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Amazon commingles inventory, so it doesn't matter which 3rd party you select from the product page. Any one of them can inject the counterfeit into the supply and affect sales from the others.

just a note: this commingling only happens if it is "fulfilled by Amazon" vs buying directly from the 3rd party through Amazon.

Not trying to be a jerk, but how do you know that?

If it's not fulfilled by Amazon, it ships from the manufacturer or retailer.

A bit more clarification, the page right now says:

"Sold by Spark Maestro and Fulfilled by Amazon."

While this is a 3rd party sale, it will be fulfilled from the inventory Amazon has from any other seller. It has to ship from the 3rd party to be safe from counterfeiting.

Not exactly correct; the seller has to allow comingling as well.

Does the buyer have any way to tell if an item is commingled, and if the seller they selected does not commingle? The pressure to get the buy box on competitive items means missing out on sales if you don't commingle.

Not only is commingling inventory a seller choice, it is also not an available option for many products. Only certain pre-approved products are available for comingling. But the unfortunate thing is that as a buyer, you have no way of knowing which listing are from commingled inventory.

It also only happens if they choose to do so. It's certainly the path of least resistance, but it's entirely possible for a seller to keep their inventory from being commingled while still using FBA.

https://feedvisor.com/university/stickerless-commingled-inve...

Unfortunately there's no way for a customer to verify that.

Technically, every part with the same SKU in an inventory system should be able to be intermingled.

The problem is that the "SKU" concept is set up for selling things like drug stores selling bottles of Coca Cola, where hundreds of different franchised bottling plants will produce the same product under license, and so all have the right to slap the same SKU on the result, and it's kind of irrelevant to the consumer what licensed manufacturer produced the bottle.

While this is a common case for consumer products purchased in physical stores, it isn't at-all common for products purchased online. Apple doesn't license the manufacture of iPhones to anybody; thus, nobody but Apple should be considered a valid input for the iPhone-SKU bin in the warehouse.

Ideally, if you, as an Amazon seller, were to print the "Apple iPhone X US-version 64GB Black" UPC code on a box and send that box in to the Amazon warehouse, you should probably immediately get charged with mail fraud. Or maybe trademark infringement. (In fact, I can't see any reason why you couldn't literally trademark your own products' UPC codes, if you don't want anyone else using them.)

I do not think it is fraud to print the Apple iPhone X US-version 64GB Black code on a box that does in fact contain an Apple iPhone X US-version 64GB Black

Trademarking your UPC would not work, as someone reselling your product is protected by the first-sale doctrine. If I buy a bottle of Pepsi(tm), I can use Pepsi's trademarks when selling that bottle to someone else.

The first-sale doctrine indeed allows people to retail stuff they just bought. But in the case of Amazon, I’d almost say that the first-sale doctrine, followed to its natural conclusion, should better be called the “Man in the Middle doctrine”—that it would be perfectly fine and legal to

1. buy an iPhone from Apple,

2. install a wiretap into it,

3. repackage it as if it were a Brand New In Box iPhone,

4. and send it to Amazon to dump into their regular BNIB iPhone SKU bin.

That seems nonsensical, right? Maybe trademark won’t work, but something should be preventing that. Maybe Amazon would have to do it themselves—marking certain SKU as “allocated” to particular sellers, and voiding the SKU claim of any other seller who sends them said product, instead slapping a replacement UPC code on that product giving it a namespaced SKU particular to that seller.

To me, this would be like one of the key guidelines of journalism: if you can’t verify a claim from a source, you shouldn’t use that claim, but only mention that claim. I.e., Apple sells iPhones, but everyone else can only sell “iPhones.” They claim that they’re iPhones, but Amazon certainly doesn’t have a way to verify that they’re the exact iPhones Apple sells, so they can’t remove those quotation marks (or bin them in the same bin as Apple iPhones.)

I would note that this is already partially done, in that Amazon warehouses do bin products with a given UPC code as a different SKU if they come in marked as “used.” All I’m suggesting here is a business rule that would change the definition of “used” used by the inventory system to include any secondary-market resale of the product—regardless of the condition of the product—if the product is anything that could be either cloned profitably or tampered with to some useful end.

I'm not an expert in this, but i think the first-sale doctrine only applies if the phone is in similar condition as the new ones you get from apple (or if it's used, you say that it's used, etc). The seller of the wiretapped phone would probably not be protected.

Amazon may comingle, not does comingle. This is largely determined by the vendor.

But it's impossible to check, so the general assumption should be that it's comingled.

I just paid more, with a worse experience, to buy toothpaste for my dog (trying to make him die with a mouth full of teeth) because I don't trust amazon to sell me non-counterfeit products.

