And they fail at making the customer king even. I can't name a single other platform where customer support is so bad and unreachable. Directly ordering in china even offers better customer support in case something is wrong.
The issues with the monopoly are true, but in this instance I am happy to pay a bit more and not to be vulnerable to fake sites, dodgy sellers who do not replace an obviously bad product and the like
I couldn't imagine a worse customer support than this.
That is 180-degrees off of my experience.
Chinese sellers go so far as to actually claim they are US or UK sellers, right up until you have to return something. I bought a size 6-1/2 blue hat; they shipped a size 7 black hat; the return mail to China ("We're a USA company!") would have cost me 75% of the initial purchase.
I protested to Discover; they eventually decided I ordered what I got (WHAT???), and sided with the seller.
Returns are weird because usually I just get my money back and have the keep the wrong product. Had this happen easily over 100 times already.