Alternatives to Amazon.com

In My Humble Opinion
1

I won’t buy from Amazon.com any more because the last three things they sold me were counterfeits, and I have learned from the manufacturer that this has been an ongoing battle. It turns out Amazon has for some time regularly infringed manufacturer’s trademarks. I am disgusted. Moreover, a little research has turned up many newspaper articles about tax evasion, anti-progressive meddling in politics, mistreatment of employees, and various legal problems.

Damn. What I liked was one stop shopping for a huge range of products. Amazon should have been able to get spectacularly wealthy just by offering this, without cheating. I wasn’t even trying to get the rock bottom lowest prices.

So, who are some alternatives? And, are any of the big alternatives problematic themselves? For various product areas I’m aware of the following Amazon alternatives: Apple, Home Depot, Ebay, Best Buy, McMaster-Carr, SparkFun Electronics, Adafruit Industries, BookFinder, Alibris, AbeBooks, Newegg, and BetterWorldBooks.

Thanks for your comments or recommendations!

2

Graingers is a supply house same as McMaster-Carr.

3

Details and whatever cites you may have? (Just curious, not challenging.)

Well, good luck finding any but the smallest and most specialized companies that don’t have dog doo on their wingtips.

For tech in general, there’s B&H Photo. Not much they don’t carry in the tech spectrum, and being owned and run by Orthodox Jews - and being famous for adhering to the Jewish holiday calendar - I’d put good money on their business ethics.

4

A few years ago, NewEgg was shipping out Intel chips which turned out to be cardboard inserts in counterfeit packaging.

I don’t think Amazon is to blame for unscrupulous suppliers any more than any other retailer.

5

I bought several “by Arduino” single board computer products through Amazon that were counterfeits from China, with the Arduino trademark and artwork (though imperfect). I compared what I got with photos on Arduino’s web site and, later, with legitimate products that I ordered directly from Arduino. Arduino single board computers are quite popular and Googling “Arduino” gives over 21 million hits.

I also discovered http://www.massimobanzi.com, the web site of Massimo Banzi, one of the principles in designing the Arduino board, founding the company, and writing one of the top selling books about the products. Banzi’s talk about these products is on the TED web site. His own web site begins with a section on “Hall of shame: blatant lies” in which he says:

"Arduino users should beware of Amazon.com, they list Arduinos as provided by CanaKit (a legitimate distributor that does a great job) but when they ship they will send anything other “sellers” have listed as Arduino. This means that somebody wanting to buy an original board will instead receive a counterfeit product against their will.

To make matters worst the IPR infringement for Amazon is quit convoluted and I haven’t figured it out yet.

The board in the picture claims to be made in Italy, claims to be CE and FCC certified and, shamelessly, to be carbon neutral abusing the “impatto zero” trademark without actually paying to offset the CO2. (on top of bad fonts, bad map of italy etc)"

This is the thing that got me started. Web searching turned up all sorts of further problems. Of course, going fishing on the web will turn up all sorts of dreck about anybody or anything that is well known, and you can’t just accept everything you find at face values, but I found plenty of bad things in articles on the web sites of newspapers whose name I recognized, so I believe the things in this category were really reported in those newspapers. I think there’s plenty of real drama here.

6

Um, does anyone buy a counterfeit product intentionally? (Other than knockoff fashion gear?)

Did Amazon make good on returns? Did they answer any questions you had? Were the products sold directly by Amazon or by a subsidiary seller?

ETA: In a quick look, I can find only secondary sellers of the Arduino boards and plug-ins. I don’t know that I’d blame Amazon directly for such a sale, although I’d expect them to do something about it. Can you establish that counterfeit sellers have gone unpunished, at least to the extent of being dropped as an Amazon partner?

7

Were these items actually purchased from Amazon or from the Amazon Seller Marketplace?

8

The items I selected were “Sold by CanaKit and Fulfilled by Amazon.”

