Soiled diaper fulfilled by Amazon.
Pooped Out
A married couple says Amazon decimated their washable swim diaper business because the tech giant resold and shipped a dirty nappy to a customer in 2020, according to Bloomberg, prompting the customer to leave a review so negative that it tanked the whole operation.
And even though it wasn’t the couple’s fault, Amazon wouldn’t take down the negative review for years despite countless phone calls and emails until a few hours after Bloomberg ran its story on the whole debacle.
“The last four years have been an emotional train wreck,” Paul Baron, who runs the diaper business Beau & Belle Littles with his wife, told Bloomberg. “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.”
Like many small businesses, the diaper company used Amazon as a storefront and its huge warehouse and shipping apparatus to reach customers. But that outsourcing turned out to be a double-edged sword.
It got massive exposure to a wide range of shoppers, but Amazon is so flooded with returned items that workers may inadvertently ship clearly used products as new to customers, which has happened to other small businesses who use Amazon services, according to Bloomberg.
Compounding the problem are algorithms amplifying negative reviews, while businesses like Baron’s diaper company have trouble trying to reach anybody in Amazon seller support to deal with issues or appeal negative or false customer reviews.
Service Charge
Amazon spokesperson Chris Oster told Bloomberg that the tech company has striven to make improvements to the return process to prevent used products being sold as new.
“We have removed the negative review in question and are investigating why it was not removed previously,” Oster told the news outlet.
But despite these fixes, Amazon is clearly struggling. In addition to screwing over sellers who rely on it for warehouse and shipping logistics, the online marketplace is flooded with counterfeit goods, fake reviews, and badly made AI-generated books.
And this week is Prime Day, when the tech giant puts deals on countless items, a time ripe for scams from hackers using phishing techniques and unscrupulous third party sellers.
It’s the enshittification of Amazon, and one dirty diaper somehow aptly encapsulates the tech giant’s major quality control issues.
“Amazon talks a big game about helping small businesses,” Baron told Bloomberg. “But they really don’t.”
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