They don't prefix with the vendor? So they mix the stock of all their suppliers? That's pretty unbelievably sloppy, is there some public proof of this?

This has been widely reported, is ongoing for years, and is the source of frequent complaints from both users and manufacturers.

Here are a few examples, starting with Amazon's own website explaining commingling:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeI...

https://cblr.columbia.edu/amazons-war-on-counterfeits/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-amazon-pooled-merchandise-op...

Thank you for digging that up. Amazon should really not do this, it opens them up to all kinds of scams and has the potential to harm their brand in ways that will not be easy to repair.

I doubt that is true, and I haven't seen any proof of it either.

What I can tell you though, is that Amazon is incredibly lenient on enforcing EANs. So even though there is that identifier that should be able to uniquely identify a product, often times third-party replacements for the product, or even completely unrelated items are listed under the EAN, and Amazon doesn't give a shit.

Proof? Amazon terms of service for vendors is a hood place to start.