
Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers - ktr
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-has-ceded-control-of-its-site-the-result-thousands-of-banned-unsafe-or-mislabeled-products-11566564990?mod=rsswn
======
Darmody
Amazon overall quality has droped in recent years.

I use to buy from Amazon because I knew I was buying original brands and no
chinese cheap copies. Well, that changed a lot. There are specific things that
I still buy from Amazon but on most things there's almost no difference
between they and Aliexpress. I can buy the same products from Aliexpress way
cheaper and have them delivered in 2-3 days.

Thankfully there are a lot of small online shops where quality and customer
support are taken very seriously. The bad thing is these stores are very
specific so if I need different unrelated products I have to buy from several
stores, having to pay sometimes a few euro for the delivery. This also made me
buy less stuff. Now I generally wait until I need more things or until my cart
has enough stuff for a free delivery.

~~~
leemcalilly
As a small niche retailer that makes and sells guitar straps in Nashville I
couldn’t agree more. Our experiments selling on Amazon have only hurt us, but
Prime is a huge time & shipping $$ saver for re-ordering supplies for our shop
and even materials used to make our products. We’ve experimented with selling
on a lot of different sites (Amazon, Etsy, Reverb, etc) and have found the
best way to control the brand and customer experience is selling solely on our
website [https://originalfuzz.com](https://originalfuzz.com). So we both rely
on Amazon to run our business, while feel we’re actively doing harm to our
brand when we sell our products there. We’re giving up revenue in the short
term by not taking a multi-channel approach to sales, but we think it will pay
dividends over the long term because we’re able to provide a consistent
customer experience with each order.

~~~
sinker
My living depends on selling small-batch, high quality, independently made
woodworking items and I've struggled with this. Selling on Amazon feels like
you're relinquishing control over your product, much more so than Ebay or
Etsy. Just yesterday I've had a third party seller somehow merge my product
into their own product listing, taking the small number of 5 star reviews I
earned organically with them. They sell a completely unrelated product and in
their page you'll notice the reviews refer to a bunch of unrelated products.
Meanwhile what the customer sees on the search page is a 4.5 star item. After
some research it appears this is a common problem. How something so egregious
can happen at all is puzzling.

Well I've decided Amazon isn't for me, for now. I have a dedicated website for
my business but I don't know what is the right way to drive traffic.

Could you mind explaining what your approach has been?

~~~
cannonedhamster
I've had a review I wrote for one product entirely switched to another
product. I've seen some products for USB cables with reviews for books made
for infants. Amazon is so untrustworthy now I'll either go to Alibaba or buy
direct. It's dangerous to buy from Amazon. I wish you the best in this, I've
reported ads like this for fraud before.

~~~
cr0sh
It wouldn't surprise me to find out this is some kind of "business" \- where
you have an Amazon seller account post up various items charging only pennies,
then you hire a bunch of people to purchase the products (so they are a
"verified purchaser") then review them with high ratings (and maybe a few
lower ratings just to make things look good).

Then somehow sell those SKU codes for the items onward where the item
information (description, photo, title, etc) are swapped out - so now you have
an instant "best seller".

This can also of course be done by an individual seller - they just get a good
product, sell it, get some great ratings on it, then change out the
information for another product but keep the SKU the same. Works best if the
products are very similar (I've seen this too - where the reviews, if reading
them carefully, seem to refer to say a USB thumbdrive, but what is being sold
is an actual hard drive, or memory, or sdcard, etc).

The other way, of course, is to sell multiple products with different "colors"
(but each is actually a different product). Then you have reviews all over the
map, all for the same SKU - or at least in the same general comment mix for
the product being sold. So now you don't know if the comment is referring to
the product you want, or some variant of it...

All of that said, I can kinda understand why this is possible, even desirable
- for Amazon to give that kind of control to the sellers. They could try to
police it, but how do they police and enforce SKU usage and such, without also
busting legitimate uses? That's probably the difficulty.

There's a similar problem with some sellers posting items up with insanely
large prices (like a pack of gum for $10,000); from what I understand, this is
done to prevent an item from being purchased when it is out of stock, or to
keep the reviews (maybe in conjunction with SKU swapping?), or a few other
reasons, with the idea that nobody will buy that product with such a strange
high price on it (plus sorting moves it to the bottom usually). Unfortunately,
this also screws up when you want to sort high to low prices, to find a
possible "better product" that is priced higher because it is made differently
and better than "regular ole' generics" (I faced this recently while looking
for a shielded audio cable).

Here again, though, policing it would be nearly impossible - how is Amazon to
determine that a particular package of gum isn't worth $10,000? For that
matter, maybe there's a buyer out there looking for an elusive pack of gum and
is willing to pay the higher price? Seems incredible, but I am certain there's
at least one person out there ready and able to do so.

~~~
FireBeyond
> There's a similar problem with some sellers posting items up with insanely
> large prices

One of the other reasons is bots outbidding each other and escalating prices.

> sort high to low prices, to find a possible "better product" that is priced
> higher because it is made differently and better than "regular ole'
> generics" (I faced this recently while looking for a shielded audio cable).

Or in this specific instance, they're just targetting audiophiles who believe
a $3,000 RCA cable will "enhance the depth and warmth and soundstage"...

------
cs702
Yikes:

 _> A Wall Street Journal investigation found 4,152 items for sale on
Amazon.com Inc. ’s site that have been declared unsafe by federal agencies,
are deceptively labeled or are banned by federal regulators—items that big-box
retailers’ policies would bar from their shelves. Among those items, at least
2,000 listings for toys and medications lacked warnings about health risks to
children._

 _> Of the 4,152 products the Journal identified, 46% were listed as shipping
from Amazon warehouses._

This is a top-of-the-front-page, well-researched article in a leading
newspaper -- it's the kind of coverage that destroys hard-earned reputations
built over decades.

Shame on Amazon.

~~~
chibg10
Disclaimer: Amazon employee, opinions are my own

This claim really doesn't say much on its own. There are millions (billions?)
of products on Amazon. This would be potentially a lot more damning if they
released how many items they searched through to identify those 4,152.

It would also be nice if they provided some data on how prevalent these
problems are at other retailers and marketplaces.

