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

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#121

Post by underbluewaters » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:09 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…

Because I've been an Amazon customer for over a decade, and for half of that time I could trust them to have reliable reviews, good products, and the best prices.

Old habits die hard, but I'm now at the breaking point.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#122

Post by froindt » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #72

dspillett wrote: post #34

A key problem with the complaints is that customer reviews don't† take into account the effect of commingling. The expired food might have come from a different seller initially, but you were sent it because of Amazon's supply line optimisations. Amazon will know but when you write your review or read someone else's, you won't. Same problem as counterfeit goods and commingling though iirc there are more control in pl…

I think the complaints are perfectly valid. If you sell something on Amazon I believe you can choose to not have your product commingled [1]. If you don't do this, then you are accepting the risk that comes with commingling. [1]: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/how-to-prevent-com...

Is there additional cost to not comingle? I can't find it mentioned after some searches.

I wonder, at what point would it be economical to pay the additional costs to not comingle product?

Would adding "For customer assurance, we do not comingle our product with other products sold on Amazon" yield additional purchases? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if nobody looks at your posting because it's 3-20% more exoensive than the knockoffs.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#123

Post by dbcurtis » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

Merrill wrote: post #43

chenning wrote: post #38

The more I think about it, the differences between Amazon and Walmart are much smaller than I once thought. They're both platforms upon which sellers can sell goods. One of the bigger differences seems to be quality assurance. More specifically, to what degree is each company burdened with that important responsibility? If some manufacturer put something unsafe into a food product, I would blame the manufacturer. See…

Amazon's sold and fulfilled by third-party is basically like buying on Ebay.

IOW, a more predictable experience than buying FBA.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#124

Post by vegardx » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

eric_b wrote: post #119

I canceled my Prime membership a few months ago. I never bought food on Amazon, but I received plenty of counterfeit or obviously used and broken items sold as new. I went back through my order history recently and it was over 10% of my orders in the last three years had issues. And I wasn't buying from the marketplace if I could help it. There are still some things I have to go through great lengths to buy other pla…

Somewhat unrelated, how long did it take you to figure out how to cancel your Prime membership? For me it took considerable effort, to the point where it started to be funny.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#125

Post by jcims » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #45

I don't get it: I've been buying Amazon prime for about 8 years now, and I don't encounter nearly the amount of problems that everyone else reports. Yes, I've gotten a few bad items from Amazon. I've also gotten bad items from brick and mortar stores as well. (I recently had a bunch of items go bad from Trader Joe's long before their sell-by date.)

Amazon has hundreds of millions of customers, the majority of which have experiences like yours (and mine). If you approach the Amazon marketplace with a modicum of common sense you'll generally be OK. And even when things go wrong, Amazon will (in my experience) bend over backwards to make it up to you.

I'm not saying they are perfect or even a good company overall. Just that scenarios like this generally fall below the noise floor and yet still get lots of press.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#126

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #101

not_a_cop75 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is the equivocal of the retail end. Any sufficient and provable complaint to Amazon will result in a refund.

I don’t want a refund, I want to support companies that use the right processes to save me time, but companies that choose to commingle to save the company a penny and cost me time are not worth supporting.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#127

Post by fortran77 » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:20 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #46

I definitely buy allergy pills off EBay that are close to expiry. But the vendors will state this. It’ll then take me another 4-5 years to go through the bottle of 500 :)

If people were selling expired or near expired items, clearly marked and identified, at deep discount, there would be little issue.

But that's NOT what we're talking about here. That's a different discussion.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#128

Post by worstestes » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:20 PM UTC

fourier_mode wrote: post #113

> For one Teavana listing, the top customer review says the tea had a “terrible chemical smell” possibly from spoiled fruit It seems like an exaggeration, the listing states that the product got a 4.5/5 rating.( https://www.amazon.com/Teavana-Beach-Bellini-2-lbs/dp/B07B3Q... )

FakeSpot apparently rates it as a "D" grade. Take that as you will though.

https://www.fakespot.com/product/teavana-beach-bellini-2-lbs

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#129

Post by dpark » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:20 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #114

dpark wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 problem, removing bad actors from the marketplace I have anecdata contrary to this. We used to buy gluten free bread from Amazon because of my son’s gluten allergy. It was a pain to buy locally so we would buy 4 loaves at a time f…

After you stopped having problems with the bread did you ever try to log in with another account and buy it with another credit card and send it to another address - I just wonder if the seller retooled and put in an array of accounts that must not be screwed over because they complain too hard. I guess I'm overly paranoid.

I absolutely did not do that. Who would?

It’s possible that what you’re describing happened, but I’m not investing the time and energy to try to “trap them” like this. I also don’t think it’s terribly likely. I believe it was also FBA so they don’t have control over what item gets sent to which customer.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#130

Post by michaelt » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

papln wrote: post #112

michaelt wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What's wrong with babyfood that must be consumed within 2 months. (And note that it doesn't turn toxic after it's expiration date, shelf-life for canned goods is far longer than stamped date.)

> What's wrong with babyfood that must be consumed within 2 months.

Maybe the customer saw a good deal, or had a visit from a rich relative who wanted to do something nice to help them out, and knowing the product lasts 6+ months, ordered a 3 month supply.

If the stuff that turns up has a shorter life than they expect, they're going to be disappointed which is bad for your reputation, and they may get a refund causing you to make a loss on the order.

The same applies to a loaf of bread or a pack of batteries or almost anything else with an expiry date.

Of course if you were explicitly listing the product as discounted due to short shelf life, and your website was clear enough users couldn't overlook that by accident, it's fine - but AFAIK Amazon doesn't have different listings for different shelf lives of the same product.

> And note that it doesn't turn toxic after it's expiration date

Sure, but there's a market rate for expired goods, and it's way lower than the market rate for non-expired goods. If you're selling expired goods to customers who thought they were getting non-expired goods, you're ripping them off and it's fair for them to want a refund.