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from the putting-all-your-neweggs-in-one-basket dept.
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
The Wall Street Journal's earlier report about an expected record-setting 2016 in regards to chinese investment in the United States was right. Newegg Inc., one of the most popular online tech-related retailers, is now reportedly owned by chinese company Hangzhao Liaison Interactive Information Tech...
The Wall Street Journal's earlier report about an expected record-setting 2016 in regards to chinese investment in the United States was right. Newegg Inc., one of the most popular online tech-related retailers, is now reportedly owned by chinese company Hangzhao Liaison Interactive Information Technology Co., Ltd. (Liaison Interactive).
After September's reports of a significant investment from the Chinese company on Newegg, which would allow the California-based company to "accelerate the pursuit of the company's strategic initiatives" and into high-growth markets such as eSports, VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality), it now appears that the investment was much more than a simple capital infusion: it was a bid towards controlling an effective majority in the American company's shares.
Source: https://www.techpowerup.com/226777/newegg-now-owned-by-chinese-company
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @04:45PM
So everything is now gonna be cheap knockoffs?
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Kymation on Sunday October 16 2016, @05:00PM
How much of what Newegg sells now is made in China?
(Score: 2) by fnj on Sunday October 16 2016, @06:53PM
So close to 100% that the difference is an insignificant rounding error.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Sunday October 16 2016, @06:54PM
The made is China stuff is the only reason I go to NewEgg anymore. It used to be a really good source for reviews, but with Amazon Prime I have no reason to pay for shipping anymore. NewEgg does have some unique fresh off the boat products though, and they are a little more reliable than random eBay sellers.
Honestly, if NewEgg could shape up to compete against AliExpress with faster turn around there may be an opportunity there.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Sunday October 16 2016, @05:26PM
The "good" news is that they can't get much worse than they already are. As I've posted elsewhere, here's what I've run into with my recent experiences with those asshats:
1. I still suffer through using the Firefox NoScript extension. No matter what I allow, the last two times I ordered, the checkout blew up because for some reason they're redirecting to some BS site. You end up with a submit button to continue that can also blow up, and even causes XXS vulnerability warnings. It does all this in a way that makes it almost impossible to know if you're order went though. The first time this happened I ended up with three orders and had to cancel two. So I guess newegg.com isn't big enough to handle fucking credit card billing themselves and do it correctly? What the hell are they up to?
2. They've gone that awful Amazon-like route of whoring their name to third party sellers, where you have to be careful you're actually buying from newegg.com and not who-knows-who.
3. Every time I buy from them lately I somehow get put of one the many newegg spam email lists, and it's all but impossible to get off those when it happens.
Then again, maybe now they'll just start selling your credit card info to the highest bidder. That's about what it would take to get any worse.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @09:08PM
Payments sometimes have to go via verified by visa and their implementers cardinal commerce or whatever. I guess they are not as big as Amazon to eat the fraud.
I like shopping at Newegg because it is not Amazon, and it does not charge sales tax.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @09:35PM
Newegg does charge sales tax if you live in one their states like California or Tennessee.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ngarrang on Sunday October 16 2016, @10:39PM
And I am on the other end of the spectrum. Through my workplace, I am a NewEgg Premier member. Between the free rush and free shipping on pretty much everything I order, I have never had any problems getting what I want that they sell. When something goes wrong with an item, like I ordered the wrong thing, or it arrived damaged/DOA, I have returned and gotten repayment or another item without any questions. I have never had a problem with using their web site and staying off of their mailing lists.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @12:29AM
They could always add malware ads to the site to round off the experience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @05:02AM
verifyed by visa is a clusterfuck
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Monday October 17 2016, @08:07AM
Every time I buy from them lately I somehow get put of one the many newegg spam email lists, and it's all but impossible to get off those when it happens.
If you haven't heard of it, the free/donation-supported SpamGourmet [spamgourmet.com] is an awesome way to avoid that problem. If you use the company name as part of the redirect (e.g. newegg.magicoddball@spamgourmet or amazon.magicoddball@spamgourmet) and spam starts showing up through it, it makes it pretty clear which assholes sold your info.
(NOTE: my SG username isn't magicoddball.)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @05:38PM
Don't forget, Newegg is a leader in the fight against patent trolls [law360.com]. They don't meekly write a check to those rodents and ask them to go on to their next victim.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @05:49PM
If it has to be shipped through the mail, it's a no go for me. Especially if any part of the item(s) is electronic.
In today's world, I wouldn't put it past shadow agency #500 to sneak in something to the hardware, or
even a stuffed toy!
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @06:17PM
I don't know why this was downvoted, it's true and more people need to know about it!!
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday October 17 2016, @06:34AM
How do you buy electronics then? Drive to the first factory handling raw materials, tour the facilities, accompany the parts as they go through the manufacturing process and a number of other factories. before plucking the final product fresh off the final assembly line?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @11:24AM
I go to a physical store and buy it. At least that way I only get the generic embedded malware, and not the special stuff that the NSA are specifically targetting at ME!
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday October 17 2016, @03:23PM
There have been reports that the NSA's Office of Tailored Access Operations does such things. Cisco took them seriously enough to "ship boxes to vacant addresses" rather than customers' proper addresses. The pages I've linked below are marked "top secret."
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150320/08335930383/cisco-shipping-hardware-to-bogus-addresses-to-throw-off-nsa-intercept-and-implant-efforts.shtml [techdirt.com]
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/ [arstechnica.com]
http://www.spiegel.de/media/media-35669.pdf [spiegel.de]
Chinese ownership of a North American retailer selling in North America could make it convenient for the Chinese government to have the equipment modified before it's shipped.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fritsd on Sunday October 16 2016, @06:34PM
To reflect the new business' goals of quality and pungency, the company's name and logotype shall be changed to: "Thousand-year-old egg" [wikipedia.org].
;-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @03:38PM
Egg foo "young"?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @09:38PM
That's an exaggeration. But China's been floating on the skin of a bubble for a few years now and the rich have been doing all kinds of stuff to get cash out of the country before it pops. Buying newegg sounds like one more example of money fleeing to high ground.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @12:27AM
It sort of reminds me when Japan was flying high -- selling chips, cars and other high value goods to USA. They were buying up US real estate and all kinds of things and paying big premiums. Then there was a crash and they had to sell it all at bargain prices...in some cases I think the sales were back to the original owners. Joke was on Japan...
I wonder if that process can repeat? On the one hand, wealthy Chinese appear to be really anxious to get invested outside China, this part is same as Japan. On the other hand, maybe they have so much money and so much business in the Chinese domestic market (many times larger than Japanese domestic) that they won't be forced to sell USA assets if there is a recession or other business crash. Maybe these wealthy Chinese can just ride it out?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @03:13AM
They are putting money into things in most cases. Not debt. No debt no problem, you wont be forced to sell if the price drops.
Think of it as another buffer like the last time American banks blew up and needed Chinese money to bail them out long enough for the Fed to step in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @05:55PM
> They are putting money into things in most cases.
That depends on who "they" is.
Individuals? You are probably right.
But China's real estate bubble is financed by massive, massive public debt. Crazy levels of debt. I don't know how China is going to get out from under that, inflation is the obvious answer but there are lots of obvious problems with that too.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday October 17 2016, @02:36AM
Newegg became just another knockoff Amazon/Alibaba years ago when they started opening up their site to other sellers.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday October 17 2016, @03:45AM
You object to the lack of originality, or what?
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday October 18 2016, @10:35PM
The complete lack of customer service. That used to be the best thing about Newegg, now they are no better than the other online retailers.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh