https://www.amazon.com/s?marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&me=A1I9KMUHRN28JJ&merchant=A1I9KMUHRN28JJ&redirect=true

So I just ordered a pair of new running shoes from Amazon last week. They are here but I was looking around at others and stumbled on a shady seeming amazon seller that appears to be selling thousands of different shoes for $9. I am sure it is a scam of some sort but I am trying to figure out what the end game is for this deal? Full disclosure, I figure I have good fraud protection on my credit card and Amazon prime purchase protection so I will let you know what $9 Mizunos look like in a few days!

My money is on it being a seller in China selling the cheapest knockoffs you're ever going to find. My wife bought a Michael Kors watch for an extreme discount, and a plastic pos showed up. We laughed, called amazon, they refunded her $15.

I hate spending more than $70 for shoes but I'd stay away from those. Runningwarehouse.com if you're looking for a deal

dc509 said:

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My money is on it being a seller in China selling the cheapest knockoffs you're ever going to find. My wife bought a Michael Kors watch for an extreme discount, and a plastic pos showed up. We laughed, called amazon, they refunded her $15.

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Yeah I was looking around for a nice looking but inexpensive men's watch and came across these ones on Amazon that were like $15-30 but looked like ones typically priced $130-$170 range. Some more google I found a lot of reports the pictures look good but then the thing in person is total garbage, so I passed.

This is a case of you get what you pay for.

Yeah, I'm really curious more than anything. This seller is listed as being in Montana. They've got literally 2000 different brands and styles of running shoes for $9. I can't imagine anyone can produce that many knock offs for that price and still make money.

I read that there has been a scam going on where a seller will message you and claim that they can't get amazon to send payment and they request you to send an amazon gift card instead. I'm thinking this will be the case on these but I'm genuinely curious at this point what the business model is!

Anything show up yet?

Almost certainly Chinese knock offs. They'll have an American distributor for tax purposes.

I order stuff like sports jerseys, etc, frequently from these sites. But never running shoes. I'll always pay top dollar for the real deal from a reputable dealer.

Welp, the LONLENLAN amazon store has vanished.

I have a notification and tracking number but nothing has updated since Monday. Say it will be delivered by the 28th so I'm curious if anything is actually being shipped or not.

Update: the 28th came and went. No update to original tracking info. Sent message to the seller on the 29th, no response. Checked Amazon today and the shipping info was completely different. Initially it said a shipping label was created in Montana for usps. Now it said it started in China, and was delivered to a random address in Alabama on the 26th. Sent a cancellation request to Amazon this morning but figured it would take a week or so to get a refund. Had my refund inside of 2 minutes from when I sent my request. Seller LONLENLAN now has 178 1-star reviews for not shipping shoes. I've got to think that the business model is to sell as many "shoes" as possible and hope some folks forget to ask for a refund. Weird deal.

That's probably exactly what they were doing. Amazon does eventually try to do something about these type of vendors. A few years ago the put the screws to Chinese hover board manufacturers because their boards were catching on fire. In one of the best interviews I've ever seen a Chinese manufacturer *****ed and moaned to an American reporter about how unfair it was that Amazon impose regulations on them that could put them out of business. Regulations that would prevent the boards from exploding.

That is a (relatively) frequent scam on Amazon right now. Another is the seller will contact you and try to get to you pay off site.

Amazon needs to get a handle on, at the very least, items that ship with Prime. If scamming becomes a frequent thing with your membership customers, I have to imagine they start losing business. Glad they made it right for you, though, OP.

Amazon also has a reputation of a liberal screening process for fakes sold at full price. If you are a manufacturer who sells items via Prime, your product can be mixed in with counterfeits and sold to unsuspecting customers who are paying full MSRP. The customer doesn't even mean to buy a fake and doesnt know until they have it in hand.

Amazon doesn't even have the desire to sort the bins at this level. Literally the only way a manufacturer can protect their intellectual property is to discontinue selling on Amazon entirely. See Birkenstock. And the sad thing is they now lose on volume because they exit the platform.

Amazon is going the way of Wal-mart because they are alienating vendors and rendering them powerless to leave.

And if you want to ensure you are not buying a fake, shopping local or from a direct website is the only guarantee.

not H&F related, but this book outlines the strategic squeeze amzn puts on competitors (and vendors in order to stick it to their competitors)

I thought it was a good read

https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Store-Jeff-Bezos-Amazon/

Jersey Girl said:

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Amazon also has a reputation of a liberal screening process for fakes sold at full price. If you are a manufacturer who sells items via Prime, your product can be mixed in with counterfeits and sold to unsuspecting customers who are paying full MSRP. The customer doesn't even mean to buy a fake and doesnt know until they have it in hand.

Amazon doesn't even have the desire to sort the bins at this level. Literally the only way a manufacturer can protect their intellectual property is to discontinue selling on Amazon entirely. See Birkenstock. And the sad thing is they now lose on volume because they exit the platform.

Amazon is going the way of Wal-mart because they are alienating vendors and rendering them powerless to leave.

And if you want to ensure you are not buying a fake, shopping local or from a direct website is the only guarantee.

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There have been a few purchases I didn't make due to reviews saying they received counterfeits.

Another shady thing Amazon does is copy products that sell well and manufacture it themselves. They have so much sales data they can see widget-x is selling really well and they just release an Amazon version of widget-x and make it a top search result. Amazon then becomes a competitor with their customer who is listing items for sale. Hard for sellers to compete selling a product on your competitors website. Granted it does give Amazons other customers (the shoppers) more options.

Sooner Born said:

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Why is that shady?

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It may violate the goodwill and trust of some of their sellers who are also their customers and bring other customers to the marketplace. Use seller products to bring in buyers then cut the sellers out. The relationship between Amazon and the seller goes from win-win to win-lose.

So what is your take on grocery stores doing the exact same thing?

I actually really like the amazon branded products....apple lightning cables, surge protectors, wireless mouse...3 I can think of that I purchased just in the past couple weeks.