3 ms·

My understanding is that the biggest issue is that they're commingling inventory. So Sony is selling A1000s on Amazon and ships in 10k units. Your FBA store buy

by pc86 4y ago

My understanding is that the biggest issue is that they're commingling inventory. So Sony is selling A1000s on Amazon and ships in 10k units. Your FBA store buys 1k wholesale A1000s and sends them to Amazon. My FBA store buys 1k and sends them in. Amazon just has a pile of 12k A1000s and sends them out whenever orders come in. Once it's processed there's no differentiation between your stock, mine, or Sony's, it's just Amazon's A1000 stock. Even if this is the only thing preventing the solution you're referring to it'd still be a logistical hurdle to solve.

post-it 4y ago
Just tag each item by supplier. They already tag by item. Sure it's a logistical hurdle in the sense that someone needs to do it, but it's not a challenge, it's not anything new.
- stonemetal12 4y ago
  Walmart has suppliers RFID tag with UPC + Unique ID. It would work perfectly for amazon. They would be able to track Who sent in what and in which shipment it came in.
- topaz0 4y ago
  I suspect they save money not just from saving some effort/complication of tracking the supplier, but also from being able to distribute the larger inventory better across their warehouses. If someone in Tennessee buys the item from a supplier whose stock is in Idaho, they have to ship across the country, but if they can substitute with stock form another supplier that is in Georgia they save a lot of shipping.
  - paulmd 4y ago
    Nobody disagrees with commingling in theory, but, the problem is you have some bad actors who will pollute the communal product bins. It is not obvious who they are because there is no tracking of individual items, only by ASIN. Tracking by (ASIN,UUID) pair would at least allow them to figure out who the bad actors are and flag/pull those items. There are lots of things they could do to try and help. The problem really is, there is no incentive for Amazon to do any of them.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
They made a logistical optimisation to save money. Only right that they should eat the costs of any side effects

by pc86 4y ago

post-it 4y ago

Just tag each item by supplier. They already tag by item. Sure it's a logistical hurdle in the sense that someone needs to do it, but it's not a challenge, it's not anything new.

stonemetal12 4y ago
Walmart has suppliers RFID tag with UPC + Unique ID. It would work perfectly for amazon. They would be able to track Who sent in what and in which shipment it came in.
topaz0 4y ago
I suspect they save money not just from saving some effort/complication of tracking the supplier, but also from being able to distribute the larger inventory better across their warehouses. If someone in Tennessee buys the item from a supplier whose stock is in Idaho, they have to ship across the country, but if they can substitute with stock form another supplier that is in Georgia they save a lot of shipping.
- paulmd 4y ago
  Nobody disagrees with commingling in theory, but, the problem is you have some bad actors who will pollute the communal product bins. It is not obvious who they are because there is no tracking of individual items, only by ASIN. Tracking by (ASIN,UUID) pair would at least allow them to figure out who the bad actors are and flag/pull those items. There are lots of things they could do to try and help. The problem really is, there is no incentive for Amazon to do any of them.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

They made a logistical optimisation to save money. Only right that they should eat the costs of any side effects