A couple of weeks ago, I wanted to order a couple of pairs of Levis jeans.

There was no way I'd do that on Amazon.

I got them from Costco, instead.

You sometimes can't even get the right thing from official brand stores. I bought a thermal paste product from the official Amazon ThermalGrizzly store (I did check) but Amazon delivered me a fake. Amazon co-mingles inventory.

The only reason I could quickly tell it was fake is because ThermalGrizzly provides an online serial number verification system, which isn't very common among most products. I'm not sure I'd trust Amazon for anything.

Yes, because Amazon has created perverse incentives for anonymous manufacturers to fabricate as many "brands" as possible, there are now so many of them that they crowd out actual brands. The original purpose of a brand name was to give a reputable seller a recognizable way to differentiate a quality product or service from anonymous competitors. But search and recommendation on Amazon favors the anonymous sellers.

Amazon today is less about selling things to consumers and more about selling consumers to anonymous Chinese suppliers.

The problem I’m having in Germany ist that only Amazon reliable delivers to my door, usually next day.

Every other store ships with DHL, which after several days pretends that they ring you, when they don’t, and then u can go pick it up at the DHL store a day later.

That’s their moat.

If you just want to buy chinese consumer junk of middling quality or you are buying industrial widgets based on part number or specification those things mostly aren't an issue.