I am actually not clear what “Amazon Marketplace” means, even after hunting around on Amazon.com and reading about it on Wikipedia. I went to Amazon.com, selected an item, put it in my cart, and checked out. I don’t remember seeing anything about “Amazon Marketplace”. When I read how they describe “Fulfilled by Amazon”, I glean that they stock the item in their warehouse, sell it to the customer, send it to him, and charge him for it. This is what I think vendors in general do. I mean, in general they call it a “store” because they have a store of stuff, they have stuff in storage there, for you to buy from. It’s not at all obvious to me how Amazon could say they are not the vendor. But, then, they are also arguing that their distribution centers do not constitute a “physical presence” in the state where they operate.

If somebody could tell me how to distinguish “Amazon Marketplace” from ordinary “Amazon”, I’d appreciate it.

I can say that the packages I received were not from Amazon, nor from CanaKit, nor from Arduino, nor from distributors listed on the Arduino website. They were from other companies, and as far as I can tell, what Massimo Banzi says in the quote above is exactly what Amazon did.

I tried to get a refund for one of these items. Amazon did give me a RMA. However the shipping charge to China was going to be more than half of the refund I was trying to get. It was slowly dawning on me that trying to get my money back from somebody I already thought was a thief for trademark infringement was not a very good investment. I also noted how optimistic it was of me to try to return something marked “MADE IN ITALY” to China.

I have not tried to get a refund for the other items. It’s not my money I’m worried about. It’s Arduino’s. They are the ones being stolen from. The fact that these sellers, with Amazon’s facilitation, are mass producing counterfeits and selling them – that’s my complaint. Nobody can do anything for me personally that’s going to fix that.

9

Without seeing the actual listings or documentation, it’s possible you simply didn’t buy what you thought you were buying.

Amazon sells many items directly - you are buying the item from Amazon as the seller. However, thousands upon thousands of stores and small companies sell their goods through Amazon as Marketplace partners. I have a number of goods listed with Amazon in my Marketplace store; anyone searching for that item can find it and place their order through Amazon. In my case, the order is forwarded to me, I ship it directly to the buyer, and Amazon pays me, retaining their cut (about 20%). This is what happens when an items is “Sold by ElectroJunk, Inc.” as the listing will state.

I could also ship a quantity of my items to Amazon for them to hold in their warehouse and ship directly when an order comes in. This is “fulfillment by Amazon” - it’s still being sold by ElectroJunk, but Amazon handles the whole transaction for a higher cut.

If you ordered from CanaKit with fulfillment by Amazon, you got what CanaKit provided Amazon to sell. I find it next to impossible to believe that Amazon substituted another item for what CanaKit sent them - Amazon doesn’t care about products they sell under fulfillment; they just ship what’s ordered from that bin. If these were terribly expensive items, like iPads or Rolexes, I could see some kind of collusion where a warehouse worker might craftily substitute a counterfeit for a real item. But these are… what, $20-25 items? Esoteric ones?

You should not have had to pay any RMA or return fees for getting a product other than what you ordered. Period. I think had you properly explained the situation to Amazon, they would have taken the item back, charged it against the Marketplace seller - CanaKit - and possibly taken punitive action against the seller for misrepresenting their wares.

I won’t issue a blanket pardon for Amazon; they’re a big company and they can do big-company dickish things. As a buyer and a Marketplace seller, I’ve had my beefs with them. But as for Amazon being responsible for selling counterfeit microcomputers from a Marketplace seller, or not standing behind the customer when the problem was detected… no way.

I sincerely think that you ordered the wrong item (perhaps from the wrong seller, because they were cheaper?) and failed to make the proper claim when it wasn’t what you thought you ordered. How else could an order from CanaKit, selling a European product through Amazon, result in an RMA to a Chinese company?

I can’t find anything here to fault Amazon. At all.

10

If something is for sale by Amazon it will say:
“Ships from and sold by Amazon.com”
If it says:
“Vendor x
Fulfillment by Amazon”
That means the vendor ships the products to an Amazon warehouse and that Amazon then ships the product to the customer (Amazon is not doing any quality control)
If it says Vendor y
That means the vendor ships the product from his warehouse directly to the customer.
So the last two entries are Amazon Marketplace entries

11

Amazon Marketplace is third parties advertising products for sale on Amazon, which said third party ships to you.

