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Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

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Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#151

Post by maccard »

burlesona wrote: post #87
leemcalilly wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a small niche retailer that makes and sells guitar straps in Nashville I couldn’t agree more. Our experiments selling on Amazon have only hurt us, but Prime is a huge time & shipping $$ saver for re-ordering supplies for our shop and even materials used to make our products. We’ve experimented with selling on a lot of different sites (Amazon, Etsy, Reverb, etc) and have found the best way to control the brand and…

Very nice website and you offer Apple Pay. I’d totally buy direct from you over going to Amazon. I think you’re on the right track.

Agreed - if I'm shopping for something and using a website I don't already trust, offering a well known payment method (even paypal will suffice) is a surefire way to build a lot of trust.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#152

Post by maccard »

DataWorker wrote: post #126
djsumdog wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered how we got all these reports of lead in products and children's toys. There was a post a few weeks back where someone explained it and it made perfect sense: recycling. China takes a ton of US recycling. They often melt down metals, e-waste and solder and it's difficult to separated out lead and unleaded source material. A lot of it just gets put together and used in bulk.

They have these issues due to corruption, greed and negligence. With recycling as with other stuff, China cheats and poisons people to make a quick dollar, decades go by and nothing changes and nobody goes to prison. Think of how many people use Chinese made pots and pans, or knives, and have no clue they’re poisoning themselves and their families just to save a few bucks by buying the cheap Chinese version.

> just to save a few bucks by buying the cheap Chinese version.

Or not knowing they're buying a cheap chinese version.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#153

Post by privateSFacct »

untog wrote: post #108
MaupitiBlue wrote: post #73

I don’t get it. I had about 150 purchases last year. Toothbrushes, Apple Watch bands, hard drives, diapers, truffles, pasta, foot massagers, hats, books, etc. I had 1 bad purchase. I bought a used Roomba 980 sold by Amazon. There was a used 680 in the box. Amazon apologized and sent a brand new 980 the next day. Am I some sort of uberresultsfilter, or do the whiners just get way too much attention?

Did your toothbrush have lead in it? Hyperbolic example I know but this reporting shows that you don't know definitively.

I have a kid and this is a real issue - he eats his toothbush.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#154

Post by thinkmassive »

duxup wrote: post #46

That and they've gone the wall-mart route of actually PUSHING anything / the lowest price possible. I get stuff that's like 5% cheaper but quality looks to be about 50% the quality pushed on me all the time on Amazon now. I went to Amazon originally to find QUALITY products that my local stores didn't carry because of price pressures. Now Amazon seems to be switching to just being ... wall-mart and that's already nea…

Based on my limited experience of visiting Walmart, I think most of their low end products are of significantly better quality than low end products from Amazon.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#155

Post by coredog64 »

duxup wrote: post #46

That and they've gone the wall-mart route of actually PUSHING anything / the lowest price possible. I get stuff that's like 5% cheaper but quality looks to be about 50% the quality pushed on me all the time on Amazon now. I went to Amazon originally to find QUALITY products that my local stores didn't carry because of price pressures. Now Amazon seems to be switching to just being ... wall-mart and that's already nea…

“Wall-mart” is a store near the Spanish Wall in Pohnpei. Walmart is Sam Walton’s huge chain of stores.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#156

Post by rdtwo »

iwasakabukiman wrote: post #41

For me, Amazon's main purpose is to get them to price match Best Buy. Why wait 3 days when I can just go to Best Buy, show them the same item for $30 cheaper on Amazon and get it immediately?

For me this has not been working well because I go to Walmart or Best Buy and find out they don’t actually stock anything and end up wasting my time and still having to buy online.

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#157

Post by HillaryBriss »

julianlam wrote: post #86

At the risk of dogpiling on other comments, I also feel Amazon's quality has hit rock bottom. I used to use Amazon because it had a reputation for quality items. Now they all come from China and I pay Western prices for the privilege of having it shipped to me faster. USB keys and SD cards are almost all universally garbage rip-offs, and I recently purchased a stroller from Amazon, but had a bit of a panic moment whe…

> they all come from China and I pay Western prices for the privilege of having it shipped to me faster

that's a pretty decent description of the Amazon business model.

(i guess the only thing to add is that Amazon accepts product returns. but almost every retailer does that nowadays.)

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#158

Post by chenning »

duxup wrote: post #46

That and they've gone the wall-mart route of actually PUSHING anything / the lowest price possible. I get stuff that's like 5% cheaper but quality looks to be about 50% the quality pushed on me all the time on Amazon now. I went to Amazon originally to find QUALITY products that my local stores didn't carry because of price pressures. Now Amazon seems to be switching to just being ... wall-mart and that's already nea…

You know, I've seen countless times when, say, Walmart or some other retailer gets caught and body slammed for stocking a product on their shelves that was known to be manufactured under substandard working conditions. It's possible that I'm just not seeing the same frequency of articles lobbed at Amazon, but there's no doubt they are guilty of the same thing on some level. Is it because Amazon found a way to sort of diffuse the responsibility, perhaps by claiming that they're just :the platform" shrug? I'm curious though, what kinds of consequences does Amazon actually face for stocking products manufactured under unfair working conditions, stolen intellectual property, and so on? I'm sure their official policy is that they don't tolerate it. Of course. But in reality, what are they actually doing about this, what incentive do they have to do anything, and how effective has it been?

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#159

Post by jlj »

This is addressed in the 10-k. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872419...

"We Could Be Liable for Fraudulent or Unlawful Activities of Sellers

The law relating to the liability of online service providers is currently unsettled. In addition, governmental agencies could require changes in the way this business is conducted. Under our seller programs, we may be unable to prevent sellers from collecting payments, fraudulently or otherwise, when buyers never receive the products they ordered or when the products received are materially different from the sellers’ descriptions. We also may be unable to prevent sellers in our stores or through other stores from selling unlawful, counterfeit, pirated, or stolen goods, selling goods in an unlawful or unethical manner, violating the proprietary rights of others, or otherwise violating our policies. Under our A2Z Guarantee, we reimburse buyers for payments up to certain limits in these situations, and as our third-party seller sales grow, the cost of this program will increase and could negatively affect our operating results. In addition, to the extent any of this occurs, it could harm our business or damage our reputation and we could face civil or criminal liability for unlawful activities by our sellers."

Re: Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers

#160

Post by blunte »

With internet companies sometimes being held responsible for illegal content they host (provided by third parties), shouldn't Amazon be liable for facilitating the sale of or directly selling counterfeit goods?... especially when they have been alerted many times that a particular item is counterfeit?
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