[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

[ericmay]

I haven't yet - I want to but honestly just haven't had any good ideas on how to do so. I could just create a website and maintain it for other people I guess?

If you have any recommendations or ideas I'd be happy to collaborate! Doesn't need to be something that makes money, though hopefully something that doesn't cost money either! Lol

[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>.

[conductr]

This is kind of the argument I made to the manager in a Karenesque fashion. Why would I have even bought it if I knew it was defective? How would I have known without opening the box? Etc. I live in a state that is politically conservative and probably least likely to have similar protections but also ultimately I wasn’t going to have a legal battle over it. They lost me as a customer, well not even entirely, just for tools and bigger ticket stuff. I go through work gloves too quickly and they have them a third of the prices at Home Depot so I go for that

[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.