Fulfilled by Amazon is when you buy from a third party, who advertises on Amazon and has their product stored and shipped by Amazon.

In neither case are you buying from Amazon - you are, in fact, already using an alternative to them.

In each case, it is made clear who you are buying from, and who ships it, before you pay for the item. If you don’t read the screens, it’s your fault.

12

I think you should get over this and go back to using Amazon. And pay attention to what you’re ordering and from whom. Amazon is not at fault here. JMHO.

13

True. Grainger tends more towards name brands whereas McMaster-Carr eschews name brands for more generic goods that fit the bill. Nothing to be afraid of, both are good reliable businesses.

I prefer the McMaster-Carr website.

14

But the screen says “Sold by CanaKit”, and what I received was from another seller, not CanaKit. And Arduino’s cofounder says of Amazon that “they list Arduinos as provided by CanaKit (a legitimate distributor that does a great job) but when they ship they will send anything other “sellers” have listed as Arduino.”

15

Sorry, I didn’t think to ask in the last post, but just to confirm: when I bought something “Fulfilled by Amazon”, I’m not using Amazon Marketplace (and also not buying directly from Amazon), have I got that right?

16

I really want to get this correct. Please help me out if I am missing something.

I printed out my orders from the Amazon web site, and they say CanaKit, and the packages I received were from other sellers in other parts of the world. And I see Massimo Banzi’s web site claiming that Amazon substitutes other sellers (of counterfeits) for CanaKit (who is legitimate). So, these two things seem unambiguous and both say the same thing.

I am not looking for the cheapest seller. I generally pick vendors for trustworthiness first and price second. CanaKit has a 4.9 star rating (I just checked).

Again, I really want this correct - no supporting people that infringe trademarks, and no blaming Amazon if they are not at fault. But, doesn’t it look like Amazon is substituting illegitimate sellers for CanaKit, just like Banzi claims?

17

I’m surprised that you were told to return the product to China rather than to Amazon.

When I’ve returned defective products, Amazon immediately credits my account for the purchase price. I pay for return postage, and when the package is received at Amazon, they credit my account for the shipping cost. So I’m out nothing.

18

I quoted the full text to make sure my answer is in context.

No.

Amazon does not, in any case I’m aware of, intervene or modify Marketplace orders. They do one of two things: they pass the order to the outside seller (as they do to me), or they ship the product they were provided by the seller to warehouse and ship in direct fulfillment.*** Amazon does not take on the duty of finding a manufacturer/reseller/distributor for Marketplace products, or work as some kind of “directed reseller.”

If you genuinely ordered from CanaKit through Amazon, then only CanaKit could have directed the fulfillment to come from Chinese sellers - and CanaKit should have been the one to accept any return and issue any refund.

This is not Amazon’s doing, or fault. I suggest you follow up hard with CanaKit and the microcontroller community. Something really stinks, here.

19

Yeah, me too. I buy a lot of Amazon and “fulfilled by Amazon” items, and if it was truly defective or not what I ordered, Amazon always pays return shipping. If I purchased an items from a specific vendor and it did not come from that vendor, there’s no way in hell I’d pay for shipping back.

Something about the OP’s experience doesn’t sound right. Either Amazon screwed up, in which case I’d be extremely surprised if they didn’t just take back the OP’s item and refund all shipping, or the OP didn’t quite order what he thought he’d ordered. The latter is extremely easy to do - I’ve often done searches on Amazon for one thing, and towards the bottom of the list there are similar, but not exact, item matches. I’ve mistakenly ordered one of those at least once, and almost ordered a couple more times.

20

Actually, if it was “fulfilled by Amazon”, Amazon deals with the returns, and you get Amazon’s return policy. Per this Amazon page:

Of course, not all Amazon third-party seller items are “Fulfilled by Amazon”.