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

#281

Post by CharlesColeman » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 8:31 PM UTC

sinker wrote: post #188

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…

My living depends on selling small-batch, high quality, independently made woodworking items and I've struggled with this. Selling on Amazon feels like you're relinquishing control over your product, much more so than Ebay or Etsy. Just yesterday I've had a third party seller somehow merge my product into their own product listing, taking the small number of 5 star reviews I earned organically with them. They sell a…

> Just yesterday I've had a third party seller somehow merge my product into their own product listing, taking the small number of 5 star reviews I earned organically with them. They sell a completely unrelated product and in their page you'll notice the reviews refer to a bunch of unrelated products.

Wow, that's amazingly shitty. I had no idea that Amazon allowed the fraudsters to hijack the reputation of legitimate sellers in this way [1]. I always figured they could only pull these switcheroos on listings they created.

[1] I know Amazon lets fraudsters hijack reputation through inventory commingling.

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

#282

Post by cr0sh » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 8:41 PM UTC

CaptainZapp wrote: post #68

stanski wrote: post #24

They were sued for the recklessly mislabeled helmet and still didn't take the posting down? Even if they could've argued that they themselves were fooled by the seller initially, not following up after the guy was killed points to a much bigger issue. Basically they just don't give a shit. Side note: I'm filled with dread just thinking about buying a motorcycle helmet from amazon.

Side note: I'm filled with dread just thinking about buying a motorcycle helmet from amazon. Buy it from a reputable source? There are specialist stores herearound, which sell nothing but helmets and have staff on payroll with an actual clue. Sure, you actually have to leave the house. In return you get the possibility to actually try the helmets on display. If price is the issue I think it's exactly that general att…

On a motorcycle helmet, it should be reasonable to expect to pay a hefty price for something quality. It's one of those items that has to work, that one time you need it. After that, who cares - you must throw it away and buy another. Consider it just another cost of being a motorcycle owner. In such a case, you probably should want to try it on for fit, weight, balance, etc.

But there are tons of other items that you either can't go someplace and purchase them (at least here in the USA), or if you can purchase them in some manner, you'll end up paying 5-10x or more for the privilege.

My goto example is DC gearmotors. There are plenty of USA based manufacturers and suppliers of such. One great brand is Ametek. Unfortunately, you're going to pay for that privilege. A motor I might purchase via a vendor that is made by, say, TSINY motor (a good chinese brand I might add), will only cost me around $15-30.00 each. An equivalent motor from a USA vender and/or manufacturer? Multiply those numbers by 10 - easily.

As a hobbyist - that's just insane.

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

#283

Post by redorb » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 8:47 PM UTC

I recently emailed jeff bezos / his executive customer response team got back with me and let me tell them for 2 hours how I felt their service has gone to shit.

One of the things I explained that happened is that as Amazon got closer via more warehouses the shipping actually went to crap. I also explained how their Amazon shipping vans are sub par even to USPS.

I asked for a basic prime teir free shipping only for $79/yr and asked for shipping options to be available ~ I'd pay +$2-3 to choose fedex over ups for example...

If anything they gave me a chance to vent. I also followed up in email sharing how products are being hijacked for reviews and how there are facebook groups for fake review gathering..

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

#284

Post by sombremesa » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

leemcalilly wrote: post #57

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…

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…

All the 'shop now' links in your banner are leading to a 404.

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

#285

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:24 PM UTC

[deleted]

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

#286

Post by amelius » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:24 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…

They are below the quality of what one would expect from a government-run organization. Perhaps an online sales platform should be a utility instead. At least it would be fair to third-party sellers, with their market regulated by the government instead of by a large corporation.

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

#287

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:31 PM UTC

lozaning wrote: post #267

rgbrenner wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just FYI, prime tos prohibit its use for ordering items intended for resale. I would have done the same for my business, but I didn’t want to risk getting a huge bill later when they figure it out.

Can you extrapolate more on this? Am I understanding correctly that Amazon will not allow me to buy something off their site with prime shipping if i intend to resell that product? Is the the scope of this limited to only include me taking orders for item X at price y on my own Amazon marketplace account and then placing my order with an FBA partner who's price for X is below y? Otherwise wouldn't you run into all ki…

They can't tell you what to do with your purchases. They can remove perks if they suspect you're abusing them.

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

#288

Post by tolstoshev » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

dchichkov wrote: post #128

dahart wrote: post #92

> At one point in 2013, some Amazon employees began scanning randomly selected third-party products in Amazon warehouses for lead content, say people familiar with the tests. Around 10% of the products tested failed, one says. The failed products were purged, but higher-level employees decided not to expand the testing, fearing it would be unmanageable if applied to the entire marketplace, the people familiar with th…

There was a recent study that also had crossed a threshold of anecdotes [1]: "The Attorney General’s Office, in partnership with the Washington State Department of Ecology, tested children’s school supplies for harmful levels of lead and cadmium in 2017 and 2018. The tests targeted products the two agencies suspected might contain toxic metals. In total, two rounds of tests identified 51 products sold on Amazon.com t…

And here we are laughing at the fall of the Roman empire because of lead poisoning.

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

#289

Post by mikestew » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #244

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Satisfied at what price point? Everything has a cost. Every dollar society spends on one thing is a dollar society can't use on another thing. Nobody is going to be "exposed" to a highway overpass or the hull of a ship or some chemical storage tank outside a factory enough for it to measurably affect anyone. Why can't we paint it in lead if that lasts longer for a given price point? There's all sorts of things that a…

You can't paint only some things in lead on a whole economy scale for similar reasons to Amazon not wanting to enforce separated items in warehouses. As long as "approved for tanks" lead paint is in the supply chain, who exactly keeps the use only to tanks. There are sufficiently durable alternatives that the lowest cost is to outright ban lead paint instead of setting up an enforcement framework to chase lead paint…

When I was a teenager, we painted our barn with lead paint. Let's just say that it didn't come from the local Sherwin-Williams. If it's for sale anywhere, the gray/black market will take care of the rest.

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

#290

Post by wasdfff » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #265

Liquix wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also the matter of convenience / personal life impact - Amazon is ingrained in many people's weekly routine at this point. It's not that people genuinely don't care about an article like this, they just don't care enough to justify negatively impacting their life. Dale Carnegie on the concerns of the individual: "A person’s toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people.…

For me, it's that Amazon has virtually everything. I would be much happier if I could buy everything I buy from Amazon from Costco instead, but Costco's model isn't the same as Amazon's "A to Z" model. Costco wants to offer good deals on a smaller selection of stuff, rather than go for a broad selection. It also doesn't hurt that Prime Video is bundled with Prime. On a per annum basis, Prime costs me about 2/3 what N…

Ive switched to specialist retailers. Quality is higher and selection in that niche is wider than amazons offerings in that category. Shipping far more reliable as well from a competent carrier who isn’t throwing piss bottles out the window onto my street and stealing packages.