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

californiaglobe.com

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

#341

Post by salawat »

yomly wrote: post #261
nkrisc wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon does not make it easy to know, not as a consumer do I even know what the difference is between those three options. I'm a pretty savvy shopper and world wide web surfer but from looking at a product page I have no idea which one of those it is not what the implications even are. What on earth is "3P" and how does a consumer know? What is the difference between "sold by Amazon" and "fulfilled by Amazon"? Isn't…

Fair enough. So there is Amazon the retailer. That is what Amazon originally did - buy inventory from vendors then sell them. As Amazon gained scale they launched 3P aka 3rd party selling. This is essentially Ebay at scale. Returns for these products are more or less managed by the seller. FBA then came where 3rd party sellers can take advantage of Amazon's delivery and warehouse logistics. The stock is held by Amazo…

The problem there is that all Amazon stock is comingled. There isn't a difference between sold by Amazon and third-party FBA. It all gets sorted under the same UPC/SKU.

Amazon is attempting to be a physical CDN, and that's bad news when what you're looking for is a guarantee that some product will be delivered from some specific seller to you after getting comingled.

Normally, that isn't much of an issue when you've got procurement going sanely.

When it is predated by fake/damaged good sellers predominantly though is where you run into problems.

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

#342

Post by mianos »

jarym wrote: post #297
kirillzubovsky wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, on the contrary, imagine you went to Safeway, and they sold you a carton of juice. You came home, and found out the juice was poisoned. According to this ruling, Safeway, the delivery company, the guy who moved the boxes, and everyone in between you and the manufacturer, are all at fault. Isn't that plain crazy? Safeway has no control over the juice in the box, except for being able to follow their own guid…

Retailers will keep Product Liability Insurance and make sure their suppliers have the same for this very reason. When a claim arises there are 2 perspectives: 1. The customer only has to deal with the place they bought from. 2. Every merchant up the chain will have to go through their liability insurance to figure out who pays out. Consumer protection laws are this way for a reason and when they're respected they wo…

Is this a common thing in the US? I am from Australia and the cost for managing individual product returns is a cost of business, something you take into account when pricing. There is an insurance product called 'Product Liability', but it's to insurance against large payouts, not individual returns.

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

#343

Post by mianos »

johnchristopher wrote: post #155
jarym wrote: 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.

It happened once to me. I bought a Sonata Antec PC case ~15 years ago. Quite expensive, first (and last) time I shelled out so much for a case. The PSU was weird, it didn't work with my new mobo but did work with an older one. Got the mobo sent back for checking (I had to pay extra fees for “repairs“, bought in the same shop), came back okay. A week of intense pondering with one of my friend on the floor of my bedroo…

We had this issue down here in Australia with a firm called MSY. They refused to offer returns on defective products. That is not legal down here (we are somewhat like CA in terms of consumer protection) and the ACCC fined them $200K AUD. The incredible thing is they still found those pesky customers returning defective products too much trouble and started telling people that there were no refunds. After another few years of that, the ACCC fined them another $730K AUD. If you have an issue with something and have to return it now they are very easy to deal with. :)

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

#344

Post by bleepblorp »

b112 wrote: post #150
freeone3000 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Co-mingling with counterfeits seems to not be present in Canada - most merchants don't want to deal with filling out customs forms, FBA barely exists here, and most items sold on Amazon.ca are either sold by the manufacturer or by Amazon.ca. still a ton of unknown brands doing self-sales, but you're at much less risk of counterfeits so far.

Eh? I run into FBA all the time on .ca. It is rarer than on .com, I agree there, but barely exists seems inaccurate. What does annoy, are all the reshippers which charge sometimes even 10x more for a product. 4x the price is typical. All they do is list a product on .ca, from .com, and wait for an order. Then they buy from .com, receive amd reship. Amazon just seems so shady. Sneaky. As if their entire platform is ge…

It's shady to put it mildly.

It's not that much of a stretch to say that the entire business model for sales and gig economy platforms is to provide investors with a legal revenue stream from dubiously legal activities ranging from civil fraud to regulatory arbitrage intended to evade tax law, consumer protection law, employee protection law, and minimum wage law.

It's long past time for a crackdown.

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

#345

Post by crazygringo »

donmcronald wrote: post #326
crazygringo wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 anyo…

Thanks for explaining, but I still don't see the logic here.

First of all, how is a retailer supposed to vet their suppliers? They don't have the expertise or time to audit the supplier's own supply chains.

