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

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#181

Post by heavyset_go » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 8:57 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.

If a company makes cancelling their service difficult, or tries to "auto-renew" your subscription after cancelling, call your credit card company to report that you want your to cancel that service and don't want further charges from them.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#182

Post by turtlebits » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #91

crazygringo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

> Because I assume a warehouse doesn't keep a separate shelf spot for each separate delivery of a unique expiration date? Actually, that's pretty much what we do. If the goods arrive from the supplier as a whole pallet of a single product, every item on the pallet will have the same expiry date, and you track each pallet separately. If the goods arrive on a pallet with a variety of products on it, you split it up by…

Unless you check each item, you don't actually know if the expiration date is correct. I don't see much difference in what you are doing vs Amazon, except that Amazon is getting their product from a various sources (which may be less trustworthy than your supplier).

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#183

Post by uwuhn » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 9:08 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…

It was recently cheaper for me to buy an over-the-counter medication through Amazon Prime Now than it was to buy it at an actual drug store in SF. It was like a $5 difference after tax and tip.

I was initially going to buy it on the way home, but I was so annoyed by how much it cost in store that I refused to buy it, even though the difference wasn't significant.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#184

Post by driverdan » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 9:10 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…

What did you order to have that many problems? I've never had any of the issues you've mentioned.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#185

Post by gamblor956 » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 9:10 PM UTC

eric_b wrote: post #117

crazygringo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thresho…

I'll match your anecdote with mine. Before I canceled Prime, 30% of my previous 10 orders were defective or counterfeit. 3 in 10. Before that it was trending a bit above 10%. I finally got sick of it and don't order anything from Amazon anymore.

I'll counter your anecdotes:

I've never had a defective or counterfeit order in more than 100+ orders on Amazon of electronics, household items, or foodstuffs. And yes, I've checked.

How do you avoid counterfeits, etc on Amazon?

Simple: never buy from a seller that isn't Amazon.com. They don't commingle their own inventory with third party sellers. Commingling is merely a "feature" they offer to other sellers.

They maintain their inventory separately for product liability law reasons. In a nutshell, if they don't under most US product liability laws, Amazon is strictly liable for all damages related to the use (including potentially misuse) of a defective product they sold.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#186

Post by adrianmonk » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

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.

A unique barcode on the item would be one way to do it, but not the only way.

For example, a common thing to do on conveyors is to have reusable open-top plastic bins called "totes". (Think of going through airport security where you stick your luggage items into a plastic tray or tub that sits on the conveyor as it goes through the x-ray machine.) The totes can have barcodes on them, which can be used to track whatever is inside the tote.

Amazon could use a system like that to individually track items as they're being moved on and off shelves. And while on the shelves, it could track items by position (a database saying this particular item is on that position of that shelf). By combining these two things, they could track the position of individual items without sticking barcodes on them.

I don't know whether Amazon actually does this. I'm just saying it's not impossible.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#187

Post by MiroF » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

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…

"Oh hey! Sorry I hit you with this car, what you've got to understand is that I was trying to optimize my way through this red light."

You can't "move fast and break things" if those things are basic food and safety regs.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#188

Post by Scaevolus » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

turtlebits wrote: post #182

michaelt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because I assume a warehouse doesn't keep a separate shelf spot for each separate delivery of a unique expiration date? Actually, that's pretty much what we do. If the goods arrive from the supplier as a whole pallet of a single product, every item on the pallet will have the same expiry date, and you track each pallet separately. If the goods arrive on a pallet with a variety of products on it, you split it up by…

Unless you check each item, you don't actually know if the expiration date is correct. I don't see much difference in what you are doing vs Amazon, except that Amazon is getting their product from a various sources (which may be less trustworthy than your supplier).

Since everyone in the chain cares about expiration dates, food manufacturers aren't in the habit of commingling products with different ages. Why wouldn't they ship a pallet that's all made at the same time?

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#189

Post by adrianmonk » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

dspillett wrote: post #116

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…

> If they can, they can penalize that seller, not the other seller (who won the sale). That is fine for complaints raised directly through the specific complaint channel(s). It doesn't help with complaints recorded as (or as part of) reviews, which might not have a corresponding official complaint. If I see mention of expiry dates and similar issues in reviews I don't have any assurance that this refers to the supply…

I see a LOT of product reviews that are really seller feedback, and I wish Amazon would fix this. They need to have it so that wherever the user happens to find themselves (product review page, order page, support page, etc.), they are guided toward leaving the right kind of feedback. Instead of relying on users to be really familiar with how Amazon works and find the right place on their own.

For example, on the product review page, right now they have a blank called "Write your review". Instead, they could require you to indicate what kind of feedback you're offering, giving choices like "review the product itself" and "review the performance of Joe Schmoe, the seller for order #1234 on date 456" and with no default selected. Or just give you two blanks labeled "product review" and "seller review".

You also raise another issue which is that there's baggage associated with raising an official complaint. People don't necessarily want to deal with it, or they don't want to cause trouble and feel like filing a complaint is the nuclear option. I'm sure Amazon's attitude is that if something is wrong it should be made right, but that's not what every customer realistically wants.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#190

Post by hop » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

hop wrote: post #76

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…

Inventory isn’t commingled between sellers for the same SKU.

I don’t know why I’m being downvoted - Amazon FBA does not commingle seller inventory. The products sold by a seller are only the ones they shipped to FBA. If you request your inventory back, you will only get the ones back you sell. So if a seller sends in a bunch of counterfeit items for a listing, those are physically separated and don’t get mixed with the good inventory that is there.

There are multiple sellers for the same product and they could definitely have bad/old inventory - and they will win the buy box with the lowest price - but it’s still not commingled.