[nommm-nommm]

>decreases the risk of accidentally buying knock offs...now it is... safe.

I'm not sure it really decreases the risk that much, maybe some. With stickerless commingled inventory a third party seller can easily mix their fakes in with the real products and those fakes can end up "sold and shipped by Amazon."

and stuff like this - http://www.wsj.com/articles/on-amazon-pooled-merchandise-ope...

>German knife maker Wüsthof recently told its authorized distributors that come June 30, they can no longer store its products in Amazon's warehouses, because the manufacturer doesn't want the merchandise commingled with items from unauthorized third-party sellers, said Todd Myers, vice president of sales at Wüsthof-Trident of America Inc.

>Authorized Wüsthof distributors may still sell through Amazon, they just can't use its fulfillment service, meaning they have to ship purchases themselves to customers. Wüsthof itself stopped selling its knives directly to Amazon around two years ago, according to Mr. Myers.

[hga]

Is there anything more stupid that they do than pool merchandise? I've heard a horror story about a DVD reseller who was foolish enough to do that, an "equivalent" pirated unit was shipped to a customer, which prompted Amazon to cancel his account and force him to pay money he couldn't afford to either ship the inventory back or destroy it (Amazon is very sensitive to media piracy, I've gathered, with their video service I guess they have to be, which suggests to me they should have stayed more focused).

[nommm-nommm]

>Is there anything more stupid that they do than pool merchandise?

Speaking as a third party merchant, they do a lot of stupid. Just go on any forum for Amazon sellers and read the stories people post, here's an example - http://www.orensmoneysaver.com/2016/03/amazon-and-mysterious...

>I sent in 14. 14 were received, 1 was lost and 1 was found. How many should have? 14. How many does Amazon say I should have? 11. How many units do I actually have? 9

> Now, to Amazon's credit, the first screenshot was taken a couple of days ago. The newest reconciliation correctly shows that I have 9 units but once again does not accurately reflect how they got to 9 when I sent in 14. Of course, I have no reimbursement for these units because they aren't lost according to the system.

Commingling items is actually optional for sellers. I commingle some select items in my inventory. Commingled inventory allows Amazon to ship faster (ship from the closest warehouse) so they benefit from it in a way but its pretty bad that there's no accountability when inventory is commingled, that doesn't seem to bother Amazon. I wonder how many people who get a counterfeit recognize it as such and complain? I would probably assume many people would just think it's just a crappy product.

They also don't offer the option to intercept returns before placing them back in your inventory. Intercepting returns is important to make sure the item is still in sellable condition. They will in theory tell you if an item isn't sellable but that often doesn't work out from what I heard, Amazon will put returned items that have been used back in your inventory as new and then dock you when you sell the item again (and it is inevitably returned again).

[hga]

OK, not intercepting returns is at minimum about as bad, and unlike commingling it's not optional. Yow.