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Comment by nequo | Hacker News Reader

> Did you know counterfeits can be sold under the “sold by anazon.com” branding because of co-mingling?

I have also had a bad experience with "Sold by Amazon.com" so I'm not questioning the veracity of what you are saying. But how does this work? How can someone get a counterfeit product under this umbrella?

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My understanding is, if I sell an item with a SKU[1] 123456, and use "fulfillment by Amazon" it goes in an Amazon warehouse in a bucket with all the other items of the same SKU using Amazon's shipping. Then my inventory becomes just a number in a database.

People selling DVDs on Amazon were complaining about bad reviews because someone bought from them, but got a counterfeit sold by someone else.

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_keeping_unit

"Sold by Amazon" comingles identical SKUs from different sellers in their warehouses.

Seller A sells real Product Z on Amazon. Seller B sells fake Product Z on Amazon. When you order Product Z that is "Sold on Amazon" you might get a real one provided by Seller A, or you might get a fake one sold by Seller B

I believe what you are saying is possible for “Shipped by Amazon” not “sold by Amazon”.

I believe your description was accurate before ca. 2015, but at some point they reportedly started making commingling the default even for "Sold by Amazon" items. Commingling isn't the only issue, either; there's still the problem of products for which Amazon was never an authorized retailer and so their listing/SKU may have been created to sell counterfeits in the first place. In any case, there have been multiple lawsuits specifically alleging that counterfeit items were "Sold by Amazon" [1] [2] [3].

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20201125141347/https://www.forbe...

[2] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4495986/1/apple-inc-v-m...

[3] https://www.geekwire.com/2016/daimler-ag-sues-amazon-knockof...

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