Amazon has allowed Chinese manufacturers to sell directly to American consumers. In doing so, it’s opened the floodgates to all sorts of problems. These are:-

Fake Reviews

You can buy reviews. A fake review might happen in two ways:  hand out the product in return for a review, or simply pay people to review the product. Amazon doesn’t allow this, but it happens nonetheless.

Commingled Inventory

A commingled inventory is what happens when Amazon fulfils an order on behalf of the seller, sending it out themselves from an Amazon warehouse. However, this means that consumers don’t know if they’re getting the real product or a fake one.

Hijacked Listings

Imagine you have a unique product line. You’re selling well, but one day you find that someone is selling fake versions of your product on your listing for, say, £1 less. The consumer is naturally going to want to pay less meaning they will buy the cheaper option. This is infringement of your product so you can get the fake items removed, but it’s up to you to do so. Moreover counterfeit products will appear more quickly than they can be taken down.

Multiple Stores

Amazon will remove fake stores, but the problem is that they can re-appear immediately, with the same products, but under a different name.

What is Amazon doing about this?

Amazon is aware of the problem of counterfeit goods, but so far hasn’t said how it will police them.

 

 

 
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