> Seems like Amazon finally agrees that the counterfeiting issues from commingling are worse than the logistics advantages.

The cynical perspective is that they are facing a serious financial penalty either from the manufacturers themselves, or a large buyer that got burned by co-mingled products, or both.

Or alternatively: they have reduced the expectations of "two day shipping" so much that they no longer need to try that hard (by commingling inventory) to actually meet them.

> either from the manufacturers themselves, or a large buyer that got burned by co-mingled products

While high value resale brands like Apple and GPU manufacturers would be the obvious choice here, I’d be tickled if it was LEGO Group that finally forced their hand, given how many stories there are of people receiving faked parts, missing mini figs and straight up bags of pasta.

Of course. Businesses only change when you complain and vote with your money.

That’s not cynical, that’s the system working. And if you keep bringing your money, you are signaling it’s a little annoying but not it’s ultimately ok.

That wouldn’t be cynical at all! It would mean that the system works, albeit slowly.

The best we can hope for is a world where Amazon faces real financial pressure to prevent counterfeits. Thus far I haven’t seen much evidence this was happening, but this is a welcome sign.

I suspect this one is death by 1000 cuts as Amazon has distribution facilities everywhere and will be subject to state and even local laws concerning warranty, product safety, and trademark. You can't contract your way out of it, and defective and counterfeit product can even carry criminal liability depending on jurisdiction. Good move Amazon.

"Commingling" is such a great euphemism for fraudulent counterfeiting.

I can't count the number of times I've ordered a book from Amazon (1st party, Amazon as the seller) and received an obvious counterfeit, with fuzzy text and a poorly printed cover. On one occasion, the scanning/OCR process had missed most of one chapter, so there were just section headers, page numbers and blank pages.

Unfortunately publishers and manufacturers don't have a lot of leverage with Amazon. If there's pressure coming from somewhere, it must be coming from a regulatory body.