[etataetaet]

As of right now I honestly think eBay is better than amazon in many ways. Obviously getting anything used or rare is significantly easier but many other things are much cheaper [0]. I also like that I can actually see who I'm buying from. On amazon Its difficult to tell if its amazon selling something or a private seller.

Ebay also has good return policies. They almost always side with the buyer which makes it hard to create fake listings.

[0] (First result on both platforms) https://www.amazon.com/Neiko-01407A-Electronic-Digital-Stain... https://www.ebay.com/itm/273909941047

[xzel]

I'm a decently big ebay seller. There are a huge amount of scammers on the buy side. Lots of fake reputation. The reason why they largely side with the buyer is there are a lot of scam sellers as well. Traditionally, ebay has been a very weird market place, its coupling with PayPal for a long time, terrible customer support, huge amount of fraud (view botting, follow botting, fake reputation). It really was the jungle for a long while, imo. The past 2 years they've very slowly started modernization the website. It is still missing lots of features you'd expect as a seller but they've come a really long way in a short time.

[rashkov]

How do you protect yourself on that market then?

[hayksaakian]

sellers can cancel and refund transactions when buyers seem shady or unscrupulous.

The most common buyer scam I've seen is when they claim they need you to ship to an odd address that doesn't match up with billing info.

[xzel]

I take lots pictures before I ship. The products I largely sell also go through a third party service, but that’s a very recent addition to eBay. Otherwise, like every other business fraud is just a cost/side effect of doing business.

[philliphaydon]

Both ebay and Amazon get a lot of flack and bad stories/press but in the rare cases I’ve had issues both Amazon and ebay have been helpful.

I’ve had 3 issues this year.

1) eBay I bought $170 worth of trading cards from 1 seller in Germany. After 2 months I hadn’t received anything. I messaged him 2 times in English and 2 times in German. No reply. The tracking number said it was in Germany. But it never left Germany. I contact eBay. Waited 3 days for the seller to reply. He didn’t. EBay refunded the whole thing.

2) similar issue, bought some stuff off Amazon, 2 months it never arrived. Amazon said it was lost in transit and refunded me 100% as gift card to reorder. Received super quick the second time.

3) last night I had part of an order cancelled by Amazon due to damage in transit. I was confused cos I just ordered it on Saturday. So how could it be damaged. I contact Amazon and they said it was damaged in transit to the Amazon warehouse. I said I can’t reorder cos I’ll incur delivery fees on that as I had already paid $75 for shipping I didn’t want to pay more shipping. So they reordered the 3 items for me so I don’t get the shipping fee.

Donno if I’m lucky but this is why I always end up shopping at both these sites. Tho I’m Taiwan most of what I use now is PCHome/Momo/books

Edit: I do have 2 issues tho.

EBay: if the seller uses their own shipping you can request a quote which will combine shipping. However if they throw up discounts on the items you cannot ask for. Quote.

If the seller uses eBay shipping you cannot do combined shipping so you need to pay each individual items shipping, but the seller always combines anyway so it costs you and not the seller.

Amazon: sometimes you go buy multiple items but due to shipping from different warehouses you can end up paying multiple delivery fees.

[etataetaet]

All good points! I forgot to add in my original post but I also totally shop on Amazon as well; I just like eBay better. Another point for eBay is that you can combine shipping at all! Because you can see what else the seller has its easy to buy stuff that otherwise wouldn't be worth it without combined shipping.

[bluedino]

What is the cos/tho/donno all about?

[philliphaydon]

Which part needs clarification ?

[negative_zero]

I'd go one step further and say AliExpress is better than Amazon.

Anything important I get from a physical store. For cheap crap or stuff I am happy to gamble on, I'd rather cut out the useless price gouging middleman, and go straight to the source.

I've actually had very good customer service from AliExpress vendors. A NUC form factor PC I got had issues using a certain brand of RAM. They churned out a custom BIOS overnight to try get it going.

[user_named]

AliExpress sellers may also be middlemen. You generally never really get rid of the middleman.

[iasay]

Not always.

Fine example is the cheap STM32 based PLC I bought. The thing was so badly designed you couldn’t plug an RS232 cable into it because the casing was in the way of the connector. When approaching the vendor, with photos, I got offered a $5 refund and told to take the casing off (which was required for it to fit on a rail). Aliexpress sided with the seller when I complained. I charge backed the whole $75 and Aliexpress blocked me as a buyer.

I said screw it and bought a second hand omron PLC off eBay.

Then there’s the fake semiconductors on there. It’s difficult to find any genuine ones.

The only reason Aliexpress is cheap is the post cost from them is low. Returns are really expensive to china so they will do everything to avoid it. If we shot some of the postal agreements Aliexpress would be dead overnight.

[rashkov]

Yeah well my AliExpress NUC was stolen from me after I shipped it back for repair and never heard back. Was also a bios problem, black screen on boot a day after I received it. Aliexpress and the seller ignored me over multiple months and many messages. $600 lost.

