The amount of research that needs to be done to purchase even the most basic stuff online is beyond paralyzing. I hate shopping irl but I think I hate online shopping even more.
So vendors won't ship them shit, because they know they'll eat the returns.
I'm sure they do additional curation on top of that, but making them stand behind the product probably gets 80% of the way there.
So if random brand X wants to keep selling those toilets at Costco, they will sometimes get a deduction from their invoice because a curmudgeon brought in a ten year old toilet that broke.
(Costco had to change this policy on computers and TVs because word got out and people began abusing the policy so much the vendors revolted.)
Costco op.
Eventually, I’ll just say F it and get rid of Prime. Two day shipping is gone for a lot of items anyways. 5 days of wait is better than constance vigilance to prevent getting garbage from 3rd party sellers
Compare today: we have major retailers demanding exclusive SKUs to prevent apples-to-apples comparisons, and it doesn't matter anyway because most people are Amazon Prime members and don't really bother shopping around.