You might literally be buying trash on Amazon
This is the <i>top listing</i> returned in Amazon&#x27;s search results for the main textbook used in upper division and first year graduate level statistical inference courses in North America<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;nYmkFie" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;nYmkFie</a><p>Notice the black mark on the bottom right corner? That&#x27;s to conceal text saying that it&#x27;s an international edition not to be sold outside of India -- editions that tend to be dirt cheap compared to North American editions but have poor print and binding jobs, usually no preface or solutions to problems in the appendix, and missing chapters. Notice that it&#x27;s original price was listed as $999.99 and it&#x27;s listed as 98% off? The listing price of the NA edition is actually about $100.<p>This listing shows up <i>before</i> the legitimate listing in the search results. It has been this way for many months. I&#x27;m fine with international editions being sold on Amazon -- so long as they are clearly labeled as such.<p>When this problem has become so pervasive and even impacts Amazon&#x27;s original core business to this extent, I find myself looking to other retailers... Only to find it impacting many of them as well. I bought an international edition from a third party seller on hpb.com, and my partner is finding shady probably factory produced stuff littered with obviously fake reviews on Etsy now.<p>I&#x27;m really curious what the evolution of this problem will look like for e-commerce marketplaces.