
Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say - rahuldottech
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/20/amazon-is-shipping-expired-baby-formula-and-other-out-of-date-foods.html
======
dspillett
A key problem with the complaints is that customer reviews don't† take into
account the effect of commingling. The expired food might have come from a
different seller initially, but you were sent it because of Amazon's supply
line optimisations.

Amazon will know but when you write your review or read someone else's, you
won't.

Same problem as counterfeit goods and commingling though iirc there are more
control in place on perishables so this aspect of the problem rears its head
less often.

[†] they can't, we as customers don't have access to the information to know
the route items took to get to us

~~~
adrianmonk
Commingling is bad, but does commingling mean they can't trace it back to
which seller sent it to them for FBA?

If they can, they can penalize _that_ seller, not the other seller (who won
the sale).

I'm assuming Amazon has a unique id for every individual item in their
warehouses. I'm not sure this is the case, but it seems likely given how their
warehouses are organized and the location of stuff is very mixed up and only
known to computers. (It would also be sufficient if they have unique ids for
lots. If one seller sends 10 identical perishable items and Amazon groups
those on a shelf together, they can still trace it back to the right seller.)

~~~
crazygringo
> _but does commingling mean they can 't trace it back to which seller sent it
> to them for FBA? If they can, they can penalize that seller..._

Correct, they can't trace it, so they can't penalize.

> _I 'm assuming Amazon has a unique id for every individual item in their
> warehouses._

They don't. If they did, there would be some kind of unique bar code on every
item you received from Amazon.

~~~
QuotedForTruth
Commingling (in this context) doesn't necessarily mean that the products are
literally sitting in the same bin as the same product from another seller.
Each seller's items could be kept in separate bins if put in the same
warehouse. Then when one of that product is ordered, the picker is told to go
to a specific bin to get it. Amazon would then still know which seller's
product they sold you.

The actual advantage of commingling comes from the fact that amazon doesn't
have to distribute every sellers items across the US. They can just send you
one from the closest warehouse.

~~~
FireBeyond
That takes up more warehouse space, which is what Amazon is trying to avoid.
Much easier to put it all into one big bin, and if you want, they can charge
you to have your own bin.

~~~
adrianmonk
Seems easy enough to work around. Just fill the extra space with completely
different products. Put the other seller's products in a different location,
also mixed in with other stuff.

The rule would be that you can put two products together if they are either
the same seller (in which case you don't need to distinguish) or a different
product (in which case you can distinguish visually).

Amazon already mixes different products in the same slot in order to optimize
space anyway.

------
sdfsafsaf
After so many stories and experiences with fakes, why would anyone still buy
items in Amazon that are otherwise typically found in pharmacies or grocery
stores?

In my experience Amazon ships:

Food that is expired or fake Drugs that are expired or fake Batteries that are
expired or fake

I've even received fake diapers! Very well done fakes too: we only noticed
because of a very small logo that are included in the real ones.

I use Amazon only for high ticket items that are unlikely to harm me, and then
only because of their easy return policy (Epson, I'm looking at you)

~~~
danesparza
Amazon just has a bigger target on their back.

Why wouldn't these issues affect any business with a sizable logistics chain?
There are no guarantees of authenticity of goods at your local brick and
mortar stores either.

~~~
awinder
This is just patently untrue. Your brick and mortar store has a clear
hierarchy of responsibility -- it's the workers job to prune expired items
from shelves. It's the manager's job to make sure the employees are doing
their job. It's the parent company's or owners job to make sure the manager is
doing his job.

Amazon flips this on it's head by having a super-loose affiliation with people
selling on it's platform. Turns out, when you break chains of responsibility,
people act irresponsibly. This tale is as old as time.

If Amazon wants to fix this problem they should just get out of the
independent seller game and let it go back to eBay. Amazon is tarnishing its
brand image for low-margin shenanigans and it's just not worth it.

~~~
Spooky23
It’s not low-margin, it aids their financial engineering by eliminating
inventory.

------
ilamont
_A data analytics firm that specializes in the Amazon Marketplace recently
analyzed the site’s 100 best-selling food products for CNBC and found that at
least 40% of sellers had more than five customer complaints about expired
goods._

In other words, Amazon knows about the sellers who ship expired goods yet lets
them continue to operate. It has the data and it _still_ fails to take one of
the easiest steps to address the problem, removing bad actors from the
marketplace (which would also make many other sellers clean up their acts).