[NavinF]

That’s why you use a credit card. Just have the bank issue a chargeback.

That said, I agree that AliExpress is way more stingy with refunds compared to eBay/Amazon. One time it took me 4 months to get a package that would normally be delivered in 10 days to the US. Any normal website would have just issued a refund after 30 days. Still, AliExpress is incredibly cheap and I’ve bought a ton of assembled PCBs from them that are either impossible to find elsewhere or only available with a 10x markup.

[DSMan195276]

Not sure how relevant it is but the two examples you linked really aren't that comparable, the EBay one you linked is a significantly cheaper construction. You can find the identical thing on Amazon for basically the same price (for me, it's "on sale" and slight cheaper): https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Caliper-Adoric-Calipers-Measu...

That said I do agree, I think EBay ends up being better than Amazon for many items, I'm just not sure this is a great example. The one I linked is the second one in the Amazon search results, but then the first one is a lot better so I'm not really sure if this cheap one should be first anyway.

[dankboys]

I agree. I recently went looking for a car part and was able to easily find the phone numbers for sellers to check. In the UK at least they also do end of month 15/20% sales where I've scored some bargains. I got a bit fatigued of Amazon and how the minimum order price was like £10

[charlieyu1]

Amazon isn't that good now but eBay is still miles beyond horrible

[tomnipotent]

> Its difficult to tell if its amazon selling something or a private seller.

No it's not. The info is next to the checkout button (Sold by/ships from), and displayed during checkout.

[jeromegv]

You might not be familiar but within Amazon warehouses, they will mix and match the same UPC from different vendors. When it ships, they have no idea if they ship the one from supplier X. If it’s the same barcode, it’s all the same.

So a legit supplier might have their stock mixed with a supplier of fake stuff. And people buying from the legit supplier can get the fake products.

[Wowfunhappy]

I keep hearing this on HN but it never seems to happen to me with Amazon, and a buy a lot from Amazon...

[jraby3]

It happened to me the first when buying high end skin care products for my wife.

Received a product that was in the same bottle and branding but very different from past items.

I now buy direct for expensive items and only buy crappy toys and charging cables from Amazon.

[Symbiote]

I hope you reported that to the real manufacturer.

They are probably the only people with any influence over Amazon.

[patch_cable]

I haven’t had fake goods, but I’ve had it happen where a generic part seems to get substituted for an OEM part, even if it is sold by Amazon.com. Things like replacement water filters or vacuum cleaner bags.

[ImprovedSilence]

Yeah I’ve def had grey market Levi’s jeans. As in, as far as I could tell, made by same company, but clearly had manufacturing defects that I’d never had to worry about from a store or said companies website. So somebody was putting factory seconds in the bin…. As another poster said, items intended for different markets are common too.

[Spooky23]

Some parts are more common than others.

I got a grey market baseball catchers bag the other day intended for another country. I was replacing my son’s current bag that got damaged and it was like a completely different product.

[deelowe]

That doesn’t tell me anything when Amazon provided no guarantee that the item I’m ordering is from that vendor. I’ve been burned many times with cheap fakes. It’s clear Amazon does nothing to ensure I’m getting the original product. As long as the upc matches, they’ll ship it.

[tomnipotent]

> Amazon provided no guarantee

Except for all the guarantees for refunds or returns.

> I’ve been burned many times with cheap fakes.

This is statistically unlikely, unless you're intentionally going out of your way to shop at risky merchants.

[pessimizer]

> Amazon provided no guarantee that the item I’m ordering is from that vendor.

[tomnipotent]

You mean the products that all came from the same factory? How does the arbitrary partition of them by random reseller change anything?

[etataetaet]

Magic the Gathering cards come to mind! Buying MTG cards from Amazon can be a little risky as there is a non zero chance of getting a box with already opened packs [0]. Customers buy the product, take the valuable cards out, reseal it and return to Amazon. Amazon just throws it in with the rest as they doesn't know how to properly check for tampering.

[0] : https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/omj8jh/amazon_cus...

[Spooky23]

Because the supply chain to an arbitrary vendor may not be secure.

With electronics, it’s common for suppliers or distributors to supply bad parts, especially in times like now where parts are constrained.

[Washuu]

I wanted to buy a Sony phone direct from Amazon. I specifically bought "Shipped and Sold by Amazon" three times and had to return it three times because they kept sending me another seller's commingled inventory. It was obvious because the box had the third party seller's sticker on it and it was a Hong Kong model phone which would not work properly in the USA.

[deelowe]

Because I'd have recourse for getting a fake if there were traceability.

[josephcsible]

But Amazon commingles inventory, so the fact that that says sold by Amazon doesn't mean the one you get is really from them.

[tomnipotent]

You're still considerably more likely to get a defective product that came straight from the manufacturer than you are to receive a fake product.

[etataetaet]

100%! My point still stands though. I don't like buying something when I don't know who I'm getting it from!