[PeterStuer]

Amazon does SKU aggregation in their warehouses for all the sellers that use Amazon fulfillment. Every delivery of that SKU, by whomever, gets thrown into the same pile from witch they pick whenever someone orders said SKU through whoever is selling that stuff on Amazon.

This means that the product you receive from seller X was probably not delivered to the warehouse by seller X, but would be part of a batch delivered by any other seller that uses Amazon fulfillment for that SKU.

This makes it impossible for them to punish the seller whenever a fake or defective product turns up for you if they had no detected it before it got into the pool.

[hoppyhoppy2]

It wasn't always that way; it was a conscious change they made to save money, which they decided was more important than being able to do better quality control when counterfeit products are discovered from a certain seller.

I just think it's important to point out it's how they chose to do it, presumably knowing the potential downsides, rather than some impossibility of warehouse operations.

[8ytecoder]

And precisely why they are losing my business. It’s hilarious isn’t it. Unless it’s deeply discounted, I prefer reputable sites like Costco, Apple direct and B&H for my expensive purchases.

Sure they have a good return policy but who wants to deal with it or assume they’ll always honor it.

[programmer_dude]

> I just think it's important to point out it's how they chose to do it

IMO the current way of pooling things together is one way of spreading the loss (due to returns or A-to-z claims) across the entire pool. Other members of the pool bear the cost of such maleficence. Amazon's motto probably: Screw all sellers f**k if I care.

[programmer_dude]

How does Amazon do this SKU aggregation? It must use some kind of product identifier (barcode / QR code / RFID tag etc.)? Why not include vendor information with it? Please stop using this tired excuse. It is not a difficult problem to solve if you have the intent.

[CommieBobDole]

I don't think it's a tired excuse, I think it's a withering indictment of Amazon's complicity in selling counterfeit merchandise.

It's not a difficult problem to solve at all, Amazon simply chooses not to solve it because the upside is profit and the downside is mostly reputational which is hard to convert to a number on a spreadsheet, so for business purposes it might as well not exist.

[fmajid]

Google “Amazon stickerless commingled inventory” for the gory details.

[rendaw]

That's another of numerous scams on Amazon, not the one discussed in the article. The SKUs themselves are fraudulent here.