Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

californiaglobe.com

51–60 of 386 posts

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#51

eBay is not same-same, it's much more marketplace-esque. eBay does not use a consolidated product listing, much more like a bulletin board each sellers products being sold under it's own URL. Amazon consolidates the listing for all sellers into a single product and uses their own ranking algorithms to determine which seller is in the "buy box" (which accounts for 97% of the items sales velocity). Amazon treats the en…

> eBay does not use a consolidated product listing, much more like a bulletin board each sellers products being sold under it's own URL. Try searching for a product on ebay right now and it's the exact same experience as Amazon. Both Amazon and Ebay's algorithms determine which usb drives show up first when searching for "usb stick", which is where 99% of their commerce is coming from.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#53
post #9

Common sense. Amazon want to ‘own’ the customer relationship and go to great lengths to that end then it follows they will have to ‘own’ any liability too. Imagine you went into a retail store with a faulty product and they were to try fob you off saying you need to go to their supplier/wholesaler/manufacturer. It mostly doesn’t work that way thanks to most consumer protection laws in place.

More specifically, the responsibility for chasing down the manufacturer for a refund is shifted onto the retailer, not the consumer.

And the retailer has leverage the consumer does not. “Fix this or we don’t sell your stuff.”

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#54

Long-term, it would be good business sense for Amazon to address the counterfeit issue to remove the bad actors from their platform to stay in good standing with consumers so people continue to use their platform and purchase items without worry about getting scammed. Short-term, at least one idea to fix this is to implement more stringent checks/QA with their FBA policies. Do more stringent verification of imported…

*scammed or injured

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#55

Long-term, it would be good business sense for Amazon to address the counterfeit issue to remove the bad actors from their platform to stay in good standing with consumers so people continue to use their platform and purchase items without worry about getting scammed. Short-term, at least one idea to fix this is to implement more stringent checks/QA with their FBA policies. Do more stringent verification of imported…

It's crazy to me that if I want to buy Ray Ban sunglasses off Amazon, I am routed by default to random third party sellers. I have purchased these once before and I'm almost positive that I received a fake product.

How can I know for sure though? How does Amazon know for sure? Since that experience I have looked at Amazon in a different light, and I've realized how difficult it is to source name brand products with confidence.

This is as good a time for blockchain as any. Register genuine products on a blockchain and have them scanned once they hit the Amazon warehouse to ensure they are authentic.

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#56
post #44

Amazon has been trying to play a parallel game for a while - from one side, they are a brand name store, with their own brands (Amazon Basics), they own loyalty club (Prime), and so on - they even own physical stores and a grocery chain now. On the other hand, they pretend to be a neutral marketplace that has no responsibility for any goods that are sold there and just renting out the space to independent sellers. It…

Yes, the same distribution centers and boxes is a huge distinction vs a say Ebay.

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#57
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably depends on what you are buying. I am a board gamer and counterfeit board games from Amazon is a huge problem. I stopped purchasing board games from Amazon after getting three counterfeits in a row.

How do you tell a board game is counterfeit?

Poor print quality and materials, incorrect/missing pieces. I don't know if you've seen counterfeit DVDs before, but they often have badly printed (misaligned, pixelated, even watermarked) graphics and cheap packaging (a basic jewel case with a printed slip of paper vs. a cardboard fold-out, for instance). But at least the DVD itself stands a chance of being a good rip. For a board game, the print quality and materials are kind of what you're paying for.

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#58
post #22

In what world does this not just become a contractually required insurance policy covering Amazon, paid for by the third party. Granted, whoever pays in name, the cost will be passed on to consumers.

The the insurers perform the due diligence and that liability cost should’ve been there from the start.

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#59

Long-term, it would be good business sense for Amazon to address the counterfeit issue to remove the bad actors from their platform to stay in good standing with consumers so people continue to use their platform and purchase items without worry about getting scammed. Short-term, at least one idea to fix this is to implement more stringent checks/QA with their FBA policies. Do more stringent verification of imported…

> Long-term

Short term, it would be a good idea to fine Amazon $1,000,000 a day until the problem is fixed.

There's no way Bezos doesn't know how to fix this, he's a smart guy.

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#60
Shopping on Amazon has become unbearable for like 95% of categories these days. The experience is like rummaging through some shady tourist market with a dozen stall owners trying to scam you. The pricing is all whack with lots of counterfeits that have gamed the ranking and review systems. It’s just not worth trying to filter and find things that are actually competitively priced and sold directly by Amazon.

Have no idea how they are so dominant still when they seem to not care at all about these things.

Post reply on HN