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Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

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

#241

Post by bensonn »

Amazon is a TRILLION dollar company with 230 billion in Revenue and over 10 billion in Profits. Bezos himself is worth over 100 billion dollars. Amazon is a technology leader.

I normally am not a "wealth-hater" or whatever you want to call it, but Amazon (and Bezos personally) are on a whole different level. This is NOT a cash-strapped mom-and-pop struggling to understand a complex marketplace. This is a company so large it created and controls the marketplace. Depending on the day, this could be the most valuable company in the world and Bezos is the richest person on the planet. There are few, if any, companies with more skills, knowledge and resources.

The magnitude of the existing wealth in comparison to the relative pittance it would cost to put a stop to this it what makes it so shameful.

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

#242

Post by mcv »

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #165
alok-g wrote: post #163

Amazon's position and efforts against counterfeits: https://www.aboutamazon.com/our-company/our-positions

Wow. Are they fucking serious? They blame federal law for not prosecuting counterfeiters instead of themselves for allowing them to run rampant on their website? (i.e. They want the federal government to do their house-cleaning for them.) I never thought I'd read such a dumb excuse from a company this big.

I blame federal law for not prosecuting Amazon for selling so many counterfeit products. Amazon is the one selling them. They are responsible for ensuring they deliver the product that the buyer is paying for, and not some cheap knock-off

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

#243

Post by RankingMember »

gdy wrote: post #222
nextos wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point I was using Amazon for almost all shopping. Obviously daily is an oxymoron, but it'd happen several times a month. I can identify grey market items easily. Buy an item in Amazon UK of product X and get version packed to be sold in Italy (with all labels in Italian) or Russian (with all labels in Russian), instead of the UK version. This is because some smart supplier is doing arbitrage.

You might want to look up the definition of 'oxymoron'

I'm thinking "exaggeration" was what he was looking for.

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

#245

Post by ryanmercer »

damontal wrote: post #238
ohgreatwtf wrote: post #94

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B452QQS/ Check this product out. It's made in a chinese guy's garage in northern california using equipment he imported in 2014. It doesn't have legitimate GMP or FDA licensing. This is the kind of problem we are talking about. And the issue is worse than it appears, just as toast0 mentioned, because the same exact product with same product page and AMAZON barcode, NO UPC, is also…

>It's made in a chinese guy's garage in northern california using equipment he imported in 2014. There's nothing on that link that indicates this. So either you're making it up or back up your statement.

It's probably their listing, Amazon factors in product views in the search ranking and if you suddenly start getting a bunch of people clicking...

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

#246

Post by astura »

ikeboy wrote: post #175
astura wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's lots of warnings about that, and virtually no one actually experiencing it. Generic complaints typically come from customer complaints. Customers complain even when the product is authentic. There's nothing in your story to suggest commingling is the issue. Phantom inventory is an issue, usually arising when someone else's units were checked into your inventory. There's always a record of that, and you should…

>virtually no one actually experiencing it

By "virtually no one" you mean "virtually everyone." Because what I described is very common. I've experienced it and I sell very little on Amazon - less than 100 sales a year. Less than 50 items a year in the past several years.

>you should report the discrepancy to Amazon.

How about you actually pay attention to people's experiences before discounting them? The author of the blog post I linked to literally reported the issue to Amazon and Amazon insisted the massive amount of inventory was theirs. It would be easy to see that it wasn't merely by looking at the weight of what was shipped (among other very obvious things...). Since they can't get their heads out of their ass enough to do that (or simply not check in the same shipment twice and double count that inventory), I'm not believing they have much inventory source tracking going on.

Amazon may think they are doing a great job tracking inventory but the facts say otherwise.

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

#247

Post by patentatt »

beerandt wrote: post #45
mariomariomario wrote: post #24

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 why, IMHO, Walmart will eventually win this aspect of the online shopping war. Supply chain control. Amazon may continue to dominate AWS and even the 3rd party marketplace, but they've already ruined their brand reputation as a supplier. Edit: Sold and shipped 3rd party marketplace may survive.

Surprised nobody has mentioned Target here. It’s not quite as broad as Amazon or Walmart, but for what they carry I’m under the impression their inventory control is superior to the other two. It’s not a marketplace, and AFAIK they don’t drop-ship or commingle inventory.

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

#248

Post by theaccordance »

My business partners and I had a satire book published through Amazon's platform for a couple years. This past spring the book gained some viral traction thanks to Unilad (or similar site - I forget which), but that attention led to copycats submitting a takedown notice on the book before republishing our book as their own.

The appeal process was a complete joke; we had to get a lawyer involved to get Amazon to release the royalties it withheld because of the take-down.

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

#249

Post by dragonwriter »

mcv wrote: post #197
mariomariomario wrote: post #24

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…

It might be the result of a clever trick by Amazon, but it makes Amazon directly responsible for selling fakes. Even without this, Amazon should be taking more responsibility to fight counterfeit products, but with this, they're making themselves directly responsible, and I don't see how they're not criminally liable now. Instead of hoping for Amazon to make this slightly less bad, I think legal action is called for…

> I don't see how they're not criminally liable now.

Amazon's protection against state action has always been that it offers a good enough return experience that people will turn to it rather than public authorities with problems. It's not a legal shield so much as a practical one, though.

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

#250

Post by nkrisc »

danso wrote: post #3

I just ordered a carbon monoxide detector from Amazon, supposedly shipped from the manufacturer. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t immediately think of Amazon’s many counterfeit scandals before ultimately ordering it as I do most things, out of habit. Still, this is a thing for which silent failure is catastrophic, so maybe I’ll send it back tomorrow.

I wouldn't trust my life with Amazon's inventory practices, given their track record.
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