The sentiment here seems to be fairly negative, which is surprising, because Amazon is doing exactly what we've been asking them to do for ages -- policing their marketplace against counterfeit products.
They're starting with the easiest things to police, but at least they are making an effort. It really sucks for the legit third party sellers, so hopefully they make the approval process easy for them so they can continue to sell their legit hardware.
> Amazon is doing exactly what we've been asking them to do for ages -- policing their marketplace against counterfeit products
Banning the 3rd party sale of an entire category of product to defend against counterfeiters is like cutting off your arm to prevent paper-cuts. This is a lazy way to combat counterfeit products that will not scale to every other product they sell. What they should be doing is making more of an effort to identify and remove bad sellers across their platform but tracking complaints, vetting sellers, and identifying scammers takes actual work on their part.
the ban is not against an entire category of products. the ban is against USED products. I think this is a good thing. Because many people believe that amazon NEVER sells used products. (btw. I already gotten used products and I tried to buy new ones)
Amazon makes it pretty clear they sell used products and it's hard to imagine people not realizing that they offer used products unless they are new to the site and have never searched for any number of out of print books or old video games.
They aren't banning all used products anyway they are only banning used Nintendo products which is a bit of problem when Nintendo stops making "new" copies of old games and consoles. If I want an original gameboy or a copy of Super Metroid I should be able to buy them on Amazon from every available seller and if I'm a small used game shop i should be able to sell my products on the largest market place in the country without begging Nintendo for their permission.
For a large number of games and platforms, USED products are the entire category. Specifically with Nintendo, the vast majority of games for NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Wii, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS can only be acquired on the secondary market.
Some games have been updated for newer platforms (or even emulated on newer platforms by Nintendo to re-offer them for sale). But many, many more have not. To say that this decision on Amazon's part is not a ban against a product category because it is just banning resale of used products ... Is incredibly myopic.
Indeed. About 10-12 years ago, when I started working and having disposable income, almost every book or video game I bought came from the second hand market, and the vast majority of it came in fact from Amazon.
I'm a bit baffled by GP's claim that many people don't know that Amazon doesn't sell second hand products. It's displayed quiten clearly, and in fact, for a lot of us it was a big part of the appeal of buying there. I understand that the demographics of the average Amazon buyer have changed in the last years, but I don't think people are not aware of the presence of the second hand market.
Very bad move from Amazon. Nowadays I'm way less likely to buy from them, and this only reassures me.
What people were asking was "make it obvious who I'm buying from (i.e. no commingling), and punish sellers of counterfeits". Just punishing sellers of counterfeits goods might have been enough (reportedly Amazon does have item level tracking despite commingling).
What Amazon is doing sounds more like stopping to be an open marketplace, depending on how hard it is to get approved. That's a solution, but at that point they are just another Target or Wal-Mart.
As an Amazon seller, I can confirm that they have tracking linked to each seller. Their system does this via their FNSKU (fullfillment network stock keeping unit) and that is unique to each seller for each product. So if I want to sell a product, that product has an ASIN that defines it specifically and then any seller in the Amazon system that wants to sell that product needs their own FNSKU that applies only to that ASIN. Those FNSKUs are tagged on the items. If you've ever bought third party stuff on Amazon, the numbers are also 10 digits long just like ASINs but they usually begin with an X. FNSKUs can also match the ASIN and that is usually given to the seller that creates the listing so that seller has FNSKU=ASIN. So if you buy private label stuff that is their own branded stuff that no one else sells, it just looks like the ASIN and you probably ignored it. But if you buy a big brand name product like Nintendo, Star Wars, or anything with multiple sellers that sell via FBA/prime, you'll probably see the FNSKU beginning with X.
EDIT - in case it wasn't obvious, Amazon uses the FNSKU barcode for fullfilling their orders. They might have 10 sellers with the same ASIN in that specific warehouse, so the Amazon employees fullfill via FNSKU in those cases, which is why they would require the FBA/prime items in their warehouse to be tagged with the FNSKU to identify which seller owns that exact item vs all the others that also have stock in that warehouse and perhaps even in that exact same shelf/bin.
