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

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#131

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

Expired products I feel a lot less strongly about than counterfeit. Expired products have a label on them that the consumer can look at and check. As long as Amazon is honoring refunds, they are financially incentivized to do what makes sense to fix the issue.

If Amazon insisted on shipping an identical product out of a west coast fulfillment center to an east coast customer for which they had a fulfillment center 20 miles away holding the same SKU, they would not be able to offer the kind of service that they do.

“Comingling” is the fundamental basis for them to leverage their scale to provide unmatched service. It’s essential to their business model precisely because how enormously valuable it is to Amazon and to its customers, and the way it gets better with scale, despite the concomitant lesser inconveniences.

Fundamentally, Amazon still knows exactly which seller provided each buyer with each item, despite there being only a single shared product page. So they already have all the data, and of course they are using it internally to track per-seller review scores, refund rates, etc.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#132

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

adrianmonk wrote: post #110

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…

Commingling is bad, but does commingling mean they can't trace it back to which seller sent it to them for FBA? If they can, they can penalize that seller, not the other seller (who won the sale). I'm assuming Amazon has a unique id for every individual item in their warehouses. I'm not sure this is the case, but it seems likely given how their warehouses are organized and the location of stuff is very mixed up and o…

> but does commingling mean they can't trace it back to which seller sent it to them for FBA? If they can, they can penalize that seller...

Correct, they can't trace it, so they can't penalize.

> I'm assuming Amazon has a unique id for every individual item in their warehouses.

They don't. If they did, there would be some kind of unique bar code on every item you received from Amazon.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#133

Post by warent » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

vegardx wrote: post #124

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.

I canceled mine fairly easily a couple months ago. I can't remember exactly how, but it didn't seem particularly difficult. I do remember that they refunded the unused amount which was nice. Still though after being a prime member for like 3 or 4 years they've lost me as a customer since they allowed their platform to become an expensive Alibaba bloated with fake reviews.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#134

Post by not_a_cop75 » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:42 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.

What retail shop honestly saves you time? Does waiting in line at Walmart save you time? Yes, you have the option of checking the expiration in line, but is anyone really shopping at Walmart for the time savings?

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#135

Post by benologist » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

froindt wrote: post #122

criddell wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

You can't have a "not-illegal" version for 3 - 20% more. The solution is to hold Bezos to the same laws as all other businesses so Amazon has appropriate due diligence instead of creating a quasi-criminal organization. Relentlessly apply the law until Bezos is working within it.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#136

Post by ganoushoreilly » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

AaronNewcomer wrote: post #42

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…

It is different. This is talking about Amazon Marketplace sellers. It would be more similar to if Walmart set up a flea market with tents and stuff in its parking lot and let anyone rent a booth and sell whatever they wanted. Walmart would also provide a centralized cash register at the end of the parking lot where people could pay for the items they got from the individual sellers. Walmart would then settle up with…

Except in amazons case they take items from the tent sale and use it to augment their stocks in different warehouses so they can reduce shipping times. So in that instance it is the same thing regardless of “supplier middleman”.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#137

Post by ganoushoreilly » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:51 PM UTC

excalibur wrote: post #30

rietta wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not an expert in this, but I am aware from direct knowledge of businesses that collect recently expired foods (that are not yet spoiled - such as frozen) from grocery stores and transfers them to legal charities and food banks. There is a delta between sale by and unfit for human consumption.

I know at least one store that uses this as a business model. Food past its sell-by date can be acquired from grocers for little to nothing and resold at insanely cheap prices. The difficulty is in making sure your customers know what they're signing up for without loudly proclaiming that you're selling expired food.

This used to be the case with a lot of big lots and ollies stores. Not sure about it anymore, but you also see a lot of inner city / lower income area bodegas/ corner stores selling it too. One near me always has expired rap chips for sale. I eat them and they’re fine, but I knowingly take that risk.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#138

Post by lotsofpulp » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

not_a_cop75 wrote: post #134

lotsofpulp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What retail shop honestly saves you time? Does waiting in line at Walmart save you time? Yes, you have the option of checking the expiration in line, but is anyone really shopping at Walmart for the time savings?

Costco, for one. Based on their track record, I don't think twice about purchasing something from there or something branded Kirkland Signature. I know what I buy is decent quality at a decent price.

Target/Home Depot/Lowes also helps, I know what I buy from them doesn't come from a random reseller, and I don't have to filter through reseller garbage on their website either. They also have pickup in store options, as well as showing me where the items are in the store if I need to go find them. Also, I don't recall waiting in line more than a couple minutes.

I just happen to use those stores as an example, I'm sure many others offer the same benefits. Point is, I don't want to worry about counterfeit, commingled, and all that nonsense. I also know sometimes Amazon hides the option to only show items shipped and sold by Amazon.com, and based on their attempts to deceive me, I assume they intentionally break search to make it not as easy to find things.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#139

Post by Merrill » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #78

Merrill wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I try to buy directly from manufacturers, or Target or Costco. But Amazon lost the business my family used to give them. I’d go with Walmart before Amazon too.

Target same day pickup is good. Not a Costco member, so have only used the pharmacy.

Bought a microwave from Walmart that came in a severely damaged carton, although there were no dents or scratches. But the microwave died a few months later. Never again.

Besides, Walmart was a huge factor in killing the downtowns of many small and medium sized towns and cities.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#140

Post by dman » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

Merrill wrote: post #24

dman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does not mean anything because of commingling of inventory.

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.

My amazon purchases have dropped to nearly zero because I refuse to eat this inventory risk. This is Amazons problem to solve.