Second, if the (non-counterfeit) manufacturer puts out a shoddy batch, it doesn't matter which suppliers it goes through. Why should the store be responsible for the shoddy product when it could have come through any supply chain?

And third, I don't think lawsuits work the way you think they do. If you get sued, you can't just sue your supplier to pass it on and be done with it. You still lose $$$$ hiring lawyers.

You're seizing on the idea of counterfeit products, but I'm not talking about counterfeits. I've never seen or heard of counterfeit toothpaste in my life. And I'm not talking about foreign producers either -- if you import it, then you're liable.

I'm talking about a store purchasing merchandise from a domestic supplier that is genuine. If that merchandise produces injuries, why on earth would the store be liable, instead of the manufacturer? It makes zero sense.

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

#347

Post by nucleardog »

Ensorceled wrote: post #174
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…

Now, imagine you are using Amazon.ca where many of the legitimate .com vendors aren't even there or are there and are price gouging or have massive shipping fees. Amazon.ca has become such a cesspool and so much worse in the past 6 months, I've just stopped buying from it.

Amazon.ca still fulfills a purpose for me... It’s AliExpress with faster shipping.

If it’s something I’d consider buying from AliExpress but need it before 3 months from now, then I’ll go take a look on Amazon and pay a premium on the cheap Chinese stuff they sell to get it in a day or two.

Anything else... like others are saying, major retailers or manufacturer direct are the way I go.

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

#348

Post by ineedasername »

stickfigure wrote: post #69
ineedasername wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually in my experience Amazon has always provided prompt and satisfactory customer service. I'm not talking about the sort of issue in this article of course, but just the normal things: Returns, billing problems, charging me for home pickup on two different returns I'm making at the same time instead of just once... I've never had one of these common place customer service issues that wasn't solved quickly & to m…

Hmmm. I recently ordered an item (pack of quicklinks) and the package itself arrived with a hole in it and no product (looks like the bubble-envelope seam failed). After clicking around on Amazon's website, the closest way to solve this was "return because of missing items" and they seem to still want me to ship back the original item (which is obviously impossible). The replacement was shipped quickly, but I have no…

It's actually pretty easy to get a live chat if you poke around the support options... On my phone now so I can't neasily get the exact link.

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

#349

Post by amluto »

myself248 wrote: post #340
dangus wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s something off about this comment, and simultaneously I’m aware that my response is reading way too far into it . The last phrase you use continues to perpetuate the odd perception that Californians are weird extreme hippie aliens that Middle America should avoid at all costs. And then, your comment simultaneously envies California’s strong worker and consumer protections. It’s almost as if Californians aren’t…

Oh no, I love the weird extreme hippie aliens. And the strong worker and consumer protections. It's the Hollywood and the Disney and the Dot-com bros I'm avoiding at exactly those other costs. That plus the completely unsustainable water situation that I refuse to be a part of worsening.

As I understand it, the water situation is all kinds of screwed up, but much of the residential water is sustainable. SF, for example, uses mostly surface water and has access to a lot of surface water. One might argue whether the dam that supplies the water is a good thing or a bad thing and whether the allocation of SF’s water is reasonable, but it appears to be sustainable. In addition, residential water usage just isn’t that much.

Agricultural water in the drier parts of California is an entirely different story.

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

#350

Post by nucleardog »

icebergwarrior wrote: post #109
ComputerGuru wrote: post #65

I’ve finally figured out how to buy non-counterfeit items on Amazon: try selling it yourself and see if Amazon says 3rd party listings are allowed. In the very few cases where you’re not allowed to proceed to create a listing, it is safe to purchase.

I see this type of comment all the time, but I've never purchased anything but legitimate items off of Amazon. What are you buying that you consistently run into fakes / knockoffs?

I mean, the obvious question is how do you know that you’ve only got legitimate items?

Some counterfeiters are of course, shit, so it’s pretty easy for most of us to notice when we order a board game and all the text on the cards is 20% off of centre. But you have to figure that somebody out there is capable of taking a high resolution scan of the materials and printing it without making obvious mistakes like that.

And like... in Apple’s testing over 90% of Apple accessories (chargers, cables, etc) were fake. Obviously they’re outwardly convincing enough that 90% of people aren’t returning them despite dropping $35 on a USB cable that’s worth about $4 from a third party. A lot of the counterfeit chargers are outwardly identical — unless you tear them apart to see where they’ve cut corners and risked burning your house down you’re never going to know.

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