There's reason to believe the problem is probably worse at Amazon (automated
approval process, historic emphasis on low cost and selection) but how much
worse is it?

~~~
mbesto
> It would also be nice if they provided some data on how prevalent these
> problems are at other retailers and marketplaces.

Good point, but I think the point is that any mass violation (let's say more
than 10 SKUs) is usually an isolated event (e.g. it's one small retailer in a
local environment), as opposed to "this is just the cost of doing business for
any large retailer". The more apt question would be - how many violations
happen in the past at a place like Walmart.

Traditional retailers are slow to introduce SKUs compared to Amazon simply for
this reason - everything is hand curated and has to go through gates to ensure
safety.

> There's reason to believe the problem is probably worse at Amazon

What other marketplace in the western world has nearly as many SKUs? Like even
in the same stratosphere? I'd be amazed if there is anyone even close. It's
easy to manage that many SKUs at scale when you get to ignore regulation that
has legitimate human safety implications. So, that's what the article is
saying - don't consolidate power if you're unwilling to deal with edge cases.

------
dahart
> At one point in 2013, some Amazon employees began scanning randomly selected
> third-party products in Amazon warehouses for lead content, say people
> familiar with the tests. Around 10% of the products tested failed, one says.
> The failed products were purged, but higher-level employees decided not to
> expand the testing, fearing it would be unmanageable if applied to the
> entire marketplace, the people familiar with the tests say. Amazon declined
> to comment on the episode.

This crosses a higher threshold than many of the other anecdotes, it sounds
like there’s an actual record of willful negligence.

What’s the likely big picture economic situation with Amazon? Is there any way
to estimate where the bulk of fake goods are coming from and the money through
Amazon is going to? China was mentioned several times in the article, is this
a China problem, or actually bigger than that? Has Amazon formed a tunnel that
primarily moves illegal low-quality product into the US and money out? Is
Amazon the largest vector for foreign goods that are breaking US laws to be
sold in the US, or is this an internet problem in general? I can’t think of
other US retailers, even online, that I’m scared to shop at for fear of fake
product.

~~~
dchichkov
There was a recent study that also had crossed a threshold of anecdotes [1]:
"The Attorney General’s Office, in partnership with the Washington State
Department of Ecology, tested children’s school supplies for harmful levels of
lead and cadmium in 2017 and 2018. The tests targeted products the two
agencies suspected might contain toxic metals. In total, two rounds of tests
identified 51 products sold on Amazon.com that tested positive for illegal
levels of lead and cadmium. In the first round of testing, 16 of the 43
products from Amazon tested positive for illegal levels of toxic metals. In
the second round of tests, the two agencies found that 35 of 41 products
examined exceed the legal limits. The Department of Ecology paid for the first
round of testing and the Attorney General’s Office funded the second round. "
[1] [https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-ferguson-
amazon...](https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-ferguson-amazon..).

~~~
cardiffspaceman
There's a stack of transforms here: All amazon stuff -> Things that a
protective agency through highly-developed intuition suspects will be
dangerous -> things actually found to be dangerous.

So it's bad news that they found dangerous things amongst a category of things
that we don't want to be at all dangerous (children's school supplies). It's
not surprising news that these agencies are pretty good at knowing in advance
which children's school supplies are likely to be dangerous.

BTW the link doesn't bring up a specific article. It brings up a list of
articles.

One wonders why the press release didn't say, Wash AG indicts school supply
suppliers after joint AG-DoEcology investigation?

~~~
dchichkov
I agree. But it seems that they just did a reasonable thing - a quick search -
bought products - tested - found 25-75% contaminated. While it should be zero.
Yes, they did a reasonable search. But it is not like Amazon can't replicate
that search.

The right thing to do here is to add automatic random sampling and control for
lead/cadmium in the distribution facilities. And fix at least this bug, for
real.

Link: [https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-ferguson-
amazon...](https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-ferguson-amazon-must-
remove-toxic-school-supplies-kid-s-jewelry-marketplace)

------
mrosett
A few thoughts:

* Amazon is a total mess right now, and this is great investigative reporting. I think Amazon is going to go through a rough year or two in PR terms. They need to get this under control quickly.

* Amazon can pretend that it's just a platform, but in practice they benefit from consumers assuming that everything on the site has some stamp of approval (even if it's not as full a stamp as, say, buying the item from Costco.) Right now, they're abusing that consumer trust by doing a lousy job of monitoring product listings on their site. Over the long term, they risk losing that trust altogether. That's a huge risk to them, and it's a little short-sighted to take no ownership of product listings on their site as the basis for legal defense.

* This reminds me of the recent reporting about AirBnb dealing with scammy listings in Canada [0]. I _think_ that both AirBnb and Amazon are capable of getting these problems under control, but they haven't proven it as of yet. When the solution comes, it will be expensive and involve a lot of human labor. That is true no matter how many times they wave their magics wands and yell "Machine Learning!"

* Some of the violations pointed out here are pretty dumb. How much does not labeling balloons as choking hazards actually threaten safety? Of course, that reflects a tolerance of rule-breaking and law-breaking that reflects poorly on Amazon.

[0] [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/airbnb-montreal-
aj-h...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/airbnb-montreal-aj-host-
suspended-accounts-1.5252233)

~~~
hunterloftis
> Some of the violations pointed out here are pretty dumb. How much does not
> labeling balloons as choking hazards actually threaten safety? Of course,
> that reflects a tolerance of rule-breaking and law-breaking that reflects
> poorly on Amazon.

I was surprised to see the WSJ go into detail about balloons above the toys
with 400x allowed lead and motorcycle helmets falsely stamped "DOT Approved"
that crack open on contact.

From an engineering perspective, however, it shows that Amazon isn't even
willing to devote a minimum of resources (or is actively avoiding its duty to
check). How hard would it be to query for any product with "balloon" in its
title that lacks "choking hazard" in its description?

~~~
mrosett
That's exactly how I felt about it. They undermined themselves rhetorically by
using the number of balloon listings to increase the count of dangerous
products. However, the fact that Amazon hasn't fixed even that well-defined a
problem is concerning.

------
duxup
That and they've gone the wall-mart route of actually PUSHING anything / the
lowest price possible.

I get stuff that's like 5% cheaper but quality looks to be about 50% the
quality pushed on me all the time on Amazon now.

I went to Amazon originally to find QUALITY products that my local stores
didn't carry because of price pressures. Now Amazon seems to be switching to
just being ... wall-mart and that's already near me...

It has gotten so bad that I've searched for good products on Amazon that I
know were there, and they're gone. Like if you don't want a crappy HDMI switch
that looks like every other cheap HDMI switch, your options seem to be fewer
and fewer.

And that doesn't account for the questionable health products that they push
on me for no apparent reason (i've never surfed for or bought such products
form them...or anyone).

Increasingly Amazon wants to tell me what to buy, and what they tell me is
they want me to buy garbage.

~~~
thefreeman
Kind of off topic, but do you have a recommendation on a good HDMI switch? I
have struggled with the crappy ones from amazon many times. The most
frustrating part is that their "remotes" all seem to overlap with regular tv
remote frequencies or something, such that changing the volume on the tv ends
up triggering an input switch.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
No explicit recommendations, but I generally go to monoprice.com for this type
of thing nowadays. I've been very happy with their quality.

------
cmrdporcupine
This among many reasons is is why I cancelled my prime membership. The quality
control is abysmal. It's become an eBay, but without a proper dispute system,
and crazy prices. Many goods get listed at multiples of the price available
elsewhere and if you're not paying attention you can get screwed. It's totally
buyer beware. The trust that Amazon established over the years has been lost.

I ordered something on Amazon Canada, it was listed as sold by Amazon.com.ca.
It qualified for prime. I ordered expecting it to arrive in 2 days. It took
over a week and it became clear after the fact that it had been sourced from a
US supplier and because it happened over the 4th of July it sat in a warehouse
for a few days over the holiday.

Amazon hid that it was a third party supplier. Amazon hid that it was coming
from across the border. Amazon refused to cancel and refund the order once
this became clear.

They've really gone down hill.

