Amazon will stop sales of used first-party Nintendo products starting November 1
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
They're starting with the easiest things to police, but at least they are making an effort. It really sucks for the legit third party sellers, so hopefully they make the approval process easy for them so they can continue to sell their legit hardware.
I shipped it back no problem and bought my replacement directly from the Nintendo store. With this decision I'd be much more comfortable just replacing my purchase via AMZN.
I lived in California.
Sent it back and bought one at Best Buy.
EDIT: I was a bit hasty. [1] and [2] confirm the commingling and state that you won't necessarily receive your own goods back if you ask to have them returned, I took that to be because they couldn't track them, rather than because they wouldn't.
If they do in fact know the provenance of even the commingled products, shipping the actual seller's product lets seller reputation actually mean something, so I stand by my argument that they could do better than shift the responsibility onto legitimate sellers to get permission from Nintendo et al.
[1] https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/fba-commingled-pro...
[2] https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/200141480?...
What Amazon is doing sounds more like stopping to be an open marketplace, depending on how hard it is to get approved. That's a solution, but at that point they are just another Target or Wal-Mart.
Also, 3rd party sellers shoulder a lot of the risk. If a product doesn't sell, or needs to be recalled, etc., Amazon doesn't care -- it's the seller's responsibility.
So I think Amazon really likes 3rd party sellers. They probably only want to get rid of them if a product gets popular enough (they want to sell it themselves) or if a product category comes with too much issues (counterfeits).
You mean like the vast majority of all consumer goods? Very few people buy direct from the manufacturer - isn't this exactly what amazon is, minus the requirement of having to buy the product to be the MITM?
EDIT - in case it wasn't obvious, Amazon uses the FNSKU barcode for fullfilling their orders. They might have 10 sellers with the same ASIN in that specific warehouse, so the Amazon employees fullfill via FNSKU in those cases, which is why they would require the FBA/prime items in their warehouse to be tagged with the FNSKU to identify which seller owns that exact item vs all the others that also have stock in that warehouse and perhaps even in that exact same shelf/bin.
In essence commingling prevents you from efficiently grabbing something from a specific seller, but it doesn't prevent you from knowing which one you grabbed.
And do they share that knowledge with you? Or only after you've gone to the trouble of returning the item?
If the unit has an Amazon seller-specific FNSKU barcode, the unit is not commingled.
The used barcode type can be configured by the seller.
The barcode configuration option does not mention commingling at all (but help pages do), so I can understand some sellers getting confused on whether they are affected by commingling or not.
If they want that behavior, it would seem far better (less error prone and faster) to segregate by FNSKU such that any one location has only one FNSKU for a given ASIN. (That they don’t do this [or didn’t always do this] seems to be the root of how you could get a counterfeit good from a “legit” seller, including Amazon.)
The reason you get counterfeit goods is that Amazon prefers to fulfill an order from warehouse A but seller 1 only has units in warehouse B. Seller 2 has units in warehouse A so Amazon performs an item swap between the sellers to save on shipping (or to improve shipping speed).
Good. If I buy from Amazon I want to buy from Amazon and Amazon alone. I'd never have considered buying Apple products via Amazon until Amazon recently became the exclusive seller of Apple products on their platform.
Don't get me wrong - I'm happy to buy from other reliable non-Amazon shops. However a seller that relies on Amazon or eBay but doesn't own/offer a trustworthy first-party store under their own domain, often feels cheap and like a someone willing to cut corners.
i still believe the only way to stop counterfeiting is to stop product mixing in the warehouses. yes, it will mean shipping takes longer -- but until i can be sure that the product i ordered comes from the inventory of the vendor i ordered from, i will treat every vendor on the platform as suspect.
the path they're taking here is a cat-and-mouse game, and i believe it is the beginning of the end for third party selling on amazon.
edit: ArsTechnica has changed their article title. hopefully a moderator will update this post's title.
Edit: Just to be clear I'm not against fighting counterfeit products. This just means you'll be paying more to get counterfeit products labeled as "new".
https://brandservices.amazon.com/
What Nintendo is getting here may be different, but it's not like there's nothing brands can do to protect themselves.
Banning the 3rd party sale of an entire category of product to defend against counterfeiters is like cutting off your arm to prevent paper-cuts. This is a lazy way to combat counterfeit products that will not scale to every other product they sell. What they should be doing is making more of an effort to identify and remove bad sellers across their platform but tracking complaints, vetting sellers, and identifying scammers takes actual work on their part.
Some games have been updated for newer platforms (or even emulated on newer platforms by Nintendo to re-offer them for sale). But many, many more have not. To say that this decision on Amazon's part is not a ban against a product category because it is just banning resale of used products ... Is incredibly myopic.
