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Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

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Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#271

Post by bambax »

crazygringo wrote: post #114

Is there anyone here who can shed some light as to why ? It's impossible for me to believe that it's part of Amazon's strategy to encourage, or even allow, counterfeits -- it might be fine for a smaller company, but it appears to be doing real brand damage at this point. Yet Amazon shows no signs of stopping it -- this has been going on for years. Is it just a really hard problem for some reason that isn't obvious? (…

Because Amazon wants to have the best price overall for each product, and the way to do it is to have many sellers competing on price alone for each product.

Then commingling is just a logistics trick, it makes inventory more liquid and so lowers costs and shortens delivery time.

Amazon likes to think of itself as the arbiter of a fair marketplace between sellers. It's not that they don't care, it's that they are proud of doing things the way they are.

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#272

Post by sitkack »

Finnucane wrote: post #233
sitkack wrote: post #158

I bough a counterfeit copy of Horowitz and Hill's, "The Art Of Electronics". I didn't realize a) I bought from a 3rd party b) that it was counterfeit until outside of the 30 day window? I called Amazon about it, asking for a refund and they were pretty flat about the "No, we won't take it back, you have to talk to the seller."

A counterfeit Horowitz and Hill? Is nothing sacred? But srsly, I was just eyeing the new third edition. Thanks for the warning!

Huge warning on their homepage now, http://artofelectronics.net/ I saved $20 and got a totally poop copy.

Amazon even shows that I purchased this version, https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521... for this price, but mine was sloppy copy.

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#273

Post by bambax »

user5994461 wrote: post #244
double0jimb0 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturers selling direct via ecommerce is a very new phenomenon (last 10 years). Before Amazon, there was an entrenched network of distributors and exclusive contracts in both directions of the supply chain. Amazon has busted this wide open. It is important to understand that FBA largely pushes the administration and supply chain overhead down to small time individual resellers, utilizing their willingness to do…

Not exactly accurate. There is eBay that is a big player and allows anyone to distribute products. These days 90% of sales are done by professional in fix price format (not an auction). eBay has a proper reputation system, sellers are clearly identifiable and so is the location of the product. Amazon doesn't do any of that on purpose.

Well sure, but AFAIK eBay doesn't do fulfillment so there's no possible issue of commingling, etc.

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#274

Post by nommm-nommm »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #72
Lasher wrote: post #4

I purchased Quickbooks Pro 2017 (PC) on Amazon last week, said it was "sold by Intuit" so wasn't even supposed to be an FBA (fulfilled by Amazon). Figured if it costs no more I might as well get the physical disk. What showed up was a DVD case with a very clearly photocopied cover for a Mac version with a Verbatim CDR inside and a hacked version of the software. Amazon processed the refund just fine but didn't seem p…

Amazon isn't going to take this seriously until a major company gets burned and the FBI gets involved. Then Amazon will experience what every other company does that gets burned for selling counterfeit goods... the FBI will raid their warehouse and hold all the inventory as evidence until they complete their investigation. Like you said, Amazon doesn't seem concerned that they're selling counterfeit goods -- probably…

Amazon seems to be untouchable. They didn't even get in any trouble for selling illegal and prescription drugs but Bodybuilding.com did.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/amazon-prescription-drug-proble...

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...

https://www.fda.gov/iceci/criminalinvestigations/ucm305494.h...

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#275

Post by bambax »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #120
crazygringo wrote: post #114

Is there anyone here who can shed some light as to why ? It's impossible for me to believe that it's part of Amazon's strategy to encourage, or even allow, counterfeits -- it might be fine for a smaller company, but it appears to be doing real brand damage at this point. Yet Amazon shows no signs of stopping it -- this has been going on for years. Is it just a really hard problem for some reason that isn't obvious? (…

Amazon is likely stats blinded: their internal metrics say "all good", so they ignore the stories people are telling as anecdotes without ever doing the analysis on how often those "anecdotes" happen. Further, that their stats are ungrounded (not tied to any hard-to-attack real world tests) and fail to capture data which would demonstrate the issue. I believe the FBA and FMA teams are a fundamental blunder opposed to…

From the outside, Amazon projects an image of utter-efficiency and professionalism, but the reality is different.

