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

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

#321

Post by cherioo »

sinatra wrote: post #173

This is a good place to ask this question: Lately, we’re trying to buy products on Amazon only if it says, “Sold by Amazon.com.” Is that a good way to ensure that the product is not counterfeit? The assumption is that if Amazon is selling something directly, it would be getting it directly from the real manufacturer.

Amazon has yet to confirm or deny if all, or any, "Sold by Amazon" product is commingled with 3rd party FBA product. In that sense, they are not 100% safe. I really wish Amazon would take a stance here.

On the other hand, the vast majority of report of counterfeit anecdote I have seen indicated they bought from 3rd party but with FBA. So me personally I still place trust on Sold By Amazon product.

More recently I have seen product where that explicitly points out that Sold By Amazon is "authentic", which is kind of funny and sad. (energizer battery)

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

#322

Post by Schnitz »

If you ever happen to run into a seller that's motivated to fight your claim, you'll actually realize that Amazon is the new eBay. They now play the exact same game where they sit in the middle, giving each party time to respond, etc. and it just bounces back and forth forever. In my case I had ordered a print on white background and it arrived on a yellowish background and the seller kept fighting. It took 2 weeks and several escalations after which Amazon finally issued me a refund. Noteworthy as well that it was a "goodwill" refund, ie they didn't rule against the seller despite having ample proof in the form of screenshots of the listing and pictures.

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

#323

Post by crazygringo »

paxys wrote: post #311
crazygringo wrote: post #274

Honestly, I'm confused as to why Amazon -- or any retailer -- is responsible for injury from defects in the products they sell in the first place. Why is it the retailer's responsibility, rather than the manufacturer's responsibility? No store has the expertise to independently conduct safety testing of every item they sell. That would be ludicrous, whether you're a mom & pop store with 1,000's of items or Amazon its…

If a store put a random baby formula from a sketchy Chinese factory on its shelves and it made babies sick, they're going to get demolished by the FDA. "Hey I'm just a retailer" is not at all a defense. As a customer I can't be expected to know about the intricacies of the supply chain for every product I use, so I establish a relationship with one entity - the retailer.

> so I establish a relationship with one entity - the retailer.

My thinking is precisely opposite.

Because I can't be expected to know about the intracacies of the supply chain, I consider the quality to be determined by one entity - the manufacturer.

I trust Crest toothpaste over some no-name generic toothpaste that might be made by anyone precisely because it's Crest. I can buy it from the immigrant family which owns the corner bodega, and I don't have the slightest idea where they buy it from... but it's still Crest.

In my mind, my primary relationship is with the brand. The retailer I couldn't care less about.

Also, I don't want my health to be determined by where the store sources its stuff from. I want that to be determined at at a governmental level, by the FDA. Sketchy formula shouldn't be allowed in the country in the first place. It's the importer who should be held criminally liable. Again, what does a corner bodega owner know about determining the safety of consumer products? It's the government's job to set safety standards, not store owners making their own uninformed decisions.

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

#324

Post by donmcronald »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #229
xoxoy wrote: post #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…

I use Wirecutter and then go search for the items I want on walmart.com, bestbuy.com, b&h, Barnes and noble, etc. I boycott Amazon. I feel jerked around any time I use their site.

Wirecutter is an affiliate marketer. If they reviewed 15 pieces of shit they'd recommend a top 3 to buy based on taste. Almost all of the review sites are like that now. Look up the story of Casper and Sleepopolis. Today's review sites are predominantly filled with advertising disguised as reviews.

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

#325

Post by salawat »

rorykoehler wrote: post #292
Spivak wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you were trying to make a case to Congress to get legislation passed that would them down you wouldn’t get past “even with the fraud Amazon is still delivering a huge amount of value to consumers because of their scale and we don’t want to disrupt that.” Like you will get nowhere arguing that billion dollar US controlled giants should get shut down or broken up unless it’s a last resort.

They could shut out all 3rd party sellers until they are verified. Amazon would still be making truck loads of money from Amazon basics etc. Most customers might not even notice any change when buying.

Verifying is useless if you aren't also tracking inventory provenance, which Amazon can't do while also being able to compete in their own market, as they would have absolutely no way to argue they weren't operating on the basis of privileged access to third-party information via analyzing specific inventory granularity sales flow.