~~~
CaptainZapp
And then you stumble over stories like this[1].

In a way it's her own damn fault. If I invest a significant amout of money
into a branded product I'd probably visit the store of the brand, or a
reseller licensed by the brand.

But I sure as hell wouldn't order a $1000 coat from Amazon. That just yells:
_RIP ME OFF!_

[1]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/count...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/counterfeit-
canada-goose-amazon/581041/)

~~~
mffnbs
I read the story and honestly don't see that the writer is at fault. Sure,
criticize the woman for not knowing better, but that's where her blame stops
and Amazon takes the rest.

~~~
CaptainZapp
Sure, Ultimately it is Amazon's fault for not policing their site and allowing
blatant fakes to be sold.

I'd still argue that it's really better to buy expensive brands at shops
licensed by the brand.

I can be pretty sure that I don't get a dud, when I drop 800$ on a Rimowa
suitcase in one of their stores. Not so much, when ordering from Amazon.

------
martythemaniak
I wonder if Amazon won't somehow kill itself with poor quality. I needed a
bunch of LED bulbs recently and I knew exactly what I was looking for - about
a dozen 40W eq, two 60w eq and two 100w eq, all in 2700K and two 100w in
3000K.

Amazon was a mess - prices were all over the place, exact products were hard
to find, etc. Dollarama had them all for $2.50, $3.50 and $4.00 a piece,
usually in all three flavours (2700, 3000 and 5000K).

Made me want to start a Shopify store called "Bullshit Free Bulbs".
bullshitfreebulbs.com is available btw.

~~~
leemcalilly
I’ve long thought this sort of thing would be a really good business model.
You could launch a bunch of vertical sites and use the same shipping /
fulfillment system. Huge irony would be if you did this with Fulfillment by
Amazon, but it would probably work.

I guess the core problem is that when you’re looking for something new,
browsing Amazon is a total mess. It would be much easier to do a web search
and find bullshitfreebulbs.com to make your purchase.

But if it’s something you buy often, Prime + order history is easily the
fastest, most convenient way to buy something.

~~~
burlesona
As I understand it, if you fulfill with Amazon they keep your inventory mixed
with the Chinese knockoffs, so you actually don’t know for sure if customers
got the inventory you sent to Amazon or a counterfeit instead.

~~~
fmajid
Yep, it’s called stickerless commingled inventory and even buying from Amazon
itself doesn’t protect you from counterfeits or worse.

I’ve pretty much stopped buying electronics from Amazon and only get them from
B&H.

------
dbcurtis
How much of this could be solved by a simple "know your supplier" law? As a
consumer, I should be able to ask any retailer: "From whom did you source the
actual item that you sold me?" Amazon should not be able to get away with
saying they don't know.

As it stands, Amazon is just a conduit for goods to bypass consumer safety
laws.

~~~
alexandercrohde
Wow, it's rare that I scroll down 5 pages and see the best comment there.

That's a great idea.

------
DannyBee
This is a totally solved problem. In the normal retail world, sellers are
responsible for the defective items they sell, regardless of if they knew or
not.

If you buy a defective thing from best buy, they are responsible.

They may turn around and sue the next person up the chain for doing the same
(selling it to them).

This incentivizes companies to be careful who they buy from.

The problem here is that the article refers to them as "third party sellers".
They aren't in most cases, amazon just has a large distributed supply chain.

If you want amazon to care, make them liable for the stuff sold on their
website, the same way best buy is for the stuff in their store.

Problem solved.

This will not destroy their business - it has not destroyed _any other
business_.

It will simply cause them to care.

~~~
kwhitefoot
That's how it works in Europe. But when I suggested to a colleague in the US a
few years ago that he take a defective disk drive back to Best Buy (or perhaps
Newegg) five months after he had bought it he laughed out loud at the
absurdity of the idea that the seller would do anything at all.

~~~
DannyBee
He shouldn't have, the minimum period is usually a year. This is one area of
the uniform code[1] that states often modify, so it varies as to length. Some
are only 90 days, etc.

This is also not as well known by consumers as it should be, and obviously,
businesses sometimes try to claim otherwise (IE say you have to deal with the
manufacturer)

But, the law is _incredibly_ consistent about this if you take someone to
court.

[1] In the US, there is a non-partisan uniform law commission that publishes
model laws for states to adopt in various important areas. The main goal is to
keep the law of each state similar in areas where that similarity is important
to being able to do business across multiple states.

Outside of business, they sometimes tackle complex jurisdictional efforts
where states would otherwise fight with each other based on their local
social/public policy. An example would be the uniform child abduction act,
which ensures if a parent who does not have sole custody takes a child across
state lines, you don't get into a big fight over where the child should be
based on social issues that differ between states.

Not all states sign everything, but they get very good uptake on most laws.

[https://www.uniformlaws.org/home](https://www.uniformlaws.org/home)

------
AlexandrB
Their shipping practices have also degraded. Amazon usually ships anything
they can in bubble-padded envelopes. This is ok for many things, but for books
it's a disaster - softcovers almost always end up with damaged covers,
hardcovers get dented corners from being dropped without any protection. I've
also received movies and video games with cases damaged worse than what you'd
see in a second-hand store. The (supremely ironic) result is that Amazon is
now my last choice for buying books.

~~~
jjoonathan
Another favorite: receiving your item freely bouncing around in a much larger
box alongside a single bubble pack that neither tries to nor succeeds at
filling any appreciable amount of the empty space available for said bouncing
around.

~~~
cr0sh
I once ordered a really large socket (36mm for the axle nuts on my Jeep) from
Amazon. I can't recall what they shipped it with, but I do recall the box was
mostly empty, no padding, air bags, or whatnot.

But they wrapped that socket with bubble wrap nine ways from Sunday! It was
like this ball of bubble wrap and tape, with this huge socket in the middle.

------
nickjj
There's a 0% chance I would ever buy food or any type of consumable from
Amazon. There's way too many people selling counterfeit items and there's no
reasonable way to tell until you end up either dead or sick.

My friend's cat came inches from dying because of flea treatment purchased
there not too long ago. When it was purchased it had 4+ star reviews and
generally seemed good. But if you look at the ratings today (months later),
the average ratings went way down and there's just an endless amount of
reviews saying the stuff is poison. Some people even lost their cat.