Apologies if I’m misunderstanding, but are you implying that amazon doesn’t commingle products? Allegedly this is the reason that you can order a “sold by amazon” product but still receive a counterfeit item (likely provides by a 3rd party seller).
No, when they get the product shipped in they stick a seller-specific label on it, then commingle it. When I order an Xbox an employee goes to the Xbox bin, picks any of them and scans it out of the system. Amazon now knows which one I got and where it came from, because the barcode identifies it as originating from seller X. If I complain to Amazon or send it back they can now look up what they shipped me and see if some seller consistently ships them bad product.
In essence commingling prevents you from efficiently grabbing something from a specific seller, but it doesn't prevent you from knowing which one you grabbed.
If the unit has an UPC barcode, the unit is commingled (also called "stickerless" inventory). Commingling means Amazon can use one seller's inventory to fulfill another's order - the units are never stored in the same bin to allow tracking origin.
If the unit has an Amazon seller-specific FNSKU barcode, the unit is not commingled.
The used barcode type can be configured by the seller.
The barcode configuration option does not mention commingling at all (but help pages do), so I can understand some sellers getting confused on whether they are affected by commingling or not.
If there are 25 widgets in a particular bin in an FC, I have serious doubts that the instruction and expectation of the picker is to pick the specific one that has this particular FNSKU.
If they want that behavior, it would seem far better (less error prone and faster) to segregate by FNSKU such that any one location has only one FNSKU for a given ASIN. (That they don’t do this [or didn’t always do this] seems to be the root of how you could get a counterfeit good from a “legit” seller, including Amazon.)
AFAIK they have always segregated different FNSKUs to separate bins for comingled inventory.
The reason you get counterfeit goods is that Amazon prefers to fulfill an order from warehouse A but seller 1 only has units in warehouse B. Seller 2 has units in warehouse A so Amazon performs an item swap between the sellers to save on shipping (or to improve shipping speed).
Theres a big difference between ending the same of products from creators and manufacturers and ending 3rd party resale and price arbitrage. If you make something, you should still feel safe on amazon (until your product takes off and they clone it), i dont see a reason to retreat to etsy or ebay. But if your business is buying and reselling things, and youre not adding value, I can see why Amazon would want to eliminate you.
Amazon likes 3rd party sellers because they basically give them free credit (3rd party seller pays for product, Amazon only pays them after the product was sold).
Also, 3rd party sellers shoulder a lot of the risk. If a product doesn't sell, or needs to be recalled, etc., Amazon doesn't care -- it's the seller's responsibility.
So I think Amazon really likes 3rd party sellers. They probably only want to get rid of them if a product gets popular enough (they want to sell it themselves) or if a product category comes with too much issues (counterfeits).
>> But if your business is buying and reselling things
You mean like the vast majority of all consumer goods? Very few people buy direct from the manufacturer - isn't this exactly what amazon is, minus the requirement of having to buy the product to be the MITM?
Amazon shopping is a storefront software tool, payment processor, and warehouse/shipping company? What value does the guy reselling trader joes for 10x markup out of his basement do that is of a similar level to what amazon does?
> What Amazon is doing sounds more like stopping to be an open marketplace, depending on how hard it is to get approved. That's a solution, but at that point they are just another Target or Wal-Mart.
Good. If I buy from Amazon I want to buy from Amazon and Amazon alone. I'd never have considered buying Apple products via Amazon until Amazon recently became the exclusive seller of Apple products on their platform.
Don't get me wrong - I'm happy to buy from other reliable non-Amazon shops. However a seller that relies on Amazon or eBay but doesn't own/offer a trustworthy first-party store under their own domain, often feels cheap and like a someone willing to cut corners.
the ArsTechnica title is harming debate here. a more accurate article would be titled "Amazon will require approval to sell used first-party Nintendo products starting November 1".
i still believe the only way to stop counterfeiting is to stop product mixing in the warehouses. yes, it will mean shipping takes longer -- but until i can be sure that the product i ordered comes from the inventory of the vendor i ordered from, i will treat every vendor on the platform as suspect.
the path they're taking here is a cat-and-mouse game, and i believe it is the beginning of the end for third party selling on amazon.
edit: ArsTechnica has changed their article title. hopefully a moderator will update this post's title.
