[commandar]

> they would let random retailers fill the order with fake products

What made this all particularly insidious is that Amazon not only commingled inventory, but actively refused to track where inventory came from.

This meant you only needed one fraudulent seller to poison the entire inventory pool and there was no way know where the bad product came from because Amazon actively avoided being able to track it.

That's the aspect of it that always felt particularly malicious to me.

[fuzzehchat]

Amazon don't check returns either. It's a nightmare if you use their FOB service. We've had product returned, not checked and then shipped to another customer who then pputs in a claim because they didn't get what they ordered - because Amazon didn't check the return. Amazon then claim you're selling counterfeit goods.

Entirely why we no longer use their service and ship direct for amazon orders. Some people still try the trick but we always put a claim in and amazon after they automatically give a refund to the buyer, and Amazon pay it. So Amazon pay twice. Maybe the cost of just accepting that loss is less than having someone check the return.

[FredPret]

The bad part here is letting “poisoned” inventory in.

Adding vendor tracking adds a layer of ERP difficulty that isn’t practical for bulk, cheap items.

You either have to have serial numbers (unique per item, not just a product identifier barcode) or you have to physically segregate inventory by vendor, which is not practical.

If the vendor doesn’t serialize the item, then Amazon has to add it on receipt. Certainly not worth it for $10-20 item.

[Mikhail_Edoshin]

Russia has a working system that tracks retail sales of individual cans of beer, bottles of milk and such. Initially it was introduced to track things like shoes and furs that were massively counterfeited, but then expanded to include other goods. So now in a grocery store you use it, for example, for all milk products (milk, cheese, ice cream, etc.), vegetable oil, beer, mineral water. Technically you just scan a different barcode (QR code). There's also an app you can use to scan the thing and get more information, such as the exact producer. The general idea was to fight counterfeit goods, but as a side effect it also enforces shelf life rules or may help to find a drugstore that has a specific drug.

So it is possible and not that expensive even as a country-wide system for goods that cost around $1 (a typical can of beer).

[Retric]

They didn’t need to actually track things internally, add a sticker or even have someone stamp the vender code to the item listing the vendor when you’re adding the item to the bins and if the customer complains you can likely use that sticker to track who added the item after the fact. Critically you don’t need some 6 digit number for vender code, every new vender for a given item gets a number for that item, software can remember the relevant mapping.

If some vender is adding fraudulent items to the system based on some thresholds you set, charge the vendor to manually sort those specific products out.

Odds are they would make up the ~5 cents per item just dealing with less fraud. However, you don’t need to track every item rack the first few thousand items from a vender and you can scale back tracking as they prove themselves. At scale this could be almost arbitrarily cheap.

[diab0lic]

> or you have to physically segregate inventory by vendor, which is not practical.

The headline seems to indicate that the geniuses in logistics at Amazon have figured out how to make it practical!

[gonzobonzo]

This always confused me. You have a bottle of glue sold by company X. Then you have 87 different people "buying" the glue in bulk, having it sent to Amazon, and selling it on Amazon as if it comes from their store:

Buying option 1: Company X glue from store A. Buying option 2: Company X glue from store B. Buying option 3: Company X glue from store C. ...etc.

But then Amazon says, "actually, these are all the exact same bottles of glue, so we'll thrown them all into the same bin, and no matter what "store" the people buy them from, we'll just grab them out and send them to the customer.

Now even without counterfeits, this is weird. What exactly is the point of store A, B, C, etc.? Company X sends the bottles to Amazon, they get put in one big pile, you buy them on Amazon, and Amazon takes them out of that one big pile and sends them to you.

The only thing purpose of the "stores" when you co-mingle inventory seems to be:

1. Plausible deniability for counterfeits. Hey, they told us they bought it from company X, we had no way of knowing they didn't.

2. Getting money from people trying to get rich quick in the marketplace. Some people will try all sorts of cuts to boost their Amazon sales in the hope that it will pay off later.

[PeterStuer]

Amazon has many requirements for vendors. Having them tag SKUs with a vendor id would be minor.

I stopped buying from "fullfilled by Amazon" as the level of fraud was just insane.

[account42]

How much do you think printing a barcode costs???

[josefx]

> Certainly not worth it for $10-20 item.

Really? Adding a unique ID at the point of entry costs that much?

[bapak]

> Amazon actively avoided being able to track it.

Is that real? I find it hard to believe that Amazon effectively accepted stock from third parties "as is" and lost track of where it came from. It's more likely that they don't tell you than they don't track.

[AnssiH]

No, it is not true, just a common myth.

In the seller documentation they say they can track the source of commingled inventory - they achieve this by never putting them on the same physical shelf location.

Also mentioned by Amazon spokesman in e.g. this article: https://archive.is/ra6RT

> Amazon can also track the original seller of each unit

[mcherm]

We know that they would not provide such tracking for those conducting fraud investigations. You can believe they intentionally didn't track the source or that they intentionally refused to share the information to root out fraud; either one is a very bad look for Amazon.

I'm glad to see this change.

[hnlmorg]

That’s a worse situation then because Amazon would then be intentionally withholding data in counterfeiting investigations.

[privatelypublic]

They know where every item is- if not, how do FBA folks get their stuff back?

[woleium]

Its co-mingled, so you may not your stuff back, you just get similar stuff back. That is if you pay to get it back. It’s usually cheaper to let them flog it off cheap on prime day