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Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

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Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#61

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

heelix wrote: post #32
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many metals are contact-antimicrobial See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_properties_of_co... -: Copper and its alloys (brasses, bronzes, cupronickel, copper-nickel-zinc, and others) are natural antimicrobial materials. And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligodynamic_effect -: The oligodynamic effect (from Greek oligos "few", and dynamis "force") is a biocidal effect of metals, especially heavy metals, tha…

I believe copper will kill off this one in about 4-5 hours, compared to the 10+ hours of other materials. Not super useful as a hand sanitizer, but nice to know a copper door handle has a nice longer term self cleaning over shorter time frames.

I’ve pondered lining my entire bathroom with aluminium-bronze sheet.

It keep itself fairly clean!

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#62

Post by wtallis »

throwawaysea wrote: post #47
olalonde wrote: post #13

If only we could get rid of this widespread notion that price gouging is bad/evil...

You are 100% correct. First I don’t think there’s anything wrong with someone making the right choices to obtain something that then becomes valuable at some other point. It’s not bad or evil at all. But it’s also the optimal solution to handling demand for numerous other reasons. See https://fee.org/articles/let-prices-rise-to-combat-the-coron...

> But it’s also the optimal solution to handling demand for numerous other reasons. See https://fee.org/articles/let-prices-rise-to-combat-the-coron....

Markets are not efficient. Especially not on short timescales where even FedEx deliveries aren't quick enough to reallocate supplies and keep shelves from going bare. And especially not during an emergency that is very obviously triggering widespread irrational behavior. And especially not when consumers are working with insufficient information, because literally nobody on earth knows to a high degree of certainty or precision just what degree of risk we're facing.

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#63

Post by matharmin »

Symbiote wrote: post #59
j-c-hewitt wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can create hundreds of thousands of listings almost instantly through the API or by uploading a spreadsheet to Amazon. It's not possible for manual review for all of them because of this. That is why they lean so heavily on both automation and armies of cheap contractors.

Suspend/delete accounts (and all listings) for anyone with a single violation. Problem solved.

And then you'll get the "My account has been banned by Amazon after misclassifying a single listing" posts.

There are two sides to the problem, and changing criteria for suspension just shifts it to the other side.

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#64

Post by anigbrowl »

xwdv wrote: post #41
sneak wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is “just fire up” for you and I is an insurmountable hurdle for most people who use computers, either due to skills or ignorance, and is one of the main reasons that people use hosted, censorship platforms as default.

So this means people like us would have the competitive advantage for these sorts of business opportunities.

Why aren't you doing it and making a killing (pun intentional)?

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#65

Post by DenisM »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #29
fortran77 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're welcome to rub your hands with a copper disk after going out in public. I'm going to wash them with soap and water for 20 seconds.

To be fair, this would be a great fidget toy while out in public.

How about Copper-Spinner? Made from organic anti-viral copper. Heals the soul and the hands.

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#66

Post by Talanes »

throwawaysea wrote: post #48
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So only rich people deserve items demanded in a panic? The proper control is limit purchase per person per day. Raising prices on things like masks in a viral contagion like this is unconscionable

People should have to give up greater degrees of utility to obtain something scarce and valuable, yes. If someone rich gives up more currency to get something then so be it - they built up that currency by creating value for others in the first place.

>they built up that currency by creating value for others in the first place.

t. nonessential worker

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#67

Post by 55555 »

xwdv wrote: post #8

Why don’t people just fire up their own domain drop in an e-commerce store and sell these face masks while answering to no one? It should be fairly easy for such a site to go viral given the pent up demand.

Amazon brings you the customers as opposed to you needing to find them. Many ad networks are banning mask ads due to "price gouging" for political/PR/legal reasons.

True story: yesterday I got a downtime notification for my ecommerce store. It turns out Shopify pulled it down with no warning because their automated scan detected we were selling face masks. We sell fashionable face masks, and it was actually a test listing that failed our testing phase so we never stocked the product or sold them. The price was also super reasonable and would have supported, at most, 30% margins (but in reality it failed testing, meaning the margins were negative).

I am transitioning off the platform and will never use Shopify for anything serious. What a POS company. They seem to think they are running a marketplace when they are actually selling a completely replaceable and somewhat buggy software-as-a-service that treats their customers like idiot children.

They had no idea if we were buying thousands of dollars of traffic per hour and they are lucky we weren't.

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#68

Post by laumars »

fortran77 wrote: post #21
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many metals are contact-antimicrobial See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_properties_of_co... -: Copper and its alloys (brasses, bronzes, cupronickel, copper-nickel-zinc, and others) are natural antimicrobial materials. And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligodynamic_effect -: The oligodynamic effect (from Greek oligos "few", and dynamis "force") is a biocidal effect of metals, especially heavy metals, tha…

You're welcome to rub your hands with a copper disk after going out in public. I'm going to wash them with soap and water for 20 seconds.

The GPs point isn’t meant as a recommendation for the current situation (SARS-CoV-2 isn’t even a microbe), just an explanation of what that disc is.

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#69

Post by birdyrooster »

matharmin wrote: post #63
Symbiote wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suspend/delete accounts (and all listings) for anyone with a single violation. Problem solved.

And then you'll get the "My account has been banned by Amazon after misclassifying a single listing" posts. There are two sides to the problem, and changing criteria for suspension just shifts it to the other side.

Yeah, and that side is better so let us get shifting.

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#70

Post by ecommerceguy »

I've got a decent amount of n95 (both 3M and HDX HD Brand) masks that we lucked into more than a significant amount of time ago. We are afraid to list them, at any price, because I'm afraid ebay/amazon will kill our listings at any price. I'm ready to ship them for free, of all costs, I just don't want my amazon "privileges" revoked. who do i give n95 masks too? edit: they are 2024 exp dates
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