Yes, I'm sure this will be different than every other time Nintendo has shut down competition. This is Nintendo's MO. They are notorious for going after fans and even legitimate resale.
Edit: Just to be clear I'm not against fighting counterfeit products. This just means you'll be paying more to get counterfeit products labeled as "new".
I don't see any sign here that anything is improving for smaller brands like No Starch Press (https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/1091840257073471488). They're only policing Nintendo products, and only because Nintendo has the clout to force them. Amazon doesn't want to lose their supply of Switch Lites.
I bought a 2DSXL on AMZN a couple of years ago and it was DOA. On closer inspection, it was clear that somebody had meticulously repacked the unit to appear brand new and it got to me. That couldn't have come directly from Nintendo like that.
I shipped it back no problem and bought my replacement directly from the Nintendo store. With this decision I'd be much more comfortable just replacing my purchase via AMZN.
> They're starting with the easiest things to police
Really. I would have thought the dozens of sham battery sellers would be pretty easy, since they're all selling the same sham products, many endorsed as 'Prime,' for years on end with no apparent friction from anyone. It's worth a bunch of of views on Youtube to buy this junk and make yet another video about how absurd this fake crap is; you can find videos back at least has far as 2015 when you could still only find these fake products on Aliexpress.
No, I think this focus on Nintendo's interests are the result of pressure from Nintendo et al. on Amazon. Sans pressure Amazon is utterly indifferent.
As I understand it a big part of the problem is that stocks are commingled so that when counterfeits are discovered there's no way to trace the product to the seller it actually came from. Instead of fixing that they put the onus on the seller, and with no notice at that.
EDIT: I was a bit hasty. [1] and [2] confirm the commingling and state that you won't necessarily receive your own goods back if you ask to have them returned, I took that to be because they couldn't track them, rather than because they wouldn't.
If they do in fact know the provenance of even the commingled products, shipping the actual seller's product lets seller reputation actually mean something, so I stand by my argument that they could do better than shift the responsibility onto legitimate sellers to get permission from Nintendo et al.
How is that even possibly true. So if a seller sends every 50th product with a brick instead Amazon would only be able to track it in the first steps of the logistics chain?
I misunderstood my sources, I've edited my original reply. Between buyers not necessarily getting their seller's stocks, sellers not necessarily getting their own stocks back when requesting a return, and the apparent lack of action from Amazon until now, I added 2 and 2 and got 5.
Sorry but that's not what many people wanted. They wanted amazon to stop people from selling counterfeits that were passed of as being from the real manufacturer. And they wanted to know who was selling it, not hide this behind is it amazon or someone using the amazon warehouse that looks like amazon. And I think people also want amazon to stop allowing fake reviews, and paid reviews, only have 'organic' reviews. And finally I'd like them to let me know clearly if something I'm buying is used or something. But that's so far down the list. i finally stopped buying certain items from them because they kept being fake, batteries being one of them.
It seems like a small number of people care about counterfeit products per se. A larger number of people desire cheap products, stay silent during the debate about counterfeits, and get upset if a particular thing they like buying is no longer available.
>. Included in this move are DVDs and Apple products, which now require similar approval processes to move forward.
This is incorrect. You can get approval in DVDs pretty easily if you have invoices from a distributor. It's effectively impossible to get approval for Apple unless you're one of a dozen or so authorized sellers that spends 8-9 figures with Apple yearly. (The official requirements to get approval for refurbished Apple on Amazon is 2.5 million in invoices over 90 days).
It's not clear how the approval process for Nintendo will work, but if this is like most brands, all you'll need is invoices from a distributor. Many brands have this kind of restriction. It's nothing at all like the Apple deal, for which you can't get approval just with invoices, and for which there was a special announcement from Amazon; the Nintendo email isn't special, it's standard (google phrases from it and you'll find many other brands with similar emails from Amazon). E.g. https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/marvel-warning/407..., https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/dc-comic-restricti...