I've had a similar issue with buying books advertised as "new" and they are
clearly used ... including one book that had a "USED" sticker on it. I
complained about the seller, and nothing happened. As of the last time I
checked this seller was still in business on Amazon, with 22% negative ratings
in the last 30 days.

The message to third-party sellers is clear:

Win the buy box however you can. We won’t police your listings. We won’t
punish you if you lie about the condition of the goods. Even if many of
Amazon’s customers are complaining about you, you can still stay in business
on Amazon.

~~~
dpark
> _In other words, Amazon knows about the sellers who ship expired goods yet
> lets them continue to operate. It has the data and it still fails to take
> one of the easiest steps to address the problem, removing bad actors from
> the marketplace_

I have anecdata contrary to this. We used to buy gluten free bread from Amazon
because of my son’s gluten allergy. It was a pain to buy locally so we would
buy 4 loaves at a time from Amazon. We started getting expired loaves from
some seller. It happened multiple times, to about 50% of the orders. This
bread has a long shelf life so these loaves were months old.

We got reimbursed multiple times through the automated return system but it
continued. Finally my wife called to complain. They apologized, gave us some
credit, and said they look into it. The next time we got expired bread again.
She called again and they promised they’d remove the seller. Indeed they did
something this time. The bread was unavailable for about a month and when it
came back we never had another expired loaf delivered.

I think Amazon does listen. What they don’t seem to do is listen to people who
complain in reviews. Reach out to Amazon directly if you want to complain
about a real issue with a seller.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Sounds to me like amazon takes a 15% or 20% cut of the transaction, and the
customer gets to do all the work of vetting sellers?

I’d rather pay more and support a reputable manufacturer or vendor directly.

~~~
not_a_cop75
Amazon is the equivocal of the retail end. Any sufficient and provable
complaint to Amazon will result in a refund.

~~~
lotsofpulp
I don’t want a refund, I want to support companies that use the right
processes to save me time, but companies that choose to commingle to save the
company a penny and cost me time are not worth supporting.

~~~
not_a_cop75
What retail shop honestly saves you time? Does waiting in line at Walmart save
you time? Yes, you have the option of checking the expiration in line, but is
anyone really shopping at Walmart for the time savings?

~~~
lotsofpulp
Costco, for one. Based on their track record, I don't think twice about
purchasing something from there or something branded Kirkland Signature. I
know what I buy is decent quality at a decent price.

Target/Home Depot/Lowes also helps, I know what I buy from them doesn't come
from a random reseller, and I don't have to filter through reseller garbage on
their website either. They also have pickup in store options, as well as
showing me where the items are in the store if I need to go find them. Also, I
don't recall waiting in line more than a couple minutes.

I just happen to use those stores as an example, I'm sure many others offer
the same benefits. Point is, I don't want to worry about counterfeit,
commingled, and all that nonsense. I also know sometimes Amazon hides the
option to only show items shipped and sold by Amazon.com, and based on their
attempts to deceive me, I assume they intentionally break search to make it
not as easy to find things.

------
rietta
This happened to us. My wife orders a lot of dog treats and human snacks on
subscribe and save. They sent a package of nearly expired nut snack bars. Wife
contacted customer service and they just sent another of the same. My wife is
meticulous about checking sale by and it is a fight to keep her from throwing
out recently expired foods. But I hadn't known a store to ship an expired
product before this.

~~~
jakebellacera
We had very expired dog food shipped to us from Amazon, and luckily Amazon was
able to give us an instant refund, but that was enough to prevent us from
buying foods and other perishables from them.

------
eric_b
I canceled my Prime membership a few months ago. I never bought food on
Amazon, but I received plenty of counterfeit or obviously used and broken
items sold as new. I went back through my order history recently and it was
over 10% of my orders in the last three years had issues. And I wasn't buying
from the marketplace if I could help it.

There are still some things I have to go through great lengths to buy other
places (Furnace filters for a reasonable price, mouse bait station poison etc)
but I think it's worth it. I don't give Amazon a dollar if I can help it.

~~~
vegardx
Somewhat unrelated, how long did it take you to figure out how to cancel your
Prime membership? For me it took considerable effort, to the point where it
started to be funny.

