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Amazon caused the problem by mixing inventory. You are a legit seller who sells product A and there is another seller who sells a counterfeit product A. Even if

Amazon caused the problem by mixing inventory. You are a legit seller who sells product A and there is another seller who sells a counterfeit product A. Even if a customer buys from you it can receive a counterfeit product.

nimajneb 7y ago
I think this happened to me a long time ago on Amazon (2015). I ordered a bicycle tail light. When I got the package it was some cheap bad non brand name product. I'm not sure what Amazon did on the back end, but they refunded me. I just looked at my order history, it appears to be one of the items Amazon sells from multiple vendors, like what you describe.
thephyber 7y ago
I'm having a hard time grokking how Amazon is somehow culpable for the fraud of "another seller" claiming that their wares are "product A" (by self-describing it by the same SKU). If this happened on eBay (user buys/wins auction of "product A" as sold by "another seller", but described the product sold by "a legit seller"), who is culpable? I'm sure the reputation of the "another seller" should take a hit -- the only question is should the marketplace's reputation? Perhaps if the "fulfilled my Amazon" is used, that might make more sense, but I think they just add the "distributor" role to their transaction role.
- dragonsngoblins 7y ago
  Because it isn't transparent to the purchaser that the stock comes from an illegitimate seller. So as a hypothetical example: Rolex makes Subarmariner watches and sells them on Amazon, and KnockOffWatchCo makes counterfeit Submariners and sells them as genuine ones on Amazon. I order a Submariner watch from Rolex through Amazon. However when Amazon sends it to me it grabs a watch from a bucket that contains intermixed submariners supplied by Rolex and counterfeit submariners supplied by KnockOffWatchCo, even though I purchased it from the legitimate seller. This is because Amazon treats items with the same SKU regardless of the origin of those items. This leads to two problems: the first is legitimate sellers being blamed for selling counterfeit goods. The other is the damage to brand perception. "Oh wow my Rolex watch sure keeps terrible time, I guess they've gone down hill". So in the case of eBay if the seller sold me a fake product and I could identify that it is fake I could dispute that I received the advertised goods. With Amazon I could do that too, but I would not buy through that seller again even though they weren't actually the ones who provided the item. Does that make more sense?
  - true_religion 7y ago
    I was under the impression that suppliers could choose not to allow SKU mixing but many do not because mixing leads to lower delivery times. Is that not true?

nimajneb 7y ago

I think this happened to me a long time ago on Amazon (2015). I ordered a bicycle tail light. When I got the package it was some cheap bad non brand name product. I'm not sure what Amazon did on the back end, but they refunded me. I just looked at my order history, it appears to be one of the items Amazon sells from multiple vendors, like what you describe.

thephyber 7y ago

I'm having a hard time grokking how Amazon is somehow culpable for the fraud of "another seller" claiming that their wares are "product A" (by self-describing it by the same SKU). If this happened on eBay (user buys/wins auction of "product A" as sold by "another seller", but described the product sold by "a legit seller"), who is culpable? I'm sure the reputation of the "another seller" should take a hit -- the only question is should the marketplace's reputation? Perhaps if the "fulfilled my Amazon" is used, that might make more sense, but I think they just add the "distributor" role to their transaction role.

dragonsngoblins 7y ago
Because it isn't transparent to the purchaser that the stock comes from an illegitimate seller. So as a hypothetical example: Rolex makes Subarmariner watches and sells them on Amazon, and KnockOffWatchCo makes counterfeit Submariners and sells them as genuine ones on Amazon. I order a Submariner watch from Rolex through Amazon. However when Amazon sends it to me it grabs a watch from a bucket that contains intermixed submariners supplied by Rolex and counterfeit submariners supplied by KnockOffWatchCo, even though I purchased it from the legitimate seller. This is because Amazon treats items with the same SKU regardless of the origin of those items. This leads to two problems: the first is legitimate sellers being blamed for selling counterfeit goods. The other is the damage to brand perception. "Oh wow my Rolex watch sure keeps terrible time, I guess they've gone down hill". So in the case of eBay if the seller sold me a fake product and I could identify that it is fake I could dispute that I received the advertised goods. With Amazon I could do that too, but I would not buy through that seller again even though they weren't actually the ones who provided the item. Does that make more sense?
- true_religion 7y ago
  I was under the impression that suppliers could choose not to allow SKU mixing but many do not because mixing leads to lower delivery times. Is that not true?