8 ms·

Isn't there still a danger of co-mingling fake stuff with what looks like a genuine item sold by Amazon?

samfriedman 9y ago
If you inspect the account/brand listed as the seller, it is much harder to get fooled by a counterfeit. Amazon-brand items sold by Amazon are pretty hard to mistake, in my experience.
- nkrisc 9y ago
  That's starting to be a lot of work when I can buy from another site where inspecting the seller isn't a necessary step.
- extrapickles 9y ago
  Co-mingling breaks that. What happens is even though you buy from seller 1, they will send you seller 2s item if its in a warehouse closer to you. The only way to avoid this is to by things only sold by 1 seller.
- skellera 9y ago
  Ziess lens cleaner being Sold under the Ziess account is sometimes counterfeit. The thing with that is the counterfeit destroys lens coatings. Pretty sure this has to do with the co-mingling people are mentioning which means you can’t be sure even if it’s coming from the brand.
alistairSH 9y ago
Yes, my understanding is, at least in some cases, the fulfillment centers mingle items from different sellers. So, if you're buying "Band X Widget Y", and there are multiple "Fulfilled by Amazon" sellers, and one of those sellers introduces counterfeits, then the whole pool of Widgets is now suspect.
- teh_klev 9y ago
  Thanks, that's what I thought. Because there's no way Amazon are going to have separate bins for SKU's they sell, and those in the co-mingled "seller" bins; it'd be a huge waste of space, and they'd have a much less wider range of SKU's to punt.
  - krapp 9y ago
    It's not a matter of it being a waste of space, even, but a waste of time. The first person in a FC to even see an item after the boxes get offloaded from the trucks is probably a stower who is being paid as little as possible to do nothing but scan whatever ASINs are in front of them and shove things into the bins as fast as possible. Any random bin can contain books, food, electronics, jewelry, anything from anywhere as it gets picked from, restowed into, counted and recounted, etc. There's little room for quality control before items are available for purchase, because the system is optimized to get as many things listed on the site as quickly as possible. There are many ways in which the process could be made more robust, but it won't be because doing so would cost precious seconds.
  - rahimnathwani 9y ago
    You're assuming they need a bin per SKU. They don't. Multiple SKUs can share a bin. Google 'Amazon random stow'
    - teh_klev 9y ago
      Thanks!....I had no idea about the "random stow" thing.
- jjuel 9y ago
  However, you would probably avoid what happened to this guy in the story since it would be coming from their fulfillment centers. You more than likely wouldn't be tagged as importing counterfeit goods.
  - alistairSH 9y ago

If you inspect the account/brand listed as the seller, it is much harder to get fooled by a counterfeit. Amazon-brand items sold by Amazon are pretty hard to mistake, in my experience.

nkrisc 9y ago
That's starting to be a lot of work when I can buy from another site where inspecting the seller isn't a necessary step.
extrapickles 9y ago
Co-mingling breaks that. What happens is even though you buy from seller 1, they will send you seller 2s item if its in a warehouse closer to you. The only way to avoid this is to by things only sold by 1 seller.
skellera 9y ago
Ziess lens cleaner being Sold under the Ziess account is sometimes counterfeit. The thing with that is the counterfeit destroys lens coatings. Pretty sure this has to do with the co-mingling people are mentioning which means you can’t be sure even if it’s coming from the brand.

alistairSH 9y ago

Yes, my understanding is, at least in some cases, the fulfillment centers mingle items from different sellers. So, if you're buying "Band X Widget Y", and there are multiple "Fulfilled by Amazon" sellers, and one of those sellers introduces counterfeits, then the whole pool of Widgets is now suspect.

teh_klev 9y ago
Thanks, that's what I thought. Because there's no way Amazon are going to have separate bins for SKU's they sell, and those in the co-mingled "seller" bins; it'd be a huge waste of space, and they'd have a much less wider range of SKU's to punt.
- krapp 9y ago
  It's not a matter of it being a waste of space, even, but a waste of time. The first person in a FC to even see an item after the boxes get offloaded from the trucks is probably a stower who is being paid as little as possible to do nothing but scan whatever ASINs are in front of them and shove things into the bins as fast as possible. Any random bin can contain books, food, electronics, jewelry, anything from anywhere as it gets picked from, restowed into, counted and recounted, etc. There's little room for quality control before items are available for purchase, because the system is optimized to get as many things listed on the site as quickly as possible. There are many ways in which the process could be made more robust, but it won't be because doing so would cost precious seconds.
- rahimnathwani 9y ago
  You're assuming they need a bin per SKU. They don't. Multiple SKUs can share a bin. Google 'Amazon random stow'
  - teh_klev 9y ago
    Thanks!....I had no idea about the "random stow" thing.
jjuel 9y ago
However, you would probably avoid what happened to this guy in the story since it would be coming from their fulfillment centers. You more than likely wouldn't be tagged as importing counterfeit goods.
- alistairSH 9y ago