[uniformlyrandom]

> Amazon needs to stop co-mingling inventory

That alone would solve 99% of the problems, as dedicated inventory would allow to quickly weed out the bad actors.

[jonhohle]

My understanding is that co-mingling was originally a distribution optimization. I can’t remember if I was there under the initial rollout or they had tried it, stopped it, and rolled it out again during my tenure, but when I started in 2009 it wasn’t a thing, and people were opinionated about why it wasn’t a thing (to protect seller reputation), but it was obvious how it could reduce shipping times (if you have your inventory on the west coast, but a buyer on the east coast, picking from another merchant reduces shipping time and cost and wasted warehouse space partitioning everyone’s inventory).

However, Amazon has abandoned any idea of consistent reliable shipping or even delivery “promises”, so the only thing co-mingling does is reduce shipping costs and warehouse space at the customer’s expense. That’s the antithesis of what Amazon delivery used to be. It’s sad to see all the work we did on Prime and Delivery Experience get washed down the drain. Prime used to be a no brained for anyone who used Amazon regularly, and now I’m not even sure if there is discrete value there anymore, rather than just a mishmash of unrelated, mediocre up upsell opportunities.