Do You Know What’s Going in Your Amazon Shopping Cart?

For Faster Shipping, Items Are Commingled at Warehouses, Opening the Door to Knockoffs

The phenomenon doesn’t just reflect a problem with unsavory sellers. It is also a result of the way Amazon manages inventory in its network of warehouses across the U.S. As more third-party sellers have signed up to offer products through Amazon and use its order-fulfillment services, the Seattle-based giant has allowed many to pool their inventory with supposedly identical items supplied by other sellers—in essence commingling products from third-party merchants with those supplied directly to Amazon by the brands themselves.

In other words, a product ordered from a third-party seller may not have originated from that particular seller. If the bar code matches, any one that is on the shelf will do

As Amazon has gotten bigger I’m having more and more troubles with it.  Example, for Mother’s Day I purchased a Authorized League “Mother’s Day Commemorative” baseball in a clear display case.  Gift wrapped.   The gift wrap was apparently a mistake, the ball was probably wrapped by a robot but the gift label and note was apparently applied by a human, slightly off-center and affixed with one last fist bump…that cracked the top of the display case. Minor issue and Amazon immediately reshipped but I’m getting more and more of them.  And I’m wondering if at some point Amazon is going to get tried of making good.   Sometimes they don’t,  last month I received a double order, two books of the same title,  I ordered one.  The second order popped up two days after I ordered the first copy.  Unless I’m finally going wacko, I didn’t order the second but Amazon and the third-party bookseller  buckscountybooks2893 insisted I had and bucks county books would only process a return and credit if I paid return postage (about half the amount of the credit for the return).   So I didn’t return the second book and instead made a donation to the local thrift store.

Well, I’m just rambling here.   I made a more cogent post about my personal problems with Amazon back here…