The messed up thing is it's the same exact brand and box you would see on the
shelf at a store so there's no way to tell just by looking at the product. At
least not from a laymen's POV (I looked at both boxes and didn't see any
glaring differences).

~~~
nabnob
Do you know which flea treatment this was?

~~~
nickjj
Yeah, it was this Hartz one: [https://www.amazon.com/Hartz-UltraGuard-Topical-
Prevention-K...](https://www.amazon.com/Hartz-UltraGuard-Topical-Prevention-
Kittens/product-reviews/B0016H8Z44)

Look at how many 1 star ratings there are. We sorted by 1 stars and then by
newest reviews. If you go back for a few months it's just an endless amount of
scary negative reviews but it wasn't so bad years ago.

~~~
nabnob
Thanks. Those reviews are pretty fucking scary.

------
burlesona
I’ve got the same experience as many other posters here and have been buying
less from Amazon lately.

One thing I haven’t seen people talking about much is how profound and impact
Apple Pay is for direct online retail.

I used to find products on a company website and then go to Amazon to buy,
mainly so I didn’t need to create yet another account, and because of prime
shipping and Amazon’s return policy.

The amazing thing with Apple Pay is how much it creates an even better
purchasing experience than Amazon’s “one-click,” while being open to any
merchant. You don’t have to create an account, put in your shipping or billing
info, or do anything really. You just click “buy with Apple Pay,” and click to
confirm.

Between that, and offering “free shipping” (just include it in the product
price), and a good return policy, I see retailers being much more able to sell
direct and compete with Amazon’s fading reputation.

~~~
Marsymars
> One thing I haven’t seen people talking about much is how profound and
> impact Apple Pay is for direct online retail.

I'd love to use Apple Pay, but neither of the credit cards I use for online
shopping (Capital One for CAD purchases, Home Trust for non-CAD) support it.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Is there something special/different about Apple Pay for online shopping
versus physical stores?

My Capital One card loaded to my iPhone has worked with Apple Pay in physical
stores since the inception of the feature. I use it literally every day. In
the last few days I used it at McDonald's and at Whole Foods.

~~~
Marsymars
> Is there something special/different about Apple Pay for online shopping
> versus physical stores?

Most notably, I could use Apple Pay for online shopping with Safari. I would
not be able to use Apple Pay at physical stores as I don't have an iPhone.

Capital One Canada doesn't support Apple Pay of any variety.

------
itp
I appreciate why the title was modified from the original, but the mistaken
use of "it's" rather than "its" was introduced in the process and should be
corrected.

~~~
thechao
There’s a trivial way for native English speakers to learn this rule: replace
‘it’ with ‘his’, appropriately, adjust comma to suit.

> Amazon has ceded control of hi’s site to a 3rd party...

Obviously incorrect.

~~~
jtbayly
When does "hi's" ever look correct though?

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
His arrival elicited a number of hi's.

------
r00fus
More anecdotal data, but our family (which used to spend $5k+ a year on
Amazon) decided to actively buy locally _and_ do what we can to reduce
packaging waste (mainly for food). (note: I applaud Amazon's influence in the
past decade fighting the clamshell package).

Just looked and we now spent less than $500 so far this year.

Reduced consumption, sometimes going without that new shiny thing and instead
borrowing or buying used. For food, we simply cut out delivery (if we want
resto food we go to a place that uses reusable cutlery, if we want staples, we
just go to a store nearby and try to get bulk items).

Amazon has killed my trust in generic online stores. Fulfilled by Amazon
sounds like a fraud engine, and I simply can't support that anymore. I'd like
to know if there's a good alternative, but for now we just don't shop online
if we can avoid it.

~~~
wasdfff
Just shopping locally and picking up your own food saves you so much and helps
subconciously cuts down on your personal consumerism. I do anything I can now
to make sure my dollar doesnt leave the county if it can be helped.

------
rossdavidh
The problem of many web-based businesses is, they can't decide (or don't want
to) if they are more like the phone company, or more like a bricks-and-mortar
business. If they are like the phone company, they are not responsible for
guaranteeing that what you buy over the phone is legit, but they also don't
get a cut. If they are like a bricks-and-mortar business, they do take a cut,
but they get liability. It is similar to Facebook, Twitter etc. trying to
sometimes act like a phone company and sometimes like a conference hall.

The reason is clear: they want to be compensated like a retailer or conference
hall, but have the (relative lack of) liability of the phone company or the
postal service, who don't make any claims that communications via their
services are going to be honest, just that they allowed the two parties to
communicate.

Gradually, they are all going to be forced by society (not only government)
into one role or the other, but I am not surprised they are trying to put that
off as long as possible.

------
stanski
They were sued for the recklessly mislabeled helmet and still didn't take the
posting down?

Even if they could've argued that they themselves were fooled by the seller
initially, not following up after the guy was killed points to a much bigger
issue. Basically they just don't give a shit.

Side note: I'm filled with dread just thinking about buying a motorcycle
helmet from amazon.

~~~
hitpointdrew
> Side note: I'm filled with dread just thinking about buying a motorcycle
> helmet from amazon.

Don't, I wouldn't. Revzilla, sells all sorts of motorcycle gear and has a
great reputation. [https://www.revzilla.com/](https://www.revzilla.com/)

~~~
rabidrat
Where do we aggregate all these places with great reputations for nice
products?

~~~
wasdfff
In your bookmarks folder.

~~~
rabidrat
I checked, it wasn't there :(

------
jlj
This is addressed in the 10-k.
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872419...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872419000004/amzn-20181231x10k.htm)

"We Could Be Liable for Fraudulent or Unlawful Activities of Sellers

The law relating to the liability of online service providers is currently
unsettled. In addition, governmental agencies could require changes in the way
this business is conducted. Under our seller programs, we may be unable to
prevent sellers from collecting payments, fraudulently or otherwise, when
buyers never receive the products they ordered or when the products received
are materially different from the sellers’ descriptions. We also may be unable
to prevent sellers in our stores or through other stores from selling
unlawful, counterfeit, pirated, or stolen goods, selling goods in an unlawful
or unethical manner, violating the proprietary rights of others, or otherwise
violating our policies. Under our A2Z Guarantee, we reimburse buyers for
payments up to certain limits in these situations, and as our third-party
seller sales grow, the cost of this program will increase and could negatively
affect our operating results. In addition, to the extent any of this occurs,
it could harm our business or damage our reputation and we could face civil or
criminal liability for unlawful activities by our sellers."

------
fencepost
I'm much more likely these days to go to either ebay (e.g. for the replacement
phone battery I got a week or two back) or to a vendor that doesn't do
Amazon's commingling of stock (B&H, Target, etc.). This is particularly true
where I think it's something likely to be counterfeited (any high-value
commodity, thank god I'm not ordering something like baby formula).

