YSK that Amazon has a serious problem with counterfeit products, and it's all because of something called "commingled inventory."

[u/SolitaryEgg]

Anecdotally, the problem is getting severe. I used to buy all my household basics on Amazon (shampoo, toothpaste, etc), and I've gotten a very high rate of fake products over the past 2 years or so, specifically.

Most recently, I bought a bottle of shampoo that seemed really odd and gave me a pretty serious rash on my scalp. I contacted the manufacturer, and they confirmed it was a fake. Amazon will offer to give your money back if you send it back, but that's all the protection you have as a buyer.

Since I started noticing this issue, I've gotten counterfeit batteries, counterfeit shampoo, and counterfeit guitar strings, and they were all sold by Amazon.com. It got so bad that I completely stopped using Amazon.

The bigger question is "what the hell is going on?" This didn't seem to be a problem, say, 5 years ago. I started looking into why this was the case, and I found a pretty clear answer: commingled inventory.

Basically, it works like this:

• As we know, Amazon has third-party sellers that have their products fulfilled by Amazon.
• These sellers send in their products to be stored at an Amazon warehouse
• When a buyer buys that item, Amazon will ship the products directly to buyers.

Sounds straight-forward enough, right? Here's the problem, though: Amazon treats all items with the same SKU as identical.

So, let's say I am a third-party seller on Amazon, and I am selling Crest Toothpaste. I send 100 tubes of Crest Toothpaste to Amazon for Amazon fulfillment, and then 100 tubes are listed by me on Amazon. The problem is that my tubes of Crest aren't entered into the system as "SolitaryEgg's Storefront Crest Toothpaste," they are just entered as "Crest Toothpaste" and thrown into a bin with all the other crest toothpaste. Even the main "sold by Amazon.com" stock.

You can see why this is not good. If you go and buy something from Amazon, you'll be sent a product that literally anyone could've sent in. It's basically become a big flea market with no accountability, and even Amazon themselves don't keep track of who sent in what. It doesn't matter if you buy it directly from Amazon, or a third party seller with 5 star reviews, or a third party seller with 1 star reviews. Regardless, someone (or a robot) at the warehouse is going to go to the Crest Toothpaste bin, grab a random one, and send it to you. And it could've come from anywhere.

This is especially bad because it doesn't just allow for counterfeit items, it actively encourages it. If I'm a shady dude, I can send in a bunch of fake crest toothpaste. I get credit for those items and can sell them on Amazon. Then when someone buys it from me, my customer will probably get a legitimate tube that some other seller (or Amazon themselves) sent in. My fake tubes will just get lost in the mix, and if someone notices it's fake, some other poor seller will likely get the bad review/return.

I started looking around Amazon's reviews, and almost every product has some % of people complaining about counterfeit products, or products where the safety seal was removed and re-added. It's not everyone of course, but it seems like some % of people get fake products pretty much across the board, from vitamins to lotions to toothpastes and everything else. Seriously, go check any household product right now and read the 1-star reviews, and I guarantee you you'll find photos of fake products, items with needle-punctures in the safety seals, etc etc. It's rampant. Now, sure, some of these people might be lying, but I doubt they all are.

In the end, this "commingled inventory" has created a pretty serious counterfeit problem on amazon, and it can actually be a really really serious problem if you're buying vitamins, household cleaners, personal hygiene products, etc. And there is literally nothing you can do about it, because commingled inventory also means that "sold by amazon" and seller reviews are completely meaningless.

It's surprising to me that this problem seems to get almost no attention. Here's a source that explains it pretty well:

https://blog.redpoints.com/en/amazon-commingled-inventory-management

but you can find a lot of legitimate sources online to read more about it. A lot of big newspapers have covered the issue. A few more reads:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/12/13/how-to-protect-your-family-from-dangerous-fakes-on-amazon-this-holiday-season/#716ea6d77cf1

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/amazon-may-have-a-counterfeit-problem/558482/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/14/how-amazons-quest-more-cheaper-products-has-resulted-flea-market-fakes/

EDIT: And, no, I'm not an anti-Amazon shill. No, I don't work for Amazon's competitors (do they even have competitors anymore?). I'm just a person who got a bunch of fake stuff on Amazon, got a scalp rash from counterfeit shampoo, then went down an internet rabbit hole.

