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Comment by jerdfelt | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, Amazon does not appear to keep different sellers products separate in the warehouse. All it takes is one seller sending counterfeit products to the warehouse for their inventory to be contaminated by counterfeits. This makes "fulfilled by Amazon" more risky in some respects.

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If this is true (and I suppose Amazon's the only one who really knows, absent a supplier orchestrating a test), then I can't believe there wouldn't be grounds for a class action lawsuit.

Because, crucial, Amazon also comingles reviews for the same product.

I'd assume they have boilerplate in their legal agreements that waive rights to do so. But it seems blatantly obvious that if I put a novel item on Amazon, attract great reviews for its high quality, get comingled with counterfeits, have my reviews bombed by pissed off customers, Amazon has materially injured my business through no fault of my own.

This has been discussed here in the past. If you look at the FBA program they explicitly charge extra to not co-mingle your inventory.

This is not true. They offer a service where they will add an FNSKU label to your products for .20/unit, which will mean your items will not be co-mingled. But as a seller, you can also apply the FNSKU to the items you send in and not be charged the additional .20/unit. It's up to the seller how they want to do it, but it's not a mandatory charge, just a convenience if you want Amazon to do it instead of yourself as the seller.

Amazon comingles _reviews_ for _different_ similar products.

This is the thing that really annoys me. It doesn't seem that technically difficult (aside from the migration pain) that recognizes product:seller as a primary key, rather than just product.

They're already swimming in reviews. So I can't see them not getting more than they're losing by empowering customers to torpedo bad sellers.

Of course, this would also mean fundamentally changing their logistic practice, which is probably why they aren't interested in doing it.

> If this is true (and I suppose Amazon's the only one who really knows, absent a supplier orchestrating a test)

This is true, and Amazon admits it. Co-mingling is a large part of their delivery platform.

This is not entirely true. Sellers have the option to send in items to the Amazon warehouses with the UPC as the barcode OR with an FNSKU barcode. The FNSKU is a unique barcode that identifies that particular product to you, the seller.

If you send items in to the warehouse with the UPC, they will be considered co-mingled which means anyone else sending the same product with just the UPC will all be stored together. THIS is where you have the issue of the possibility of buying counterfeit products.

If you send the items in with the FNSKU, they will be considered separate from the co-mingled inventory. Anyone that buys from a seller that has the FNSKU will get the items THAT seller sent in, and not from the co-mingled batch.

For retail items, it's really up to the seller how they want to send the items in. For the sake of seller metrics, it would be wise to send in items with an FNSKU so you avoid the issue of a customer buying from you as the seller, but possibly getting a counterfeit item.

To clarify another incorrect statement in this thread: Amazon does not charge extra to not co-mingle the items. They do offer a service where they will add the FNSKU label to your items at .20/piece, but that's only if the seller doesn't want to do it prior to sending the items in.

Source: I'm a seller on Amazon.

Is there any way for the buyer to see this difference before buying?

If not, these specifics don't really matter

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