I'm willing to pay a premium for the trust factor, because if I get burned
with a bad product on even 10% of my purchases the value of my time dealing
with it is probably more than I've ever saved ordering through Amazon -
particularly if it's something I wanted _quickly_ where I can't afford the
chance of "Oh, sorry you got a counterfeit, we'll ship another and you'll have
it in 2 days, hope it's legit this time."

Edit: And I don't think I'll EVER purchase a MicroSD card through Amazon.

------
ashleyw
I nearly bought a book in Audible last week, but hesitated because something
seemed off with the reviews[0]. After a little digging I realised ALL the
reviewers had only reviewed this book and another about Keto. And looking on
Amazon for the same author "G.S. Hook" I noticed one of the books had reviews
which while all unique, were basically all following the same template
containing the same exact phrases[1].

I spoke with customer service and gave them specific examples to investigate.
They didn't care in the slightest. It's made me realise that their reviews
cannot be trusted. "Verified purchase" means nothing. I always chose Amazon
over eBay and AliExpress because I thought it was worth the slightly higher
prices to have peace of mind that the reviews were policed and what I would
receive was genuine and safe. But that's clearly no longer the case.

[0] [https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Communication-Skills-
Training-T...](https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Communication-Skills-Training-The-
Ultimate-Guide-for-Public-Speaking-and-Conversation-Persuasion-Relationship-
Workplace-Interviews-Audiobook/B07TTD19PL)

(The reviewers have since reviewed other books. But you'll still see the same
pattern of the same books being reviewed.)

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/COMMUNICATION-MARRIAGE-effective-
comm...](https://www.amazon.com/COMMUNICATION-MARRIAGE-effective-
communication-relationships-ebook/product-reviews/B07T81TZ57)

(One recurring phrase "which made her realize she had a problem too"

~~~
sgustard
That's pretty bad, and ironic that reviews for a book about communication are
all written in such broken English.

Sadly fakespot.com rates that page an A so now I'm sceptical of that site too.

~~~
ashleyw
Yes! The first thing I did was check Fakespot. This doesn't even seem that
sophisticated. Same phrases, same reviewers, I don't know how Fakespot missed
it. I thought those were key markers it uses to determine the validity of
reviews!

------
benologist
Amazon has calculated they're not liable if they don't spend appropriate
oversight. It's a type of fraud like tax evasion that they can legally commit,
because all that will happen is in 5 - 10 years some government will spend
three years suing them to change the contrived status quo that would see any
retail shop shut down.

~~~
endorphone
If people lose trust in Amazon that would undermine their entire business
model. There is a very strong incentive for Amazon to police their market.
Amazon does have a list of brands that third parties are not allowed to sell
(because of counterfeit issues) -- only the authorized, prescribed retailer is
allowed to sell it.

There are still blatant frauds that occur, though, that Amazon really has to
answer for. There was the Atlantic story about the fake Canada Goose articles
on Amazon-

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/count...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/counterfeit-
canada-goose-amazon/581041/)

These products are still on Amazon! After all that publicity, they're still
there.

[https://www.amazon.com/s?k=canada+goose](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=canada+goose)

Which is a bit weird as Canada Goose is supposed to be a restricted brand.

------
t34543
I never had a problem (that I know of) with fakes on Amazon. I did cancel my
prime membership and switched to Walmart. I feel like prices went up and
quality went down. I wish I could move stuff away at work, we spend millions
each month on AWS.

~~~
dharmon
Its not always fakes. Some sellers sell factory seconds and refurbished items
as new.

Just save yourself the headaches and skip Amazon, where you have no recourse,
for Home Depot, Best Buy, Target, and even Wal-Mart. Everybody does price
matching these days.

If you're buying something you know is cheap junk, then just cut out the
middle man and again skip Amazon for Ali express or Alibaba like the parent
mentioned.

~~~
kazinator
That more or less qualifies as a fake.

------
landcoctos
Been saying for a long time Amazon is a flee market. Many times it's my last
choice now when shopping online.

~~~
bluedino
We bought some Brother labeling tape last week. They came in what looks like
Brother packaging but it's named 'Better', P-touch is swapped out with
B-touch...

The labels are inferior, the ink comes off, the labels unstick after a few
days...how does Amazon even let this trash on their site?

~~~
ianai
That should really be something to take them to court over, bit it’s not worth
it for the dollar price.

~~~
senderista
That’s why class-action suits exist...

------
iwasakabukiman
For me, Amazon's main purpose is to get them to price match Best Buy. Why wait
3 days when I can just go to Best Buy, show them the same item for $30 cheaper
on Amazon and get it immediately?

~~~
rdtwo
For me this has not been working well because I go to Walmart or Best Buy and
find out they don’t actually stock anything and end up wasting my time and
still having to buy online.

~~~
freeAgent
I always check the inventory online at my local Best Buy before going to the
store for a price match. If I've already found the product on Amazon, it's not
hard to do the same on BB and make sure it's in stock.

------
senderista
So it turns out that the lead-tainted xylophone pictured in that article is
sitting in my living room, along with the other items from that "Amazon's
Choice" instrument set. It's all going in the trash and I'm never allowing any
off-brand item from Amazon near our kids again.

(I guess the fact that the xylophone wasn't tuned to any recognizable scale
should have been a red flag.)

~~~
depingus
Even buying brand name items shipped and sold by Amazon doesn't guarantee that
your item will be safe. The way Amazon commingles their items with 3rd party
"fulfilled by Amazon" items means chances are high that you will end up with a
Chinese knock off.

------
julianlam
At the risk of dogpiling on other comments, I also feel Amazon's quality has
hit rock bottom. I used to use Amazon because it had a reputation for quality
items. Now they all come from China and I pay Western prices for the privilege
of having it shipped to me faster.

USB keys and SD cards are almost all universally garbage rip-offs, and I
recently purchased a stroller from Amazon, but had a bit of a panic moment
when I wondered whether the baby carrier itself was certified by Canadian
authorities (it was, but I shouldn't have to ever wonder).

For all of my child's items, I'm now steering clear of Amazon.

~~~
HillaryBriss
> they all come from China and I pay Western prices for the privilege of
> having it shipped to me faster

that's a pretty decent description of the Amazon business model.

(i guess the only thing to add is that Amazon accepts product returns. but
almost every retailer does that nowadays.)

------
freeAgent
This article also didn't mention that when you order a product that Amazon
sells alongside 3rd party vendors who use Amazon fulfillment, they mix
inventory. When ordering from Amazon, I always try to buy from Amazon directly
when given the option. However, on one or two occasions, I have been delivered
items that were clearly used and repackaged but were sold as new by Amazon.
The only explanation I've found for this is that Amazon accepts inventory from
3rd parties for fulfillment and mixes that inventory with its own.

~~~
0xffff2
I thought this was a well-known fact? Over the years its gone from "buy this
thing from this seller" to "buy this thing and we'll send you one like it from
either the third-party bin or the Amazon bin depending on who your ordered it
from", and finally to "buy this thing and we'll send you one like it from a
single bin".

------
sergiotapia
We used to buy from Amazon since it was a stamp of quality. I tried buying a
usb-c cable for my mac mini, and it was terrible. So many brands and no way of
knowing what to get. Today you might as well buy from Ebay.

What online store exists today, where I can be guaranteed to buy quality
things? Do they no longer exist?