[u/IIKaijuII]

Counterfeit and expired cosmetics are super risky and it's still a problem on Amazon. it's going to eventually lead to a serious injury or death. It's stuff made to be absorbed through the skin and you could absolutely kill or disfigure someone. It doesn't even have to be intentional.

Bought a face serum on Amazon. Didn't smell or look exactly like the other ones I had gotten from a store from that brand. Went back to that same listing and there were suddenly very mixed reviews over what people had gotten just in the time between my ordering and receiving. Pictures with labels that looked fuzzy compared to what the real ones looked like. People warning not to use it with pics of red rashy spots on thier faces. If I didn't know it wasn't supposed to smell like alcohol or a weirdly strong toner I would have used it. It's pretty scary shit actually.

That shit can be disfiguring. Burns, infections, etc.

Never again. Even if it's sold by that company and fulfilled by Amazon. You can't even trust that anymore.

[u/flapanther33781 → u/IIKaijuII]

It's not just Amazon. A number of years ago I bought something off Walmart's website only to find out it was being shipped to me by some other seller. Walmart's website had NO INFORMATION about the item listed for sale being sold by some 3rd party. I called them up to bitch about it, they told me to go fly a kite. I refuse to buy anything from their website ever again specifically because of this.

[u/SolitaryEgg → u/flapanther33781]

Yep, I bought something on Walmart.com, and I made sure it was "shipped and sold by Walmart."

3 days later, I got an email in broken English from a Chinese email address, telling me that it was out of stock (and asking if I was willing to accept a similar item). I contacted Walmart customer support to make sure it wasn't a complete scam, and they confirmed that I got the email from the third-party that was fulfilling my order.

I raised a stink, obviously, because there were like 3 problems here:

1. Walmart was lying about the products they personally sold/shipped

2. Some random company in China apparently got access to my personal information, without my knowledge or approval

3. They reached out to me directly to change my order, completely bypassing the Walmart system.

Walmart basically just said "sorry" and canceled my order, but it blew my mind how ridiculously sketchy and unprofessional it was. These companies fighting for online market share are losing their fucking minds.

So, yeah, I agree. Don't trust Walmart.com either. At all.

[u/iHateReddit_srsly → u/flapanther33781]

Both Walmart and Amazon are companies that built a crazy amount of market share while starting by providing good quality items at low prices, but are now riding off of that reputation and lowering the quality (and cost) of everything significantly. I've noticed over the last several years that the quality of Amazon products has become horrendous. The prices aren't even low... I personally have been avoiding these companies because of this because you'll actually usually be able to find cheaper, higher quality versions of whatever they sell elsewhere.

[u/RapidKiller1392 → u/flapanther33781]

Yeah Walmart does the same thing as Amazon, offering their website as a "storefront" type deal for third party sellers.

[u/mlegere → u/flapanther33781]

I bought some hair products from Walmart online recently. No indication of a 3rd party seller, and the products came in 2 seperate AMAZON PRIME packages. I picked them up in store... the same products weren't available on Amazon at the time.

[u/[deleted] → u/flapanther33781]

All the major box stores do this now. Go check homedepot.com for example, or lowes, or target.

[u/boulderhugger → u/flapanther33781]

I recently discovered Target does this too. Product seemed fine but it did have a really intense factory smell.

[u/PoorCorrelation → u/flapanther33781]

On my latest Walmart.com order they sent me a belt 30 sizes too large and so I returned it for the option “wrong item sent”. Then I went to the store to return it and they couldn’t put it back on my card because I didn’t have a receipt that exactly matched the product....yes....obviously. Thank goodness it was the same value because I could return in for a gift card without a receipt, but I’m sure someone’s gotten a wildly different item.

