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Originally Posted by wdc330i
I am increasingly dubious of Amazon’s “inventory,” and all the no-name products on offer. Even the AmazonBasics are worthy of scrutiny.
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Amazon fixed the problem of co-mingling marketplace and Amazon inventory some years ago (they used to be stocked interchangably, so fakes were getting into the sold by/shipped by Amazon inventory).
I haven't had any problems with them other than the occasional (maybe once a year) mis-pack when they shipped X of something when I ordered quantity Y. I did have a "not as described" wall wart adapter last month from an Amazon marketplace (shipped by Amazon) seller, but they refunded me within 48 hours and told me to keep/discard the device. I think they're desperate to keep up their seller rating.
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Increasingly, I prefer to stick with the transparency of real companies and real vendors I can deal with, if needed.
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Amazon is still by go-to place for most stuff. Used things I get occasionally from eBay (as both an eBay and PayPal concierge-level customer, they automatically default to me being right if there's ever a problem, and there hasn't been in 4+ years).
As far as the specific case of Christmas tree lights, I can order them from Amazon and have free returns if anything is wrong, buy them at Michael's/Christmas Shoppe/wherever for twice the price and deal with the hassle of returning them, or order from Aliexpress and hope they get here before Easter and have no real recourse if there turns out to be a problem. I know which way I'm going.
I just checked and I've generated $121.23 for my Amazon Smile charity in 2020, so that means I spent $12K there (granted, a good bit of that was for work, but even so).