~~~
Klathmon
This is the same issue I've had with walmart.

For a long time now it's been obvious they have brands make "special versions"
of many products for walmart which are lower quality and cheaper.

Now they are offering free one and 2 day delivery on their site, but I just
don't want to go there for fear that I'll end up getting what looks like a
"good deal" but what I'll actually get is a worse more cheaply made product.

And like you I also avoid Amazon now for many things for fear of getting
knockoffs. Most electronics and chargers/cables and things like it. Between
their issues with commingling inventory from multiple sellers and 3rd party
sellers basically having completely broken their review system (it's
exhausting having to weed out the fake reviews from the real ones every time
I'm looking at a product).

Amazon is quickly becoming another site that I'll start avoiding at all costs.
I've started looking for replacements for many thing I buy, and once I've
switched i'm really unlikely to go back just like how I'm basically never
going to go back to Walmart because they burned all my trust.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
At least with Walmart you know their value engineered products are actually
made by who they say they are and actually work enough of the time to pass
whatever QC standards were set. With Amazon you have no idea whether you're
getting a counterfeit.

------
impalallama
its infuriating that amazon likes to play innocent and claim they are not the
seller of these products but at the same time do their best to project a
unified front and to hide that certain products come from different sellers.
At best you get a little link that might go to everything else that seller has
listed but without knowledge from articles like this one of how amazon handles
things I would never know the different between seemingly identical products.

------
blunte
With internet companies sometimes being held responsible for illegal content
they host (provided by third parties), shouldn't Amazon be liable for
facilitating the sale of or directly selling counterfeit goods?... especially
when they have been alerted many times that a particular item is counterfeit?

------
redorb
I recently emailed jeff bezos / his executive customer response team got back
with me and let me tell them for 2 hours how I felt their service has gone to
shit.

One of the things I explained that happened is that as Amazon got closer via
more warehouses the shipping actually went to crap. I also explained how their
Amazon shipping vans are sub par even to USPS.

I asked for a basic prime teir free shipping only for $79/yr and asked for
shipping options to be available ~ I'd pay +$2-3 to choose fedex over ups for
example...

If anything they gave me a chance to vent. I also followed up in email sharing
how products are being hijacked for reviews and how there are facebook groups
for fake review gathering..

------
AlexDragusin
In other words, this Amazon is burning as well!

It's time to reconsider the relationships with these kind of markets, which
contributed to the demise of countless small businesses across the country,
these were typically run by passionate people who cared both about their
product and customer generally, sure, exceptions were to be found.

We need to move on from the get something for nothing attitude on top of the
fact that we don't need to buy unlimited stuff (as one could say the smaller
stores system cannot cater to all of our cravings).

Quality over quantity; and let's take back our internet, build a website, a
nice following, take good care of your customers and build a brand.
Personally, I never went for any kind of markets, stuck to my website and I am
still in business (since 2004) due to my customers whom I care for dearly
every time they need my services.

The internet was designed as a decentralized system, why would anyone give
that up so easily? Cheap stuff and convenience.

A quality obituary is in order if we continue this way.

------
docker_up
Already this year the number of purchases I've made is cut in half from last
year. I've gotten burned with too many poor 3rd party sellers. They are so
greedy for the short term revenues they don't realize that us "idiots" are
starting to lost trust in their system, and if that happens at a large scale,
their business will collapse.

------
mfer
Attempting to solve the quality problem is possible. I imagine it's easier at
Amazons scale because of the amount of data they have.

This should raise a number of questions.

So, why don't they put forth a solid effort? Is it due to regulatory reasons?
If so, should they not publicly state that to put pressure on legislatures or
to have a real public discussion.

Jeff Bezos signed the new purpose of a corporation [1]. The first bullet
reads, "Delivering value to our customers. We will further the tradition of
American companies leading the way in meeting or exceeding customer
expectations."

Does he not mean it? How does he define value?

[1] [https://www.businessroundtable.org/business-roundtable-
redef...](https://www.businessroundtable.org/business-roundtable-redefines-
the-purpose-of-a-corporation-to-promote-an-economy-that-serves-all-americans)

------
moron4hire
My biggest problem is not being able to discern the quality of an item before
I purchase. Ratings were last reliable 10 years ago. Different brands used to
mean different products, so you used to be able to feature-and-price compare.
About the only thing I've figured out to do is to look at pictures to try to
group items by manufacturer, purchase one-per-real-manufacturer, then return
all of the obvious crap and _hope_ I end up with at least one good item.

Maybe we need a Facebook plugin through which people can (willingly) share
their purchases. Don't look at ratings for products from rando strangers, only
see the stuff your friends have bought. In the worst case, you're no worse off
than the status quo, but maybe I could finally find a decent laptop bag.

------
ineedasername
I'd say it's a combination of both some unwillingness and some inability. I
think the unwillingness would come more from a desire to avoid a murky,
difficult to execute & resource intensive process, and not from a purely
mercenary desire to sell more product. Because it would be a better shopping
experience and spur more activity if there was greater trust in the 3rd party
marketplace.

The inability stems mainly from the same problem large content aggregators
always have. Like Youtube's filter generating false positives or false
negatives for blocking content or flagging IP issues, or the filter for
Youtube Kids letting through inappropriate content. It's all too much to
adequately police without unreasonably high (from their perspective)
resources.

------
adrianmonk
In general, to me it seems like Amazon focuses more on other things than on
refining the way their actual store and its site works.

They've focused a lot on operations and efficiency. They already had 2-day
shipping but they've worked to get that down to 1-day shipping where possible.
Which is impressive, though 2-day shipping was already pretty good. They've
optimized the hell out of their inventory, distribution, etc. They made that
Haven joint-venture healthcare thing (together with two other huge companies)
to drive down health insurance costs.

Another area they've focused on is new types of business, like cloud
computing, buying Whole Foods, getting into video streaming, and hardware
devices (Kindle, Fire, Echo).

But the store itself, the web site design and how the store functions, hasn't
changed that much. They had a lot of issues with fake reviews, and they
eventually did something, but it took a long time. They have some longstanding
usability pain points that they haven't done anything about. Reviews are
supposed to be about products, not sellers, but people leave comments and
ratings about sellers in product reviews because there's no other place to put
them (or if there is, it's not easy enough to find). Something (bad UI?) seems
to encourage unhelpful "I don't know" type answers in products' "Customer
questions & answers" section. If you click "There is a newer model of this
item", it often leads to something that isn't. Product categories and the
features within them are insufficient or out of date: I can browse the cell
phone case category, but under "phone compatibility", Galaxy S10 isn't listed,
only Galaxy S9, even though the S10 came out 6 months ago. Similar story with
iPhone. And nothing with size variations of phone models (iPhone XS, XS Max,
and XR would require different cases).

