I've started experimenting with Walmart to replace lots of the stuff I usually get from Amazon. Unsure about them yet.
Unless Amazon ditches the 3rd party sellers, I won't be back.
But amazon wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants to offload all that inventory risk into others and it wants its customers to pay the same or more as other retailers who you can trust to not sell counterfeit goods.
A consumer’s only solution is to switch your purchases to actual retailers who are selling goods you can trust.
At the very least, Amazon should mark the commingled vs. non-commingled status for each offer. Right now, you only see this once you hold the item in your hands - if there's a barcode starting with "X" on the package, it's non-commingled AFAIK.
(But I wonder if Amazon actually authenticates X-labeled incoming merchandise, e.g. by requiring a shared secret on the package slip. Otherwise, if an attacker sends in a fake item that's X-labeled as if it came from an honest seller, they would still be able to tank the reputation of the honest seller. Maybe this could even be done from the position of an Amazon customer, i.e. they would apply the fraudulent X-label to a swapped "returned" item. Who would believe the honest seller in this circumstance?)
If so...I'm just going to buy name brand items in stores and get a price match.
Another Amazon horror story would be I was listening to an Amazon seller podcast. The person being interviewed sold supplements. He said he imported some herbs from South America, picked them up at the airport, dropped them off at the plant with some bottles, got them, and sent them off to Amazon. Nowhere did he mention fda or anything. I'm hoping things are a lot harder now to sell your own private label supplements on Amazon, like requiring GMP certificates or invoices from a credible manufacturer... Or even worse electronics from China that do not have any of the required testing that retail brick and mortar stores require. Or ah maybe the worst story of all. The Amazon seller who sells used bras as new on Amazon. I stopped buying bras on Amazon after I heard that one at an Amazon seller event.
"Dietary supplements" are essentially unregulated. The manufacturer is responsible for doing any quality control/inspections/etc. The FDA might come after you after you sell something, but they do absolutely no verification before. I can't find any evidence that the regulation requires anyone but the manufacturer to do anything and it doesn't seem there is any verification. (in other words, don't trust supplements no matter where you buy them)
On the other hand, all meat that isn't privately sold is required to be inspected before and after slaughter and processing by the USDA. The packing plants have to shut down if there aren't inspectors there.
Sorry, but they do. I've sold new stuff on Amazon. I ship it out to their warehouses. When you look at the product, you will see my price amongst the various Prime sellers. However, when you ship something new to Amazon, they ask whether it is OK to comingle your product with Amazon's. There's no good reason to say "No". So when you buy from me, you could be getting the one owned by Amazon, and vice versa.
Nowadays I feel almsot more confident to buy on ebay from sellers that have thousands of ratings with a high positive percentage.
Newegg so far hasn't done either of those things, and I simply select "Sold by Newegg" as the only options I'll consider when looking.
I also get annoyed at every damn e-store now being a giant import of some silly bazaar database - but at least Newegg still gives you the ability to ignore it.
As a result the services suffer, and they will continue to do so which then opens up a niche for a new seller to come along. Ebay has suffered the same cyle.
How is Amazon thriving? I don't get it. Don't other people have the same experience?