Amazon was originally the preferred website for consumers in supermarkets and department stores, but it has frequently encountered consumer complaints due to the emergence of a large number of 'problem foods' such as expired food. On October 20 local time, US media CNBC (US consumer news and business channel) reported that third-party suppliers of Amazon platform regularly sell expired food to consumers. At present, the market scale of millions of sellers has made it difficult for Amazon to supervise its platform. Many brands are very disappointed with the large number of expired products on Amazon platform and have begun to clean up the market by themselves.
According to CNBC, food accounts for about 58% of the goods on the Amazon platform. Many users complained that their products such as chili sauce, beef jerky, cereal and infant formula milk powder purchased from third-party sellers had exceeded the shelf life and 'smelled disgusting'.
Specifically, some consumers complained that taking the world's top bottled water Fiji water as an example, many well-known chefs, gourmets and stars regard it as' Royal bottled water '. However, some customers reported that the tap water they received from Amazon and refilled only with Feiquan bottle can see obvious traces.
Another customer from St. Louis said that when she received the land OS lakes half milk cream purchased on Amazon, she found that each box of milk cream had coagulated. When she found that the food had passed the shelf life, she was' frightened '.
It is worth noting that some industry insiders pointed out that 'clearance sales' may be a' hotbed 'for brewing the problem of expired food in Amazon. For example, in 2017, Starbucks closed all stores of its tea brand teavana due to its failure to enter the tea industry. At that time, many third-party merchants on Amazon stocked a large number of discounted tea products from teavana stores and resold them on Amazon. These teavana products, which were discontinued two years ago, are still on sale. A top customer commented, 'this kind of tea has shares & lsquo; Terrible chemical smell & rsquo;, It's like a fruit that has changed its quality. " Ironically, teavana's product list is clearly labeled 'not for resale'.
For these chaos, Amazon responded that third-party sellers will be required to provide Amazon with information about the shelf life before selling goods, and must ensure that the goods on sale are at least 90 days away from the shelf life. In addition, Amazon will use a combination of artificial and artificial intelligence to monitor more than 22 million feedback on commodity quality and safety every week.
"If Amazon finds that a seller violates relevant policies, it will remove the goods from the shelves or suspend the seller's account." Amazon suggested that if there are concerns about the purchased goods, consumers should directly contact Amazon's after-sales service department so that Amazon can investigate and take appropriate action.
'There is no sign of how well this policy is implemented ', Thomas & middot, food policy director of the American Consumer Federation; Grimm believes that some sellers are still fishing in troubled waters and continue to sell expired products. Just this week, many foods sold on Amazon still received overdue complaints.
It is worth noting that consumers often do not know whether the products purchased are from third-party sellers or manufacturers. Therefore, when multiple suppliers sell the same product and consumers buy expired products from third-party sellers, they may attribute the problem to the manufacturer, resulting in the impact on the brand's reputation.
This is difficult for many brands to accept. These expired products sold on Amazon platform have also shaken their trust in the platform and began to take back control and supervise the product list. For example, Abbott Laboratories, a healthcare giant that produces consumer products such as nutritional granules and infant formula, has also begun to invest more resources to monitor the entire product supply chain.
Due to the problem of some merchants selling expired products in the past, Abbott advised Amazon shoppers to only buy products directly shipped and sold by the company. In addition, Abbott will also 'test buy' the products in order to let Amazon delete the list of products that may be expired or copied. " After the products are produced, we will do our best to ensure that our products are approved and delivered to customers through regulated channels. " Abbott also said in a statement that in order to identify and remove these businesses, our global security team will strive to prevent third-party businesses from selling (including businesses that work closely with all distribution partners, such as Amazon). "
Southwest specialty foods said that due to the increasing number of businesses selling spicy sauce, peanuts, popcorn and other foods in Southwest China on Amazon, there are more and more complaints from customers. The person in charge of the enterprise said that southwest has more than 200 products, and each product has more than 30 'resellers',' this not only brings chaos to the company, but also an unpredictable experience. The company has considered hiring more employees to monitor third-party businesses. "