I get the impulse, but there's a reason that Amazon offers its A-to-Z guarantee rather than an a priori vetting process. Because the latter is literally impossible.
How does the vetting even occur? Do we have armies of "compu-physical engineers", imaginary polymaths capable of analyzing any imaginable physical and/or software product for characteristics that should be rejected? If we had such mental deities at our disposal, why would we waste their time vetting gummi penguins for a retail outlet?!?
Given that we won't have a magical vetting army, it'll be exactly like the TSA: enormous costs incurred to vet that the overwhelming majority of stuff is just fine, a bunch of horrible side-effects from false positives, and bad stuff will still slip through whenever someone wants it to.
Unfortunately, there's not a "hide 3rd-party sellers" preference toggle.
So you might filter in this way, and still buy a product from a third party seller.
Physical stores have to meet quality and legal requirements on sale of goods and what have you. The retailer can be sued if something isn't as described, or fit for sale. Things can and do get pulled. Mistakes are of course made.
Selling a bunch of stuff under the Amazon brand but disclaiming everything (take it up with the seller in China) except their own supply has taken it a little far. They became ebay but somehow still carry the trust "even Amazon".
Yes, but that's probably the wrong physical analogy. Has a mall ever been sued because one of its stores sold illegal and/or deceptively advertised goods? I seriously doubt it. Now a mall (or Amazon) might kick a seller out if there are problems. This absolutely happens, but it's not very visible, and only occurs after the fact.
Amazon have been so successful integrating stores into their site that customers don't realise who they're buying from.
New Company will find product looked at to decide if it's worth putting in the stores, that they meet electrical safety or whatever laws etc.[1] Only once approved will they be placed in store. They'll probably trial in just a few stores first. At least some retailers have an audit process for the factory too.
[1] https://www.homeretailgroup.com/suppliers/how-to-be-a-suppli... 80,000 lines, they say they assess all products, and mention lab testing and pre-shipment inspections. They're a mass market retailer with a lot of product at the cheaper end of the scale.
In fact, no retailer does this. Consider any direct seller of a wide assortment of retail goods, e.g. Home Depot, Walmart, etc. None of these have rigorously "vetted" every item that comes through their doors. They certainly get problematic goods, and deal with that after-the-fact two ways: to purchasers via customer returns and support policies, and to suppliers via feedback into their supplier relationships (give us bad stuff, our $$ go elsewhere; contracts; etc.).
The idea that a retailer should be held a priori accountable for third-party goods it sells smacks of the same kind of thinking that suggests ISPs should be held accountable for third-party content flowing across their networks.
I mean I wouldn't say Amazon is a byword for quality and value, but at the same time I would say most people would put it above, say, ebay and there really doesn't seem to be much of a difference anymore.
There is the main Amazon site that everyone is familiar with. You go to Amazon, buy the product from Amazon, pay Amazon, then receive a shipment from Amazon via carrier.
Next is the Amazon seller side. This has two different sides to it. There is the traditional seller model that is akin to eBay's buy-it-now. You go to Amazon, buy from the seller, pay the seller (via Amazon), then receive the shipment from the seller via carrier.
The side to the seller is fulfillment. Sellers have the option to use Amazon as a distributor. It's essentially a hybrid model of the two. You go to Amazon, buy from the seller, pay the seller (via Amazon), then receive the shipment from Amazon (that the seller sent to Amazon) via carrier[1].
My point is that Amazon doesn't exactly put their seal of approval above everything. Just most things.
[1]: https://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/how-it-wor...
If it gets to the point where it's difficult for me to find products of the quality that I want on Amazon, I'm not going to worry about whether it's Sold By Amazon or not - I'm going to find an alternative.
I guess I'm interested in knowing: when is someone going to be prosecuted over malware creation and distribution?
Sure, this isn't perfect, and won't help much if the vendor is a shell company, but it does put vendors on notice.
Illegal or fraudulent listings are expressly forbidden, and the seller agrees to indemnify Amazon for any claim resulting from a breach.
Officially, watermarks and text on/in images is not allowed on Amazon, per their policy. (of course, enforcement varies). This means not seeing a watermark is not a good indication it's not a 3rd party seller. Better stated, absence of a watermark does not mean the item is sold by Amazon.
Nearly everything sold on Amazon these days is 3rd parties. I'd wager somewhere in the 95%+ range. Same with "Prime" items (these are just 3rd parties that use the FBA option).
> I do wish Amazon would vet the stuff they permit sale of on their site though.
This is simply not possible at this scale. Not to mention, there's no guarantee a product line that was vetted by Amazon doesn't somehow have it's firmware changed/modified/injected after the validation period.
Essentially, there's no way around these issues. They're not "Amazon" issues per-say, but rather product-line issues in general. Same thing could occur (and might already be occurring) from retail brick-and-mortar stores as well.
I ask because I buy many things on Amazon and actively avoid 3rd party sellers. With that in mind, I almost never find something I'm looking for that is not available. There are a few exceptions from time to time, but they are rare.