Over the last 3 years, I've cancelled standing orders for cereal, hand lotion, granola, cat food, dog food, dog shampoo, human shampoo and human toothpaste because Amazon isn't trustworthy. They simply don't care about counterfeit products.

Until this moment I never considered that I could be harmed by buying things that go in and on my body from Amazon. Thank you.

I'm increasingly suspicious of all 3rd party sellers.

Even on Newegg, I'm usually avoiding the 3rd party sellers, unless it is such a specialized item that it isn't sold by Newegg themselves.

And I too am often looking at the manufacturer's website to see if I can order there. If they support Paypal for checkout, then I don't necessarily have to create yet another account and type in all my shipping details.

Amazon seems to have noticed this and keep making it ever harder to identify who's selling and whether you're buying from Amazon or not.

At this point I find eBay more trustworthy than Amazon.

How are they making it harder to identify the seller? I have never seen an item without the usual "sold/fulfilled by" information.

It's still there - downrated to being supplementary information somewhere below the buy buttons. It used to be highlighted, and in both the side box above the buy button and also in main product info right by the price which has now gone completely. If memory serves it used to be individually boxed or coloured, more as an actively highlighted "beware" this isn't from us.

I can only assume that's all intended to get more people to buy from sellers without realising.

I know this is slightly off topic, but I highly recommend forking out for the hand blown fatto-a-mano glasses. Worth every cent if you drink wine regularly. I like and have this set as they are a rather interesting range of colours [1].

1. https://www.riedel.com/en/shop/fatto-a-mano/cabernet-merlot-...

> A universal checkout experience (one login, saves CCs and contact information)

Better known as PayPal?

I lost confidence in PayPal after the massive eBay breach, probably unfairly. Need to revisit that, but it’s hard to ignore years of aversion.

I honestly think there is a giant opportunity in building a network of warehouses with quality inventory API to enable smaller businesses to tap into that delivery network by keeping their inventory closer to the customers and offer 2-3 day shipping. i think saving on FBA fees + Seller fees would balance out shipping/storage fees for those businesses. It looks like some businesses have been created for selling on amazon and are constantly optimizing for amazon while other honest businesses are constantly outperformed by those 'expert' sellers. from my observations more businesses are understanding that being locked into amazon's platform is not a smart investment in long term.

I'd pay a 25% premium if I could ensure the products I want came direct from the actual manufacturer. I buy a lot of high end cosmetics online and it's so hard to source them without getting fakes from amazon. Currently amazon is overrun with counterfeits even more rampantly than ebay.

For example, here's a fake: https://www.amazon.com/Jeffree-Star-Blue-Blood-Palette/dp/B0...

>Just today I was browsing for new wine glasses. I finally found the product that I wanted and checked out a couple of options on Amazon. The first two reviews for the pair[1] I liked were complaining that they received counterfeit items.

Another example: I need new brush heads for my electric toothbrush. I haven't bought them yet, in part because I can't be sure that the toothbrush manufacturer-branded refills on Amazon are genuine. Going with a generic, compatible refill with good reviews is preferable in this case, aside from the lower price, because presumably no one will counterfeit it.

'Going with a generic, compatible refill with good reviews is preferable in this case, aside from the lower price, because presumably no one will counterfeit it.'

And my immediate thought was: 'amazonbasics'.

I just go straight to Walmart for such things now. The manufacturer branded heads are about the same price there as at Amazon. The only disadvantage I’ve seen buying in store at Walmart is that for generic heads they only carry their own generic brand (Equate) whereas Amazon has multiple generic brands. Even that is probably not much of a disadvantage, because I have more confidence in Equate generics than the assorted Amazon generics.

I have no reason to believe this is true, but OTOH I wouldn't put it past anyone. It could be a fake review by the manufacturer. List on Amazon to help you find the product, use fake review to drive you to the mfr website directly.

Isn’t that what PayPal is? A universal checkout experience.

> A universal checkout experience (one login, saves CCs and contact information) would make Amazon obsolete in my opinion.

Aside from the excellent checkout experience Amazon also offers good product search, a near complete product catalog, and cheap fast shipping.

> a near complete product catalog

Typing in "<product I want to buy>" into any search engine offers me a near-complete product catalog, with all the same guarantees of consistency and quality (That is, none) that I can expect from Amazon, circa 2019.

Really? Google has changed for me that I would never get the full list anymore.

You must be joking. Their product search is terrible - hundreds of irrelevant results which are impossible to filter in any reasonable way.

Also want to add that Amazon's customer service/return policy is great and their marketplace makes comparison shopping and thus competition easy ensuring cheap pricing for their customers.