Amazon Suspends Amazon-Native Brands Mpow and Aukey

_nothing 5 years ago |

I really hope Anker stays off this list. They always seemed to make quality products, but I can imagine they'd feel the pressure to give into shady tactics themselves if all their competitors were engaging in it.

I've ordered some things from Mpow and Aukey before and they seemed like pretty good quality as well. Not that I condone these practices at all, but I could sympathize with the argument that in a marketplace that relies on reviews and where your competitors are buying thousands of reviews, it could be almost impossible to survive without doing the same, even if your product is good.

Of course, that kind of marketplace only hurts the consumer, so I appreciate Amazon cracking down on it.

awillen 5 years ago | |

Yeah, as someone who sells on Amazon, I'm torn... I think my MPOW headphones are great for the price, and I know how much of a pain it is to get reviews (and it basically either involves breaking the rules or paying Amazon even more money).

On the other hand, I don't really have any better idea of how to rank/recommend products. Overall as a consumer, I am extremely happy with my experience purchasing highly-rated products on Amazon.

dzhiurgis 5 years ago | |

So how does Amazon earn money when selling fake reviews? I can't be just from extra overall sales, there must be some other source of income. Do those reviews typically go with ad spend so they turn blind eye (used to be the case with Google?

jml7c5 5 years ago | | |

I think you may be misinterpreting something, as I don't believe anyone is suggesting that Amazon earns money from fake reviews. (Or more weakly, that Amazon is incentivized to allow fake reviews.)

axaxs 5 years ago |

That's kinda a shame. I have an Aukey keyboard, and mpow headphones. Both vastly exceeded my expectations. I wonder why they are begging for reviews in the first place, that's behavior I would expect from shady junk peddlers.

joecool1029 5 years ago |

Bummer, I always considered Aukey the poor man's Anker. Decent enough products at a lower price, roughly comparable to RAVpower in feature/quality at least for the power banks. The main thing you lose is their ability to support some of the high voltage charge standards.

I'd rather see Amazon patrol trademark infringing products that inflate ratings. I mistakenly bought a 'thermapro' instead of a 'thermapen' and while it initially worked ok it eventually disintegrated around a year later.

80mph 5 years ago |

I came across a recommendation for Mpow on Twitter, and was wondering why they are so hard to find. I still ended up ordering them, just via Walmart.

https://twitter.com/chamath/status/1317125603972149254?lang=...

Tempest1981 5 years ago |

I read the article. Still unclear on what an "Amazon-native brand" is. Maybe a brand sold exclusively on Amazon?

Do they get special perks from Amazon for doing this?

dnissley 5 years ago | |

It just means that they are brands that got their start selling on Amazon.

gostsamo 5 years ago |

The leaked database of a fake review marketplace might be to blame here.

sleepybrett 5 years ago | |

Uh buying fake reviews are to blame here, the leaked database is just very compelling evidence.

randompwd 5 years ago |

> It is open to question why Amazon decided to act now;

Lol, because there is now public verifiable data that sellers do and get away with these shitty tactics on Amazon. Amazon UK still block reviews with pictures which show the seller included incentive to review.

blacksmith_tb 5 years ago | |

Sure, but given that there are plenty of companies selling useless junk while offering sketchy perks for good reviews, it's kind of surprising that Aukey and Mpow got the ax - I have a couple of Aukey usb-c chargers, they have worked fine, and I use a pair of dirt-cheap mpow BT earbuds when I row, they're not fancy, but they work fine too.

Yeroc 5 years ago | | |

It's not a matter of whether the products are bad or not. It's a matter of being able to trust the reviews. I've purchased from one of these brands and received a little card along with it requesting a 5 star review in exchange for a $5 coupon. This totally distorts the reviews.

randompwd 5 years ago | | |

Ordered 2 separate products from 2 separate Chinese (Amazon only) brands: https://imgur.com/a/E8YCMBr

Amazon dont do anything when this is reported and block your review when you mention it. Some product manager/C level exec is putting short term profits over long term trust in the system.

It's now got to the point where EU needs to legislate and punish this behaviour and those who enable it or fail to action it.

Traster 5 years ago |

I’m kind of surprised by this, I’ve bought mpow stuff and it’s decent value for money (and I’ll take a captcha to prove I’m real if necessary?). To me this indicates more that every competitor must be doing this rather than singling out a handful of bad actors.

This looks very much like Amazon creating a problem, Amazon nurturing the problem until the problem is basically 100% of their third party seller business and now trying to scape goat 3rd party vendors, who lets be honest, are getting in the way of Amazon’s white label products.

m463 5 years ago |

I had some Aukey stuff and I was satisfied.

But I guess the question to ask is -- what other brands did I not become acquainted with because I searched for 4-stars or better?

Woden501 5 years ago |

And what do you know I've gotten random items shipped to me that I never ordered from at least three of these brands, so they were using that method to boost their stats too.