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Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

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Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#141

Post by criddell »

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…

Knockoffs aren't the only reason to not commingle. For example, maybe I start a business called "Fresh Batteries" where all batteries I sell have at least 2 years until expiry. I don't want those commingled because a battery with one year until expiry isn't bad, it just isn't what I'm selling.

My hypothetical batteries might be more expensive but depending on your needs, they might be a better value.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#142

Post by AnssiH »

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…

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

No direct additional cost.

But then you need to apply seller-specific FBA barcodes to all your units (or pay Amazon to apply them for $0.20 per unit).

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#143

Post by Ancalagon »

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.

Somewhat unrelated note to your unrelated note, make sure you delete your credit card details. Every time I left the CC saved in my profile, and I cancelled my membership and cancelled auto-renewal, I would magically be charged a month or two down the line for prime membership.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#144

Post by darksaints »

This isn't about comingling, even though it doesn't make it any better. It's about the fact that outside of Amazon's grocery-specific operations (Fresh, Prime Now, and Whole Foods), Amazon does not have a mechanism for FIFO or any form of decision making based on expiration date. All decisions are optimized purely on fulfillment costs alone. As far as I know (I've been out for three years now), they have no plans to change this, as it would increase their fulfillment costs.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#145

Post by gourabmi »

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…

I cancelled my Prime membership too. I realized that as long as I live in a city where everything is nearby, I don't need Prime that much.

For everything else, there is Walmart NextDay service.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#146

Post by QuotedForTruth »

crazygringo wrote: post #132
adrianmonk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Commingling (in this context) doesn't necessarily mean that the products are literally sitting in the same bin as the same product from another seller. Each seller's items could be kept in separate bins if put in the same warehouse. Then when one of that product is ordered, the picker is told to go to a specific bin to get it. Amazon would then still know which seller's product they sold you.

The actual advantage of commingling comes from the fact that amazon doesn't have to distribute every sellers items across the US. They can just send you one from the closest warehouse.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#147

Post by AnssiH »

crazygringo wrote: post #132
adrianmonk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The FAQ on seller help pages (at least in Europe) specifically says that they track commingled inventory by having their warehouse storage logic assign units from different sellers always into separate bins.

This article has comments from Amazon US spokesman who confirms it is the same over there: https://outline.com/4R7fp6

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#148

Post by nkrisc »

michaelt wrote: post #67
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 retailer…

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

Are you sure they're not counterfeit?

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#149

Post by brudgers »

ebg13 wrote: post #107
brudgers wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commingling isn't a problem with the complaints. Commingling reflects a deliberate profit motivated decision at the highest level of Amazon's management. Amazon executives have evaluated the health risks of commingling food. The safety risks of commingling electronics. They've calculated it more profitable to lawyer up when bad things happen.

> Commingling isn't a problem with the complaints. I think they mean that commingling necessarily eliminates the viability of merchant malfeasance analysis in reading reviews, not that the complainers did anything wrong. Just that you can't trust the products from even the most trustworthy shop because someone _else_ might be trying to cheat the marketplace. The review system applies to products, but mostly it applie…

Skip the spider. Big table. Borg. "Merchant malfeasance analysis" is simple. Amazon is the merchant. The other view is bullshit. Well promoted bullshit. But bullshit nevertheless.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#150

Post by nkrisc »

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... )

All Amazon reviews should be considered highly suspect by default, until determined otherwise.
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