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Comment by elliekelly | Hacker News Reader

I’m actually not sure that’s a safe assumption. I could be wrong but I believe Amazon co-mingles products of the same SKU. So if Amazon is selling a book and other sellers have listed the same item as “new” and sent it to Amazon’s warehouse I don’t believe there is any distinction between the two at the warehouse. So the stock picker might grab Amazon’s (presumably authentic) item from the bin when they pack your order but there’s also a chance they’ll grab the third-party-seller “shipped by Amazon” item. My understanding is that it’s all kind of a crapshoot no matter how careful & deliberate you are when ordering.

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> I could be wrong but I believe Amazon co-mingles products of the same SKU.

They do, and we have seen people get fake items. this is a huge problem for things like tourniquets. We tell people to go right to North American Rescue for example but so many people instinctively go to Amazon now and order things that it's a problem.

the fakes look almost like the real thing but have no quality control and break easily.

This is frightening. I don't understand how Amazon isn't liable for these things.

My understanding is that the items have different uuids, but there are no markings on the physical item. They’re identified by bin location.

There are lots of bins in the warehouse. They contain up to around five items each. There is a theoretical possibility that two of the same thing from different sellers could end up in the same bin. At that point the picker wouldn’t know which is which.

> There is a theoretical possibility that two of the same thing from different sellers could end up in the same bin. At that point the picker wouldn’t know which is which.

Amazon's seller-side stickerless inventory documentation specifically says that identical items from different sellers are never put into same physical bin so that the original source can be traced.

Do you have any link for that?

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/G200141480...

Sounds like virtual commingling. Better, but not much.

>Amazon's seller-side stickerless inventory documentation specifically says that identical items from different sellers are never put into same physical bin so that the original source can be traced.

Irrelevant to the discussion. Keep reading the link that cj provided, starting at the "Example", and you'll see that there is nothing preventing a counterfeit item being sold on behalf of a FBA seller even if the seller shipped genuine items to Amazon. All virtual tracking does is (theoretically) allow *tracing* of the counterfeit item should it be detected and reported.

Not same SKU — same ASIN. I believe that brands that sell through Amazon (not FBA sellers), who are worried about comingled inventory, can get their official product moved over to a new ASIN, leaving the fakes behind in the old ASIN bin.

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