[GurnB]

That is certainly one way. If Amazon is getting product from multiple suppliers, they can easily taint their inventory with a single bad vendor. Then there is always the human element. Amazon has a reputation as a somewhat 'crummy' employer. Warehouse workers, when pressed to meet order/put-away quotas, tend to put inventory in pick locations based on the product type, NOT where the warehouse management system directs them to. (This of course causes all kinds of stock level issues not to mention accounting issues for those third-party suppliers that Amazon is acting as a sell-through for) I do not believe that Amazon is intentionally buying knock-off products with the intent to scam customers but just based on their physical size & the variety of products that pass through their facilities, it is going to happen.

Back in the late 90's, early 2000's before Amazon was as big as they are now, I worked in the commercial music distribution arm of Sony/BMG. We were the ONLY people that were manufacturing (In our own facilities) CD's for bands on our music labels and yet bootleg copies of CD's were going out Amazon's doors to customers. How? Amazon doesn't keep an abundance of stock on hand. If they run to low, they would buy product for One Stops (at a higher price than we sold to them) because the One Stops could get several thousand CD's in a few hours while an order from our warehouse might take 36 hours to get there. It was a stop gap for them to not go Out Of Stock. Those One Stops should only have been getting their product directly from us also, but no one watched their inventory as closely, and they would at times buy product from unofficial manufacturers. Those One Stops were trying to scam people. (Mostly Mom and Pop CD retailers)

Again, I have not had any problem returning product to Amazon.

[petra]

>> Warehouse workers, when pressed to meet order/put-away quotas, tend to put inventory in pick locations based on the product type, NOT where the warehouse management system directs them to

Have you got any source for this being a real problem ? Because it seems such things are easily detected at the packing station, by barcode. And if an employee does so often, he'll probably won't stay long.

[GurnB]

Only speaking as an IT professional that has spend a couple of decades working in various distribution environments. If you are a pool manager in a warehouse this is a real problem. Warehouse employees working the receiving docks seem to always find a way to empty a truck at the end of a shift, even if that means shoving pallets of product in the nearest open rack slot. Yes, the WMS will eventually catch the problem and track it back to the employee. In a warehouse working with food/consumables there are lot controls that are suppose to be adhered too. (For tracking and recall purposes). The barcodes on a 'quality' knock off is going to be the same as the original product. Warehouse workers don't care if the product in a pick location is genuine or not. They are managed/measured on their picks per hour & accuracy. (Accuracy based on where they were directed in the warehouse to pick and the correct quantity) Most warehouse employees are through temp agencies and their work ethics can be, though certainly not always, somewhat lacking. Honestly, they typically aren't treated with respect from the start. This article is fairly representative of what I have seen in at least 2 of the 3 warehouse environments I have been associated. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f...