Shopping & e-commerce
E-commerce has stopped breaking on technology and started breaking on trust: buyers are afraid they'll pay and never receive what was promised, while the platform hides behind a "delivered" status and a bot-powered support wall. The winner will be whoever sells not a product but a guaranteed outcome.
Three findings
Outcome guarantee: money protected by rules, not by status
The buyer's core fear is paying and being left with nothing because "tracking says delivered" or a refund was swapped for store credit. Platforms have automated the denial: a bot closes the dispute, arbitration defaults against you, photo evidence is ignored. Whoever builds an honest, transparent mechanism for real-money refunds and human escalation will capture a whole segment's trust. This pillar is not about logistics — it's about who people trust with their money.
"Delivered" — but your hands are empty34
The platform closes disputes based on a "delivered" courier status and refuses to refund money, even when the buyer proves the package never arrived.
my items never arrived, and there's no human customer service. ai decided my case was closed, and I'm out $400.00. this used to be a good app, but they fired all the humans and now it's a scam
They refused to issue a refund on an order because usps marked it as delivered. usps never did actually delivered the package, so I am just out of the money.
wish used to ha be the best items for the cheapest price across the board now they stock is jus as generic
Free gifts that cost you money27
Slot-machine mechanics — "spin the wheel" and "pick 5 free gifts" — pull you in, but at the finish line you're told to spend above a minimum or recruit friends, and the prize keeps moving.
they gave me 999 coins for free. Then they tasked me to share Temu with a friend who is to sign up as well to get that last coin
the watering of the tree for the 5 free gifts. it started back over level 5 and now has done the same to 2 other people
they said, pay a penny and I would get $600 in credit. they didn't give it to me. then it was pay a dollar for credit. and in the end it was pay $2.
Support is a bot that runs you in circles23
There's no reaching a real person: the AI chat replies with templates, closes tickets prematurely, and offers no path to escalate a real problem.
they spend too much money on AI service that doesnt actually help real problems customers have and then its like pulling teeth to speak to a real human
The chat option is now fully AI (no way to escalate to a human) and if you try to report an issue with an order it just tells you how to access the functionality that errors out.
Twice, I've received damaged goods and almost a month so response from a human. AI been bringing me in circles.
Counterfeits and fakes, and the platform doesn't care22
Counterfeit goods are sold as genuine; even with unboxing video evidence the platform neither penalizes the seller nor issues a full refund.
I SPENT $2000 ON SOME TCG CARDS AND THEY TURNED OUT TO BE COMPLETELY FAKE. MERCARI WILL NOT TAKE ACTIOM AGAINST THE SELLER
an item was marked as Authentic and backed by AliExpress themselves...well it was a fake and when I returned they had the audacity to take $9 return fee.
Sneakers (especially Jordan's), are mostly replicas. The price is too good for a reason.
They swap your cash refund for store credit21
Instead of returning money to your card, the platform automatically issues in-store credit that can't be spent all at once — you have to keep buying just to get your own money back.
I then find out that Temu credit can't be used all at once. I need to make more purchases in order to use MY CASH. Fraudulent business practices has lost you a customer.
When u request refund it automatically chooses etsy credit and it takes long time to receive the refund
THEY SEND YOU CREDIT ...So you end up spending and losing again and again
Fees and shipping eat all of a seller's earnings19
The marketplace takes 10% plus inflated shipping and pushes sellers to race to the bottom in price just to stay visible — so sellers move to platforms with no fees.
The selling fees are HIGH. You get 10$ when I sell a 90$ item? Why do you get so much? Depop I sent like this. The shipping is way higher too.
This app basically forces sellers into a race to the bottom. If I run a promotion, I shouldn’t have to keep dropping my price just to stay visible.
they rob you blind on there fees. there auto estimates for shipping dosnt work so I may as well of kept the stuff I sold.
Honest storefront: what you see is what you pay, and what you get
Trust in the product breaks at two seams: the price jumps in the cart and on the final screen, and the item that arrives doesn't match the photo in material, color, or size. On top of that — counterfeits sold as originals and AI-generated images instead of real products. Buyers want one thing: predictability from the listing to the unboxing. A platform that strictly penalizes the gap between storefront and reality wins where the giants surrendered to dropshipping and slop.
What arrived isn't what was in the photo30
The item that shows up doesn't match the listing in material, color, or size — but the return window has either closed or proving the discrepancy is pointless.
if I could give zero I would . what I ordered and what I got is a joke ! literally I don't think it's even on the site ! terrible the dress is completely different
I buy a lot of things from this place and spend a good bit of money and I am very disappointed and what their clothing is like these days
The seller sent me the wrong item and they refused to process my return.
The cart price is higher than the shelf price16
Add an item to your cart and the price silently multiplies; the promised checkout discount never materializes.
you'll see price of something and you add it to the chart,the next thing you're seeing is x3 of the price you saw before
after you see the price of a product and then you add it to cart, the price automatically increases by 30% to 40%. this is a total scam.
if you click on an item it changes prices even after you add it to your cart.
AI slop and dropshippers have crowded out real makers15
The handmade marketplace is flooded with AI-generated images and Temu resellers; there's no way to filter genuine creators from the slop, and stolen designs make it into curated picks.
it's been inundated with AI generated "creations" and no way for buyers to filter them out of their search results. I'm disappointed every time I search for art and see pages of AI slop.
ETSY has become a giant scam of sellers reselling off Temu. And the people that do make stuff use AI to make their garbage look better than what it will when you receive it.
the amount of AI patterns that are on here is nuts! its almost unusable anymore. The patterns are not correct & its a real pain trying to pick them out of the legitimate ones.
