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Amazon Loses Huge Footwear Company Because Of Fake Products, a Problem It Denies Is Happening (cnbc.com)
Several sellers on Amazon had noted earlier this month that the platform is riddled with counterfeit products and that things have gotten worse after Chinese manufacturers were allowed to sell goods to the consumers in the United States. Amid the report, the German footwear company Birkenstock has announced it will no longer sell its sandals on Amazon. The company added that it will also ban any sales of its products by third-party sellers on Amazon, effectively making its products unavailable on the world's largest online store, according to a report on CNBC. From the report: "The Amazon marketplace, which operates as an 'open market,' creates an environment where we experience unacceptable business practices which we believe jeopardize our brand," Birkenstock USA CEO David Kahan wrote from the company's U.S. headquarters in Novato, California. "Policing this activity internally and in partnership with Amazon.com has proven impossible."
Knockoff doesn't have to mean low quality. Often times the quality is almost as good as the premium name item.
Just saying.
True, but you should:
1. Be clearly informed that what you're getting is a knockoff, not the real thing
2. Be supported by Amazon when attempting to return substandard goods
3. Expect that Amazon would insist on the above
That's not happening. My increasing reluctance to deal with non-"Prime" vendors is due solely to Amazon's lackadaisical attitude towards what is being sold. As long as they get their cut, they appear not to care. And the product descriptions on some of this stuff are misleading and so brief as not to provide any significant information about what is being sold. I'm talking about lack of dimensions, poor product photos, that sort of thing.
Amazon's on track to become as sketchy as Ebay.
"Hello main man! This product is best product. I have much happiness after buy. You buy. YOU BUY!"
The problem is that we have accepted, in a large number of cases, ignoring laws we don't like, and people think that is how it is supposed to work for all laws.
^ This, right here, is correct...
If you get to pick and choose the laws you follow, then they aren't laws at all, but mere suggestions...
Civilization doesn't work very well when that happens...
Summary quotes the Birkenstock CEO as saying "The Amazon marketplace, which operates as an "open market,” creates an environment where we experience unacceptable business practices which we believe jeopardize our brand." It leaves out a later sentence in the same paragraph, which it probably at least as much of an issue as the counterfeiting problem: "It also includes a constant stream of unidentifiable unauthorized sellers who show a blatant disregard for our pricing policies."
Birkenstock wants all dealers to sell at full list - stores were selling on Amazon at a discount, and undercutting other dealers, who were complaining to Birkenstock.
There is no company that is designing "knockoff electric knives" with separately tooled factory lines. It doesn't make financial sense to do so. What they are doing is making extra runs of the "real" product without B&D knowing about it and throwing them into packages. The product is the same. The main issue is that the Black and Decker knife is crap, like most of BD stuff made in China.
Drop the tax rate and compete.
Actually net US corporate taxation is lower than most of our competitors. Yes, we have higher rates but those are offset by many more exemptions and exclusions. People who point to other countries want to adopt their rates but not their rules; adopting both would result in higher tax revenues and more incentive to shelter income.
We are getting one upped by others because they know how to compete - we don't.
It's not know-how. Primarily it's low wages. China has a per-capita GDP of $15,000, vs. $57,000 for the US. China's median private sector salary is $4,755 per year, vs $42,233 for the US. It's even lower What's more income inequality is greater in China than it is in the US. There are 21.6x fewer people in the top decile by income in China than there are in the bottom decile; that figure is 15.9 for the US. This basically means your work force is poor, and legally prevented from unionizing. On top of that regulations are spottily enforced in China if at all. All the complexity of environmental, worker and consumer protections go away if you're willing to grease a few palms. In business this is we call a no-brainer deal.
The irony is that culturally speaking the Chinese people hate the idea of corrupt officials. But they live in a system we're they're not only not allowed to vote, they're not allowed to know or publicize unflattering news. So going by the example of the country we have the greatest trade deficit with, the way to compete is to suppress wages and unions, provide a system of graft as a way to get around environmental and safety rules, take away individual voting rights and freedom of information, and basically run the place so that business owners (for a price) have their interests set above everyone else's.
OK, copying our #1 trade deficit partner turns out not to be so attractive. Well, who's #2 on the list? It's the European Union, where wages are high, regulation is high, bureaucracy is high, worker and consumer rights are high, and income inequality is low.
Hmm. Interesting choice.
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