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Comment by moepstar | Hacker News Reader

They're still in denial that they have a problem.

Just read the thread on the previous occasion where listings got hijacked on their own fora [0] - its sad to see the sellers so powerless, helpless and just left to themselves.

You really have to wonder why they even bother...

Edit: also, reading that thread you can also get a feel why big brands have completely left AMZN as a platform (like Adidas, Birkenstock are a few i'm aware of).

Possible co-mingling of inventory, hijacked listings... no, just don't bother - of course not each and everyone is a heavyweight as my 2 examples - but do we really need 100s of dropshippers FBA'ing the same crap? I'd rather buy direct at the source than at Amazon these days.

[0] https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/review-manipulatio...

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I no longer buy anything important from Amazon, this especially goes for anything that plugs into the mains, I just don't trust Amazon any more. Amazon is now just for those low value items that I might need in a bit of a rush. This is especially true now that more and more retailers have caught up with Amazon's shipping (at least here in the UK).

They seem to want it both ways. They have simultaneously tried to argue that they are not responsible for third-party sellers and blame them when fake and/or unsafe goods are sold, but then they work hard to make it appear that everything is coming from one place. It gets particularly annoying when it's a product with lots of variations (colours/sizes etc) where each variant will be a different seller with different shipping.

Like books, ironically.

As near as I can work out, their business model is now based on your being able to send back completely wrong or broken things they've sent you, so I stick to stuff where I've got the luxury of going through a cumbersome return process if things go terribly wrong.

My address has also been used as a target for a scam where, by sending unwanted goods to a real customer, a seller can fabricate a fake review that counts in their system as real. In one case it was a garbage light (shipped directly in its retail packaging so I could see what the thing was) that by a strange coincidence was the top-rated light on Amazon. Clearly an exploit that pays off.

I stopped (I think) that behavior by returning some unsolicited packages to sender, at the post office.

Same. Anything that plugs in, has batteries, or goes in my family's mouths is a no go for me now.

I'm pretty much down to a few books, video games, and obscure fasteners/hardware/tools (which annoyingly they're just about the only good source for).

McMaster-Carr might have a better selection of obscure fasteners/hardware/tools. Pricier, but often faster shipping than Amazon

Yeah, it depends on what you're looking for. McMaster is great for high quality serious Machine Shop level stuff, not so much for household oddities.

Recently I needed some vinyl siding hooks[0], a really oddball size drawer slide, and replacement window springs. I ended up getting all of them on Amazon - even tracking back the manufacturers they seemed to exclusively sell on Amazon.

0) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083TPKJN1/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdb_im...

Don't forget your family's lungs. I don't really order the right sorts of things, but my wife often orders things that arrive smelling like they were dipped in benzene before leaving the factory.

Kind of a good metaphor for how toxic Amazon as a whole is, actually.

The one thing I don't get, and I worked for AMZN in logistics, is the co-mingling of inventory. It is so easy to solve, poses so many problems and yet the logistics benchmark company fails to do it right.

I always assumed they tracked co-mingled sourcing internally, but don't have a reason to make it public.

At least that way they could trace the people who were seriously poisoning the co-mingled well, in circumstances where they wanted to.

They explicitly say on their seller help pages that comingled inventory can be tracked to the original source.

https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/external/G2001414...

> Note: Amazon ensures that the initial source of the commingled units can be traced throughout the fulfilment process.

The linked FAQ goes into slightly more detail.

It's not initial fulfillment that's the obvious problem, it's returns that are resold.

If I order 2 of something and they come from different sellers, and one is fake, how would they know which was which? Or that I selected the correct one to return?

Or if someone orders only 1, but recieve it and return a different one they bought from aliexpress.

Knowing that returned items get sold as new, it seems like the problem could compound, especially if the same item gets returned and resold multiple times. If it's a bad fake, that seems more probable then not.

Once co-mingling happened, they have no way of tracing one item back to one particular seller, unless the products have serial numbers. And Amazon is tracking those from Goods Receipt to shipping, which they are not. So if another seller is sending in counterfeits, with the same bar code, the whole co-mingled inventory is poisoned. And Amazon has no way of identifying the source of the counterfeits if those are not caught during goods receipt. No matter what they claim they can do.

I hear you, Moe. Can't say that I'm a big brand. Indeed, I want to stay a small one-person shop.

Maybe that makes you incompatible with Amazon, because they are about unbounded growth for its own sake!

Small is beautiful! Stay small!

- from the guy who in September 2000 bought 16 klein bottles since you only charged for prime numbered bottles, and sent you his credit card number as the sum of two 16-digit numbers sent to different email addresses! I still have a beer mug and question mark; all the rest are with friends! <3

Thanatos, your obd't servant, alas, is awake far past his bed-time, so his normally rusty memory is working even worse than normal. So, sad to report, I don't remember this transaction, but it sounds exactly like what I'd do. Just to better support number theory.

In years past, I'd say his business is perfect for Etsy. But that is a disaster now as well.

Ebay still works very well. While not far from perfect, it's amazing how much better they appear in contrast to pretty much everyone else right now!

How sad - they didn't have to get better, everyone else just got a lot worse by comparison.

I was reading stories a couple years ago about how Etsy has been flooded with mass-produced crap, and now it is hard to find actual hand-made stuff by actual crafts-people.

As I understand it, the actually e-commerce was still OK. It was more a problem with discoverability.

> They're still in denial that they have a problem.

They are too big to fail and they can bribe their way out of anything. As long as majority of people don't care, why would they ever want to fix it?

Also for one legit Western company, you can get 1000 Chinese knock-off cheaper ones that don't complain and people buy what's cheaper.

This was a while ago, but I got a counterfeit fitness band (it told me to download a random APK from a 3rd party website) from Amazon, and they repeatedly told me to resolve it directly with the seller who, surprise surprise, were not interested in issuing a refund.

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