Also, the email makes no mention of used vs new. All Nintendo are now restricted regardless of condition.
I didn't find it "easy" to get approved for DVDs. I had over 20k a month in used media sales for over 12 months and still got rejected. The worst part is that you can buy the media, ask for approval, and then get stuck with the inventory. On top of that what you buy from a distributor will never make you any money. It's all in the used items so you hope to make it up by selling DVDs you buy for a dollar at library sales, etc.
It just doesn't have the ease of FBA. We were primarily used book sellers and occasional video games. Unfortunately, while I was incarcerated my partner blew up the business.
There is a problem with pirated Nintendo games showing up in the unpoliced Amazon third party seller marketplace. I don't know how big the problem is, but it's there (as I can personally attest, and as the article describes). Unlike the source cited the article, the bootleg I purchased for my son didn't "play fine."
It isn't just pirated games/getting fake carts, I've ordered things like a "genuine" GBA, GBC, and gotten fully counterfeit hardware instead of a used old device. Nearly a 100% counterfeit rate on certain lines of product (one example is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W39bZDu6zA)
And out of region stuff. I ordered a 3ds game brand new, I wanted to try to get a club code so I ordered one that looked like it would be new old stock, ended up getting a 3ds game intended for sale in Saudi Arabia.
Returned it and just bought it locally instead. Amazon is pretty much a wasteland for collectors. Ebay is far better and more reliable overall.
> Returned it and just bought it locally instead. Amazon is pretty much a wasteland for collectors. Ebay is far better and more reliable overall.
And also, somehow, much lower-priced for the most part.
For out-of-print but popular and relatively recent toys and books, I've often found things for half the price or less on eBay than what Amazon is pushing. Now that Buy It Now is common and I don't have to mess with the auction system, it's my first choice for stuff like that.
The problem is absolutely massive. As a 3P seller who at one point decided to declutter their own home by selling on Amazon, it is infuriating to compete with those who are clearly committing a crime.
I frequently saw "this is a REPLICA" or "This (Wii / Wii U) comes with 100+ games pre-installed at no extra charge!" in the condition notes. (These notes are individual to each seller and each seller's product)
This was blatant counterfeiting / piracy. I opened a large number of cases, but ultimately the answer I would get is, "buy the item and report your findings".
It's not my job to police Amazon, but I did take great pleasure in checking in on the counterfeit sellers, most of whom appeared to be suspended after 2-3 months. (Presumably once they sold their counterfeit copy and were reported by the buyer)
I don't see what first-sale doctrine has to do with this: Amazon is a private (publicly-held) company and is free to disallow certain products from being sold on its site.
First-sale doctrine means you're free to take your used Nintendo cartridges and set up a table on the sidewalk (subject to local laws about street sellers of course) and sell them to passers-by. Amazon doesn't have to provide you a venue for selling them.
Personally, I don't understand why anyone would want to sell older Nintendo gear on Amazon anyway. This is exactly what eBay is for. eBay's fees are probably a little lower too.
I am confident that the reason I gave is an accurate answer to the question I gave it in response to, for at least a very large share of sellers. Note that you can do something for a given reason regardless of whether that reason is true.
However, the fact that it's possible to run a business doing nothing but selling things on Amazon that you buy on eBay when an order comes in strongly suggests that the customers really are on Amazon and not on eBay.
Interesting. I've long suspected the dropship arbitrageurs had existed on Amazon for a while, but I thought they had long since become unprofitable, or at least this Amazon to eBay channel had. Could you go into more detail about this? I'm sorta curious about how big the market is.
It’s fairly common. I sell a lot on eBay and get maybe an order a week with a message of “do not include invoice, item is a gift” which is dumb since we all know they’r drop shipping. I love it, never have a problem with those buyers. But I do include thank you cards in them with my eBay stores.
Assuming Nintendo pressured Amazon by threatening to remove its first party sales from Amazon it's likely that this would be tortious interference with a contract. However since most of the third party sellers are selling a high volume of bootlegs like the article says it's unlikely they would sue for fear of a counter-claim of copyright infringement. Also the cost to sue probably outweighs the value of theses "businesses".
