I completely agree with your point about food quality being borne from the economic incentive of protecting an initial investment.

However, I always thought the DYBOOPs and BIPLOZAs of this world existed on Amazon because of a glut of Chinese manufacturing expertise outpacing any ability to do proper branding and marketing. My QSMYYUYE grill stove, CYEER steel plates, and SUNYAY telescopic bug sprayer are all well made and reasonably priced commodity objects.

> However, I always thought the DYBOOPs and BIPLOZAs of this world existed on Amazon because of a glut of Chinese manufacturing expertise outpacing any ability to do proper branding and marketing.

IIRC, if you have a "brand name" it unlocks some desirable features in the Amazon Seller experience.

The DYBOOPs and BIPLOZAs are almost always just heavily marked-up items you can buy on AliExpress much cheaper if you're willing to wait a week or two.

It's certainly possible that some of those weird brands are of decent quality. My point is just that, if they're not, they'll just change the name from DYBOOP to CYEER and keep selling the same thing. There's no reputation to uphold.

something like 63% of sellers on Amazon are Chinese front companies. They often use random strings of letters for brand names to easily register trademarks. This practice allows them to bypass stricter naming regulations and flood the market with products that can be difficult to distinguish from one another.

to be clear, much of this is an Amazon rule, and branding is meaningless if you sponsor items to be searched; most people DGAF about things like plastic containers or cellphone cases and are happy to buy whatever