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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

#311

Post by dralley »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #141
mrosett wrote: post #47

A few thoughts: * Amazon is a total mess right now, and this is great investigative reporting. I think Amazon is going to go through a rough year or two in PR terms. They need to get this under control quickly. * Amazon can pretend that it's just a platform, but in practice they benefit from consumers assuming that everything on the site has some stamp of approval (even if it's not as full a stamp as, say, buying the…

> in practice they benefit from consumers assuming that everything on the site has some stamp of approval as you point out, it's kind of surprising that Amazon seems to have entirely abandoned this "stamp of approval" concept. i thought "stamp of approval" was one of the few differentiators that retailers could use to compete effectively.

Funnily enough, even Amazon's actual "stamp of approval" (Amazon's Choice) is a terrible, terrible marker of quality.

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

#312

Post by dreamcompiler »

Amazon's actions (not its words) are the way to figure out whether they care about this. And their actions scream loudly that they don't care about product safety or counterfeiting. The only solution is probably some exponentially escalating fine structure, where on e.g. the fourth offense the fine is 10 billion dollars and on the fifth the company is dissolved. Otherwise Amazon will simply continue to pay the fines as a cost of doing business.

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

#314

Post by jfim »

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…

It's probably to avoid the situation where the same item sells for X at Amazon and X+n at Walmart, and someone sets up a shop on Walmart to forward the orders to Amazon, pocketing the n.

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

#315

Post by vel0city »

WaltPurvis wrote: post #149
AlexandrB wrote: post #64

Their shipping practices have also degraded. Amazon usually ships anything they can in bubble-padded envelopes. This is ok for many things, but for books it's a disaster - softcovers almost always end up with damaged covers, hardcovers get dented corners from being dropped without any protection. I've also received movies and video games with cases damaged worse than what you'd see in a second-hand store. The (suprem…

I know! It's so stupid. I try not to order books directly from Amazon anymore unless I buy two or more at the same time (because if you buy 2+ books they ship in a box rather than a padded envelope). I'm not shy about returning books with bent covers or other damage, I do it all the time, and a couple of times I've returned the same book twice until they finally managed to deliver an undamaged copy, but it's a little…

I wouldn't worry about getting banned for returning too many damaged goods. If anything I'd say just go with a better seller. There are plenty of other vendors online still selling books.

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

#316

Post by rgbrenner »

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…

If you need extrapolation, you should read the TOS. It says you cannot use prime free shipping for items intended for resale. Buying an item to incorporate it into an item for resale is still buying for resale. If you buy items for resale, you're suppose to select a different non-prime shipping method.

It has nothing to do with the first sale doctrine. If you are reselling the item, then you owe Amazon shipping charges for 2-day shipping.

Maybe Amazon won't try to collect, but you have violated the contract you have with Amazon.. and they could come back to you later and send you a bill for all of the shipping charges you owe them. Maybe they won't do that.. if you want to risk it, that's up to you.

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

#317

Post by therealx »

t34543 wrote: post #49

I never had a problem (that I know of) with fakes on Amazon. I did cancel my prime membership and switched to Walmart. I feel like prices went up and quality went down. I wish I could move stuff away at work, we spend millions each month on AWS.

I bought a very nice pair of headphones (studio grade) for a few hundred dollars. One listen and it was obvious they were fake. A call to the company confirmed (via serial numbers and various questions about the item.)

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

#318

Post by FireBeyond »

cr0sh wrote: post #260
cannonedhamster wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a review I wrote for one product entirely switched to another product. I've seen some products for USB cables with reviews for books made for infants. Amazon is so untrustworthy now I'll either go to Alibaba or buy direct. It's dangerous to buy from Amazon. I wish you the best in this, I've reported ads like this for fraud before.

It wouldn't surprise me to find out this is some kind of "business" - where you have an Amazon seller account post up various items charging only pennies, then you hire a bunch of people to purchase the products (so they are a "verified purchaser") then review them with high ratings (and maybe a few lower ratings just to make things look good). Then somehow sell those SKU codes for the items onward where the item inf…

> There's a similar problem with some sellers posting items up with insanely large prices

One of the other reasons is bots outbidding each other and escalating prices.

> sort high to low prices, to find a possible "better product" that is priced higher because it is made differently and better than "regular ole' generics" (I faced this recently while looking for a shielded audio cable).

Or in this specific instance, they're just targetting audiophiles who believe a $3,000 RCA cable will "enhance the depth and warmth and soundstage"...

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

#319

Post by unstrafed »

rgbrenner wrote: post #316
lozaning wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you need extrapolation, you should read the TOS. It says you cannot use prime free shipping for items intended for resale. Buying an item to incorporate it into an item for resale is still buying for resale. If you buy items for resale, you're suppose to select a different non-prime shipping method. It has nothing to do with the first sale doctrine. If you are reselling the item, then you owe Amazon shipping charg…

> If you are reselling the item, then you owe Amazon shipping charges for 2-day shipping.

Not so fast. Amazon would like this to be true, which is why they put that provision in their TOS. The NFL does the same thing when they state in every single broadcast, "This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited." Merely expressing a sentence in legalese doesn't create a binding contract.

A decent lawyer in a Common Law jurisdiction (and IANAL/this is not legal advice) could probably argue that such a "no-resale-for-Prime" provision constitutes restraint of trade along with any other similar statutory prohibitions that would render such language unenforceable. (I don't know, but I'm guessing Civil Law jurisdictions have their own such restraints.) Amazon for its part would argue that if it allowed resale, it couldn't offer Prime services at all to anyone. If I were to guess, the real purpose of this provision is to kick people out who might do something like purchase up an entire supply of some particular Prime-eligible item and then immediately resell the entire stock at around the same price but with paid shipping (including a small profit cushion). That kind of behavior actually would ruin the Prime brand/program and itself constitutes a form of market manipulation.

In no way would anyone owe Amazon money for reselling products purchased on Prime. At worst, Amazon could kick a person out of Prime or completely ban them as a customer (and the courts might even frown upon that). Amazon might even try to "collect" money, but unless the resale constituted actual abuse (cf. the scenario above), a strongly worded letter CC'd to the person's lawyer, Congressman and FTC might help Amazon stand down.

Again, IANAL and this is not legal advice. If it were me, I'd try to follow the TOS as a matter of prudence/respect. However, I don't like people thinking that they're under legal obligations that are at best a stretch.

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

#320

Post by lightedman »

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…

"Amazon overall quality has droped in recent years."

Not to offer up my receipts or anything, but Amazon has about 70% of the time shipped me a counterfeit item. 1080p microscope? Best it gets is 1366x768 on a Windows XP 32-bit driver. Plastic welding kit for a 2002 Ford Explorer? Nope, wrong plastic welding rod, wrong nylon type. Meant for Mazda, not Ford.

I won't touch Amazon after that bullshit. I'll buy directly from a known supplier, in this case, O'Reillys. They sell the plastic patch kit. Thanks, guys. Saved me $500 on a bullshit replacement fee.

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