I've been a seller for about 6 months (in Europe) and their systems are quite bad.

When you call support, most of the time the person on the phone, while very polite and "competent sounding", gives you advice that does the opposite of what they say it will do. When you point it to them they say "hmm, let me check" or "I'll get back to you" and then you talk to an "expert" who many times isn't sure either of what to do.

The problem is not that support is incompetent; the problem is nobody's sure how the system actually works, because it's too complex with too many layers added on top of one another.

I really think the system was built for a much smaller operation with fewer sellers, and it is now stretching beyond capacity. They have a huge team of people maintaining it but that only goes so far.

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#276

Post by bambax »

zaroth wrote: post #239
throwaway049 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the OP, but I am suspicious of most of the sellers being 'just launched' or having very few instances of feedback. Also the seller names don't look like anything I would pick it I wanted to name my business.

What, you mean "Cockers in Larsworld" with two 5-star reviews isn't your first choice retailer to buy this $50 pillow from for $2.78? If that's not your style, you could always shop with "HOLE'S HUMAN ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGISTS" and pay $8.07. Wow, seriously that is insane.

Wow, I hadn't noticed the sellers' names, thanks for the laugh.

Amazon's crazy to let that happen with zero oversight.

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#277

Post by bambax »

kveykva wrote: post #80
new299 wrote: post #30

Counterfeit products seem to becoming a near universal problem. It's not just amazon, but other marketplaces (eBay, taobao etc). Even seems like major electronic component suppliers fall foul of this sometimes (digikey). I can really only see three solutions: 1. We just buy everything direct from the supplier. Companies like amazon manage distribution. 2. We provide tools to allow the consumer to track the supply cha…

This is actually exactly what our company (assembly.com - YCS15) does. We're now at the stage where we provide effectively a full supply chain solution. It works like this: 1. Product company has an issue like this and contacts us 2. We work with the factory, setup our quality control hardware+software. 3. The product company defines all of the procedures for validating that a product works and is legitimate. All of…

Interesting! At what price point (for the end user) does this start to make sense?

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#278

Post by scurvy »

cookiecaper wrote: post #60
new299 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubiuiti products seem really nice. However I've heard many bad things about their management culture. I really don't get how you can get fake product into you own fulfillment chain. But I guess if you sign off on fake invoices that could happen. :)

I'm assuming it happened when buying from their FBA store. That would happen because they didn't tick the box preventing Amazon from commingling inventory and someone else listed a fake "Ubiquiti router".

This happened outside of Amazon. Counterfeit product literally made it into their distributor's warehouses and was sold as legit. It's well-known, look it up on $search_engine: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ubiquiti-plunges-on-struggl...

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#279

Post by scurvy »

new299 wrote: post #56
scurvy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even #1 isn't 100% safe. Ubiquiti had counterfeit product get mixed into their own fulfillment chain. Let me repeat that, they had counterfeit product make its way into their own fulfillment chain, which was then sold legitimately to customers. Then again, this is the same company that fell prey to Nigerian spammers. Wouldn't go near any of their products as they definitely have some roomtemp IQ's in that joint.

Ubiuiti products seem really nice. However I've heard many bad things about their management culture. I really don't get how you can get fake product into you own fulfillment chain. But I guess if you sign off on fake invoices that could happen. :)

If you're dumb enough to fall prey to Nigerian scammers to the tune of $39M....

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#280

Post by scurvy »

new299 wrote: post #56
scurvy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even #1 isn't 100% safe. Ubiquiti had counterfeit product get mixed into their own fulfillment chain. Let me repeat that, they had counterfeit product make its way into their own fulfillment chain, which was then sold legitimately to customers. Then again, this is the same company that fell prey to Nigerian spammers. Wouldn't go near any of their products as they definitely have some roomtemp IQ's in that joint.

Ubiuiti products seem really nice. However I've heard many bad things about their management culture. I really don't get how you can get fake product into you own fulfillment chain. But I guess if you sign off on fake invoices that could happen. :)

Software support longevity can be iffy on certain product lines. Maybe 1 update, but not much beyond 6 months.
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