XPost: alt.marketing.online.amazon.sellers, talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.society.liberalism, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: nospam@ix.netcom.com   
      
   Paul and Rachelle Baron were an Amazon success story. The washable swim   
   diaper they designed for their infant son quickly became a best-selling   
   product as the online retailer’s algorithm worked its magic.   
      
   Satisfied parents left five-star ratings and glowing feedback, elevating   
   the diaper in search results and steering more shoppers their way. The   
   momentum seemed unstoppable.   
      
   Then one scathing review changed everything.   
      
   “The diaper arrived used and was covered in poop stains,” a shopper wrote   
   in a review with a one-star rating. “Nothing could have been more   
   disgusting!! I am assuming someone returned it after using it and the   
   company simply did not check the item and then shipped it to us as if it   
   was brand new. These were not small stains either. I was extremely grossed   
   out.” Worst of all, the review featured photos of the stains for all to   
   see.   
      
   This wasn’t supposed to happen. Amazon.com has committed to inspecting   
   each return for issues before reselling it. But warehouse employees,   
   trained to work quickly, don’t always have enough time to carefully   
   inspect each item before putting it back into circulation, according to   
   someone who spent years in the returns operation.   
      
   The Barons learned the hard way that the world’s largest online retailer   
   isn’t perfect and sometimes makes mistakes.   
      
   Selling returned products as new on Amazon is a major and growing problem,   
   according to consultants who advise merchants how to navigate the online   
   marketplace. When the practice spawns negative feedback, they say, the   
   damage increases exponentially.   
      
   The Barons told Amazon repeatedly that they weren’t at fault and that the   
   review should be taken down. Yet it remains on the site, inflicting   
   lasting harm. The couple says they’re $600,000 in debt, including a loan   
   secured by their home that complicates the prospect of filing for   
   bankruptcy. They make enough selling diapers to pay down debt and order   
   more inventory, they say, but it’s not a living.   
      
   “The last four years have been an emotional train wreck,” Paul Baron said.   
   “Shoppers might think returning a poopy diaper to Amazon is a victimless   
   way to get their money back, but we’re a small, family business, and this   
   is how we pay our mortgage.”   
      
   “We are sorry to hear that a seller feels their return was not evaluated   
   correctly and resulted in a negative review,” Amazon spokesperson Maria   
   Boschetti said in a statement. “We encourage selling partners to reach out   
   with any concerns, and we listen to their feedback to help us continue   
   improving the selling experience.”   
      
   Amazon recently introduced a policy that lets sellers instruct the company   
   not to resell any returned products. Previously, “all items returned as   
   new were automatically resold after being carefully evaluated by a member   
   of our team to ensure the returned product meets strict guidelines for   
   resale as new,” Boschetti said. She also said sellers can contact the   
   company if they believe feedback on a resold product is “inaccurate or   
   incorrectly attributed to them.”   
      
   The Barons’ entrepreneurial journey began a decade ago.   
      
   They had enrolled their newborn son Beauregard in swim class. But the swim   
   diapers they purchased were too tight on his legs and had to be removed   
   like underpants, making cleanup messy. So the Barons turned their   
   frustration into an idea: a reusable swim diaper with snaps to make it   
   adjustable and easy to remove.   
      
   They used a credit card to place their first order with a factory in China   
   and launched Beau & Belle Littles on Amazon. Before long, the business had   
   reached $1 million in sales. The couple appeared on the Rachael Ray Show   
   and were profiled in Forbes. Theirs was the kind of small-business success   
   that Amazon loves to tout, especially when regulators accuse it of hurting   
   mom-and-pops.   
      
   “We started this as a dream to make enough money for Rachelle to be able   
   to stay home,” Paul said. The alternative was Rachelle working as a   
   teaching assistant, which barely covered the cost of childcare, they said.   
      
   The Barons were executing a plan to triple their annual sales to $3   
   million in 2020, when the review landed with a thud. Even though the   
   diaper had a four-plus-star rating from hundreds of buyers, it was hard to   
   miss the stain photos. More than 100 shoppers upvoted the damaging review   
   as “helpful,” which increased its visibility. The algorithm was suddenly   
   working against the Barons. Sales plummeted.   
      
   “It should be common sense,” Rachelle said. “Why would something like a   
   diaper ever be put back into inventory to be resold?”   
      
   The amount of time Amazon workers spend inspecting returns varies,   
   depending on what the item is, according to the former employee. But on   
   balance, a worker shouldn’t spend more than a minute eyeballing each   
   return, the person said.   
      
   Employees often don’t even bother opening packages if they appear to be   
   sealed and just assume they’re unused, the former worker said. But because   
   seals are typically just a sticker or zipper, it’s not always clear if the   
   product is as-new, the person said.   
      
   The breadth of Amazon’s catalog exacerbates the problem. The company sells   
   hundreds of millions of items. An Amazon worker handling returns might see   
   a particular product only once and never develop expertise about a given   
   category. It might seem unlikely that a stained diaper would be resold,   
   except that Amazon also sells fake dirty diapers as gag gifts.   
      
   Amazon says it doesn’t allow reviews that address packaging or shipping   
   problems or product condition and damage. The guidelines appear to   
   prohibit the stained diaper review since it suggests the item had already   
   been used, and the Barons were hopeful that a quick note would fix things.   
   But their emails went unanswered.   
      
   Paul recalls spending hours on the phone, getting passed from one   
   department to another. Seller support representatives acknowledged a used   
   diaper had been mistakenly resold, but told him they couldn’t take the   
   review down, he said.   
      
   The couple tried the famous jeff@amazon email that supposedly goes to   
   founder Jeff Bezos himself. Nothing happened.   
      
   Amazon knew reviews could be misused when it designed the system,   
   according to a person who worked on the project. Executives realized it   
   would be impossible to hire enough people to adjudicate every disputed   
   review. The best remedy, they decided, was to encourage as many authentic   
   reviews as possible so that false ones would get washed out, the person   
   said. The company also doesn’t let businesses respond to critical   
   feedback, unlike Google and Yelp.   
      
   “There should be a very simple appeal process where a seller can get the   
      
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