones. Heck, you don’t even have to package them up; just drop them off – gad what a business model. Truthfully, this may have been down to operator error during the ordering process – I may have by chance not changed from the default size shown. I’ve definitely caught myself doing so.
I have had problems with Melnor timers. I have extensive drip irrigation and use multiples of their four-channel timers. Over the last two years, I’ve had at least one fail, sometimes two, per season. Not Amazon’s fault, but they handle the returns and have never asked me to change any ratings.
The biggest issue I have with Amazon ratings is that they expect you to rate your item in hours to days of receiving it. Most of the time, I’ve barely opened the package and they want me to rate it. No way. So they don’t get many ratings from me.
I always read the reviews before I buy something I’m unfamiliar with. That can be an adventure. I start with the negative and weed out the ignorant ones where the reviewer didn’t know what he was talking about. Then I weed out the ones that are actually for another item or model. I don’t put as much weight in the top ratings because, heck, most were made before the user even tried them, let alone had the item in service for a couple of months.
Since I am rural, Amazon is pretty important as well as convenient. Most of what I order is hard to come by locally for any price let alone by the end of the week. Once I was heading out in two days for a customer presentation and my laptop battery died. Needed one tomorrow – sure I’ll just pop down to tractor supply and pick one up – not.
So Amazon is huge and has turned the online business model on its head. They are the standard that you have to meet if you want to compete/succeed. But being big means a lot of moving parts, hundreds of thousands of employees, and millions of small entrepreneurs (even in China) who want to use your network. Internal policing must be a nightmare, but that’s the price you pay if you want to be the biggest and offer more ‘goods’ than anyone else.
Hard to beat, Amazon, I had a little (2"x1-1/8") wifi card deep within my 2012 Mac Pro fail, ordered yesterday, here today. Free return if it were the wrong one at 1 of 3 local spots… No way I could have found it in a day of traveling in the area.
I do follow up with reviews from time to time, maybe help someone down the line…
