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Comment by joeframbach | Hacker News Reader

> "Customers may have purchased counterfeit versions of legitimate products," an Amazon spokesperson said when asked about the issue.

Does this have to do with Amazon's practice of commingling goods from various sources together? I imagine in some warehouse, a big box of Panjwani's legit goods all mixed together with some not-so-good-goods.

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The wording of the statement tells you the entire problem.

"The customer purchased a counterfeit item!"

Actually, no. The customer purchased an authentic item but Amazon shipped the customer a counterfeit item. Guess whose responsibility that is?

This is exactly why I purchased my eclipse glasses directly from the manufacturer (American Paper Optical) even though shipping from them was very expensive (relative to the cost of the glasses). Even if I'd bought a reputable brand directly from Amazon (instead of a reseller) I had no trust that I wouldn't get a counterfeit commingled from an untrustworthy reseller inside Amazon's warehouse.

This is so frustrating to me. I want to buy makeup from amazon but there is no way to verify you're not getting fake products.

I can't find a link so not 100% sure it is a true story but I was told (from a normally reliable source) of a L'Oréal factory in Russia many years ago which was producing shampoo. Unknown to L'Oréal was the fact that at night the factory would run producing counterfeit shampoo with inferior products. L'Oreal found out when they started getting customer complaints from people losing their hair, and I think pulled from Russia.

I didn't know Amazon did this. It'll make me think twice next time I purchase certain items.

After a quick search I found this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

Even though inventory tracked using the manufacturer barcode is commingled within the network, the source of the inventory is tracked by our fulfillment systems and is taken into consideration if inventory problems arise.

Given the article, it seems they're not completely sure what was sent where. It would seem that using the manufacturer barcodes in Amazon's network opens you up to an unexpected risk.

Never buy an Apple USB charger from Amazon, 90% of them are fake.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13343682/fake-apple-char...

Never buy any Apple product from Amazon. I've been burned several times. Didn't realize it until I had already bought several products.

I've been pretty pleased with my MacBook air, for big ticket items like iPod/iPhone/Macbook do you think there's significant risk of counterfeit?

You're more likely to get a brick or clay than you are an actual counterfeit.

Funny you got donwoted the exact last time amazon inventory practices were under scrutiny here at hn there was plenty stories of people getting empty boxes and ipad cardboard cutouts

edit: dug out that discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13924546

but there are plenty similar.

Just tried to sell 2 ipod nano's on Amazon today, I had to get approval to sell Apple branded items with an invoice or an authorisation from Apple that I'm a reseller.

90% of ones Apple bought. They probably have a good idea of which sellers are authorized to begin with and therefore didn't buy from those.

As I understand it, doesn't really matter what seller you buy from. Amazon says "The supplies all said these are the same item, so they're interchangeable" and they treat all the inventory the same regardless of who it came from.

Maybe legit sellers that aren't "fulfilled by Amazon" are safer because they ship it themselves?

That's only for sellers that opt in to commingling. Plenty of sellers don't.

Yeah, but you can't tell as a purchaser.

Are you sure it is not the other way around, that you have to opt out as a seller?

Anecdotally, a friend of mine runs a company that produces a unique fitness product, never opted into any kind of co-mingling as far as I know, as they are the only supplier in the world - and suddenly found themselves with comingled fake stock.

You have to opt in as far as I know because the full name is stickerless comingled. It has its benefits but the sellers I know refuse to touch the stuff because of the potential issues.

This is incorrect, kind of. There are essentially 3 ways to sell on Amazon. 1. Amazon can buy your product wholesale and they sell it. The manufacturer still has a lot of control on pricing and listing and etc. But Amazon has more control. In this case Amazon uses the UPC (or equivalent) to come up with the ASIN. In this case any 3rd party seller can list the same item with the UPC and it will show up on the same listing. They can even sell it via FBA where it is labeled as prime and stocked in Amazon's warehouses and if priced cheaper then will often get the buy box. So you could have 1000 positive reviews for your product and then all of a sudden a counterfeiter ships Amazon a bunch of what they say is the exact same product with the same UPC and it gets listed on the same listing. They can even make these stand out more by making variations on the product that then show up (like a 2-pack) that maybe you never sold.

Secondly there is Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA) this is when you sell the products and Amazon takes a commission and all the fulfillment fees to store and ship the product for you. In this case the seller has MUCH MUCH more control over every aspect of the listing. They can choose to have the ASIN generated by the UPC which can result in the same problem as above OR they can choose to have the ASIN generated by a number and barcode that is unique to the particular seller. This is called a FNSKU. Even if you know the FNSKU number which would be on a barcode on the product, ONLY the particular seller can create /ship product to Amazon using it. So Only the seller can variate listing or sell the product.

And thirdly you can do seller fulfillment which works list the last option in terms of listing, just with your own warehousing and fulfillment.

Or any type of wireless headphones. Not sure the percentage, but never got a pair that was real.

In fact I don't buy anything from Amazon anymore...

I buy everything from Amazon, including all my food. You make me wonder what I've been eating. Still, I can't see going back to fighting crowds at Safeway.

There's always Instacart, and many stores are offering order online and pickup (in Houston, I know of Walmart and Kroger) - no line to speak of, you have a scheduled time.

> Still, I can't see going back to fighting crowds at Safeway.

Safeway delivers

That's a pretty common practice in the Mfg industry. Makes lot tracking simpler.

Yes, commingling can be, and often is, a source of fake goods hiding in a legit ASIN. I have never and would never commingle. Remember Amazon workers checking in goods are not checking for authenticity.

I purchased my glasses off the website in the comments directly below bc this is one thing I did not trust Amazon on.

Also, I'll play devil's advocate, but this is one area where eBay actually wins over Amazon as each listing is tied to 1 particular seller and viewing seller history on eBay is rather easy compared to Amazon.

It would be nice to know from a listing if a product is eligible for commingling and whether the item I'm buying is commingled or stickered. I would pay more to not purchase commingled items from Amazon.

I do feel sorry for the legit sellers bc they are going to lose ALOT of money, many through no fault of their own. I haven't been on my private groups in a while but I'm sure I "know" a few of the sellers.

Curious if this commingling applies to third party seller (Amazon seller accounts) only or if it also includes items marked as "ships and sold by Amazon" at time of purchase.

I could see Amazon having enough volume of the items they sell directly that they have less need to do this commingling, and of course they have some incentive to preserve their own image.

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