I'm a bit baffled by GP's claim that many people don't know that Amazon doesn't sell second hand products. It's displayed quiten clearly, and in fact, for a lot of us it was a big part of the appeal of buying there. I understand that the demographics of the average Amazon buyer have changed in the last years, but I don't think people are not aware of the presence of the second hand market.
Very bad move from Amazon. Nowadays I'm way less likely to buy from them, and this only reassures me.
They aren't banning all used products anyway they are only banning used Nintendo products which is a bit of problem when Nintendo stops making "new" copies of old games and consoles. If I want an original gameboy or a copy of Super Metroid I should be able to buy them on Amazon from every available seller and if I'm a small used game shop i should be able to sell my products on the largest market place in the country without begging Nintendo for their permission.
Used products are not counterfeits.
Really. I would have thought the dozens of sham battery sellers would be pretty easy, since they're all selling the same sham products, many endorsed as 'Prime,' for years on end with no apparent friction from anyone. It's worth a bunch of of views on Youtube to buy this junk and make yet another video about how absurd this fake crap is; you can find videos back at least has far as 2015 when you could still only find these fake products on Aliexpress.
No, I think this focus on Nintendo's interests are the result of pressure from Nintendo et al. on Amazon. Sans pressure Amazon is utterly indifferent.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/9800mah-18650-battery/s?k=9800mah+186...
This is incorrect. You can get approval in DVDs pretty easily if you have invoices from a distributor. It's effectively impossible to get approval for Apple unless you're one of a dozen or so authorized sellers that spends 8-9 figures with Apple yearly. (The official requirements to get approval for refurbished Apple on Amazon is 2.5 million in invoices over 90 days).
It's not clear how the approval process for Nintendo will work, but if this is like most brands, all you'll need is invoices from a distributor. Many brands have this kind of restriction. It's nothing at all like the Apple deal, for which you can't get approval just with invoices, and for which there was a special announcement from Amazon; the Nintendo email isn't special, it's standard (google phrases from it and you'll find many other brands with similar emails from Amazon). E.g. https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/marvel-warning/407..., https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/dc-comic-restricti...
Also, the email makes no mention of used vs new. All Nintendo are now restricted regardless of condition.
Also, this is seller-specific. Many sellers can still sell; most likely Amazon targeted this towards the sellers their algo determined were more suspicious for whatever reason. See e.g. https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B07VGRJDFY/ref=olp_f...
Returned it and just bought it locally instead. Amazon is pretty much a wasteland for collectors. Ebay is far better and more reliable overall.
And also, somehow, much lower-priced for the most part.
For out-of-print but popular and relatively recent toys and books, I've often found things for half the price or less on eBay than what Amazon is pushing. Now that Buy It Now is common and I don't have to mess with the auction system, it's my first choice for stuff like that.
I frequently saw "this is a REPLICA" or "This (Wii / Wii U) comes with 100+ games pre-installed at no extra charge!" in the condition notes. (These notes are individual to each seller and each seller's product)
This was blatant counterfeiting / piracy. I opened a large number of cases, but ultimately the answer I would get is, "buy the item and report your findings".
It's not my job to police Amazon, but I did take great pleasure in checking in on the counterfeit sellers, most of whom appeared to be suspended after 2-3 months. (Presumably once they sold their counterfeit copy and were reported by the buyer)
First-sale just means that the sellers don't need permission from nintendo to sell the items everywhere.
We're not at that point yet, but Amazon's reach is unparalleled and we could easily end up in a situation where private companies, whose influence in our daily lives can dwarf that of our governments, are allowed to ignore the hard won rights we have leaving us in the same position we were in before we had them.
First-sale doctrine means you're free to take your used Nintendo cartridges and set up a table on the sidewalk (subject to local laws about street sellers of course) and sell them to passers-by. Amazon doesn't have to provide you a venue for selling them.
Personally, I don't understand why anyone would want to sell older Nintendo gear on Amazon anyway. This is exactly what eBay is for. eBay's fees are probably a little lower too.
Because the customers are on Amazon, not eBay.
However, the fact that it's possible to run a business doing nothing but selling things on Amazon that you buy on eBay when an order comes in strongly suggests that the customers really are on Amazon and not on eBay.
No one is debating that Amazon is larger, you just said the buyers are not on eBay... which is simply not true at all.
You have the right to sell it, but Amazon also has the right not to allow you to sell it on their platform.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6742774/abg-prime-group... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/13477612/johnson-v-inco... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6846972/starke-v-tp-lin... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15690011/thimes-solutio... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6208157/abg-prime-group... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6207822/thursday-llc-v-... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4562806/forgg-llc-v-dea... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/5369911/ajb-enterprises... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6350526/sarkis-a-kitsin... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7513066/depasquale-v-du... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4199697/depasquale-v-ja...