~~~
warent
I canceled mine fairly easily a couple months ago. I can't remember exactly
how, but it didn't seem particularly difficult. I do remember that they
refunded the unused amount which was nice. Still though after being a prime
member for like 3 or 4 years they've lost me as a customer since they allowed
their platform to become an expensive Alibaba bloated with fake reviews.

------
m23khan
Frankly speaking, the amount of steps a customer has to go through to ensure
quality from Amazon -- check out reviews for buyers, cross check prices to
ensure you are not getting ripped off, check out estimated delivery times, and
then as the article (and comments here) state, be on look out for expiration
date -- for me at least, it makes sense to use Amazon only for books.

Everything else, even living in the First World large Global City (Toronto), I
find it easier to just go out to stores to do quick check and buy with piece
of mind.

~~~
brian_herman__
Sometimes amazon even sells fake books! [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2019/02/amazo...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2019/02/amazon-caught-selling-counterfeits-of-publishers-computer-
books-again/)

~~~
strictnein
This is still happening. Just last week:

[https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/1183094406573748225](https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/1183094406573748225)

------
partisan
I ordered a particular type of Hanes boxer briefs that are made from a
breathable fabric and hold their shape really well. Instead, I got a pack of
the roughest, lowest quality material boxer briefs, the likes of which you
wouldn't be able to buy in the dollar store.

I'm pretty much done with Amazon. They're betting against people actually
getting frustrated and leaving, but I haven't ordered in a few months and I
will get rid of my prime membership.

------
zaroth
Expired products I feel a lot less strongly about than counterfeit. Expired
products have a label on them that the consumer can look at and check. As long
as Amazon is honoring refunds, they are financially incentivized to do what
makes sense to fix the issue.

If Amazon insisted on shipping an identical product out of a west coast
fulfillment center to an east coast customer for which they had a fulfillment
center 20 miles away holding the same SKU, they would not be able to offer the
kind of service that they do.

“Comingling” is the fundamental basis for them to leverage their scale to
provide unmatched service. It’s essential to their business model precisely
because how enormously valuable it is to Amazon _and_ to its customers, and
the way it gets better with scale, _despite_ the concomitant lesser
inconveniences.

Fundamentally, Amazon still knows exactly which seller provided each buyer
with each item, despite there being only a single shared product page. So they
already have all the data, and of course they are using it internally to track
per-seller review scores, refund rates, etc.

------
gwittel
Happened to us several times with our subscribe and save for baby food.
Expired or near expired items. In the end we just don’t buy baby food from
them.

We’re shifting more and more spend away from Amazon due to this, and
counterfeits due to commingling.

------
gwbas1c
I don't get it: I've been buying Amazon prime for about 8 years now, and I
don't encounter nearly the amount of problems that everyone else reports.

Yes, I've gotten a few bad items from Amazon. I've also gotten bad items from
brick and mortar stores as well. (I recently had a bunch of items go bad from
Trader Joe's long before their sell-by date.)

~~~
thrower123
Same. In close to ten years, I've gotten one mixed-up delivery, where they
evidently mislabeled my package with somebody else's when it went out for
shipping. And one item that was lost in shipping and was never delivered,
which they immediately refunded.

Otherwise, I can't complain at all. Sometimes, the stuff is crap, but you kind
of expect that when you are buying cheap generic stuff - if you really want to
see cheap junk, go to an Ocean State Job Lot or Dollar General.

~~~
acomjean
During the holidays a few years back, I ordered 3 things from amazon in early
December. I received all 3 items and a fourth bonus package which was a
literally a thick piece of cardboard with a label. To this day have no idea
how that happened.

------
bArray
Public service announcement: Always check your food, purchased online or in a
shop. In both cases, you're probably hoping that some bit got flipped in a
database (or somebody simply remembered) and a low-paid worker went out and
checked the product's date. Accidents happen all the time.

Scare stories: One friend found a live snail in her supermarket salad. Another
friend found a cutting blade in a tin of cat food. I've personally purchased
in-date bread from a shop and it was covered in mold spores between the
slices. In a shop in Spain their milk had sunlight directly on it (and it was
very hot), resulting in lumpy milk.

