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Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

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Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#171

Post by diebeforei485 »

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…

The seller is still Amazon. If Amazon chooses to "optimize" by shipping third-party garbage instead, that is their problem.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#172

Post by FireBeyond »

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…

So, effectively, you want to allow Amazon to offer a surcharge to "(help) minimize the risk of you buying counterfeit items"??

Also, if you are producing counterfeit items, presumably your costs are lower, so you're actually _better_ equipped to absorb the "no comingle" surcharge than the legitimate seller.

Talk about perverse incentives and enabling.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#173

Post by rwmurrayVT »

zaroth wrote: post #120
rwmurrayVT wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Book selling is an insane market on Amazon. I ran a used bookstore on Amazon with 380 positive reviews and 1 negative review over the last 12 months. The sellers are cut-throat. They're all trying to sell something they got from a thrift store for $0.50 on Amazon to make $3. Amazon intentionally allows "acceptable" books to take the buy box over "very good" just based on price and seller feedback. If you end up selli…

As a buyer sometimes the deals are absurdly good. For example got my daughter a hardcover Harry Potter Cursed Child for $3 Like New, and that included next day delivery. Shows up as described, and I just saved $15. I’m slightly ashamed to admit I was actually at BN at the time where they were selling it for $30. But I did spend $100 during that trip, on books that were comparably priced to Amazon. I assume Cursed Chi…

Repricers often go awry. If you bought it FBA then they could have repricing software set to match lowest FBA price, but the available repricing API only returns 20 lowest. If there aren't any FBA then you'll get the MF. The whole system is a mess.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#174

Post by FireBeyond »

QuotedForTruth wrote: post #146
crazygringo wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

That takes up more warehouse space, which is what Amazon is trying to avoid. Much easier to put it all into one big bin, and if you want, they can charge you to have your own bin.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#175

Post by FireBeyond »

Jean-Philipe wrote: post #68
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…

Right. I got very sick once, and was 2 days late shipping an item (a camera lens). That one complaint was enough to get me banned forever. I had offered in my response to say I was willing to be "required to use FBA" for all sales from the future forward, and they weren't interested. There was no complaint about the product, just that it arrived 2 days late (and I -had- messaged the buyer before that to advise).

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#176

Post by stagger87 »

tjpaudio wrote: post #160
stagger87 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Expiration vs. freshness. When I buy coffee or anything at a supermarket, the expiration date is about as far into the future as you can get. When I order on amazon, it's always much shorter. Coffee is a great example. It's usually months fresher if I buy in store. Not an issue per-say but you are totally buying the end of life stuff.

Going by the expiration and sell by dates on my goods from Amazon I am not.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#177

Post by heavyset_go »

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?

If Walmart sells something tainted with lead, heads will roll. Walmart bears liability for the things they sell on their shelves.

If Amazon sells something tainted with lead, we get a bunch of corporate apologia about co-mingling and nothing changes.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#178

Post by FireBeyond »

tzs wrote: post #154
adrianmonk wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How close the expiration date is matters. Let's say the snack bars come in a package of 10 and the expiration date is 2 days from now. Do you want to be forced choose between eat 5 bars a day or throwing some of them out? If the alternative is to buy them from some other source that will give you a package that doesn't expire for 2 months (for the same price, all other things being equal, etc.), then that is indeed a…

> Let's say the snack bars come in a package of 10 and the expiration date is 2 days from now. Do you want to be forced choose between eat 5 bars a day or throwing some of them out? With the exception of infant formula, the dates on food products are not expiration dates. They are sell-by, use-by, or best-by dates. Sell-by dates tell when the store should remove the product. If you buy the item by then, and consume i…

I'm not paying full retail price for the "just isn't as good", "should be fine" variant.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#180

Post by octokatt »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #171
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…

The seller is still Amazon. If Amazon chooses to "optimize" by shipping third-party garbage instead, that is their problem.

And they should still be able to be held liable for what they ship.

If I get salmonella from lettuce at a grocery store, I still get to hold the grocery store accountable, even if the farmer was to blame.

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