There's an art to sifting through the "random letter" products on Amazon. While there is a lot of bottom-of-the-barrel garbage that gets churned out by grey market factories, bought in bulk on Alibaba and silkscreened with a random throwaway trademark, there are also smaller Chinese brands that have their own injection molds, engineers, etc. and are actually making quality products, but the easiest way to reach yet another global market is to slap together a random brand on Amazon. Even a Chinese company that's making good quality stuff isn't going to go through all the hassle of setting up a US office, hiring a US marketing team, etc, just to sell their coffee maker.
As many have noted, this happened in the 1960s-1980s with Japan. My specific experience is with guitars: all kinds of random companies would buy mass-produced Japanese guitars, slap their own label on them, and sell them in their tiny music shops. Despite the disparate labels, the guitars were mostly coming out of the same handful of factories (Matsumoku et. al.). Of course there were exceptions like Yamaha. Some of the early examples were mediocre at best, but as the product landscape improved, many of the later examples from the 1970s and 80s are competitive with much more expensive guitars today. The only difference with today's landscape is that the Chinese manufacturers are starting to realize they can cut out the middleman. Imagine you were in the 1960s, pre-internet, trying to decide whether you should get a guitar from a brand name you recognized, like Decca, a record company, or some random Japanese company called "Yamaha".
Also, after a while you learn to spot the "Alibaba bulk" listings and can then decide whether you want to optimize for price and just buy the cheapest one that is exactly the same as all the others.
As many have noted, this happened in the 1960s-1980s with Japan. My specific experience is with guitars: all kinds of random companies would buy mass-produced Japanese guitars, slap their own label on them, and sell them in their tiny music shops. Despite the disparate labels, the guitars were mostly coming out of the same handful of factories (Matsumoku et. al.). Of course there were exceptions like Yamaha. Some of the early examples were mediocre at best, but as the product landscape improved, many of the later examples from the 1970s and 80s are competitive with much more expensive guitars today. The only difference with today's landscape is that the Chinese manufacturers are starting to realize they can cut out the middleman. Imagine you were in the 1960s, pre-internet, trying to decide whether you should get a guitar from a brand name you recognized, like Decca, a record company, or some random Japanese company called "Yamaha".
Also, after a while you learn to spot the "Alibaba bulk" listings and can then decide whether you want to optimize for price and just buy the cheapest one that is exactly the same as all the others.