Try buying a PS4/PS3/Xbox controller. There is a good chance it is a good looking fake. Apple accessories are another hit or miss target.

Even if you're buying directly from Amazon, or does this only apply to marketplace sellers?

The problem is that inventory from different sellers is commingled unless the seller pays extra. So Amazon's controllers are in the same bin as the ones from Real Good Fakes Inc. Even if you buy from Amazon the actual product you get might have been supplied by Real Good Fakes.

Is it not still shown as "Fullfilled by Amazon" but all grouped under the same product page? I presumed "Sold by Amazon.com" meant procured, shelved, and shipped directly via Amazon.com, none of this third party fulfillment crap.

It is. The issue is that for the "shelved" step there is only one shelf per piece of inventory. So once it is one the shelf there is no guarantee about the origin.

Amazon does allow sellers to pay extra to keep their inventory separate. I don't know if the stuff Amazon sells is kept that way, but there's no guarantee it is.

I want to know this too. "Fulfilled by Amazon" to me sounds very different than sold by Amazon.

FBA and Sold By Amazon are commingled (unless the FBA seller pays for it not to be; Amazon doesn't segregate SBA because the commingling is part of Amazon's logistical efficiencies, which is why it costs money for sellers to opt out of it.)

Source?

That doesn't make sense. They would then need to make sure "Real Good Fakes" products are cheaper than what they send... At anytime "Real Good Fakes" can ask for his stuff back and that has to be "Real Good Fakes" stuff or there may be a big problem (used vs refurbished vs new).

They automate everything, there's no way there's no barcode for this kind of thing.

I can confirm this as someone who used to do 6 figures plus of business on amazon every quarter. Unless I mark that I dont want my inventory commingled (which is an option more expensive than general FBA) once my product shows up at the various warehouses it's dumped into a bin along with everyone else who sent in the same part in for FBA fulfillment.

I got all my product from HP via Synnex, all factory sealed brand new genuine parts. The number of times I got burned by people leaving shitty feedback or returning stuff because what they got when they placed there order for the part I was selling was some knockoff that was close but not exactly it was high enough that I no longer sell on there.

Commingling is certainly something I wasn't aware of, it looks as if most consumers are in the same boat.

The idea that FBA doesn't actually get me parts from the seller I picked has never crossed my mind. I certainly wouldn't have bought quite a few things if I knew that possibility existed.

It's part of their distribution strategy. I'd generally send 500 units to their warehouses a week. When you're dealing with quantities that large they have you split it up to several shipments to different warehouses throughout the country.

Usually it would be many small quantities near me, and then one large one to the other coast which they would then distribute amongst their warehouses on that coast themselves.

So as the number of vendors stocking inventory increases, the cost to amazon to distribute inventory widely enough to hit SLAs goes down because more of the cost is borne by the vendors.

I guess I see how this can happen for everything marked as "New" with no extra details, but how does this work when the ones from different vendors are in a different condition (missing box or whatever)? Are they still commingled then? And if so then how do they make sure the condition matches the one they send you (e.g. not give a missing-box as one that's factory-sealed)?

Used items are not commingled with new items.

But what about with other used items? It's the same problem either way.

And what about "New" items missing packaging etc.?

This isn't an actual problem Amazon has, and Amazon has enough problems that we don't need to make up new ones to discuss. Used items are tracked and sold individually (with their unique condition described and viewable by the purchaser), unlike new items. They're not just binned together by condition, when you buy used you're buying a specific item out of inventory. A "new item missing packaging" would not be sold as a new item. "New" items that are returned to Amazon are re-sold as used under the Amazon Warehouse Deals brand, even if the packaging looks factory sealed, for example.

Thanks!

> Source?

https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch...

Shipped and sold by Amazon.com means that the product is shipped and sold by Amazon Retail (via Vendor Central or Vendor Express) directly. Basically, the manufacturer sends product to Amazon.com at a set price through a traditional PO process. This inventory is commingled with all other FBA inventory.

...

Richard added, "[T]he consumer always thinks the chain is: Manufacturer » Amazon » Me. But the reality is that is pretty much never guaranteed. The only way that's guaranteed is if you find the manufacturer's listing on Amazon.com and buy via [F]ulfilled by Amazon directly from them, AND they happen to choose to opt out of commingled inventory. In every other scenario there's a chance that you get inventory that didn't come from the manufacturer."

>At anytime "Real Good Fakes" can ask for his stuff back and that has to be "Real Good Fakes" stuff

no, they can't, and it doesn't have to be. that's how the FBA program works - when you send your stuff to amazon, they store it in their warehouse on the understanding that it's identical to any other example of the product it is listed as. You can't then turn around and say "i want all the ones i shipped you back", because you've told amazon that the products are interchangeable.

This seems like a viable scam opportunity.

Ship in a crate of counterfeit widgets to mix into their fulfillment pool. Price them stupidly high so they don't actually sell.

Wait a few weeks, to let the inventory churn. There's a fair chance some of your items will actually be shipped out, and many more will be so mixed with turnover from real sellers that it will be difficult to trace back to you.

Then pull the listing and ask for "your" inventory back. Odds are, you'll get at least some legitimate products back, which you can then sell elsewhere at a significant discount.

The math for it to be economic is interesting and likely varies on product price versus counterfeit price, and the rate at which inventory turns over.

Amazon is actually happy to charge you more to use FBA to keep your inventory non commingled. So you can totally get all the exact things you sent them, as long as you paid for the ability to do so before sending all your stuff to the warehouse.

This is true of the PS3 controller(same on ebay). I dont know about the PS4 and Xbox

But on ebay, the seller and the shipper are the same (well, actually, a lot of ebay sellers use third parties- even Amazon, to ship, but the seller is still responsible for the product that gets shipped).

This is not a useful data point, because there is a much larger set that this doesn't meaningfully contribute to.

Hacker news comments are hardly a random sample, and yet here we are.

> Just as a data point, I don't believe I've gotten a fake from Amazon.

You almost certainly have, though you may not be able to tell the difference if you don't actively look for it.

This is one of the things that gets missed when people talk about Amazon and fakes. It's not just about the cost of keeping nonfunctional fakes out of the product stream, it's about the higher costs of legitimate products.

Obviously, the USB drive stuffed in an SSD case is a fake. But that's not the only kind of fake going - printing "Seagate" on off-brand disks happens too, probably with much higher frequency. And cracking down on that would not just be harder, it would be a way bigger threat to Amazon's margins.

Hopefully the PillPack supply chain stays separate or separately monitored, but this wouldn't surprise me either - most cheap online pharmacies are selling real medicine at lower margins, possibly with worse quality control.

> You almost certainly have, though you may not be able to tell the difference if you don't actively look for it.

The gp merely asked for anecdotal data, nothing rigorous. By disagreeing, you are indirectly implying that the commenter is somehow incapable of telling fakes from the real deal.

How does anyone reliably tell fakes apart?

In my experience, it's been because the fake one breaks down in just a few days and I end up ordering a new one, after which point I notice the important differences between the two :(