[billpollock]

Unfortunately this case may be a bit different. When you order this book by pressing just the Buy button, as in shipped and sold by Amazon, you get the counterfeit.

I know because I ordered two copies last week. Both came and both were counterfeit.

[mariomariomario]

No this is classic inventory commingling, for brevity let's say that Amazon has 100 fulfillment centers (FCs). When you ship in 10,000 units, Amazon will then take those 10,000 units and spread them to the FCs closest to the top of the bell curve of the normal distribution of your orders. And the same goes for any third party sending inventory to be sold on your listing. When you use a "manufacturers barcode" ie. UPC / ISBN as the only identifier on the product, that's the only way Amazon can identify what it is unless you use an Amazon barcode.

If people didn't sell counterfeit products, we would enjoy the amazing logistics network that Amazon has built.

My recommendation is that you become Brand Registered on Amazon, you get a hell of a lot more weight to throw around on your listing, ie. kicking off sellers who are not authorized to sell your products. Go look at any Anker product, you will see that "AnkerDirect" is the only seller on any of their listings because they are Brand Registered.

You could also go the Seller Fulfilled Prime route for full quality control, which allows you to keep access to the Amazon marketplace but you are responsible for logistics end of the bill which is a tall order but there are 3PLs that can help with that sort of ask.

[perspective1]

I think you're thinking Amazon separates its own SKUs from third party SKUs. That's not the case, it's all comingled.

[beerandt]

The only way to be somewhat sure, is to find a 3rd party seller who doesn't use Fulfilled by Amazon.

Amazon has managed to completely invert the original hierarchy of seller trust.

[jcrawfordor]

Do we know that Amazon doesn't comingle their "sold by amazon" stock with FBA third-party sellers? I can't see anywhere that they say they don't on some research, and it would seem to be an obvious thing to do.

[nebulous1]

I found this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/12/13/how-to-p...

Which says they do commingle their "sold by Amazon" stock with their FBA stock. I'm actually pretty surprised, I had no idea this was the case.

[secabeen]

Yep. They commingle because they use the UPC code as the identifying barcode for the item. If any party wants to avoid commingling, they either need to manufacture with a different barcode, or cover over the barcode with a different, vendor specific one.

[zkms]

> When you order this book by pressing just the Buy button, as in shipped and sold by Amazon, you get the counterfeit.

i think most items that are "sold and shipped by amazon" are commingled as well.

[Thorrez]

Why is it different? That sounds like it could be exactly what mariomariomario described.