So are all these people who say they are buying from Amazon actually buying from 3rd party sellers on Amazon? I’m always confused by these stories with used items being delivered.
The principal issue is this, Amazon commingles stock. This means that there is one box for a particular SKU. If a seller sends product to Amazon for fulfillment it gets dumped into the bin with everyone else’s.
This means that if a seller sends counterfeit or poor products to Amazon it gets mixed in with the real ones from other sellers or Amazon’s own stock. This causes major problems as you can see.
Yup, this is the real answer. Verified vendors’ stock isn’t kept separate from the shitty scammers’ stock. Vendor has 10 good memory cards in stock, and a scammer has 5 fakes? The bin will have all 15 cards… So buying from the vendor doesn’t guarantee you get a real memory card, because the counterfeits are in the same bin.
Every professional photographer knows that good SD cards are Sandisk branded and come from B&H Photo Supply… While bad SD cards are Sandisk branded and come from Amazon.
I bought a 3 pack of Corsair LL120 RGB case fans directly from Amazon-dot-com (as the seller) before and got a 3 pack of someone’s old case fans instead (the old swapperoo). So Amazon told me to just keep them after I sent them many photos of the box and the LPN sticker on it, and they sent me another. Take a guess what was in that box? Yup, more swapperoos. But this was back in 2016-2017 so they may have changed up how they handle returns since then, or how they isolate their own products from 3rd party ‘FBA’ sellers
Its all the same, you search for something on Amazon, find it, and buy. Not obvious if it is a 3rd party seller or no. It feels like all the same thing.
You can see on the right side of the screen who the seller is though? It is annoying there isn’t a proper filter but you can kind of use the qualified for free shipping filter to filter out third parties.
As I understand it, if any seller is using Amazon fulfillment centers, the product you’re given is picked out of the same box regardless of the named seller. That makes it impossible to buy confidently from Amazon based on the reputation of the seller, and makes Amazon themselves an unreputable seller.
You can be sure it comes out of an Amazon warehouse. And that’s not the same thing.
Although frankly, it should be. I don’t know how they’ve got this cushy position where they take items from others, store them, and then ship them out for enormous fees without taking on any retailer responsibility.
Yeah, but what I mean is Tesco and Walmart are a convenient stores that everyone knows about, but if I buy an Ali Express quality fire hazard from those, they’d get into trouble for it.
While Amazon will ask you to take it up with UFTNGDNH Ltd, who conveniently can’t be contacted any more, but here’s CVBXDFXE Inc selling the exact same items under a different “brand”.
I got something recently that was “free shipping for prime customers,” but when I had to return it, it turns out that it was different and returns were not free.
Many years ago it used to be very obvious when you were buying from Amazon vs 3rd party sellers. Today the only difference is a small bit of text that says “Shipped and sold by Amazon”. The fact that you can even get prime shipping on items from third party sellers makes it so that people often don’t realize.
You don’t know that Amazon is a marketplace? So is Walmart and Target. Com for example. You can open a store on any of these platforms and sell while using them for advertisement, warehousing, and shipping. You are responsible for fees and sales etc, but they handle everything else. Yes, they have their own products as well, but most their sales come from vendors on their platform.
So are all these people who say they are buying from Amazon actually buying from 3rd party sellers on Amazon? I’m always confused by these stories with used items being delivered.
The principal issue is this, Amazon commingles stock. This means that there is one box for a particular SKU. If a seller sends product to Amazon for fulfillment it gets dumped into the bin with everyone else’s.
This means that if a seller sends counterfeit or poor products to Amazon it gets mixed in with the real ones from other sellers or Amazon’s own stock. This causes major problems as you can see.
Yup, this is the real answer. Verified vendors’ stock isn’t kept separate from the shitty scammers’ stock. Vendor has 10 good memory cards in stock, and a scammer has 5 fakes? The bin will have all 15 cards… So buying from the vendor doesn’t guarantee you get a real memory card, because the counterfeits are in the same bin.
Every professional photographer knows that good SD cards are Sandisk branded and come from B&H Photo Supply… While bad SD cards are Sandisk branded and come from Amazon.
I bought a 3 pack of Corsair LL120 RGB case fans directly from Amazon-dot-com (as the seller) before and got a 3 pack of someone’s old case fans instead (the old swapperoo). So Amazon told me to just keep them after I sent them many photos of the box and the LPN sticker on it, and they sent me another. Take a guess what was in that box? Yup, more swapperoos. But this was back in 2016-2017 so they may have changed up how they handle returns since then, or how they isolate their own products from 3rd party ‘FBA’ sellers
Its all the same, you search for something on Amazon, find it, and buy. Not obvious if it is a 3rd party seller or no. It feels like all the same thing.
You can see on the right side of the screen who the seller is though? It is annoying there isn’t a proper filter but you can kind of use the qualified for free shipping filter to filter out third parties.
As I understand it, if any seller is using Amazon fulfillment centers, the product you’re given is picked out of the same box regardless of the named seller. That makes it impossible to buy confidently from Amazon based on the reputation of the seller, and makes Amazon themselves an unreputable seller.
Customers shouldn’t have to be uber careful all the time, these are dark ui patterns.
Caveat emptor
The fraudster’s motto.
You can. I can. But how many people do, and how many just flick through on their phone and click “Buy now” without really looking?
Basically if you filter by “prime delivery” you’re sure it comes from amazon
You can be sure it comes out of an Amazon warehouse. And that’s not the same thing.
Although frankly, it should be. I don’t know how they’ve got this cushy position where they take items from others, store them, and then ship them out for enormous fees without taking on any retailer responsibility.
By having a convenient website that everybody knows about?
Yeah, but what I mean is Tesco and Walmart are a convenient stores that everyone knows about, but if I buy an Ali Express quality fire hazard from those, they’d get into trouble for it.
While Amazon will ask you to take it up with UFTNGDNH Ltd, who conveniently can’t be contacted any more, but here’s CVBXDFXE Inc selling the exact same items under a different “brand”.
I got something recently that was “free shipping for prime customers,” but when I had to return it, it turns out that it was different and returns were not free.
It does say “sold and shipped from amazon” in the listings, as opposed to “sold by random Chinese company”.
Many years ago it used to be very obvious when you were buying from Amazon vs 3rd party sellers. Today the only difference is a small bit of text that says “Shipped and sold by Amazon”. The fact that you can even get prime shipping on items from third party sellers makes it so that people often don’t realize.
the problem is they mingle stock from every source into one pile with no discernable way to identify what came from where.
You don’t know that Amazon is a marketplace? So is Walmart and Target. Com for example. You can open a store on any of these platforms and sell while using them for advertisement, warehousing, and shipping. You are responsible for fees and sales etc, but they handle everything else. Yes, they have their own products as well, but most their sales come from vendors on their platform.