Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by mehrdadn » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

Darmody wrote: post #13

Amazon overall quality has droped in recent years. I use to buy from Amazon because I knew I was buying original brands and no chinese cheap copies. Well, that changed a lot. There are specific things that I still buy from Amazon but on most things there's almost no difference between they and Aliexpress. I can buy the same products from Aliexpress way cheaper and have them delivered in 2-3 days. Thankfully there are…

> This also made me buy less stuff. Now I generally wait until I need more things or until my cart has enough stuff for a free delivery.

Despite being inconvenient this seems like... a good thing for the planet?

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

#192

Post by _ptgt » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #58

Yikes: > A Wall Street Journal investigation found 4,152 items for sale on Amazon.com Inc. ’s site that have been declared unsafe by federal agencies, are deceptively labeled or are banned by federal regulators—items that big-box retailers’ policies would bar from their shelves. Among those items, at least 2,000 listings for toys and medications lacked warnings about health risks to children. > Of the 4,152 products…

Disclaimer: Amazon employee, opinions are my own

This claim really doesn't say much on its own. There are millions (billions?) of products on Amazon. This would be potentially a lot more damning if they released how many items they searched through to identify those 4,152.

It would also be nice if they provided some data on how prevalent these problems are at other retailers and marketplaces.

There's reason to believe the problem is probably worse at Amazon (automated approval process, historic emphasis on low cost and selection) but how much worse is it?

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

#193

Post by dbcurtis » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

How much of this could be solved by a simple "know your supplier" law? As a consumer, I should be able to ask any retailer: "From whom did you source the actual item that you sold me?" Amazon should not be able to get away with saying they don't know.

As it stands, Amazon is just a conduit for goods to bypass consumer safety laws.

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

#194

Post by senderista » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #48

bluedino wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We bought some Brother labeling tape last week. They came in what looks like Brother packaging but it's named 'Better', P-touch is swapped out with B-touch... The labels are inferior, the ink comes off, the labels unstick after a few days...how does Amazon even let this trash on their site?

That should really be something to take them to court over, bit it’s not worth it for the dollar price.

That’s why class-action suits exist...

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

#195

Post by tsunamifury » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

_ptgt wrote: post #192

cs702 wrote: post #58

Yikes: > A Wall Street Journal investigation found 4,152 items for sale on Amazon.com Inc. ’s site that have been declared unsafe by federal agencies, are deceptively labeled or are banned by federal regulators—items that big-box retailers’ policies would bar from their shelves. Among those items, at least 2,000 listings for toys and medications lacked warnings about health risks to children. > Of the 4,152 products…

Disclaimer: Amazon employee, opinions are my own This claim really doesn't say much on its own. There are millions (billions?) of products on Amazon. This would be potentially a lot more damning if they released how many items they searched through to identify those 4,152. It would also be nice if they provided some data on how prevalent these problems are at other retailers and marketplaces. There's reason to believ…

Wow. Amazon sells unsafe and banned products and you literally quote the first line of the narcissist prayer: “it’s not a big deal”

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

#196

Post by starsinspace » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

Cheap toys are generally worrying. Unrelated to Amazon specifically, but to get an idea, you can also take a look at this EU site listing some products which have been banned/recalled:

https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/consumers_safety/safety_produ...

Just scroll down a little and click on the weekly reports. The amount of kids toys being recalled every week for containing high amounts of harmful chemicals and other hazards is worrying.

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

#197

Post by ineedasername » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #172

x0x0 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, if you don't give a shit about your customers, lead paint often dries faster, is more durable, and is cheaper than alternatives. I suspect this is a more common reason. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/business/worldbusiness/10...

Kids' toys aside, using the lowest cost option that satisfies your customers' requirements sounds a lot like "giving a shit" to me. The fact that lead paint is totally banned (here in the US) instead of just banned in paint marketed for use on/in inhabitable structures and allowed with warning labels required is asinine. There's tons of chemicals out there that will screw up kids and adults if they eat them and we do…

What would be a use case for lead paint that isn't satisfied by other options and isn't used somewhere people will be exposed to it? It's not just kids & through eating it that it can be absorbed. Being around it throughout normal environmental wear & tear is enough for exposure, enough that pregnant women are advised against any exposure at all. As for the general topic of harmful chemicals, it isn't a choice between proactive prevention and after-the-fact punishment. There can be both, working in concert.

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

#198

Post by ineedasername » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #179

btown wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you enforce this? How can a consumer know that their contractor isn’t cutting corners? Sometimes the only solution is to stop the problem at its source.

How does a consumer ever know their someone they've hired isn't cutting corners? When you pay for asbestos remediation how do you know they actually did it right? When you pay an accountant how do you know they're not half-assing it? When you make your living doing a thing it's far more lucrative to do things right than to do them wrong. There's a bunch of incentives business owners who provide services operate withi…

> When you make your living doing a thing it's far more lucrative to do things right than to do them wrong.

If this were true, no professional would ever do something wrong, cut corners, etc. Which would be nice. It's a nice picture of how things should work. But they don't.

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

#199

Post by maccard » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #185

maccard wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's become an eBay, but without a proper dispute system, and crazy prices. I have to disagree about the dispute process. My experience as a buyer on Amazon is definitely that the pricing is all over the place, but in every case I've asked for a refund I've received it, and in the majority of cases I've not returned the item, _or_ paid for return shipping.

Well I agreed until this recent situation, where they refused to cancel and refund because the "order was already in shipping" -- which when I looked at the tracking they eventually gave me simply meant they had printed a shipping label for transferring it from the third party to an Amazon warehouse, before they even shipped it to the Canadian Amazon warehouse. They hid that it was third party supplied and then faile…

> They hid that it was third party supplied and then failed to respond when I asked them to cancel based on that.

Yeah, this is really really poor on their behalf, and I'm not a fan of it at all.

> If I'd known it was coming from the US I would have ordered from a domestic supplier that would have shipped faster except the shipping was more.

It's funny you say that. I'm more inclined to order via prime, because I somewhat trust the shipping dates, so for a time sensitive order, non-prime is usually 3-5 working days. I've been lucky so far.

Agreed with everything you've said though, I've actually had more luck with ebay for

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

#200

Post by tempsy » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

Interesting. I was looking into reselling a few things on the side on Amazon just for fun, but found it nearly impossible to find any product that wasn’t blocked for third-party sellers from selling.