Shipping costs only appear on the final screen14
An item is tagged "free shipping," but on the last step the price doubles because of logistics charges, and the only way to find out is to click a buried hyperlink.
the price doubled at the final checkout screen and it didn't say why the price had doubled up front. I had to click on a hyperlink in order to see that it doubled because of shipping costs.
Don't believe it when it tells you that the item in your cart has Free Shipping! They LIE!
read shipping prices, 94 cents for purse sne $23 for shipping?????? bait advertisement.
Passport-and-selfie verification drives away long-time customers13
Sudden age verification requiring a photo ID and a selfie locks accounts of people with years of purchase history — even where the law doesn't require it.
they let me buy $150 toy but when I buy $44 worth of junk they want me to take pictures of all my personal information. delete delete delete
Been using this app for 8 years as loyal customer and I never thought that I ever rate AliExpress as one star because it was one of my favorite store till this week came validation ID wasting people time
my account was instantly closed entirely for supposedly "trying to circumvent the ID check". all I did was follow instructions
Quiet store: get the casino, the AI, and the spam out of the way of the purchase
Platforms have turned the path to purchase into an obstacle course: forced AI search returns four identical items, spin wheels and live streams run for five minutes, unwanted subscriptions and dozens of daily pushes pile on. Broken search and filters finish the job. A large and growing segment of users is ready to pay for calm and speed — "just let me find it and buy it without the noise." This is counter-positioning against the loudest part of the market.
Delivery brings the wrong item, a broken item, or half the order25
Couriers deliver the wrong product, someone else's order, or crushed packages; substitutions happen without notice, no delivery alerts — and you paid for both.
I ordered a microwave and received a plastic organizer bin...not worth the hassle until they fix who does deliveries
Often delivers the wrong items. I have even received the entire order that belongs to someone else and didn't receive mine
I ordered a recording microphone, and got a fake plastic one that doesn't work. Ordered Bluetooth headphones that never arrived.
Forced AI search killed the results page24
Every query is routed through an AI assistant: it loads for minutes, returns four identical items instead of the full catalog, and there's no way to disable it.
Any search you make automatically pulls up an ai rather the the search results. and it takes forever to load and you have to click a separate button to see the real search results. and you can not disable this feature.
When the results do finally show it will only show 4 of a "category" which are all the same item over and over again.
Forcing AI into the search bar was the final straw. Allow disabling Alexa and any other AI in your app, or I'm canceling my membership.
Search and filters simply don't work20
Apply a filter to a search and the screen freezes on "searching" and never returns results; people miss auctions and give up and switch to the website.
if I filter based on item condition the app bricks and becomes totally unusable. This has been going on for over a week
app doesn't work anymore....I can search for an item and it comes up but if I try to narrow the results using filters, the list of items goes away and it's 'searching' and never populates again.
the search feature is absolutely useless. doesn't show in stock items like Walmart does, and doesn't even show store inventory when searching for a brand or item.
Gamification gets in the way of just buying something18
Before you can search for anything, the app runs five minutes of spin wheels, pop-ups, and animations — some users report it literally makes them nauseous.
the images moving left and right to bring to my attention in my own kart are IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE! even the site gave me motiin sickness
It gives you all kinds of come-ons for 5 minutes before you can actually start looking for what you wanted to pick up. I gave up and went to Alibaba and Amazon.
i will reinstall, once they remove the 5 minute spin the wheel bullship Everytime you open the app
Push notifications spam you like a clingy ex16
Dozens of pushes a day, animated banners in the notification shade, and emails about "gifts"; turn them off in settings and an update quietly switches them back on.
Why do you all feel the need to continuously harass people with notifications? You're like that ex who keeps stalking people. stop!
You can turn them off in the settings, but every time the app updates, they quietly switch them back on so they can spam you with more junk.
This morning, before my day had even started it had inserted 3 large animated banner ads into my notifcations. This is way too aggressive and invasive.
Unwanted subscriptions and unauthorized charges15
A saved card is used to silently enroll you in a paid subscription; you have to decline membership offers dozens of times per session.
saving my card last time cost me 100+$ for a membership I did not sign up for.
Accosted with an offer for Walmart+ nearly every time I open the app. I've had it before. I didn't use it. I don't want it. I've declined it dozens of times.
The checkout experience asks you for joining Walmart+, various offers and money, cards and donations at least 10 times. It's very harrowing.
Two more findings — with the breakdown and review quotes.
7 opportunities
Ideas users ask for themselves — each backed by proven demand.
10 apps
The giants (Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Target) are monetizing attention — pushing AI search, live streams, and subscriptions that undermine the basic function of "find and buy." The cheap Asian platforms (Temu, SHEIN, AliExpress, Wish) sustain a cheap-dopamine loop through casino gamification and bait-and-switch pricing, sacrificing predictability. The C2C marketplaces (Mercari, Etsy) are losing both sellers (fees, dispute rulings against them) and buyers (counterfeits, AI slop) — the trusted arbiter has stepped out, and that is the vacant niche.
Amazon ShoppingProduct Features
Amazon Shopping offers app-only benefits to help make shopping on Amazon faster and easier than shopping on your desktop.
eBayWith the eBay mobile app, buy and sell millions of items on the go.
WalmartSave money.
Temushop on Temu for amazing offers
No matter what you're looking for, Temu has you covered, including fashion, home decor, handmade crafts, beauty & cosmetics, clothing, shoes, and more.
SHEINEverything you love, now at your fingertips!
AliExpressExplore our global store from the comfort of your home and discover spectacular online deals with up to 70% off on millions of fashion items.
EtsyShop Etsy—your global marketplace for original items made, handpicked, and designed by real people for all budgets.
WishWish is home to deals on millions of items from around the world.
MercariMEET MERCARI: a marketplace built for you.
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