[lmm]

It's not about being cheaper, it's about convenience. And realistically what's the more trustworthy alternative? Even the reputable high street shops sell homeopathy and bags of random herbs that might be the thing on the label, never mind picking a no-name online store.

[Spooky23]

In mass market stuff… Target. They sell stuff sourced through normal distributor channels and have a good shipping and pickup operation. Pricing is competitive.

Supplements are a scam industry, so you’re always going to have issues there, that’s a feature of the business.

[dubya]

Target has the distasteful feature that in-store prices differ from online prices. So if you go and browse you pay more than you would by ordering online and driving to the same store and picking it up. Maybe you could argue for the online price?

[jabroni_salad]

Are you sure you have the right store selected? I like to get the aisle numbers and see if something is even in stock on the website before I go and I've never had a price mismatch.

Walmart's pricing is also accurate but their stock indicator isn't as good as target's.

[colejohnson66]

You can price match the website

[account42]

Or you can just click purchase on Amazon and get the same product with less hassle.

[rincebrain]

I think part of the problem is also that how prevalent it is varies wildly by where you are, and therefore which Amazon distribution centers you're hitting.

To elaborate - in NYC, I usually avoid ordering from Amazon for anything where it's cheap or something health-related, but even when I've sometimes given up finding it easily elsewhere and bought it there, it's not been, as far as I could tell, a counterfeit item.

That's not to say I can easily prove that or that I'm encouraging people to order from there, but I personally haven't encountered boxes full of things other than the intended item, or the like, and I would suspect the problem's prevalence varies heavily with volume (and thus, turnover) and location.

[Projectiboga]

The issue w AMZ is the sku mixing. Two or more different batches of stuff get mixed. A lot of the bad stuff are rejects or seconds that get the same packaging, so w Amz it is always a small chance.

[close04]

Even without the mixing Amazon will occasionally have a "fire sale" on things sold by themselves or 3rd party stores and every time this happens the recent reviews are that the product was expired, or used, or damaged, etc. Even for products where returns aren't accepted which just adds insult to injury. So it's just dumping of worthless stock. For example this seems to be the case with air friers (only because I had my eye on this) every Prime Day, they all get flooded with dozens of reviews that the product was damaged or used.

I don't trust Amazon offers because of this. So I either just buy the super cheap, disposable stuff where a trip to a shop isn't worth it, or things that have guaranteed free returns. Sometimes I'd rather order online because I have a guaranteed window to test and return if it's not what I want. For purchases in person the law here doesn't guarantee a return window for products that work but just aren't what I thought they'd be. Or I have to argue endlessly at the store for them to take it back.

[Cthulhu_]

> And realistically what's the more trustworthy alternative?

This hints at a deeper problem; the fact that you can't trust e.g. the government to have an organization that tests and certifies anything sold, be it online or in shops. You should be able to trust things like vitamins when bought online.

Of course, if Amazon would only sell legit stuff, people would order stuff from abroad because like it or not, the general trend remains that people try to get the cheapest products. This is why legitimate products are pushed out of the market. This is why Amazon and Walmart pushed out local shops. Free rein capitalism.

[account42]

The problem is also that when there is government regulation it is often more about restricting sale without prescription or similar bs rather than just enforcing that you get what it says on the label and there is no other attempt to deceive you.

[vel0city]

> the fact that you can't trust e.g. the government to have an organization that tests and certifies anything sold, be it online or in shops

In the US, for things like supplements and vitamins, the regulations are extremely lax. There isn't really any enforcement of the labels being accurate. There isn't really enforcement until people are already being injured in the market.

The only way to actually know what's in that vitamin pill is for you to send it to a lab you trust. The next step down from there is only buy reputable brands from reputable stores but even then, it can be a crapshoot. With RFK at the helm, expect this to get worse and not better.

Gotta love Mel Gibson's fear mongering political ad about vitamins to really show how absurd the messaging was in '94.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6bv92W4YnE

[weq]

100% Americans are complicit in making amazon the beheomoth they are. Convenience above all else. Ive shopped online for 20 years and never purchesed from Amazon. There are very few things that cant be bought form other e-vendors. Its just that they wont turn up next day.

Amazon perpetuates the stealing of IP to the point that they are the global leader. They use their market power to steal anything that makes money. Whether its directly, or indirectly as above.

[account42]

Amazon isn't just successful in the US. Plenty other countries where the local stores simply refuse to compete on customer satisfaction too.

[jekwoooooe]

Costco, thorne, etc