Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#61

Post by thrower123 » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

philjohn wrote: post #19

donatj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Expired food is generally perfectly safe. The dates are quality indicators, not safety indicators. It’s just being wasteful. https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/how-to-tell-whet...

Except when it comes to baby formula, whilst it might be safe to consume, the various nutrients required by a growing baby start to degrade past the use by date so you run the risk of introducing defficiencies.

Baby formula in general is probably best not consumed, if there is any way around it. In the best cases it's not great, and there are so many horror stories of it being adulterated with garbage.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#62

Post by stagger87 » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

tjpaudio wrote: post #51

It's been my experience that nearly all items with expirations on amazon are either near the end of their shelf life or past it. Coffee, candy, supplements, whatever. It's very obviously used as a dumping ground. It's crazy to me that this isn't common knowledge by now.

I'll offer the counter anecdote. I've order thousands of food items off Amazon over several years and have had zero issues with expiration dates. I check any food item I think would cause me illness from being expired.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#63

Post by Merrill » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #40

Merrill wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reduces the risk, because more of the inventory will be genuine, returns are simpler, and you have "one throat to choke" if something is bad. You can reduce risk further by buying Amazon essentials or Amazon's own brands, such as Whole Foods brands.

Most people can more easily reduce risk by shopping somewhere else. Amazon shareholders should be asking management why they think the cost savings of commingling are worth the loss of brand value and trust. Higher income people don’t care about spending more money if it saves them time, so why waste that good will?

I've bought online from probably two dozen major retailers. Where to go depends on selection, price, availability and risk. On the other hand, I don't buy from small unknown vendors, either on their own site or via third-party aggregation.

I don't buy from small sketchy local stores either.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#64

Post by fasicle » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

Finnucane wrote: post #41

sdfsafsaf wrote: post #36

After so many stories and experiences with fakes, why would anyone still buy items in Amazon that are otherwise typically found in pharmacies or grocery stores? In my experience Amazon ships: Food that is expired or fake Drugs that are expired or fake Batteries that are expired or fake I've even received fake diapers! Very well done fakes too: we only noticed because of a very small logo that are included in the real…

>After so many stories and experiences with fakes, why would anyone still buy items in Amazon Or just this.

Still usually the fastest / most convenient way for me to get products in the U.K.

I've personally never had any issues with Amazon in terms of quality, but would never buy anything from them I put in my body - I usually stick to electronics of value < £100.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#65

Post by crazygringo » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

sdfsafsaf wrote: post #36

After so many stories and experiences with fakes, why would anyone still buy items in Amazon that are otherwise typically found in pharmacies or grocery stores? In my experience Amazon ships: Food that is expired or fake Drugs that are expired or fake Batteries that are expired or fake I've even received fake diapers! Very well done fakes too: we only noticed because of a very small logo that are included in the real…

Easy:

1) because your local store doesn't have it (stores run out of things like the specific shampoo or deoderant or detergent all the time, e.g. probably 2/3 of the time they have regular Tide but not Tide Unscented)

2) because depending on the item, it can be 30-50% cheaper on Amazon (drugstore prices in Manhattan are highway robbery), or

3) because you need another $5 or $10 item to meet the free shipping threshold, so might as well stock up on Q-tips because you'll need them eventually.

Also, expired/fake items are extremely rare, despite the media attention. In about a decade of ordering many, many hundreds of items on Amazon, I once received a counterfeit camera battery (which was quickly refunded) and once received a jar of nuts that was close to, but not at, its expiration. (I also try to order items sold by Amazon directly, and I've never personally been hit by a comingling issue.)

So... that's why.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#66

Post by jakebellacera » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

rietta wrote: post #22

This happened to us. My wife orders a lot of dog treats and human snacks on subscribe and save. They sent a package of nearly expired nut snack bars. Wife contacted customer service and they just sent another of the same. My wife is meticulous about checking sale by and it is a fight to keep her from throwing out recently expired foods. But I hadn't known a store to ship an expired product before this.

We had very expired dog food shipped to us from Amazon, and luckily Amazon was able to give us an instant refund, but that was enough to prevent us from buying foods and other perishables from them.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#67

Post by michaelt » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 2:17 PM UTC

sdfsafsaf wrote: post #36

After so many stories and experiences with fakes, why would anyone still buy items in Amazon that are otherwise typically found in pharmacies or grocery stores? In my experience Amazon ships: Food that is expired or fake Drugs that are expired or fake Batteries that are expired or fake I've even received fake diapers! Very well done fakes too: we only noticed because of a very small logo that are included in the real…

> why would anyone still buy items in Amazon that are otherwise typically found in pharmacies or grocery stores?

Presumably with the following logic:

* I went to Big Box Computer Store and they tried to charge me $$$ for a gold-plated Monster USB cable when I could get a perfectly good one for much less online.

* Therefore, there's precedent for me finding things online for a fraction of the price at big box retailers.

* Amazon has a pack of 8 Duracell-brand AA batteries for half the price of the nearest supermarket.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#68

Post by Jean-Philipe » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #13

A data analytics firm that specializes in the Amazon Marketplace recently analyzed the site’s 100 best-selling food products for CNBC and found that at least 40% of sellers had more than five customer complaints about expired goods. In other words, Amazon knows about the sellers who ship expired goods yet lets them continue to operate. It has the data and it still fails to take one of the easiest steps to address the…

Funny thing, my auntie once got banned for life from Amazon. She used to sell used books on Amazon (as "used", obviously) until she got one single complaint from a client. Even though the complaint was without basis, she offered him full refund while letting him keep the book. Still, she got banned by Amazon. They even banned the account of her husband, with no explanation and no possibility for recourse. She cannot ever sell anything ever again on Amazon, and she doesn't even know why.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#69

Post by Raphmedia » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

sdfsafsaf wrote: post #36

After so many stories and experiences with fakes, why would anyone still buy items in Amazon that are otherwise typically found in pharmacies or grocery stores? In my experience Amazon ships: Food that is expired or fake Drugs that are expired or fake Batteries that are expired or fake I've even received fake diapers! Very well done fakes too: we only noticed because of a very small logo that are included in the real…

> why would anyone still buy items in Amazon that are otherwise typically found in pharmacies or grocery stores?

Sometimes, it's comparing a one hour drive to the nearest town vs. waiting one day for free shipping.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#70

Post by crazygringo » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 2:21 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #54

amitport wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"more than five customer complaints" Five out of _? We should care about the proportion, and should consider some time decay (maybe the issues were a decade ago).

I work for a company that (among other things) sells food. The acceptable number of customers to send expired food is zero percent. It's not a complex or unusual requirement to make sure your goods are in-date - any properly designed warehouse management system will take care of this. This is absolutely table stakes if you're going to deliver food. Unopened baby formula has a shelf life of 6 months+ when properly sto…

Actually, genuine question: how do you do that technologically?

With multiple supplier deliveries that result in combined stock with multiple expiration dates, how do you ensure expired food isn't delivered?

Because I assume a warehouse doesn't keep a separate shelf spot for each separate delivery of a unique expiration date?

And also, the expiration dates are printed on products in places that can be hard to find and hard to read. (Every time I buy bacon or greens I spent sixty seconds trying to find where the hell the date is on the plastic.)

It's also generally not cost-effective on low-margin food items to print out and scan a unique label for each item that would allow the expiration date to be machine-readable.

So I've always just assumed new deliveries try to be put in a warehouse bin behind/under existing items, and workers try to check visually for expired items, but that neither of those will ever be perfect.

So what's the properly designed warehouse management system that solves for this?