We're found majority of customers have no idea who they're buying from. Majority assume it's always Amazon, and often contact us about other orders they've recently placed, etc.
If you browse around Amazon, you'll notice items that have many "offers", clicking this link will show you the seller's who are listing that product. You'll notice how few Amazon.com is actually listed as a seller. Typically they're listing the top 10 items in any given category, but there's millions of products on Amazon, and very few they actually carry. When they are listed on an item, they're not always the best deal anymore.
We don't worry about competing with Amazon.com anymore, we worry about competing with our Chinese manufacturers (sometimes the same ones we source from!), who get USPS/US Gov't subsidized shipping (free shipping from China, and product costs ~1/2 of a US seller).
Amazon is transitioning into a seller platform, not a seller themselves. All the warehouses they keep popping up everywhere are mostly for FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) warehouses, where 3rd party sellers send their products so that Amazon can warehouse them and ship them when there's a sale.
Amazon FBA is a fairly competitive fulfillment cost, sometimes beating our own internal fulfillment costs (we're stepping up our FBA game because of this, but unfortunately will ultimately result in fewer warehouse staff in our company).
Another secret - Amazon is rarely the best deal for any given item. Officially, policy says you must offer the "best deal" on Amazon, but this is never enforced in our experience. Amazon takes a commission of up-to 30% (depending on the item category), so unless you already have very healthy margins, you end up baking in an additional 30% to the retail price. Customer's pay your commission fees. So, if you find a product you want, see who the seller is, and try to find their website outside of Amazon.com. Chances are, the item will be up-to 30% cheaper (sometimes more!). Of course, this isn't an always guarantee, but it pays to check.
I guess I can see some merit in your assertion if I consider it the long-tail of online sales. That likely explains why I never notice it as I don't hit that segment often and if I do I venture to other retailer sites.
As an insight into an Amazon customer though, I'm ok paying Amazon slightly more than a third party seller or other website. The reason is fairly simple. Trust. I've almost never had a situation where after contacting Amazon customer service I've been unhappy with the resolution. The only times it has happened are with third-party, non-FBA sales. There is little that Amazon can (or will) do to help you in those cases. Eventually if your are REALLY upset they try will try to make things right, but the initial process falls back to you and the random retailers. So, I really don't mind if Amazon's price is higher (slightly) as long as I know they have such liberal customer satisfaction procedures. This is obviously my experience. I've read of others that had bad experiences as well.
Oh how I wish that were true!
As a buyer, your most powerful weapon is the A-Z Guarantee process.
Filing an A-Z is an almost guarantee you'll get your money back, or a new product for free (unless you're obviously at fault or provably pulling some sort of scam).
A-Z's significantly impact sales. They impact search visibility, "Buy Box" share time, and can even get your account(s) flagged for review (during which Amazon freezes all sales). A-Z's can be downright scary.
Sometimes Amazon pulls funds from the seller's account to refund the customer... and sometimes when the seller is obviously not at fault but the customer is still very unhappy, Amazon covers the refund themselves. Both impact the seller.
> So, I really don't mind if Amazon's price is higher
The real advantage Amazon has is the convenience. You can buy groceries, electronics, and clothing all at the same time, from the same website (even if it's multiple sellers you're actually ordering from). You can't get that really anywhere else.
It does pay to check the seller's website if they have one. You'll save money most of the time... but you lose convenience, and it's a hassle for some folks to shuttle around multiple websites.
> I know they have such liberal customer satisfaction procedures
True - but you really should try to support sellers off-Amazon. There's little risk if you checkout with a Visa/Mastercard/AMEX/PayPal. If you're not happy, all of these systems will get you your money back, most of the time (so long as you don't have a large history of chargebacks, etc...). Majority of sellers are out to help customers, not screw them over. Most will bend over backwards to help out a reasonable customer. It's a lot cheaper to keep you as a happy repeat customer than it is to acquire new customers.
This matches what I see. What's even more annoying is that it seems like every third party seller also has decided it's a good idea to spam me with emails asking for reviews after every purchase. Amazon provides no way of unsubscribing from there (they block one particular seller if you contact them, which is utterly useless)
Amazon, themselves, will send 2 notifications about a week apart, for feedback on the order.
But yes, a lot of sellers have started emailing customers as well. On average, and other sellers agree, about 10% of customers leave order feedback. Order feedback is critical to gaining search visibility on Amazon, so sellers live and die by feedback... this is the main motive behind trying to solicit it where possible.
As mentioned, Amazon tends to list the top 10 products in most categories, so naturally they'll get a lot of units sold, but the overwhelming majority of all products listed on Amazon.com are 3rd party sellers.
You can look for yourself, it's fairly obvious.
> Nearly everything sold on Amazon these days is 3rd parties. I'd wager somewhere in the 95%+ range
And again... don't take my word for it... go take a gander yourself. It's very obvious once you look at a few products...
Presumably I could buy the same cameras on eBay or Walmart or somewhere else and also get malware.
I do wish Amazon would vet the stuff they permit sale of on their site though.