Amazon. Legit manufacturers and sellers. Are there two+ versions of "soft" products?

[goblin]

How do they track or trace issues, if any come up ? Sure, there can be manufacturing variances or some variation across batches but their specs will also allow some variation. Batch "a" and batch "b" can be slightly different, but if they're within spec, they're good to go.

How do they NOT track them ?

Take some shampoo.
Sku-ABCDEF1234-CS - Costco
Sku-ABCDEF1234-WM - Walmart
Sku-ABCDEF1234-AK - Alaska
Sku-ABCDEF1234-SSC Some Specific Client.
Sku-ABCDEF1234-SAS Saudi Arabia Special.

Costco has A, Walmart has something very slightly different, say theirs spend less time in storage because that batch is for some immediate rebate so they need less stabilizer or whatever, Alaska version needs those two drops of extra stabilizer because it might spend a day or a week on a non-climate controlled shipping pallet and freezing solid is not encouraged. Saudi Arabia version is say the opposite, they don't want it to borderline boil while on the tarmac for half a day under a black canopy.
Some specific client is requesting a few tons or tanks worth for their vacation hotel chains, but those are known to use water that is hard, or the hot water tanks have a known part of not that cleaned up sea water in them so the alkalinity or whatever has to be different.

Then Amazon guy gets three pallets of SSC and lists them as an Amazon seller, and they foam less or take forever to wash out.

And then Dollar tree orders a sku where the bottle looks as large as a 32oz one but has a dimple in the bottom so it only gets 27oz in, and the 27oz mention needs a telescope to be read.

All those would be similar, but slightly different SKUs - they'll still be very traceable for the manufacturer the day you sue them because your eyelashes got blond the day you used it, but all of them can show as just Sku-ABCDEF1234 on both the manufacturer's site AND Amazon's. You'll only get the SKU bottle in hand the day your package arrives, or not at all if there's only a code or barcode (which the manufacturer will know how to decipher).

 

[LowMilesLesabre]

Why would they do that to their "name" or reputation ? Some people might only buy a product from Amazon, it's poor quality, and they leave bad reviews, bad mouth it to people online, and so on.

In my experience, most companies that have a brand following will only work to protect the brand long-term if the company is family owned. If it is a publicly held/traded company or one run by a private equity firm, they are only interested in extracting as much value from sales in the short term as they can, reputation be ****ed! It’s very sad and shortsighted, but pretty common. Think about how many name brands that were once heralded as high-quality and how little that means today. Brands get purchased and sold off and pimped out so often that it is hard for the consumer to even know who is making the product anymore. And many of the conglomerates that own many of the legacy brands that we remember don’t even manufacture these items anymore themselves, but simply outsource the production via contracts to Third World countries.

 

[alarmguy]

I think it's been forever and a day, that the Ariens one buys at a garden center store, is not the same, as an Ariens purchased at The Home Depot. imho the allure of the big box stores is easy financing. If the price were the same, or the products the same, why not buy it at a garden center store? I just did a 20 lb propane fill for $7.50 at the Ace on Saturday. Love to see The Home Depot come close.

p.s. not sure what changed, but I watched the meter and the kid put 4.7 gal in. Also true fall 2024. A couple years ago I weighed at home and it was only 17 lbs net, and then I googled and that was common practice to short change the customer. I never complained since it's only at the time $9.

Typical Propane tank exchange at retailers is 15 pounds. At least on the East Coast.. no claim other than that 15 pounds

Our local Ace Hardware fills your own tank to a full 20 pounds for $14

 

[ripcord]

Our local True Value has for at least the last 5 years charged $3 a gallon for propane, regardless of the wholesale price. We might pay a little extra when the prices are low, but I'm pretty sure the guy that owns the store makes nothing on propane sales beyond driving some traffic to the store. The labor price of filing 5 gallon tanks has to eat up most of the profit.

 

[Hall]

Take some shampoo.
Sku-ABCDEF1234-CS - Costco

Sorry, I meant UPC.

 

[goblin]

Sorry, I meant UPC.

Same difference. Just replace SKU in my post with UPC

At the end of the day all the products described above will count as different products, even though they could be effectively very similar, and especially - look close to identical to the client.

That much more for soft products.

 

[Pablo]

 

[cptbarkey]

Amazon FBA has different requirements for sending in product vs what a typical "wrap and put it on a pallet" and shove in your own warehouse process has, so I wouldnt be surprised a few truckloads sits out in the sun and maybe dulls the label more vs others.

 

[ripcord]

Product XXXX, perpetually new and improved formula.

 

[Hohn]

The pro-Walmart crowd has always sworn this to not be the case. Yet all these giant vendors demand cost taken out of products. I don’t see how you can do it any other way. It would stand to reason that the same is the case be it for Amazon, drop ship wholesalers, etc.

I recall twenty years ago, some dollar stores had products that came from other places, hardly noticeable.

I have family in NW Arkansas-- sister worked for WMT on both sides (as a buyer then as a supplier). Absolutely there are wal-mart particular versions of items.

 

[Skippy722]

The pro-Walmart crowd has always sworn this to not be the case. Yet all these giant vendors demand cost taken out of products. I don’t see how you can do it any other way. It would stand to reason that the same is the case be it for Amazon, drop ship wholesalers, etc.

I recall twenty years ago, some dollar stores had products that came from other places, hardly noticeable.

My buddies mom worked for a food processor that did work for Walmart among others, specifically yogurt. The Walmart stuff was definitely made cheaper, like the milk is held to a very high standard but they’d use less fruit chunks for Walmart branded stuff.

I miss the old school nuclear orange Great Value Mac n cheese, that was by far the best.

 

[Hall]

Same difference. Just replace SKU in my post with UPC

No, UPCs are 12-digits, numbers only. Your examples are typical of part numbers and yes, I've seen vendors that literally add "-WM" or "TGT" and so on. In many cases, the products are still identical in all aspects and those suffixes have one purpose - prevent price-matching.

 

[goblin]

So will the client be able to compare UPCs of what seems to be the same product bought at different location ?

 

[97prizm]

I am not talking about ripoff/counterfeits. We've had that discussion.

Soaps, lotions, supplements, drinks, foods, etc - mostly liquids, but some powders, capsuled powders.

Does hypothetical manufacturer, say Acme, make a product for brick and mortar, and/or their own site and a different ("watered down"??) product with same labeling for Amazon?

I ask because I have detected REAL differences over time that don't seem to be batch differences. Anyone seen a study on this?

Maybe NOT illegal, but certainly not in my head.

It wouldn't surprise me. From what I've read Trader Joes ketchup was bottled by Hunts with their cost/ quality in mind. Have you tried to order a batch of each and possibly see if labels are different?

 

[Hall]

So will the client be able to compare UPCs of what seems to be the same product bought at different location ?

From Amazon, without buying them ? Not really. In retail stores ? Absolutely. I've compared the UPC of "hard" parts between physical stores (one always being Walmart since they're always made out to be the culprit behind these) as well as what the manufacturer indicates on their website and in the ones I checked, they matched.

 

[Pablo]