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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

The sentiment here seems to be fairly negative, which is surprising, because Amazon is doing exactly what we've been asking them to do for ages -- policing their marketplace against counterfeit products.

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.

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> Amazon is doing exactly what we've been asking them to do for ages -- policing their marketplace against counterfeit products

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.

the ban is not against an entire category of products. the ban is against USED products. I think this is a good thing. Because many people believe that amazon NEVER sells used products. (btw. I already gotten used products and I tried to buy new ones)

For a large number of games and platforms, USED products are the entire category. Specifically with Nintendo, the vast majority of games for NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Wii, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS can only be acquired on the secondary market.

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.

Indeed. About 10-12 years ago, when I started working and having disposable income, almost every book or video game I bought came from the second hand market, and the vast majority of it came in fact from Amazon.

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.

Amazon makes it pretty clear they sell used products and it's hard to imagine people not realizing that they offer used products unless they are new to the site and have never searched for any number of out of print books or old video games.

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.

What people were asking was "make it obvious who I'm buying from (i.e. no commingling), and punish sellers of counterfeits". Just punishing sellers of counterfeits goods might have been enough (reportedly Amazon does have item level tracking despite commingling).

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.

Theres a big difference between ending the same of products from creators and manufacturers and ending 3rd party resale and price arbitrage. If you make something, you should still feel safe on amazon (until your product takes off and they clone it), i dont see a reason to retreat to etsy or ebay. But if your business is buying and reselling things, and youre not adding value, I can see why Amazon would want to eliminate you.

Amazon likes 3rd party sellers because they basically give them free credit (3rd party seller pays for product, Amazon only pays them after the product was sold).

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).

>> But if your business is buying and reselling things

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?

Amazon shopping is a storefront software tool, payment processor, and warehouse/shipping company? What value does the guy reselling trader joes for 10x markup out of his basement do that is of a similar level to what amazon does?

As an Amazon seller, I can confirm that they have tracking linked to each seller. Their system does this via their FNSKU (fullfillment network stock keeping unit) and that is unique to each seller for each product. So if I want to sell a product, that product has an ASIN that defines it specifically and then any seller in the Amazon system that wants to sell that product needs their own FNSKU that applies only to that ASIN. Those FNSKUs are tagged on the items. If you've ever bought third party stuff on Amazon, the numbers are also 10 digits long just like ASINs but they usually begin with an X. FNSKUs can also match the ASIN and that is usually given to the seller that creates the listing so that seller has FNSKU=ASIN. So if you buy private label stuff that is their own branded stuff that no one else sells, it just looks like the ASIN and you probably ignored it. But if you buy a big brand name product like Nintendo, Star Wars, or anything with multiple sellers that sell via FBA/prime, you'll probably see the FNSKU beginning with X.

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.

Apologies if I’m misunderstanding, but are you implying that amazon doesn’t commingle products? Allegedly this is the reason that you can order a “sold by amazon” product but still receive a counterfeit item (likely provides by a 3rd party seller).

No, when they get the product shipped in they stick a seller-specific label on it, then commingle it. When I order an Xbox an employee goes to the Xbox bin, picks any of them and scans it out of the system. Amazon now knows which one I got and where it came from, because the barcode identifies it as originating from seller X. If I complain to Amazon or send it back they can now look up what they shipped me and see if some seller consistently ships them bad product.

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.

> Amazon now knows which one I got and where it came from

And do they share that knowledge with you? Or only after you've gone to the trouble of returning the item?

Is this a new change? Because previously, you could label your own commingled products and the label was simply the UPC code.

I think all FBA items have had an FNSKU for at least 7 years.

But optional, right?

If the unit has an UPC barcode, the unit is commingled (also called "stickerless" inventory). Commingling means Amazon can use one seller's inventory to fulfill another's order - the units are never stored in the same bin to allow tracking origin.

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.

He/she is saying that they do have per level item tracking, but still comingle.

If there are 25 widgets in a particular bin in an FC, I have serious doubts that the instruction and expectation of the picker is to pick the specific one that has this particular FNSKU.

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.)

AFAIK they have always segregated different FNSKUs to separate bins for comingled inventory.

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).

> 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.

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.

the ArsTechnica title is harming debate here. a more accurate article would be titled "Amazon will require approval to sell used first-party Nintendo products starting November 1".

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.

Yes, I'm sure this will be different than every other time Nintendo has shut down competition. This is Nintendo's MO. They are notorious for going after fans and even legitimate resale.

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".

I don't see any sign here that anything is improving for smaller brands like No Starch Press (https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/1091840257073471488). They're only policing Nintendo products, and only because Nintendo has the clout to force them. Amazon doesn't want to lose their supply of Switch Lites.

Amazon has a voluntary program called Brand Registry that grants brands a lot of control. You don't have to be as big as Nintendo to get it.

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.

I bought a 2DSXL on AMZN a couple of years ago and it was DOA. On closer inspection, it was clear that somebody had meticulously repacked the unit to appear brand new and it got to me. That couldn't have come directly from Nintendo like that.

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.

They probably just shipped it to another customer after you returned it...

Bought a switch on Amazon when they launched. Someone sent me an Australian version.

I lived in California.

Sent it back and bought one at Best Buy.

> They're starting with the easiest things to police

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...

As I understand it a big part of the problem is that stocks are commingled so that when counterfeits are discovered there's no way to trace the product to the seller it actually came from. Instead of fixing that they put the onus on the seller, and with no notice at that.

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?...

How is that even possibly true. So if a seller sends every 50th product with a brick instead Amazon would only be able to track it in the first steps of the logistics chain?

It's not true. Amazon tracks which seller sent which product.

I misunderstood my sources, I've edited my original reply. Between buyers not necessarily getting their seller's stocks, sellers not necessarily getting their own stocks back when requesting a return, and the apparent lack of action from Amazon until now, I added 2 and 2 and got 5.

That's actually kind of worse, though, isn't it? They can track it end-to-end, they just refuse to make the extra effort unless forced?

Sorry but that's not what many people wanted. They wanted amazon to stop people from selling counterfeits that were passed of as being from the real manufacturer. And they wanted to know who was selling it, not hide this behind is it amazon or someone using the amazon warehouse that looks like amazon. And I think people also want amazon to stop allowing fake reviews, and paid reviews, only have 'organic' reviews. And finally I'd like them to let me know clearly if something I'm buying is used or something. But that's so far down the list. i finally stopped buying certain items from them because they kept being fake, batteries being one of them.

> policing their marketplace against counterfeit products.

Used products are not counterfeits.

It seems like a small number of people care about counterfeit products per se. A larger number of people desire cheap products, stay silent during the debate about counterfeits, and get upset if a particular thing they like buying is no longer available.

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