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Comment by ikeboy | Hacker News Reader

As I've pointed out numerous times previously, commingling doesn't significantly add to the counterfeit problem. Amazon internally tracks which product was sold by which seller, so if a customer leaves a bad review or complains about counterfeit, Amazon will know which seller it was and will punish them.

Even if there are no complaints but simply a higher than average return rate, Amazon will shut down a listing, and this is done based on the actual supplier of the stock, not the commingled seller. Source: have gotten such emails from Amazon when I was selling that specifically said "you may not have actually sold the orders these complaints are for but it's your inventory".

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The issue is that the review is now co-mingled too. You weren't the seller but it was your inventory. That review needs to go against you and your inventory, not the other seller. That is another area with reviews that is bad. You should only see reviews for this product and seller combination.

Amazon sees the review and knows which seller to punish.

Reviews shouldn't be used for describing problems with the seller, anyway. Use seller feedback for that.

Are you saying that if I buy a widget from vendorX, but due to co-mingling, the seller is actually vendorZ, Amazon correctly files my review against vendorZ? So, they co-mingle but still know exactly which seller put a specific instance of the widget into circulation?

Yes. See https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/200141480

"For inventory tracked with the manufacturer barcode, each seller’s sourced inventory of the same ASIN is stored separately in our fulfillment centers. We can also track the original seller of each unit."

That's good for Amazon, but from a consumer's (and responsible vendor's) perspective, until a bad actor vendor gets caught by this system and kicked off Amazon along with all the reviews of their counterfeit/bad inventory, consumers have no way to protect themselves. A consumer on Amazon cannot even protect themselves by ONLY ordering from Amazon's own seller listings. I've done that myself and ended up with used/repackaged stuff sold as new.

It creates a natural "market for lemons" experiment on Amazon. I can't imagine that is healthy for Amazon in the long run.

I agree with you but that isn't what people do. People also leave reviews that the shipping was 4 days instead of two.

“1 star. Shipment was late.” I’m genuinely curious why people think that’s ok? How is saying the product sucks going to solve a problem with Amazon Logistics? Or even USPS/UPS/FedEx?

With their transaction volume, Amazon should be able to detect and properly address these reviews. You're not going to change consumer behavior here, it's on Amazon to adapt.

They do, to some extent. I've seen reviews like this with a little flag below that "Amazon takes responsibility for this issue."

That's only for Fulfillment by Amazon shipments.

> to some extent

Sure, but if I don't want to get a bad product in the first place, comingling hurts me (or hurts Amazon when I give up on ordering stuff sold by multiple vendors from them, as I largely have).

My orders/year and dollars/year at Amazon are <50% what they were a few years ago.

I’m also cutting way back on my amazon spend. I still buy when the reviews don’t indicate counterfeit red flags, but it’s fewer and fewer product categories each year.

Amazon is no longer the first place I look for many items; with things like Shopify, high-quality eCom experiences are available to basically every business in a way they were not 10 years ago. For branded products, I’ve started buying direct from the brand websites with mostly good results. I’ll probably cancel Prime next year.

Does Amazon then proactively email all of the buyers telling them "you may have received a counterfeit product?", or do they figure that if they didn't notice then no harm no foul?

A high return rate doesn't mean it's counterfeit. If there's strong evidence of counterfeit Amazon will refund buyers proactively.

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