Prime doesn't mean it's sold by Amazon. It can be a third party seller using Fulled by Amazon services. And in that case, the item may not even come from the specific seller you're buying from, because of inventory commingling - they put all of the sellers' inventories into one big bin and send you any of them.

What you may be looking for is "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com". But there have been reports that even those products may be commingled with third-party inventory. (I don't have any personal knowledge on that one way or the other.)

> the item may not even come from the specific seller you're buying from, because of inventory commingling - they put all of the sellers' inventories into one big bin and send you any of them.

Yeah, but in that case you're at least very likely to be getting the item you ordered. I've got the same policy for ordering stuff from Amazon - if it's prime and does from their warehouse I'll trust it. Haven't been burned yet, and the occasional mistake is always cleared up, usually with a 1 month credit to my prime subscription.

The biggest issue in that case is fake merchandise. Fakes can get shipped from the warehouse just as easily as the real thing.

On the German Amazon site there are now even "Prime" articles directly sent from the third-party seller.

I've had issues with Amazon Essential products (keyboard and mouse).... they are probably sold via Prime but I refuse to get Prime. The replacement was easy to get but the quality was low.

I've had pretty good results buying inexpensive old CD releases from non-prime third party sellers on Amazon. No scams (so far - knock on wood), items were as described.

The key word here is "inexpensive". You're not going to get cheated for a few bucks, the risk/profit ratio just isn't worth it.

Counter-anecdote from ~20 third-party used CD purchases—I've had to dispute counterfeit, falsely advertised condition, and wrong items.

I think you mean "sold by Amazon"? Third parties can take advantage of prime shipping, and people have been scammed via that method as well.

I'm at the point now where I only buy Prime Free Same Day, Fulfilled (or Sold by) Amazon. Anything else and I may as well walk to Target/Best Buy/Etc.

Amazon's prices aren't usually any better than local retail, or if so, not by much. The benefit to me is ordering an item mid-morning and having it on my doorstep by dinner.