------
tjpaudio
It's been my experience that nearly all items with expirations on amazon are
either near the end of their shelf life or past it. Coffee, candy,
supplements, whatever. It's very obviously used as a dumping ground. It's
crazy to me that this isn't common knowledge by now.

~~~
stagger87
I'll offer the counter anecdote. I've order thousands of food items off Amazon
over several years and have had zero issues with expiration dates. I check any
food item I think would cause me illness from being expired.

~~~
tjpaudio
Expiration vs. freshness. When I buy coffee or anything at a supermarket, the
expiration date is about as far into the future as you can get. When I order
on amazon, it's always much shorter. Coffee is a great example. It's usually
months fresher if I buy in store. Not an issue per-say but you are totally
buying the end of life stuff.

~~~
stagger87
Going by the expiration and sell by dates on my goods from Amazon I am not.

------
arkitaip
It's astonishing that even multi-billion brands are being tarnished due to
Amazon's inadequate and sometimes even dangerous supply chain practices.

------
dwoozle
If you know anything about Amazon, if you know what commingling means, or if
you spend 5 minutes reading about this company you will steer well clear for
baby formula, food, electronics, or anything else safety related. Stick to
using Amazon for books, DVDs, and knickknacks. Target.com or Walmart.com will
give you the same price as Amazon, with slightly slower shipping, and no
Russian Roulette with counterfeiters.

~~~
damontal
Walmart uses resellers and I’ve had problems with them recently.

~~~
Spooky23
Check out Target — they are ridiculously awesome. You can order stuff online
and pull into a parking lot in a few minutes, with the guy waiting.

------
darksaints
This isn't about comingling, even though it doesn't make it any better. It's
about the fact that outside of Amazon's grocery-specific operations (Fresh,
Prime Now, and Whole Foods), Amazon does not have a mechanism for FIFO or any
form of decision making based on expiration date. All decisions are optimized
purely on fulfillment costs alone. As far as I know (I've been out for three
years now), they have no plans to change this, as it would increase their
fulfillment costs.

------
todipa
I don't purchase baby food by Amazon. You can't trust the resellers. I don't
understand how there aren't regulations on policing your marketplace for
unlawful products, especially those covered by strict liability.

------
Scoundreller
I definitely buy allergy pills off EBay that are close to expiry.

But the vendors will state this.

It’ll then take me another 4-5 years to go through the bottle of 500 :)

~~~
fortran77
If people were selling expired or near expired items, clearly marked and
identified, at deep discount, there would be little issue.

But that's NOT what we're talking about here. That's a different discussion.

------
fourier_mode
> For one Teavana listing, the top customer review says the tea had a
> “terrible chemical smell” possibly from spoiled fruit

It seems like an exaggeration, the listing states that the product got a 4.5/5
rating.([https://www.amazon.com/Teavana-Beach-
Bellini-2-lbs/dp/B07B3Q...](https://www.amazon.com/Teavana-Beach-
Bellini-2-lbs/dp/B07B3Q6442/ref=sr_1_23?keywords=teavana+sugar&amp;qid=1569934621&amp;s=grocery&amp;sr=1-23))

~~~
worstestes
FakeSpot apparently rates it as a "D" grade. Take that as you will though.

[https://www.fakespot.com/product/teavana-beach-
bellini-2-lbs](https://www.fakespot.com/product/teavana-beach-bellini-2-lbs)

------
welder
Related: 95% of baby food sold in the USA contains toxic chemicals and heavy
metals

[https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/f...](https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/files/2019-10/BabyFoodReport_FULLREPORT_ENGLISH_R5b.pdf)

------
jeegsy
Wal-Mart (or any of the big retailers) is that you?

------
qwerty456127
I wouldn't mind if these were discounted. Experience suggests expired goods
almost always are perfectly fine although this is not guaranteed.

------
jax2Brian
I cant speak for every Amazon warehouse but @ Jax2 FC, I've personally worked
a role in Vendor Returns, where we would remove, return and/or destroy expired
food and candy that has sat in the warehouse for too long. Most of the food
that was removed, was on its way to being expired in a few weeks and it was
removed well before the expiration date. Some of it gets donated if its still
good and the expired goods get destroyed in the trash. - BrianD.J, Amazon FC
Ambassador

------
donatj
I’ve ended up with expired food from physical stores many times in my life.
It’s not really a big deal, you just return it or eat it depending on the
product.

Same here. It happens. It’s harmless.

If it’s a big deal to you, go to the store and pick things out yourself.

