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Comment by hayst4ck | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if Levis are, but I have absolutely ordered other branded items that are different on amazon compared to in a store, including entirely different and lower quality fabric on amazon.

It's not at all surprising for anything to happen after co-mingled inventory, which should absolutely be illegal.

Walmart created a business practice where many black Friday deals were lower quality products produced explicitly for black Friday sales. So underhanded deceptive business practice in large retailers isn't anything new.

Without a regulatory authority we can expect companies to act in decreasingly bad faith, because who will provide consequences, the other definitely not colluding competitor?

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> including entirely different and lower quality fabric on amazon

This could easily be counterfeiting via SKU mingling

Different factories in different countries on the tags which seems like a reasonable explanation.

It's not limited to Black Friday items.

A lot of companies have general WalMart versions of products.

For one good example, look at the Soundcore Boom 2 "SE" -- the "SE" is specific to Walmart, and has some features cut.

Back to denim, Walmart caries "Levi's Signature" -- those are lower cost (and lower quality) versions of the normal lines.

They have to because Walmart drives them so hard on price.

And fickle consumers drive Walmart. The blame for the race-to-the-bottom doesn't rest solely on corporations.

I don't know that I would call them fickle. Real wage growth hasn't happened (effectively) in at least 40 years. Of course people are going to be sensitive to price increases especially if the price increases faster than people's wages increase.

Yes, it lies chiefly on our government and regulatory authorities.

Governments exist to maintain a commons in the tragedy of the commons.

The market, as well as societal trust, is a commons. People in power make individuals responsible for the commons, which creates a collective action problem, which creates a structural incapability of addressing what is best for everyone, such as being able to trust merchants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem

They have to because Walmart has a monopoo-like position. They are so big they are easily able to coerce those they interact with.

Walmart has a $180bln revenue, how many states or even countries is that comparable to?

I ordered the same model of Gilette razor that I get from Target and the ones from Amazon didn't last nearly as long. Either they were counterfeit or sort of binning was done by Gilette. But the ones from Amazon lasted very literally half as long.

You have to assume that anything you buy on amazon that is shipped from one of their warehouses is counterfeit, regardless of any effort you put in to avoid it. That doesn't stop me from buying things there, but it does stop me from buying certain things from there.

If you comb LinkedIn and Levi's job website, there are distinct positions just to work with Amazon and other department stores like Kohl's.

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