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Comment by mumblemumble | Hacker News Reader

> - Either the item is listed as being sold by its original manufacturer and fulfilled by Amazon

I wouldn't trust that one. Since Amazon co-mingles inventory, stuff that's sold by the original manufacturer but FBA could still get mixed up with counterfeit product.

What you'd really want to do to make sure that it's coming from the original manufacturer is look for stuff that is sold by the original manufacturer and not fulfilled by Amazon.

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No, Amazon segregates its own inventory from FBA inventory for items where Amazon.com is the seller. FBA inventory only gets commingled with other FBA inventory.

Supposedly Amazon now maintains separate inventories for each FBA vendor at some but not all of their distribution warehouses (like their San Bernardino facility).

can you provide a source for this? I've read multiple articles on Amazon doing the opposite. https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-amazon-pooled-merchandise-op...

Amazon used to be a client and I've personally visited their San Bernardino facility and seen firsthand how FBA inventory is segregated from Amazon.com inventory.

Note that the WSJ article is from 2014--several years before my visit. I can't speak to what Amazon was doing with inventory in 2014, but it sure isn't what they were doing in 2017 at their SoCal distribution facilities.

I've ordered from Amazon (shipped and sold by) and received fake goods with another vendor's stickers on them (essentially a barcode swap).

If that was once accurate, I don't believe it remains accurate.

Commingling only happens when there is no seller barcode sticker ("stickerless inventory" in Amazon's terms).

So I believe in your case something else must have happened.

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