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There are a lot of complaints about allegedly fake merchandise on Amazon and people asking for a crackdown. This is what the other side of that story looks like

There are a lot of complaints about allegedly fake merchandise on Amazon and people asking for a crackdown. This is what the other side of that story looks like. The old solution of Amazon mostly ignoring the fakes and just compensating people who complain avoids this scenario.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
>The old solution of Amazon mostly ignoring the fakes and just compensating people who complain avoids this scenario. Being a proper retailer and sourcing goods from reputable sources, performing quality control, and then reselling them to the public without the commingling nonsense also avoids this scenario.
- shajznnckfke 6y ago
  What does comingling have to do with it? Apparently Amazon was able to destroy this seller’s merchandise specifically, so it doesn’t sound like there was a problem identifying it among commingled inventory. I’m getting the impression from the comments here that a lot of people just have an axe to grind about commingling even if there’s no clear connection to the issue at hand (people do seem to bring it up on all sorts of unrelated stories about Amazon).
  - adinisom 6y ago
    Comingling means the buyer can't vet the seller so it's entirely on Amazon to ensure the goods aren't counterfeit. As you say, Amazon was able to identify the merchant specifically but wasn't able to determine whether the goods are genuine. If the goods weren't comingled, this would be less Amazon's problem and the goods wouldn't be in Amazon's warehouse so at least the seller would still have his inventory if Amazon blocks his products.
    - shajznnckfke 6y ago
      You can use Amazon for fulfillment without participating in commingled inventory. In that case, Amazon would still have possession of your inventory, and if you didn’t cooperate when they tried to return it to you, it might end up getting destroyed. If Amazon didn’t offer fulfillment as a service, and just bought product from suppliers to sell, this same issue can arise - the supplier can deliver items which seem possibly fraudulent. Then Amazon will fight with the supplier about returning those items and depending on what kind of contracts are in place, could end up destroying them (this seems to be essentially what happened here).
    - didibus 6y ago
      Actually Amazon knows precisely what items was shipped and if it came directly from the merchant or if they used some other merchants for the delivery (aka comingled). So when a buyer complains about an item, they know if it is the merchant's item or some other merchant's item. Comingled doesn't mean that they just bunch them all up in some bin and then can't tell which is which and where they were from. It means that if some warehouse closer to the buyer has a similar item, they'll ship that one, because shipping will be cheaper and faster coming from the closest fulfilment center.
      - solidasparagus 6y ago
        I don't think that's what the parent is talking about. Because customers don't get to choose who they buy from if a product is co-mingled, customers have no way of avoiding counterfeit items by deciding to only buy from very reputable sellers. This makes detecting counterfeits Amazon's responsibility
        didibus 6y ago
        Oh I see, yes that's true. Though the seller is allowed to opt out of comingled, but ya, I always wanted as a buyer to be able to choose.
- didibus 6y ago
  Not really though, cause then as a small retailer, you still have no way to compete. Nobody is going to buy "real" Hugo Boss from some random fishy small website. So Amazon is both a blessing and a curse to small retailers I feel.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    I don’t see why a random fishy website should be able to compete. Either it provides value or it doesn’t. If I want Hugo Boss, I’m going to the Hugo Boss or maybe Nordstroms website, since I know both of those will result in a minimal chance of me getting counterfeit and highest chance of getting the highest quality.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
They could bring in some common sense measures like "what is the ratio of complaints to total number of sales" and "did the seller get the chance to rectify the situation"
- shajznnckfke 6y ago
  I’d expect that they are doing that. This story only quotes a few reviews, but we don’t know how many more customers complained through Amazon’s customer service system (customers are probably more likely to do a return than write a public review). Amazon likely has some threshold for when to initiate action against a seller based on this data.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

>The old solution of Amazon mostly ignoring the fakes and just compensating people who complain avoids this scenario. Being a proper retailer and sourcing goods from reputable sources, performing quality control, and then reselling them to the public without the commingling nonsense also avoids this scenario.

shajznnckfke 6y ago
What does comingling have to do with it? Apparently Amazon was able to destroy this seller’s merchandise specifically, so it doesn’t sound like there was a problem identifying it among commingled inventory. I’m getting the impression from the comments here that a lot of people just have an axe to grind about commingling even if there’s no clear connection to the issue at hand (people do seem to bring it up on all sorts of unrelated stories about Amazon).
- adinisom 6y ago
  Comingling means the buyer can't vet the seller so it's entirely on Amazon to ensure the goods aren't counterfeit. As you say, Amazon was able to identify the merchant specifically but wasn't able to determine whether the goods are genuine. If the goods weren't comingled, this would be less Amazon's problem and the goods wouldn't be in Amazon's warehouse so at least the seller would still have his inventory if Amazon blocks his products.
  - shajznnckfke 6y ago
    You can use Amazon for fulfillment without participating in commingled inventory. In that case, Amazon would still have possession of your inventory, and if you didn’t cooperate when they tried to return it to you, it might end up getting destroyed. If Amazon didn’t offer fulfillment as a service, and just bought product from suppliers to sell, this same issue can arise - the supplier can deliver items which seem possibly fraudulent. Then Amazon will fight with the supplier about returning those items and depending on what kind of contracts are in place, could end up destroying them (this seems to be essentially what happened here).
  - didibus 6y ago
    Actually Amazon knows precisely what items was shipped and if it came directly from the merchant or if they used some other merchants for the delivery (aka comingled). So when a buyer complains about an item, they know if it is the merchant's item or some other merchant's item. Comingled doesn't mean that they just bunch them all up in some bin and then can't tell which is which and where they were from. It means that if some warehouse closer to the buyer has a similar item, they'll ship that one, because shipping will be cheaper and faster coming from the closest fulfilment center.
    - solidasparagus 6y ago
      I don't think that's what the parent is talking about. Because customers don't get to choose who they buy from if a product is co-mingled, customers have no way of avoiding counterfeit items by deciding to only buy from very reputable sellers. This makes detecting counterfeits Amazon's responsibility
      - didibus 6y ago
        Oh I see, yes that's true. Though the seller is allowed to opt out of comingled, but ya, I always wanted as a buyer to be able to choose.
didibus 6y ago
Not really though, cause then as a small retailer, you still have no way to compete. Nobody is going to buy "real" Hugo Boss from some random fishy small website. So Amazon is both a blessing and a curse to small retailers I feel.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I don’t see why a random fishy website should be able to compete. Either it provides value or it doesn’t. If I want Hugo Boss, I’m going to the Hugo Boss or maybe Nordstroms website, since I know both of those will result in a minimal chance of me getting counterfeit and highest chance of getting the highest quality.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

They could bring in some common sense measures like "what is the ratio of complaints to total number of sales" and "did the seller get the chance to rectify the situation"

shajznnckfke 6y ago
I’d expect that they are doing that. This story only quotes a few reviews, but we don’t know how many more customers complained through Amazon’s customer service system (customers are probably more likely to do a return than write a public review). Amazon likely has some threshold for when to initiate action against a seller based on this data.