~~~
PeterisP
It happens, but it's a punishable violation - the appropriate response is not
"just return it or eat it" but an audit of the whole store and fines for
having expired produce on their shelves, which is not acceptable.

A physical store that does not have a reasonable process to ensure that
expired goods are not available for sale is not qualified to operate safely,
if it does it repeatedly, then it should be shut down - it's like a restaurant
with rats running around.

~~~
donatj
In the United States at least expiration dates have no relation to food
safety.

Also the majority of expirations other than “Use by” are non binding

[https://consumerist.com/2008/06/18/is-it-legal-to-sell-
expir...](https://consumerist.com/2008/06/18/is-it-legal-to-sell-expired-
food/)

~~~
PeterisP
Okay, that may be a substantial regulatory difference, in Europe it's
generally not legal to sell expired food. (And to illustrate divergence, that
consumerist article isn't available for EU users.)

~~~
rietta
I am not an expert in this, but I am aware from direct knowledge of businesses
that collect recently expired foods (that are not yet spoiled - such as
frozen) from grocery stores and transfers them to legal charities and food
banks. There is a delta between sale by and unfit for human consumption.

~~~
excalibur
I know at least one store that uses this as a business model. Food past its
sell-by date can be acquired from grocers for little to nothing and resold at
insanely cheap prices. The difficulty is in making sure your customers know
what they're signing up for without loudly proclaiming that you're selling
expired food.

~~~
ganoushoreilly
This used to be the case with a lot of big lots and ollies stores. Not sure
about it anymore, but you also see a lot of inner city / lower income area
bodegas/ corner stores selling it too. One near me always has expired rap
chips for sale. I eat them and they’re fine, but I knowingly take that risk.

------
chenning
The more I think about it, the differences between Amazon and Walmart are much
smaller than I once thought. They're both platforms upon which sellers can
sell goods. One of the bigger differences seems to be quality assurance. More
specifically, to what degree is each company burdened with that important
responsibility?

If some manufacturer put something unsafe into a food product, I would blame
the manufacturer. Seems pretty cut and dry. On the other hand, if Walmart was
stocking expired food I would blame Walmart because they should be responsible
tracking inventory and maintaining a safe environment. Seems pretty cut and
dry.

Why does Amazon seem different to me? More importantly, should they be seen as
different?

~~~
AaronNewcomer
It is different. This is talking about Amazon Marketplace sellers. It would be
more similar to if Walmart set up a flea market with tents and stuff in its
parking lot and let anyone rent a booth and sell whatever they wanted. Walmart
would also provide a centralized cash register at the end of the parking lot
where people could pay for the items they got from the individual sellers.
Walmart would then settle up with the sellers at the end of the day for the
sales they rang up for them, while keeping a cut to cover the cost of the
transaction and logistics for setting up the tents and keeping security guards
on site.

This would be an equivalent analogy. Does THAT seem different than going into
Walmart and buying from inside Walmart?

~~~
sray
Except it’s not like a flea market in the parking lot. It’s more like Walmart
had a flea market, but mixed all of the items in with their own, inside of the
store, and made it difficult for a casual buyer to tell the difference.

------
Merrill
On the left panel under "Seller" there is a Amazon.com check box you can use
to eliminate third party sellers from the product search. I tend to select
sold by Amazon unless the seller is the actual manufacturer of the product,
e.g. a candy company selling direct through Amazon.

~~~
Dobbs
As far as I know this doesn't actually work, because Amazon will comingle
goods. That is to say you buy good from A. The warehouse closest to you has
the same "item" but it is from B. So they ship you B's item, but mark it from
A's inventory and credit A the money.

So even if you order from known good retailers, or Amazon themselves if party
B puts bad products into the warehouse you can end up with bad or fake
products.

~~~
jthistle
Sellers have the option about whether their inventory can be commingled. Also,
when there is high fraud potential or a large number of complaints Amazon
doesn't allow commingling stock.

I operate a supply chain company who works for Amazon 3rd party sellers.

~~~
dspillett
But how do we, as buyers, know which sellers have selected that option and
which haven't?

The option existing for you makes absolutely no difference to how much I trust
the system if information about (or even the existence of) the option is not
something I know.