That's the issue Amazon absolutely does not want to happen. Getting locked out of their own marketplace or aggregated sales data would hugely undermine the value proposition in terms of de facto earning and profit taking potential, while at the same time undermining public faith in the overall market.

Amazon can't admit they can do anything about counterfeits because no one in their right mind wants to contribute to a platform that empowers and informs a potential competitor.

This is becoming what I consider velvet glove business combat 101 that no one openly admits to.

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

#326

Post by donmcronald »

crazygringo wrote: post #323
paxys wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a store put a random baby formula from a sketchy Chinese factory on its shelves and it made babies sick, they're going to get demolished by the FDA. "Hey I'm just a retailer" is not at all a defense. As a customer I can't be expected to know about the intricacies of the supply chain for every product I use, so I establish a relationship with one entity - the retailer.

> so I establish a relationship with one entity - the retailer. My thinking is precisely opposite. Because I can't be expected to know about the intracacies of the supply chain, I consider the quality to be determined by one entity - the manufacturer. I trust Crest toothpaste over some no-name generic toothpaste that might be made by anyone precisely because it's Crest. I can buy it from the immigrant family which ow…

IMO the supply chain and knowing your supplier plays an extremely important role in making sure products are legitimate and conform to all regulations. A big problem with Amazon is that you can end up with counterfeit products or products that have fake safety certifications stamped on them and you'll never nail down the culprits that orchestrated it. It'll be a transient company in China that's gone by the time anyone knows what happened.

So yeah, you can trust the brand, but if a retailer has no incentive to keep counterfeit products off the shelf there's no guarantee your toothpaste is actually being supplied by Crest. You aren't going to have much luck suing a counterfeiter in a foreign country, especially since they'll be set up to disappear.

It's important for everyone in the supply chain to be liable and making the retailer liable to the consumer is the easiest way to do that. If a supplier sells a retailer a fake unsafe product and the retailer gets sued because of it, the retailer can sue the supplier. If the supplier is buying from a respectable manufacturer they can sue the manufacturer (or settle with them).

As soon as you make the consumer go directly to the supplier or manufacturer, there's a huge incentive to set up a supply chain like Amazon has where a ton of low quality garbage gets foisted onto consumers and there's no recourse because all of the liable parties are in foreign countries.

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

#327

Post by astura »

ikeboy wrote: post #207
throwanem wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, no, you got lucky with that - I found out Amazon can't be trusted with high-ticket items by getting a $1200 lens that turned out to be gray market. Works fine, but I better hope I never need warranty service. Amazon can't be trusted with high-ticket items, including but not limited to camera equipment. Go to B&H or Adorama, or Newegg or Micro Center for high-ticket computer parts (cf. the recent spate of GPU sc…

Every retailer you mentioned deals in grey market products. Here's B&H proudly admitting to it: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/find/HelpCenter/USGrey.jsp

Which is fine... There's nothing wrong with buying grey market products as long as that's what you know you're buying.

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

#328

Post by Fej »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #312
acranox wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Newegg is still okay if you limit to buying stuff from Newegg as the seller. Their marketplace is definitely full of junk.

Newegg commingles inventory so you don’t know whose inventory you will be buying from. See section 4.1: https://promotions.newegg.com/marketplace/PDF/SBNTermsAndCon...

When did they add this?

No reason to shop there anymore. Micro Center and B&H have been great.

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

#329

Post by donmcronald »

siruncledrew wrote: post #48

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…

I think a big theme in tech in the last decade has been there's a lot of extra margin to be made if you can find a way to circumvent regulations designed to protect the general public.

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

#330

Post by sukilot »

ptero wrote: post #281
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and therefore the retailer is incentivised not to sell junk in the first place. The problem with being an "everything store" is that everything also includes an overwhelming majority of crap, looking at you crappy "genuine sony" camera batteries that held about 10 minutes of charge, fulfilled by amazon.

> therefore the retailer is incentivised not to sell junk in the first place. Most retailers seldom care, as they have agreements and well established paths to dump the cost of returns onto the manufacturer.

Only because they only sell products with a legitimate manufacturer, which is the point.
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