ElevationLab blog:
When someone goes to the lengths of making counterfeits of your products, it’s at least a sign you’re doing something right. And it deserves a minute of flattery.
But when Chinese counterfeiters tool up and make copies of your product, send that inventory to Amazon, then overtake the real product’s buy box by auto-lowering the price – it’s a real problem. Customers are unknowingly buying crap versions of the product, while both Amazon and the scammers are profiting, and the reputation you’ve built goes down the toilet.
And if you’ve paid Amazon a boat load of money to advertise the product you’ve designed, built, invested in, and shipped – it’s further insult to injury. And when new counterfeit sellers keep popping up every week so you have to play whack-a-mole with Amazon, who take days to remove the sellers, it’s the beginning of the end for your small business.
Follow the headline link, take a look at the picture, a screen capture of an Amazon listing. Can you tell that this is a counterfeit? It says ElevationLab, in the form of a link, right above the product name. In this image, the product is sold by “suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd”. According to ElevationLab, they do not sell to wholesalers, so (the way I read it) if it’s not sold by ElevationLab, it’s counterfeit.
I went onto Amazon and looked up the product myself. Here’s a link. When I looked it up, I got a product sold by Crystal Sylvain, but with the same ElevationLab link at the top. Presumably, this is a counterfeit as well, perhaps an alt version of “suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd”.
How are we supposed to tell? I want to support the original designer/maker, not help rip them off and put them out of business.
Infuriating.
You want to help the original designer/producer don’t use Amazon buy direct from company. Amazon has no incentive to do the right thing as long as people continue giving them and Bezos money to act immorally.
Amazon is in my town with a giant distro center. They are Hell. Jeff Bezos is Satan.
Buying from Amazon or using Amazon products makes you complicit in the rap of the American economy.
That’s not always a guarantee of authenticity on Amazon’s platform, unfortunately.
For the last couple of years I’ve used Amazon to find products and then try to buy directly from the manufacturer if possible. Not only does that ensure I get the real product, but in several cases it has been cheaper since resellers will add substantial markup in some cases.
From the linked article, a truly mind boggling example of Stockholm syndrome:
The evidence that Amazon is a bad corporate actor is overwhelming, but even when this fool gets bitten by their evil policies, he continues to patronize them and give them business.
SMH really hard. Here’s a tip: if you want Amazon to stop doing things that hurt your company, stop giving them your business. Boycott the company for crying out loud. Start a frelling movement. The only way to reign in Amazon’s bad behaviour is to impact their bottom line.
This is crazy. I’ll have to start looking at the Sold by whenever I purchase from Amazon.
This issue came to my attention several years ago in regard to counterfeit “genuine” Apple earbuds. It’s a thing people have been shouting about for a long time.
Making matters worse, Amazon’s search results are looking more and more like Alibaba’s. Nothing search related is easy, but Amazon could do a much better job of directing its customers toward authentic products.
Search for AirPods as an example. Not every shopper is well equipped to parse through those results.
This is nothing new. Amazon has been accused of this for way too long, with no plans to solve it.
Remember when Apple made a statement about ensuring you buy genuine chargers/cables, and sued some counterfeiter? Its because of Amazon. Counterfeit Lightning cables and charging adapters were being listed in the genuine Apple product listing the same way you see with the Anchor product, and those counterfeit cables were unsafe.
Amazon is a shitty company. I don’t want to see them “become the biggest company in the world” as Elevation Lab foolishly says despite getting screwed by that company.
That won’t help. For “fulfilled by amazon” items, Amazon mingles stock from different sellers in their warehouses. As long as the SKU on the package is identical, it is random whether you get the stock of the company you are buying from or not. And thus, it’s random whether you get the real thing or a fake.
I have an original Anchor and its great.
Feels bad when shit like this happens to companies working hard to make quality products.
I have to admit that I’m guilty of buying one of these very counterfeits. December was not a great month for clear thinking where I was concerned. I’m going to look for a way to make that up to Elevation Labs, whose MagicGrips I did buy directly.
True but how is this helpful? The fraction of a percent who are aware of this problem might consider boycotting, and maybe a tenth of that fraction of a percent will actually follow through.
This is not a viable solution.
AirPods are an excellent example; ordinary EarPods also. Good luck finding the genuine item.
One way to be certain is to buy only from Amazon direct or the manufacturer direct and skip items, especially in areas where counterfeiting is common such as memory cards, that are sold by third parties, even if ‘fulfilled by Amazon’.