3 ms·

I don't think Amazon has ever outright admitted that they do, but Amazon's own terms give them the right to commingle their inventory with those of third party

by khuey 1y ago

I don't think Amazon has ever outright admitted that they do, but Amazon's own terms give them the right to commingle their inventory with those of third party sellers. F-4 Storage We will provide storage services as described in these FBA Service Terms once we confirm receipt of delivery. We will keep electronic records that track inventory of Units by identifying the number of Units stored in any fulfillment center. We will not be required to physically mark or segregate Units from other inventory units (e.g., products with the same Amazon standard identification number) owned by us, our Affiliates or third parties in the applicable fulfillment center(s). https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external/G1791?locale=en-US https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external... That combined with years and years of anecdotal reports of this happening certainly suggests a "where there's smoke there's fire" situation to me.

phil21 1y ago
Right, that’s FBA. I’m talking about sold by Amazon. I’m specifically talking about a case where a sold by Amazon item came from co-mingled inventory from a FBA seller. I also know from direct second party experience (I also personally saw the terms) that at least at a certain level of “brand” you can decline this option with Amazon for your registered product skus/ASIN even for FBA. I don’t know if this is offered to everyone though - I know it went through some sort of “deal reg” process in the one case I saw. I imagine this came through some sort of lawsuit or threats of one for a major brand at some point - but that is speculation on my part.
- khuey 1y ago
  > I’m specifically talking about a case where a sold by Amazon item came from co-mingled inventory from a FBA seller. The FBA terms I quoted specifically say that Amazon can co-mingle FBA inventory with their own (if the FBA seller doesn't opt out of "virtual tracking").
  - lr1970 1y ago
    > The FBA terms I quoted specifically say that Amazon can co-mingle FBA inventory with their own (if the FBA seller doesn't opt out of "virtual tracking"). The wording in the quote explicitly states that an FBA unit can be substituted by owned by Amazon unit or other FBA units. But the wording is not clear whether SBA (Sold By Amazon) unit can be substituted by an FBA inventory. The terms covering Amazon's "first party inventory" (SBA, a.k.a. Amazon retail) are internal to Amazon and are not shared, AFAIK. But i can be wrong :-)
    - onli 1y ago
      But that has to go in both directions, necessarily. If they are not marked, as the terms say, they can't fulfill FBA from SBA but not SBA from FBA. It's all one big pile.
      - phil21 1y ago
        > It's all one big pile. I don't believe this to be true. SBA in theory has it's own "pile" that they can of course use to substitute with a FBA third party seller if they deem it cheaper as they are confident that they are substituting like for like. Given how FBA items are labeled differently (the Amazon required ASIN sticker) than SBA I can't recall a time I've received a third party item when buying direct from Amazon. I also can't really say with any certainty it does not or did not happen, but it was not obvious at least. I've also seen contracts the explicitly forbid the co-mingling for brands that sell direct to Amazon. By necessity these would need to be under different piles on the backend - and it's easy to see different ASINs for the same SKU by searching for common big brand items. There will be a SBA listing, and then many other listings gaming the qty/size of the item that are FBA. An item that comes in the same size and packaging often is listed twice (or more) times with one being SBA and the rest third party. It's definitely clear as mud, but I think the "sold by amazon/fulfilled by amazon" being co-mingled is largely urban legend. It's all speculation like this thread here, and very few verifiable facts when you dig into any of the reporting/social media accounts. I'm 100% sure it happens by mistake and very well may have happened as routine business in the past, but these days I cannot come up with an example that shows this happening on any scale.
    - 1y ago

by khuey 1y ago

phil21 1y ago

Right, that’s FBA. I’m talking about sold by Amazon. I’m specifically talking about a case where a sold by Amazon item came from co-mingled inventory from a FBA seller. I also know from direct second party experience (I also personally saw the terms) that at least at a certain level of “brand” you can decline this option with Amazon for your registered product skus/ASIN even for FBA. I don’t know if this is offered to everyone though - I know it went through some sort of “deal reg” process in the one case I saw. I imagine this came through some sort of lawsuit or threats of one for a major brand at some point - but that is speculation on my part.

khuey 1y ago
> I’m specifically talking about a case where a sold by Amazon item came from co-mingled inventory from a FBA seller. The FBA terms I quoted specifically say that Amazon can co-mingle FBA inventory with their own (if the FBA seller doesn't opt out of "virtual tracking").
- lr1970 1y ago
  > The FBA terms I quoted specifically say that Amazon can co-mingle FBA inventory with their own (if the FBA seller doesn't opt out of "virtual tracking"). The wording in the quote explicitly states that an FBA unit can be substituted by owned by Amazon unit or other FBA units. But the wording is not clear whether SBA (Sold By Amazon) unit can be substituted by an FBA inventory. The terms covering Amazon's "first party inventory" (SBA, a.k.a. Amazon retail) are internal to Amazon and are not shared, AFAIK. But i can be wrong :-)
  - onli 1y ago
    But that has to go in both directions, necessarily. If they are not marked, as the terms say, they can't fulfill FBA from SBA but not SBA from FBA. It's all one big pile.
    - phil21 1y ago
      > It's all one big pile. I don't believe this to be true. SBA in theory has it's own "pile" that they can of course use to substitute with a FBA third party seller if they deem it cheaper as they are confident that they are substituting like for like. Given how FBA items are labeled differently (the Amazon required ASIN sticker) than SBA I can't recall a time I've received a third party item when buying direct from Amazon. I also can't really say with any certainty it does not or did not happen, but it was not obvious at least. I've also seen contracts the explicitly forbid the co-mingling for brands that sell direct to Amazon. By necessity these would need to be under different piles on the backend - and it's easy to see different ASINs for the same SKU by searching for common big brand items. There will be a SBA listing, and then many other listings gaming the qty/size of the item that are FBA. An item that comes in the same size and packaging often is listed twice (or more) times with one being SBA and the rest third party. It's definitely clear as mud, but I think the "sold by amazon/fulfilled by amazon" being co-mingled is largely urban legend. It's all speculation like this thread here, and very few verifiable facts when you dig into any of the reporting/social media accounts. I'm 100% sure it happens by mistake and very well may have happened as routine business in the past, but these days I cannot come up with an example that shows this happening on any scale.
  - 1y ago