Having to care enough and educate yourself about how to tell the difference adds a lot of friction to the shopping experience. I have no qualms about buying from Amazon if I know exactly what I’m looking for and I’m shopping in a category where I’m at least pretty confident I’m not going to get counterfeit stuff (Apple accessories? Forget it).
But when I just need some basic household thing and don’t want to become an expert on the category, I often shop from other retailers where I can just be pretty sure they aren’t selling garbage.
Any porcelain measuring spoon someone like Crate and Barrel sells is probably a decent porcelain measuring spoon, but if I buy that on Amazon, I have to worry about which brands are legit so I don’t end up getting a spoon with porcelain-look paint that will flake off or something like that.
A marketplace where almost anybody can sell almost anything has a completely different level of trust than a store where professional buyer is making a conscious decision about what products they should carry - the presence of many low quality products dilutes the entire marketplace, even the quality products from legitimate brands