Most sellers are just arbitragers and scammers. Yes, most. They add zero value. They leech money away from manufacturers and brands and the people that actually make things. They lie to get discounts then redirect shipments to Amazon FBA. They sell used, damaged, and counterfeit goods as new. And when a customer complains they say, “Contact the manufacturer.” They create new listings on existing items and say shit like “special edition” and “limited edition” to confuse customers and win the buy box when no such variant exists. They lower the price and jack up the shipping cost to confuse people. They are a disease.
Brands hate third party sellers and so do customers. Most people don’t even realize how Amazon works or who they are buying from.
There are some sellers that are scammers, and there are some brands that are scumbags and will lie and commit wire fraud (which is a crime, although unlikely to be prosecuted when it's a big company doing it to a small one) to get rid of legitimate sellers they don't like.
The ones that are suing are not the ones doing shady things, presumably. If you were selling counterfeits, why would you sue and waste money when the truth will inevitably come out?
I've personally seen many brands falsely swear that goods were counterfeit to get rid of sellers they didn't like, even though the sellers were fully compliant with the law.
Not some, most. The vast majority of 3P sellers are garbage.
Counterfeiting is just a small piece of the overall problem.
Sellers will sue because that’s all they can do. If you’ve built a revenue stream off of selling someone else stuff under the radar you don’t actually have a defendable business or any skills. Might as well sue.
Brands need to do a better job too. Reality is, if you have a business today the best thing you can do is terminate all distribution and wholesale relationships you don’t control and wait for the 3P pipeline to dry up. It’s the only way to strangle out the sellers. But I sympathize with the business that can’t do that and are trying to stop the damage to their business.
The problem is many brands want to have it both ways. Give special discounts to some stores, but have it not affect any other channels. They want the freedom to price discriminate however they want with zero channel conflict, and this doesn't work. Some brands really want it to work and freely commit torts and crimes to keep it working until someone sues; since most of the victims here are small businesses very few have the ability to sue.
Nah, that’s not the problem. That’s just something you made up because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Brands want to have it such that brick and mortar retailers can still exist, so they create pricing models that allow for that additional discount.
3P sellers take advantage of this. They add no value, only take. It hurts brands, manufacturers, retailers and even consumers to a large degree. Now it’s even starting to hurt Amazon, which is why they are finally getting serious about it.
I personally can’t wait for the Amazon scamming business to dry up. I’ve even been to a few of the conferences and lord all mighty it’s really pretty sad what people think is a business these days.
You've been making stuff up throughout this conversation. I'm quite well informed; my information on brands comes both from direct experience as well as from talking to brand owners and others in the field.
>Brands want to have it such that brick and mortar retailers can still exist, so they create pricing models that allow for that additional discount.
But plenty of brands don't feel like buying back and destroying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of inventory. So they use cheaper alternatives, namely perjury to get rid of legitimate sellers.
>They add no value, only take. It hurts brands, manufacturers, retailers and even consumers to a large degree.
This is incorrect on most counts. For the most part this benefits retailers, which is why most retailers have liquidation programs to sell off their overstock in the first place. This benefits consumers as resold goods lead to lower prices. It does hurt some brands, as they can no longer channel stuff to pad revenues. But increased competition hurting companies and benefiting consumers with lower prices is generally considered a good thing, in economics.
I've been to many conferences and spoken at a couple. In my experience most conferences on Amazon selling are geared towards private label brands that add little value.
>But I sympathize with the business that can’t do that and are trying to stop the damage to their business.
If the way they're doing it is committing perjury (the infringement form requires you to swear under penalty of perjury), I don't have sympathy.
I agree that the correct way to handle distribution is cutting of suppliers. Like I said in the other comment, brands want it both ways. Wide distribution but restricted sales on Amazon.
We can flip this around. If as a brand, you've built a revenue stream that can't be sustained without commiting crimes you don't have a defendable business or any skills.
How so? If you can't survive without committing crimes you shouldn't be in business.