All of these things would probably benefit everybody if they fixed them. And
it's not just a matter of adding polish. There are more innovative things they
could do, too. But the attitude seems to be that the store is basically as
done as it's going to get.

------
rchaud
Amazon's transformation in Canada has been remarkable. Back in 2011 or so, the
selection for anything was extremely sparse, like the shelves in a Soviet-era
store. Today, the shelves are full, but with third party sellers selling used
products as new, and the search results jammed with no-name Chinese brands
with thousands of 5-star reviews.

I bought a Blackberry Key 2 LE on Amazon.ca, advertised as a Canadian model
and brand new. When it arrived, the box clearly labeled it as a refurbished
product to be sold in India only. Thankfully they still offer a no-questions
asked return policy , but maybe that's limited to Prime members. Once my
student subscription expires, I'll be off Amazon forever. Just not worth the
hassle.

------
blairanderson
I run a consulting company for Amazon suppliers[0] and can absolutely confirm
the research from wsj is accurate.

Why? Amazon has broken down HUGE barriers, which make it incredibly easy to
start selling. You (anyone reading this) can easily spend $5K on a product
from China and start selling it almost risk-free. example1, Prop65 EXCLUDES
Businesses with 9 or fewer employees.

Why would Amazon sell 1000 products from a single brand if they could sell 10
products from 100 brands while maintaining their margin structure and
decreasing liabilities for everyone?

I am LONG $SHOP and wish brands would invest that direction more than they do.

\- [0]
[https://www.andersonassociates.net](https://www.andersonassociates.net)

------
visarga
I bought a mechanical key tester (small matrix of keys) from Amazon UK and it
got delivered from China. It took weeks to get to my country and I had to
endure a completely different customs procedure. Importing from a EU country
to another EU country is simplified while importing from China is subject to
much more red tape. I am careful now to make sure the seller is not from
China. Needless to say Amazon lost a lot of trust in my eyes.

If I wanted AliExpress I would have used it, but when I specifically ordered
from Amazon UK I expected to have the merchandise come from inside EU. That
was the whole point. The same product is listed in AliExpress much cheaper.

------
djsumdog
Amazon got this way due to competition in the early 2000s with eBay. Today
there aren't a lot of mom-n-pop e-stores. Sure some of it is coming back with
Shopify, Magento and others, but most people starting off in online retail
just create a store on one of the big marketplaces: Amazon, eBay, Newegg,
Reverb or Etsy. All of them both sell their own products and are also meta-
resellers.

I wrote about the death of the mom-n-pop estore not too long ago:

[https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-death-of-the-mom-and-
pop-...](https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-death-of-the-mom-and-pop-e-store/)

------
starsinspace
Cheap toys are generally worrying. Unrelated to Amazon specifically, but to
get an idea, you can also take a look at this EU site listing some products
which have been banned/recalled:

[https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/consumers_safety/safety_produ...](https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/consumers_safety/safety_products/rapex/alerts/?event=main.listNotifications&lng=en)

Just scroll down a little and click on the weekly reports. The amount of kids
toys being recalled every week for containing high amounts of harmful
chemicals and other hazards is worrying.

------
ibdf
Dropshipping and the dream of selling anything online without having to manage
products, warehouses, customers is what happened to amazon. I often get
bombarded with "make quick money selling on amazon" ads. Quality has gone
down, you never really know what you are getting anymore unless it's from a
well known brand. But customers have also become lazy, not doing any research,
buying things that are way too cheap and then complaining about the quality.

Bad products and fake copies have been available for years you just had to
know where to look... it's just easier to find it now.

------
greyhair
Shopping on Amazon has deteriorated gradually over the last three years. It
has become enough of a chore that I am considering dropping my Prime
membership. The third party sales flood the market with so much crap that it
drowns out the quality vendors and the reviews are nearly worthless at this
point. I don't how they fix it, but it is broken now.

------
dreamcompiler
Amazon's actions (not its words) are the way to figure out whether they care
about this. And their actions scream loudly that they don't care about product
safety or counterfeiting. The only solution is probably some exponentially
escalating fine structure, where on e.g. the fourth offense the fine is 10
billion dollars and on the fifth the company is dissolved. Otherwise Amazon
will simply continue to pay the fines as a cost of doing business.

------
mrhappyunhappy
My biggest problems with Amazon:

1\. Sellers pretending to be legitimate brands. I’ve bought things thinking
I’m buying from this brand I know, turns out it’s just a copycat.

2\. Accidentally buying used products which seem to be old models. I’ve made
the mistake on a few occasions buying used when I specifically wanted a new
item.

Amazon has plummeted in quality but I get a feeling they don’t care. Their
ultimate goal is most likely to flush out the top sellers and replace their
goods with amazons own brand.

------
AFascistWorld
There will only be items of cheesy quality, super high profit margin and
excellent marketing/SEO left on Amazon, coz that's how online marketplaces
choose winners.

You may have noticed $BABA's high earnings numbers, the late stage leeching is
powerful.

Customers may miss the good old days that they could go to real retailers to
feel products in person and still have the power to make brands care what they
want.

------
kwhitefoot
They are neither unable nor unwilling. The mixing of different sellers
inventories shows that they do what they do quite deliberately.

~~~
0xffff2
That would be "unwilling".

~~~
kwhitefoot
Yes, I don't know what happened there, sort of a high level typo.

------
floatingatoll
Should Amazon be required to perform authenticity and safety on { none of, a
few of, some of, a random sample of, all of } the items listed on their
marketplace?

Whole Foods often (always?) audits the supply chain of their products.
Farmers’ markets sometimes audit the supply chain of their booths. Flea
markets and eBay never do.

What burden of audit should be placed upon Amazon?

------
MaupitiBlue
I don’t get it.

I had about 150 purchases last year. Toothbrushes, Apple Watch bands, hard
drives, diapers, truffles, pasta, foot massagers, hats, books, etc.

I had 1 bad purchase. I bought a used Roomba 980 sold by Amazon. There was a
used 680 in the box. Amazon apologized and sent a brand new 980 the next day.

Am I some sort of uberresultsfilter, or do the whiners just get way too much
attention?

~~~
visarga
Depends on the seller. That's the whole point - they make it hard to know if
you can trust or not the seller.

~~~
techntoke
I have a very simple bookmark let that only shows items sold by Amazon.com
without having to filter by category. I think part of the issue is that their
site UI is pretty horrendous, and makes it difficult to limit searches. I do
however notice issues with some items sold by them, but primarily with
descriptions being incorrect or them combining a bunch of items with reviews,
sometimes for completely unrelated products. I personally try to avoid third-
party sellers for the most part. I would love to support smaller businesses,
but to be honest you're probably doing most third-party sellers a disservice
by buying on Amazon, especially if you think there is a possibility that
you'll return the item.

