41–50 of 56 posts
No reason to link to blogspam. The actual release of information is here: https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazon-project-zer...
So, how will this help with things like fake SD cards? Those are usually sold unbranded, but are still faker than fake. IMHO, it's not a good compromise to push the responsibility for fake-detection onto brands and manufacturers. Small makers might not have the resources to effectively police Amazon's massive inventory , and some brands might abuse this power to squash smaller competitors. It's really Amazon's job to…
So, how will this help with things like fake SD cards? Those are usually sold unbranded, but are still faker than fake. IMHO, it's not a good compromise to push the responsibility for fake-detection onto brands and manufacturers. Small makers might not have the resources to effectively police Amazon's massive inventory , and some brands might abuse this power to squash smaller competitors. It's really Amazon's job to…
Small makers might not have the resources to effectively police Amazon's massive inventory, and some brands might abuse this power to squash smaller competitors. I just bought a small physical device/tool for a particular task. (Magazine reloader.) Apparently, this small niche manufacturer has serious problems with Chinese knock-offs. However, all of the knock offs could be found with a simple generic search on Amazo…
That's only one class of knock off, and the easiest kind to police.
> If they are operating at a pace where they get quantity wrong, just who at Amazon is going to take the time to inspect items and distinguish the fakes?
That's a really weird assertion, since Amazon's current practices are totally irrelevant. It also makes no sense to talk about order pickers being the key part of any solution.
Amazon has total freedom to reform its business practices in all relevant parts of its organization to solve this problem, and I would argue it's their responsibility. Those changes would likely not be at the order fulfillment level, but at the SKU creation/inventory acquisition/seller account approval level.
Personally, I think Amazon should completely separate Amazon Marketplace from their main online store, and push it onto an entirely different site that's excluded from searches by default. Then they should rework the FBA into a program that has very high standards and accountability, and make it the only way 3rd party sellers can get things listed on the main Amazon site.
This has existed for the better part of 4 years BTW. No idea why it’s suddenly newsworthy - slow week?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you are describing is quite orthogonal to brands: it is simply fraud, ie selling something with specs that you know are bogus. I've seen it called "false advertising" too. That is exactly what a brand is supposed to protect you against: if a reputable brand is caught doing this, it won't take long for its reputation to go down the drain. You won't see many reputable brands engage in this, and that also explains…
There's a lot of confusion about various types of more or less dishonest market behavior. I get downvoted every time I point out that it makes no sense to call bootleg books and movies "counterfeit". There are a few problems a listing might have: - Product not as advertised. - Product as advertised, but not made by the asserted manufacturer. - Product as advertised, but vendor doesn't have the legal right to sell it.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a lot of confusion about various types of more or less dishonest market behavior. I get downvoted every time I point out that it makes no sense to call bootleg books and movies "counterfeit". There are a few problems a listing might have: - Product not as advertised. - Product as advertised, but not made by the asserted manufacturer. - Product as advertised, but vendor doesn't have the legal right to sell it.…
> defrauds the customer without the customer suffering harm How does that work? I don't think this position is defensible, and I also don't think this is what's happening: the customer is defrauded by bearing a risk they did not choose.
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That would require some better way of attaching identity for co-mingled inventory back to the actual entity that shipped it to Amazon. I don't know how much Amazon cares about it yet.
Amazon knows on each purchase which seller the inventory came from. If a report comes in that a specific purchase was fake, they can trace which seller shipped it. This isn't complicated.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Small makers might not have the resources to effectively police Amazon's massive inventory, and some brands might abuse this power to squash smaller competitors. I just bought a small physical device/tool for a particular task. (Magazine reloader.) Apparently, this small niche manufacturer has serious problems with Chinese knock-offs. However, all of the knock offs could be found with a simple generic search on Amazo…
> Furthermore, most of the knock offs really relied on also knocking off the branding of the original, so searching on the brand name very specifically found all of the knock offs. That's only one class of knock off, and the easiest kind to police. > If they are operating at a pace where they get quantity wrong, just who at Amazon is going to take the time to inspect items and distinguish the fakes? That's a really w…
What are the other classes of knock offs?
That's a really weird assertion, since Amazon's current practices are totally irrelevant.
I don't think it's weird at all. If Amazon is going to have human beings checking for knock-offs, they are going to have to look at physical items at one point. I have seen many complaints that in many cases, the original manufacturer's Amazon Fulfillment stocks are intermixed with the counterfeits. The people working knock-off policing are going to be running around the same space as the item runners. They are going to have high workloads. Why wouldn't Amazon's current practices be relevant?
Amazon has total freedom to reform its business practices in all relevant parts of its organization to solve this problem, and I would argue it's their responsibility. Those changes would likely not be at the order fulfillment level, but at the SKU creation/inventory acquisition/seller account approval level.
Why not start a competing online marketplace, with better policing of knock-offs? I think this is already happening, with niche manufacturers opting to sell on their own websites instead of selling on Amazon because of these problems. Whoever is offering fulfillment services to such businesses is effectively doing this. In the future, perhaps Amazon will once again declare, "Your margins are our opportunity," once again and move in to the niche. Perhaps one day Amazon will use this maneuver one too many times.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon knows on each purchase which seller the inventory came from. If a report comes in that a specific purchase was fake, they can trace which seller shipped it. This isn't complicated.
This is wrong; if it were true, Amazon wouldn't have such a huge problem. Amazon don't know which seller it's from if it's Fulfilled by Amazon comingled inventory. You can literally ship plastic bricks to Amazon with the right UPC codes on them, ask Amazon to return some of the inventory, and get back actual products with that code that were sent to Amazon by other sellers.
As long as they track which box contains which units it doesn't matter if they ship A's stock for B's sales or returns, they still know it was A's stock.