Warm and fuzzies go away pretty quickly when you get a counterfeit product.
Wal-Mart won the retail game because it won the price war, like you said, but it held the keys to the kingdom for so long because it also enforced a minimum quality standard with suppliers.
Ebay used to be inexpensive and widely used until it was overrun with counterfeits and scams. Amazon is on the same path with it's lax counterfeit enforcement with suppliers and fake reviews.
> Wal-Mart won the retail game because it won the price war, like you said, but it held the keys to the kingdom for so long because it also enforced a minimum quality standard with suppliers.
Wal-Mart is nearly just as guilty of selling shoddy items as Amazon. Wal-Mart has struck deals with brands so that lesser-quality versions of popular products are shipped to Wal-Mart stores than to more upscale shops. These lower-quality versions are not clearly marked as such, and it is difficult for the average consumer to notice how the plastic molding is thinner and less durable – they will only find out when it breaks on them.
> enforced a minimum quality standard with suppliers.
I'm not saying Wal-Mart is top tier quality. The point is that their product quality vetting with suppliers is still magnitudes more than what Amazon does.
Wal-Mart won the retail game because it won the price war, like you said, but it held the keys to the kingdom for so long because it also enforced a minimum quality standard with suppliers.
Ebay used to be inexpensive and widely used until it was overrun with counterfeits and scams. Amazon is on the same path with it's lax counterfeit enforcement with suppliers and fake reviews.