------
savrajsingh
It seems like the best way to get stuff changed at Amazon is to have the Wall
Street Journal send them feedback. WSJ is essentially doing free work for
amazon - “hey these products are not legit” “oh shucks, our bad, let’s remove
those, yea” “hey they reappeared,” “oh our bad let’s remove them again sry”.
clearly it’s not a priority for amazon...

~~~
hyperrail
I wouldn't say WSJ is doing "free" work for Amazon - subscriptions are very
expensive:

[https://store.wsj.com/shop/US/US/wsjussblds0919/](https://store.wsj.com/shop/US/US/wsjussblds0919/)

They are currently running a 2 months for $1 sale and a half off for 1 year
sale, but a digital subscription normally goes for $38.99 per month.

Oddly, it's a couple of dollars _cheaper_ per month to buy the print newspaper
and digital subscription together than to buy the digital sub alone.

------
MentallyRetired
Anyone else think this is on purpose? Now they can remove all third party
sellers from their platform and cite a trust & safety risk. They've been
neglecting sellers on the platform for a decade. Why else would the API be
absolutely ancient? A huge change is coming.

~~~
coldpie
> Now they can remove all third party sellers from their platform and cite a
> trust & safety risk.

If they remove third party sellers from their platform, I might go back to
buying things on Amazon.

------
sombremesa
Here's a similar thread from some time ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19741942](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19741942)

------
manbearpiggy
From my experience selling on Amazon, their vendor tools are absolute trash.
These days Amazon(retail) is just a centralised eBay, anyone can list
anything.

------
JVIDEL
I remember looking into startup ideas for an FBA venture and the forums being
incredibly sleazy most of the time.

That was years ago, no surprise this is the result.

------
tempsy
Interesting. I was looking into reselling a few things on the side on Amazon
just for fun, but found it nearly impossible to find any product that wasn’t
blocked for third-party sellers from selling.

------
simonebrunozzi
Not to sound pedantic, but I think it would be wise to always use "Amazon.com"
when talking about Amazon.com, instead of just Amazon.

~~~
0xffff2
Sounds pretty pedantic to me. I don't think anyone reading this headline would
confuse "Amazon.com" with the rain forest or the river.

------
sjg007
I’ve said this before but this will be Amazon’s downfall. Target and Walmart
have much better product quality control.

~~~
lotsofpulp
I opt for Target simply because Walmart has resellers too and I don’t feel
like wasting my time and effort filtering those out.

------
greenail
The simplest solution for the consumer is to just check the seller and to
avoid buying from sellers other than Amazon. No one is forced to buy from an
Amazon FBA or 3rd party seller. Amazon customer support generally has more
levers to help you out if you do have a problem.

~~~
0xffff2
This isn't possible anymore either. There are numerous reports that add up to
the fact that Amazon now co-mingles all inventory, theirs and third-party, for
a single product into a single bin.

~~~
greenail
can you provide a source?

~~~
0xffff2
From Amazon? Of course not. They haven't and likely won't admit to it. You can
find 2-3 top level comments in this thread alone that cite their own examples
of this happening. Similar stories crop up every single time anyone mentions
the Amazon marketplace for at least a year now.

------
sporkologist
Well duh, if they did then Bezos wouldn't have $zillions in the bank.

------
taneq
*its

------
tomohawk
It's not surprising that the various states insisted on collecting sales tax
from online sales. Free money! We don't have to do anything! We get it because
we're the government!

But, the states have been derelict in their duty to protect and apply the well
established protections they insist other stores comply with.

Collecting taxes is not a free lunch. It comes with serious responsibilities.

It's telling that the states are not clamoring to take on these
responsibilities. If they are unwilling or unable to take up these
responsibilities, then they should not be collecting the taxes.

------
EGreg
Policing at scale is difficult, as YouTube and Facebook have learned.

Small communities are far easier to police. But to do it pre-emptively with AI
is an open problem. My interest is how can we make a system that will reliably
converge in most cases to what’s true, like Wikipedia? It would be GREAT to
have it for making sense collaboratively of news, politics, religion. People
submit claims/evidence and each one has its own page.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiality_and_Othe...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiality_and_Other_Tripling_Elephants)

What is the incentive model? One I thought of is that you gain reputation
points linearly but lose them exponentially in high-stakes challenges. The
question is who can resolve a challenge one way or the other. And whether the
result is immutable or can swing back if it turns out eg that the challenge
was swayed by a coordinated effort.

If it’s a static system there are always going to be increasingly
sophisticated attacks built on coordination (sybil attacks, sleepers). The
most basic attacks require a net gain in credits to be sustainable. Namely,
coordinated attacks (marauders) have to win challenges (and net positive
points). But later on, attacks can be paid for by trading outside currency (eg
BTC or USD) in exchange for using internal credits (“aged accounts”) in
“vandalism” actions (attacks which do not gain credits but may even lose them,
but are sustained by outside gain).

This is an issue for the source of truth for cryptocurrency as well, but at
least the data is very well defined, and there doesn’t seem to be a huge gain
from vandalism (except shorting). National elections in the US also have
similar things for ballot counting. On Amazon and the sites I’m talking about,
we are referencing outside events instead of internal processes. Wikipedia
seems to have the most successful model w human editors of various kinds
watching over the result.

Is there published research on the game-theoretic aspects of maintaining
integrity of collaboratively edited information about the external world?

------
derefr
It seems like the main problem everyone has with Amazon is their curation. Or,
to put it more amusingly, “they have too much stuff!” (They have the good
stuff you want, but it’s buried in bad stuff that you don’t, too.)

Is this really Amazon’s problem to solve, though? Or is this just a symptom of
a bad value-chain ecosystem? Shouldn’t other players be cropping up to be
external “shopping search engines” that find you the real, quality items on
Amazon’s (and other stores’) huge junk-piles, the way that Google finds you
real, quality web pages among the junk-pile that is the web?

Sure, it’d be _nice_ if Amazon solved the problem itself. But I don’t see a
reason that it _has_ to be the one to solve the problem. Amazon can just
provide infrastructure to allow anyone to sell anything, and then someone else
can build “retail experiences” on top. Just like AWS isn’t trying to be
Salesforce with a full platform experience.

~~~
0xffff2
Of course it's Amazon's problem to solve. I am, generally speaking, no longer
and Amazon customer because they've chosen not to solve it. Amazon's search
functionality is the least of their problems. The fundamental issue with
Amazon right now is that even if I only buy "ships and sold by Amazon.com"
items, I'm still at a high risk (depending on product category) of receiving a
fraudulent item that originated with a third-party seller. That's a problem
that no one buy Amazon can solve.

