Comment by amluto
7 years ago
Screw the deposit. Amazon itself should be liable if they don’t track who actually sold the merchandise.
7 years ago
Screw the deposit. Amazon itself should be liable if they don’t track who actually sold the merchandise.
Amazon does track the original supplier.
From their seller help pages:
> Note: Amazon ensures that the initial source of the commingled units can be traced throughout the fulfilment process.
> Important: Amazon ensures that the exact same units from two sellers, participating in the commingling programme, are always physically segregated. This means that Amazon storage logic does not allow same ASINs of different sellers to be stored in the same bin in our warehouse if they are commingled.
In other words, Amazon ensures that commingled items are never physically commingled.
For a public source, see e.g. Amazon comment in this article: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/04/03/1554287401000/Amazon-... (outline link: https://outline.com/4R7fp6)
> The system is purposefully designed so that similar products are not placed next to or near each other, and Amazon can also track the original seller of each unit.
The next sentence of your last paragraph says:
> Sellers are able to choose whether to share identical inventory or not.
That seems to indicate physical commingling. IIRC, avoiding commingling has an additional cost to the seller.
As far as I understand it, that just means that sellers have the option to opt in/out of the commingling program (Settings => Fulfillment by Amazon => FBA Product Barcode Preference).
Yes, there is a cost for the seller if opting out - they need to apply their own barcodes to the products in that case.