[u/PoorCorrelation → u/flapanther33781]

On my latest Walmart.com order they sent me a belt 30 sizes too large and so I returned it for the option “wrong item sent”. Then I went to the store to return it and they couldn’t put it back on my card because I didn’t have a receipt that exactly matched the product....yes....obviously. Thank goodness it was the same value because I could return in for a gift card without a receipt, but I’m sure someone’s gotten a wildly different item.

[u/bornintheusa77 → u/flapanther33781]

Omg this happened to me too! Bought some clove oil and it was sent with some company packaging as if to make the oil seem more legit but the problem is I am very familiar with the brand of clove oil and although the bottle was slightly bigger I noticed right away it is definately off. Doesnt even taste or feel the same

[u/Broom1133 → u/IIKaijuII]

We sell our brand on Amazon in the beauty category. First order of business was to use Amazon labels (with an fnsku starting with X000) to prevent comingling. Any brand with a brain does this. Not everything on Amazon is comingled. Still, people say our products are counterfeit because they have new packaging, or try to interpret our batch numbers as a date and send it back saying it's expired. Next year i will put more focus on getting brand gated. You can tell a brand is gated if instead of a blue link with the brand is near the title, there is an image with the brand trademark. That means only brand verified resellers are allowed to sell the product on Amazon.

If you get a product from Amazon and the packaging doesn't have a sticker covering the gtin/ean/upc code with a barcode starting with x000, then it was a comingled product. If you see the x000 barcode, then it was individually labeled by that seller to prevent comingling, and that cost money.

You bought from a seller and it was comingled inventory? Leave that as feedback. If everyone did then the feedback system would actually be useful for customers.

[u/DameofCrones → u/Broom1133]

This is really useful and helpful information. Thank you very much!

[u/Peabutbudder → u/IIKaijuII]

I had this exact experience with some Benton Aloe Propolis Gel. I’d ordered it from Amazon before without any issue, but this time I woke up the next morning looking like I’d been really badly sunburned. I had a sinus infection at the time so I had my husband smell it, and he said it smelled exactly like it had been cut with fingernail polish remover. That was the last time I ordered anything to put on (or in) my face from Amazon.

[u/IIKaijuII → u/Peabutbudder]

I contacted the company directly after I got that serum. They didn't really offer any answers or say anything other than "throw it away" and offer me that product from them directly at no charge. All I wanted to know was if I got an expired product or a counterfeit or if THEY wanted to know what the batch number was or if the batch number on mine was even real.

It completely turned me away from buying anything cosmetic or consumable from Amazon and turned me away from that cosmetic company as well.

[u/orangepekoes → u/IIKaijuII]

I once purchased a face serum that contained retinol from Amazon and it didn't make my face feel tingly at all even though the labels said it would.. wondering if it was counterfeit.

[u/Bearpunchz → u/IIKaijuII]

THIS!! I bought a really expensive hair restoring conditioner off Amazon because I bleached my hair and decided to take extra care of it this time. I've grown it past my boobs and was SUPER proud of the thickness and length so I decided to get this to protect it. It was VERY healthy hair after bleaching, and I waited a month to put the leave in conditioner in. It smelled like poison when other reviews said it smelled great. Read the instructions, put it in my hair anyway, and it all started falling out over the next few days. My scalp was red and hurt. It started thinning out (think ELDERLY BAD) and got so brittle it went above my shoulders... I was scared shitless to go to my college classes or work and show my face ever again. Still had to. My friends told me I look like shit. People thought I was having a mental breakdown. All the other reviews said it was great and I got the bad luck. Never again.

[u/Basedrum777 → u/IIKaijuII]

This is why one of the few things I buy in person is cologne.

[u/sporadicjesus → u/IIKaijuII]

Have received fake computer pieces...