Most sellers are just arbitragers and scammers. Yes, most. They add zero value. They leech money away from manufacturers and brands and the people that actually make things. They lie to get discounts then redirect shipments to Amazon FBA. They sell used, damaged, and counterfeit goods as new. And when a customer complains they say, “Contact the manufacturer.” They create new listings on existing items and say shit like “special edition” and “limited edition” to confuse customers and win the buy box when no such variant exists. They lower the price and jack up the shipping cost to confuse people. They are a disease.
Brands hate third party sellers and so do customers. Most people don’t even realize how Amazon works or who they are buying from.
The ones that are suing are not the ones doing shady things, presumably. If you were selling counterfeits, why would you sue and waste money when the truth will inevitably come out?
I've personally seen many brands falsely swear that goods were counterfeit to get rid of sellers they didn't like, even though the sellers were fully compliant with the law.
Counterfeiting is just a small piece of the overall problem.
Sellers will sue because that’s all they can do. If you’ve built a revenue stream off of selling someone else stuff under the radar you don’t actually have a defendable business or any skills. Might as well sue.
Brands need to do a better job too. Reality is, if you have a business today the best thing you can do is terminate all distribution and wholesale relationships you don’t control and wait for the 3P pipeline to dry up. It’s the only way to strangle out the sellers. But I sympathize with the business that can’t do that and are trying to stop the damage to their business.
We can flip this around. If as a brand, you've built a revenue stream that can't be sustained without commiting crimes you don't have a defendable business or any skills.
Some of these lawsuits are about brands that would not be viable without the blackhat tactics they use. See e.g. KDC Direct, LLC v. Ravage Holding, Inc, the defendant allegedly hijacked a product page then sent a false IP complaint to Amazon.
3P sellers take advantage of this. They add no value, only take. It hurts brands, manufacturers, retailers and even consumers to a large degree. Now it’s even starting to hurt Amazon, which is why they are finally getting serious about it.
I personally can’t wait for the Amazon scamming business to dry up. I’ve even been to a few of the conferences and lord all mighty it’s really pretty sad what people think is a business these days.
>Brands want to have it such that brick and mortar retailers can still exist, so they create pricing models that allow for that additional discount.
The brands that really care about preventing distribution will buy back and destroy their inventory at the end of the season. See e.g. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/17/17852294/fashion-bra...
But plenty of brands don't feel like buying back and destroying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of inventory. So they use cheaper alternatives, namely perjury to get rid of legitimate sellers.
>They add no value, only take. It hurts brands, manufacturers, retailers and even consumers to a large degree.
This is incorrect on most counts. For the most part this benefits retailers, which is why most retailers have liquidation programs to sell off their overstock in the first place. This benefits consumers as resold goods lead to lower prices. It does hurt some brands, as they can no longer channel stuff to pad revenues. But increased competition hurting companies and benefiting consumers with lower prices is generally considered a good thing, in economics.
I've been to many conferences and spoken at a couple. In my experience most conferences on Amazon selling are geared towards private label brands that add little value.
If the way they're doing it is committing perjury (the infringement form requires you to swear under penalty of perjury), I don't have sympathy.
I agree that the correct way to handle distribution is cutting of suppliers. Like I said in the other comment, brands want it both ways. Wide distribution but restricted sales on Amazon.
Just because you have the right to sell something doesn’t mean you have the right to list it for sale wherever you want.
Seems like probably both, no?
> Users on the used-Nintendo forum thread have postulated that counterfeit retro Nintendo cartridges have been an open secret among Amazon sellers for some time.
I'm guessing Nintendo isn't too happy about this (in general they seem very concerned about their brand) and Amazon is likely happy to stem some of the negative backlash about counterfeit goods on their platform.
I'm not surprised to see that Apple products are likely to fall under this umbrella - another company very concerned about their brand.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13343682/fake-apple-char...
(note: they sued the 3rd party sellers, not Amazon)
https://www.pcmag.com/news/371708/amazon-dealers-need-approv...
At the moment it is still intentional and usually malicious. The danger comes when it is inculcated and we lose the real understanding entirely.
If your career and income are entirely reliant on one company, regardless of type (tech platform or retail or college or whatever), you're beholden to their whims and whether or not they stay open. It's a good idea to diversify your income if possible (via savings and investment if possible).
Further, this is even more of an issue if your income is selling and buying via online platform. They may not shut down, but they very-well may change the TOS to exclude your type of selling. . . . Which is what this is.
Competition law exists precisely to stop monopolies from saying "it's our business so we can make the rules".
> Amazon: No more third-party sales of “Nintendo products” without approval
Amazon: No more third-party sales of “Nintendo products” without approval
Turns out it was all a mistake.
No, this is a superb decision and I wish that they would do it with other products.
Unfortunately there's no real control here, but it's the same as any physical store. Cashiers are not counterfeiting specialists and scammers are crafty. Some will even shrink wrap and return an empty case. Ideally you would be able to track issues with the sale of returned products back to a single "customer", but not before several people are forced to return fake/nonexistent products.