[alphabetting]

Over half of Amazon's third party sellers are Chinese companies who regularly false report to dodge tariffs on their products in ways that American competitors can't. Amazon claims to police them but they're extremely reliant on them at this point and the Chinese sellers just start up new brands if penalized.

https://x.com/zackkanter/status/1908343624464576666

[ericmay]

The best way to avoid this kind of behavior is to avoid shopping at stores where you can’t trace the origin of their products.

Stop buying “brands”, and looking for “deals” and acting like a consumer. Do research and find high quality products, pay more for those products, buy less disposable junk. This isn’t just a “China” thing it’s in general.

[sorcerer-mar]

This is actually the exact reason for the existence of brands. You absolutely should buy brands, and stop buying random "RANDOMCAPITALLETTERS Product 1"

But yeah, what people think of as good, high-quality brands often are not.

[ericmay]

It's a little difficult for me to make the point I want to make here because I don't disagree with you, but the usage of the word "brand" is not as descriptive as I'd like it to be.

If you're buying good copper cookware the manufacturer "brand" matters, they build a reputation for having quality products, ideally continue to make those quality products at a fair price, etc. and life is good.

But then there are brands and unfortunately when we use the term brand we wind up lumping together "high quality brands" with "cheap, useless dog shit products" and it can be difficult to differentiate. At least for me and my limited vocabulary.

[sorcerer-mar]

I get it - there are brands that are well-known for being brands (i.e. famous for being famous) and there are brands that are well-known for making legitimately good products.

Avoid the former like the plague, but the latter is one of the best methods to find legitimately great stuff.

[mrguyorama]

Except there is an entire business strategy that has been consistently deployed in extracting that brand value by making the product shittier and just waiting for sales to slow as people figure it out.

Craftsman for example.

[ericmay]

Absolutely. I actually keep and maintain extensive lists of businesses that produce "real stuff" that we only buy from for those item categories.

[sorcerer-mar]

Do you publish these anywhere? Very into good products and as you know they’re hard to find haha

[trollbridge]

I buy cheap things at Harbor Freight now instead of on Amazon because at least then I know I can return it if it breaks.

[conductr]

I find Amazon has the better return policy. HF has at times zero flexibility and I find I really have to pay attention to each item’s policy and weight the risk of failure (eg. A $5 hammer is low risk, $400 machine is too high risk). It’s not worth the mental math required while shopping. I only buy consumables there (HF) now, gloves, ropes, tarps, etc. Nothing with moving part, especially a motor. I’ve been left holding the bag on $400 items I I couldn’t even assemble because the bolt holes were out of alignment (obvious manufacturing defect) and they’ve refused to allow the return or force a boxing fee on me.

[DrillShopper]

This seems like the exact situation a credit card chargeback is designed to fix.

[conductr]

I think HF technically tells you no refunds or that there's a restocking fee policy when you buy it so I don't think it would work. As a consumer, I'm used to companies like that making an exception when something goes overly wrong like what happened to me. It's not like I used it and it failed, I couldn't even assemble it. I spoke to the manager and he insisted he didn't even have the authority to wave the fees. It would require some regional VP or greater and I'd have to wait for him to return a message, and he hinted that he never approves it and it would all be a waste of time. I just gave up as I was in the middle of my project and just needed to get back to it. I stopped shopping here after that though.

[bee_rider]

Can a business just say “no refunds, even if the device is completely non-functional.”

At least (maybe it varies state by state) Massachusetts has an “implied warranty of merchantability,” the thing has to basically work at least for a little bit.

I mean, if the bolt-holes don’t line up, they didn’t just sell you a bad <thing>, they sold you a random sheet of metal that is not <thing>.

[CamperBob2]

No, the best way to avoid this kind of behavior is to refrain from incentivizing it with misguided, poorly-thought-out, and anticapitalistic trade policy.

Smuggling is the world's second-oldest profession. Trade finds a way.

[lvl155]

When are we going to realize this is a form of dumping by the Chinese? People love cheap goods but as QoL in China improves, they won’t be able to churn out cheap goods for long. That’s why CCP is hellbent on trying to monopolize global supply chain. In fact, I believe we are first slowly and then drastically headed toward global equilibrium in labor cost. We might be looking at significantly cheaper labor in the US and double or triple labor costs in China and India.

[ZeroTalent]

There is no more "as QoL in China improves."

The majority of parts of "Swiss Made" watches are made in China, utilizing a loophole that requires 60% of the watch's cost to be manufactured and assembled in Switzerland. So they make a rotor made out of gold in Switzerland, which accounts for 60% of the COGS of the watch, pop the rotor on the movement, and the sapphire glass on the watch, and it's "Swiss Made."

Best source, a rabbit hole: https://monochrome-watches.com/h-moser-cie-launches-swiss-ma...

Replicas are also manufactured in the same factories as "authentic" watches, but are fully assembled in China. (my personal insider anecdote)

"Investigators who work for Rolex and others say high-end fakes are “made in the same industrial parks and on cloned CNC machines”": https://www.businessinsider.com/how-counterfeit-rolexes-work...

"2025 “superfake” TAG Heuer Aquaracers used real Swiss Sellita movements inside Chinese-made cases—proof of parts leakage, if not identical factory floors": https://www.heddels.com/2025/03/spotting-a-superfake-4-real-...

[rafram]

> There is no more "as QoL in China improves."

You start with this, but then the rest of your comment is totally unrelated. Could you elaborate?

[phil21]

China is already producing top-tier parts at the current set wages. Wages are unlikely to increase as quality of production goes up - it's already world class.

That's the argument as I see it at least. I tend to mostly agree, with some carve-outs for highly specialized industry and general "social" differences in how business is typically done.

At this point, if you need basic manufacturing - China seems unbeatable on both price and quality for the vast majority of items. Not to mention lead times and iteration speed.

[nebula8804]

That will only last as long as their current generation is not in retirement age (10-20 years left). They have among the worst replacement rates in the world. Its too late to fix that. Afterwards China either becomes fully automated in an extreme fashion or they exit from the world stage as a manufacturing powerhouse. If they become robotic everyone else can as well.

Also on that note Robots are going to have to become real cheap, I suspect the reason they are so good at everything is because there is so much competition from 1+ billion people its that cutthroat

Robots will have to become cheaper than all these people assembling a generic bluetooth speaker or the price will go up eventually tariffs or not...go ahead count the number of people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFYxSX6xP2U

[rafram]

In what economic model is wage growth determined by the quality of the work? That sounds very unrealistic to me.

[ZeroTalent]

I read the parent comment totally wrong.

[ZeroTalent]

Oh my... I read this as QC, quality of manufacturing, not QoL.

Disregard my comment.

[scarface_74]

From your citations

> What kind of idiot US seller hasn’t had their Chinese factory also write in a lower value on the import invoice?

Why do people on X think Americans don’t cheat the system too?