Did you forget what sarcasm was?

Also have you not read up on the conditions at Amazon warehouses and all the many many many issues they have had over the years mistreating employees? You might want to do that.

Though if you have a pill that helps with back pain is not addictive but makes you feel as good as oxy...you could be a very rich man but I still won't go for it.

I know two people who have worked in fulfillment centers, and one who is an on-site medic at a distribution center. None of them have any real complaint about Amazon. As one of them has said in the past, "It's a warehouse job, like any other warehouse job. It ain't easy. It's hard work."

I'm not saying there is no elements of truth to people talking about working conditions, but I worked construction and structural repair for years. Fell off of my share of ladders, crawled through more than my fair share of animal corpses underneath houses. Every job ain't squeaky clean and easy.

Besides, if you're buying off of the Marketplace, Amazon is only serving as the online storefront. Small businesses are just using the massive Amazon platform to sell their goods. Amazon might not be heaven, but I don't think it's Mt. Doom either.

all the people on Amazon talking about how their brand new SPD SL cleats are falling apart and breaking.

I bought mine at the local bike shop, and I have beat the heck out of them. Not broken! definitely used and ugly!

Caveat emptor ... wherever one purchases from. Whether Amazon, eBay, the local flea market, a face-to-face seller, a shop, or whatever.

Thankfully, I tend to be fairly detail oriented and take my time when evaluating an item for purchase. I want the details and specs, and I want to compare to others, and most particularly to compare against the manufacturer's published specs on the thing. Helps weed out some of the riff-raff. Can't recall but a handful of times in the past 20 years where I've missed something and instead got sent an item that was merely a compatible thing and not the real thing itself. This sort of thing used to be relatively rare, but with the rise of global-sourcing sellers it's become much more prevalent to find everything including the thing you're really looking for. IMO, not much different than Joe's Local Shop, really, except for scale.

as always...if it's too good to be true...

I can normally find what I want on ebay much more easily than I can on Amazon. It could be that I just don't understand Amazon's sorting/filter convention, but I can filter down to just what I want on ebay much more quickly. I am most often buying from a US based small business when I buy on ebay.

The one thing I will say is that you must ignore the reviews. I have ordered some things from Amazon that were junk. Ink for a printer. A carbon seat post that broke in my hand. Wrote a negative review on Amazon and was quickly offered a full refund plus anywhere from $20-$40 to remove the review and more for replacing with a positive review.

Support your local LBS whenever possible. The only bike accessory I have purchased from Amazon are Polar bottles, because my LBS doesn't carry them.

Bribery to alter your reviews?

I suppose I'm not surprised.

support the local economy

We're not talking about a $200 chinese wheelset with some fake Zipp logos being sold for $1500. Authentic Shimano cleats retail for around $20, so the wholesale cost is probably about $10. Why would someone bother making fake versions?

It seems like the cost of buying generic cleats from a wholesaler, then developing fake labels and packaging, and listing on Amazon + storing and shipping wouldn't be worth it for such a low-cost item with already razor thin margins.

For similar reasons, toss YELP reviews out the window.

Same here. I will always buy my bike parts from Amazon.

Plus I have the amazon card and get points!!!

This is an e-mail I just received regarding replacement ink cartridges that did not work (removed my name and the Amazon order number).

"Hi,

Sorry to bother you again.
My name is Emma. I don't know if you saw the first few emails I sent to you. I have been trying to contact you to solve the problem. Please give us a chance to solve the problem.
Sorry, you encountered quality problems when purchasing our products (302 ink cartridges), which brought you a bad experience and delayed your time.
I want to refund your order payment to resolve this issue. can you accept it? We will give you another $ 20 as compensation. I hope this is an opportunity to delete your comment.
Thank you very much for your reply. thank you for your time.
Respectfully yours,
Emma"

Everytime I write a review that is not 100% positive, I get something like this. What kills me in this case is that they won't refund my money unless I remove the review - and Amazon just pushes me back to the company.

It's probably less to do with fakes, than it is Dishonest factory workers selling Rejects in quality Control.
In manufacturing there are always rejects. Machine malfunctions. Temperatures of fusing plastic, or glues being wrong. No different than Back in the day when Television tubes had aluminum rim bands around them. In a Panasonic production facility, In spec production they were Panasonic brand, out of spec, they became RCA brand. (there were other differences too) way out of spec they became rejects. Had the Production plant been in China then they would have been selling the rejects on Amazon in Panasonic packaging.

Tighter tolerances means higher quality, and slower production. So the workers speed things up a bit, lowering the quality, making their own pile to sell on Amazon, after sending the original work order amount to Shimano to distribute. Not exactly fakes, just rogue production with zero quality control.

We also have to understand "culture" to scam is HONOR! Production plant bosses scamming the people they do production for is Honor!

Not the experience I've had with Amazon with multiple, multiple purchases for bike parts and many other items during the years. On the other hand, ebay is chancy.

Take down the negative review, get your refund, then repost the negative review including the 'ransom' demand?

Cheers

No way is cost $10. If made in China, the cost is probably less than $1 and maybe even 10 cents.

I've been using eBay for almost 25 years now. I've never had a single problem that I wasn't able to resolve. Well over a thousand transactions, both buying and selling. I hear people complain about both eBay and Amazon all the time, but this has not been my experience at all. It seems like about the same very low rate of problems that I see with any other online transaction.

To each his own. On the other hand I've made relatively few purchases on ebay and almost every one had a problem, either late delivery (well after the "promised" date) or obviously a substandard "clone" of what was described that needed to be modified to function. So, while I still use them as a last option, I realize the risks.

the Counter to your Experience is the MANY reviews showing brand new broken shimano parts that is Not in any way Normal for Shimano standard of Quality!

You don't see those same reviews on Modernbikes, JensonUSA, biketiresddirect, Merlin, Chain Reaction Cycle, etc x 10!!!! too many Legit sellers with legit positive reviews of Shimano parts. Now enter Amazon with LOADS of bad reviews on Shimano parts.

There is definitely something funky and odd going on. To Ignore Amazons practice with China sellers and allowing the scams to continue is LOUD!

You can quote all you want and it means nothing to me. I'm delineating my personal experience and Amazon has been superb both in quality, delivery and for the extremely rare problem, return service.

I didn't quote you, for you.

I quoted you, for the MANY others that will read this topic.

Me too.

This happened to me to. The cleats I got were not the standard Shimano cleats but meant to look like them.