Alternatives to Amazon.com

In My Humble Opinion
21

I think I should write a letter to Amazon asking them what they think is going on, and I’ll pass along what I learn, but that will take some time.

I did find a couple more items on the web relating to Amazon switching sellers, and copied them below, FWIW:
[from http://www.parleygrove.com/view.php?id=3xxt6xtrR5]

James Taylor “apreacher”(Miami, FL USA) Review : I ordered a second Arduino from Amazon in mid-December to supplement the first one I’d bought from them a few weeks earlier, and I got quite a shock when it arrived. The new Arduino was a fake!

This fake Arduino arrived in an antistatic-bag with a 2ft USB cable instead of the usual Arduino printed box with documentation. The screen printing on the front was OK, but the printing on the back was smudgy and blurry, and the soldering job was poor, obviously done by hand. Additionally, some of the components differed from those on the genuine Arduino.

I noticed several signs of inauthenticity, but three of the most telling were the following:

  1. The L and ON LEDs on the fake Arduino were both red, instead of orange and green respectively on the genuine Arduino.
  2. The reset button on the fake Arduino was chocolate brown, instead of red on the genuine Arduino.
  3. The black-and-gold PTC resettable fuse from Bourns (501K) on the genuine Arduino (between the power jack and the USB jack) was replaced by a green PTC fuse from Raychem (5X5).

Since I had just purchased a genuine Arduino from NKC Electronics (fulfilled by Amazon), I knew exactly what to look for. However, this second Arduino was purchased from Mp3Car Store (fulfilled by Amazon), so I complained to Mp3Car.

Mp3Car explained that although they only ship genuine Italian-made Arduini to Amazon, Amazon does so-called “commingling” of inventory. So Amazon will take a random Arduino from their inventory and ship it to a customer instead of searching for one of the units send to them by the particular vendor (Mp3Car in this case). Since Amazon still had many fake Arduini in their inventory, I unfortunately received one of them.

Fortunately, Mp3Car Store stood fully behind their customer (me). When Amazon didn’t agree to ship me a genuine replacement right away, Stephen (Mp3Car store manager), and Rob (Mp3Car owner), immediately arranged to send me a genuine Arduino directly from their own stock, and it arrived the next day by UPS.

I now have another genuine Arduino Uno, and I’m eternally grateful to Mp3Car for facilitating it. I recommend the Arduino as an affordable platform for physical computing, and I highly recommend Mp3Car Store as a trustworthy vendor to purchase it from.

[from Knockoff Product]

veracity says:
@Massimo Banzi

Would you please update your resellers list with those Amazon merchants that are selling LEGIT devices? I prefer to buy electronics from Amazon.
Massimo Banzi says:
we will do that but the problem is with Amazon itself: even if they say that the board is sold by Canakit (a legitimate reseller) when they ship it they will send you one from a random manufacturer, so even if you are trying to buy the original product you’ll get a fake.

22

If you buy something on Amazon that’s fulfilled by Amazon or a Marketplace item, you may as well be buying through eBay.

The “fulfilled” items are usually OK, but Amazon doesn’t make any representations as to authenticity or quality. They’re just handling the mechanics of packing and shipping the thing, but if things go wrong, they normally will make it right with no fuss. Marketplace items are truly a pig in a poke as Amazon only handles collecting money and telling the vendor to ship the thing.

Whenever possible, I only order things that are Prime eligible as those are represented, described, sold, packed, shipped and backed by Amazon. A while back, I ordered some stuff and someone at Amazon forgot to put water in the packing tape machine as the tape didn’t stick and the box opened in transit, allowing half of the contents to escape. I let them know what happened, and they promptly kicked out a duplicate order via overnight UPS.

23

Balderdash.

No one stands behind eBay purchases except in the most flimsy and self-serving way; we all have experiences with highly-rated, Star Seller, Square Trade-certified sellers who shamelessly ripped us off while eBay clucked sadly.

**Amazon **stands behind Marketplace sellers and will reprimand, restrict and drop them for accumulated problems.

24

I’m not exactly sure, you’re definitely not buying directly from Amazon though. I think anything that’s not directly bought from Amazon counts as through the Marketplace. Your best bet would be to look at the email you got from them on ordering, that should have a link to the terms and conditions, and should state what your rights are.

25

I’d need to see some very convincing proof that any of this is true. For one thing, your experience and this claim imply that:

[ul]
[li]Amazon will fulfill one seller’s orders with another’s products.[/li][li]Amazon somehow keeps track of this process, and thus knew to handle the “CanaKit” order by redirecting it to a Chinese source.[/li][li] Amazon is so casual about this process, which contravenes every expectation of both buyer and Marketplace seller, that they don’t even try to hide it.[/li][/ul]
Proof and cites are demanded by this outrageous - but I suppose just barely possible - claim.

ETA: I think it’s FAR more likely that the resellers are trying to palm off cheap counterfeits as authentic, but less profitable, originals. That everyone seems aware of the Chinese source makes no sense otherwise. Pure WAG, but I’d bet that anyone who orders directly gets an authentic Arduino, while the Amazon stock is… well, less carefully controlled because there’s an intermediary to blame if the buyer is sharp enough to detect the swap.

26

Just for the record, BookFinder isn’t an alternative to buying from Amazon, it’s a search engine that leads you to sources (including Amazon) for books.

If you like supporting local businesses for your book purchases, check out http://www.indiebound.org/. It’s a website operated by the American Booksellers Association. Their database is based on Books in Print (although it’s actually licensed from Ingram, a large distributor). When you find a book you’re interested in, you can enter your zip code and it will direct you to the closest independently-owned bookstore to make the purchase.

27

Several years ago, I bought a “new” Atari Flashback console directly from Amazon itself, not a third party seller or “fulfilled by Amazon”. I had no complaints at the time since it was complete and seemed to work like new. There were some screen playback problems, but I thought that was just an issue that all Flashbacks have. I later found out that Flashback knockoffs were being sold online, and looked at my console to see if it was a knockoff, based on what I read at online video game forums.

The Atari Flashback console that I bought directly from Amazon did turn out to be a knockoff. However, I still buy and sell on Amazon because it wasn’t a customer service problem and, more importantly, there’s nothing else out there that’s replacing Amazon any time soon.