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Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

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Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is simply not true in this case. All I need to get twitter readable with no-script is this ublock origin rule: ! 7/24/2019 https://twitter.com twitter.com##form.NoScriptForm The data (tweets) are there already, they just intentionally hide it.

Could you please explain how you add that (those?) rules to uBlock Origin? I use UBO to block js across the web by default and would like to include twitter but their "no-js" site is garbage.

left click > options > filters

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#152
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add most electronics, IMO, especially things like memory cards and hard drives.

I bought a hard drive from Amazon about four years ago. It came in a large cardboard box half full of packing paper. The unprotected drive was rattling round in the empty half of the box. Never again. That's the last thing I bought there.

I've had the opposite experience. Hard drives from Amazon have been in factory-original packaging (involving a lot of foam) whereas hard drives from Newegg have been in plastic clamshells rattling around in the box. In fact, 100% of hard drives I've ordered from Newegg have failed. (The replacements received from the manufacturer were packed like the drives I've gotten from Amazon.)

I think the TL;DR is that resellers are clueless about how the products they sell work. No doubt in my case Newegg got a big box of them designed for OEMs that were putting them in fully-built computers, but instead shipped them out individually. Maybe it's because they don't care, or maybe it's because someone made a mistake. Either way, it's annoying.

I am surprised people aren't selling fake m.2 SSDs yet, like they do with SD cards.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a hard drive from Amazon about four years ago. It came in a large cardboard box half full of packing paper. The unprotected drive was rattling round in the empty half of the box. Never again. That's the last thing I bought there.

I've had the opposite experience. Hard drives from Amazon have been in factory-original packaging (involving a lot of foam) whereas hard drives from Newegg have been in plastic clamshells rattling around in the box. In fact, 100% of hard drives I've ordered from Newegg have failed. (The replacements received from the manufacturer were packed like the drives I've gotten from Amazon.) I think the TL;DR is that reseller…

Both Amazon and Newegg are marketplaces, and at least Amazon has commingling issues which can obscure the actual source from the customer, even when you think you are buying direct from Amazon.

It's possible the differing experiences reflect different actual sources on the same marketplaces.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#154
post #2

As an aside, why does nearly every Twitter link take you to a page not found thus requiring a reload? This is a terrible user experience that should be easy to fix.

Firefox on iOS simply won’t show me Twitter any more, even in private mode. Always says “something went wrong,” no matter how many times I reload. Oh well, didn’t need it anyway.

I think it has something to do with their cookie requirements. Not too sure, I just stopped opening Twitter links rather than debugging why I couldn't load their contents anymore.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#155

I have also noticed a decline of book quality since a few years ago. I'm not a frequent buyer but I noticed that two books that I purchased were either not clearly cut or have ALL characters badly printed. Both were purchased directly from Amazon. I'm really reluctant to purchase any $50+ technical books from Amazon nowadays. I mean it does have some decent discount but the probability to get a low quality book is to…

I don't know if I'll buy any more technical books anymore, even in electronic form. O'Reilly doesn't sell e-books directly, which made me mad. You can get their subscription service, or buy the paper version. I ended up buying the book I wanted from Google.

> O'Reilly doesn't sell e-books directly, which made me mad. You can get their subscription service, or buy the paper version.

On the plus side, all my technical book purchases are work expenses, and even though I only read the e-book versions, I can stock the shelf in my office with books that make it look like I'm reading Impressive Technical Things.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#156
post #36

This happens because Amazon allows inventory commingling. For example Amazon has their own, legitimate inventory in a West Coast warehouse, and a third party seller has the same inventory with the original UPC manufacturer bar code on it, sitting in an East Coast warehouse. Amazon considers this 1:1 inventory. Amazon will debit their inventory on the West Coast, and credit the inventory that belongs to the third part…

This is sadly so true. I have stopped using Amazon after 15 years due to the unacceptably high rate of counterfeit, grey market or used items I got on a daily basis. It's totally insane. I have even emailed Jeff Bezos and got into the trouble of talking to all middle managers. They don't care.

I went from 90% of my online orders at amazon to maybe 35%. Some things have always sucked, liked clothes.

Thanks to software like Shopify, ordering from other e-commerce sites is pretty painless now. When you factor in finding the product, many sites are now more convenient to order from than Amazon.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#157
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, except it doesn't help the problem at hand. The problem at hand being that people are still receiving counterfeit products in the meantime. Knowing how Seller Performance works, they aren't about to close off a listing that is doing $nn-K revenue per month because of a couple of copyright reports. The economics simply don't make sense for Amazon to poison the inventory of a seller because of a couple of…

Yes, but that's a problem with or without commingling. My point was that commingling doesn't contribute significantly to the counterfeit problem. Regarding your points: 1. Amazon takes action when a brand complains, even with only a single complaint. Sellers have to prove the complaint is wrong to be allowed to continue to sell the product, or in some cases to be reinstated. Usually this is done by providing an invoi…

>1. Amazon takes action when a brand complains, even with only a single complaint.

The owner of No Starch Press shows up at a lot of CS shows and other shows. Next time you are at one, seek him out for a chat. Tell him Anazon takes action after a single complaint. Be prepared for him to disabuse you of your misconceptions.

Source: I heard his story first-hand at PyCon.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#158
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But without Amazon doing their own QC there is no way to say it is the same product. You should at least be able to see reviews based on the supplier and pick the supplier you will be fulfilled by. But I suspect that would ruin their whole 2-day/1-day shipping bit.

They do QC: sellers that have too many complaints get kicked off.

If they wait for complaints, that's not amazon doing the QC, it's the client.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#159
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can’t identify which seller your product came from. That’s the whole problem here.

But when you return the defective product, Amazon can see what seller it came from.

Are you sure about that? I thought part of the whole incentive for commingled inventory was that Amazon no longer kept track of it separately per vendor and just lumped it all into the same bin without a unique serial number.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#160
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon knows which seller sent in the inventory for every order, so they know to punish the right seller when a complaint comes in. Huuuuge citation needed. It’s precisely because of comingling that they don’t have the ability to do this: they put multiple sellers goods, including their own, in the same storage bins, provided they have the same UPC. By what means do you suggest they can distinguish Seller A’s widge…

I link to it every single thread like this, but here goes: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/200141480?... "For inventory tracked with the manufacturer barcode, each seller’s sourced inventory of the same ASIN is stored separately in our fulfillment centers. We can also track the original seller of each unit." Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20549623 , https://news.ycombinat…

It's not a misconception - they claim to track inventory source, but I don't believe it for a second. There are warnings all over seller blogs and forums not to commingle inventory because you'll be held responsible if Amazon sends another seller's counterfeit product to a buyer on your behalf. People have experienced this en mass - including myself, I was dinged for selling a "generic" item instead of the name brand item while I actually sent in the correct name brand item. It was a Ninja blender. It seems to happen to every seller who commingles eventually.

On top of that I once sent in a box of items that was checked in twice several weeks apart. Amazon sold double the inventory I sent them on my behalf and paid me for the sales of products I never sent them. Stories of phantom inventory are common. It can get crazy - someone [1] sent in a shipment of four items and 72 were added to their inventory, which Amazon happily sold for them after checking with the fulfillment center and insisting that the inventory was correct. This sort of thing shouldn't happen if you're actually tracking inventory. Also, their system shouldn't allow a shipment to be checked in twice.

[1] http://www.orensmoneysaver.com/2016/06/turnover-tuesdays-ama...

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