Some of these lawsuits are about brands that would not be viable without the blackhat tactics they use. See e.g. KDC Direct, LLC v. Ravage Holding, Inc, the defendant allegedly hijacked a product page then sent a false IP complaint to Amazon.
When it gets to the point where you can only sell your items in one or two places where no one ever goes to buy things you've effectively broken the right of first-sale.
We're not at that point yet, but Amazon's reach is unparalleled and we could easily end up in a situation where private companies, whose influence in our daily lives can dwarf that of our governments, are allowed to ignore the hard won rights we have leaving us in the same position we were in before we had them.
Most retailers wouldn't go near selling things from unknown, unapproved vendors/distributors. Most of the problems with Amazon involve allowing unvetted third parties to sell on their site.
You have the right to sell it, but Amazon also has the right not to allow you to sell it on their platform.
Every retailer has their own policies, I can't sell my used video games at Best Buy or Walmart either. The first sale doctrine doesn't force Amazon or any other retailer to operate as a flea market for unvetted sellers.
> This decision seems to imply that either Nintendo or Amazon would rather limit all used sales of Nintendo products than build a more focused list of scrutinized software and products.
Seems like probably both, no?
> Users on the used-Nintendo forum thread have postulated that counterfeit retro Nintendo cartridges have been an open secret among Amazon sellers for some time.
I'm guessing Nintendo isn't too happy about this (in general they seem very concerned about their brand) and Amazon is likely happy to stem some of the negative backlash about counterfeit goods on their platform.
I'm not surprised to see that Apple products are likely to fall under this umbrella - another company very concerned about their brand.
Nope. Plenty of brands have sued sellers, but few get that kind of treatment. Otterbox, Skullcandy, Standard Process, Popsocket, ecobee, The Noco Company, Prevagen, Rainbow Light have all sued Amazon sellers.
This is the sort of chilling effect that increased corporatization of society can have - but doesn't necessarily have to. Forbidding the sale of legal items, is a form of increased censorship, one society seems to be okay with.
It is a tactic. This conflation allows easier confusion of corporate interests and societal ones. And by rendering it so meaningless, it makes identifying and protesting against actual censorship harder and recognizing "we're mad they won't platform our garbage" also harder.
At the moment it is still intentional and usually malicious. The danger comes when it is inculcated and we lose the real understanding entirely.
I see this time and time again here on HN. If your livelihood is dependent on another persons platform you are in a very dangerous position. At any moment the terms of use could be changed or they could decide they want to sell the same business you are selling and you are out of luck. In this instance this is a crappy deal and I don't like it and people will buy from other markets.
Back in 2003, people were saying the same thing about walmart. This article talks about how the demand for 'lower prices' almost drove a pickle company out of business:
While it is a risk, it can be a calculated one. Most household goods require the "platform" of a supermarket or other merchant to actually reach customers. Is this so different? As a consumer, there are lots of benefits to being able to find and discover goods in one place, and as a seller, access to those potential customers can make or break your business, but might not be something you can actually establish effectively on your own without those distribution channels. The same is true of infrastructure - one always has to weigh the risks involved against the costs of trying to do things yourself.
This is certainly true on the low-end, but rarely true on the high-end. Especially when we're talking about kitchen products. The most expensive, sought after fridges, stoves, espresso machines, etc aren't found in retailers.
That was not the argument the OP made. The argument wasn't that other people aren't necessary for income. Their argument was that relying on one, and only one 3rd party platform for selling things online was a bad idea.
If your career and income are entirely reliant on one company, regardless of type (tech platform or retail or college or whatever), you're beholden to their whims and whether or not they stay open. It's a good idea to diversify your income if possible (via savings and investment if possible).
Further, this is even more of an issue if your income is selling and buying via online platform. They may not shut down, but they very-well may change the TOS to exclude your type of selling. . . . Which is what this is.
Can the headline be fixed? It’s currently stating Amazon will stop the sale of Nintendo products. Absolutely not at all what the actual headline is saying.
> Amazon: No more third-party sales of “Nintendo products” without approval
It seems like this is pretty obviously what Nintendo would prefer, and can probably put it in their terms of service. It would shock me if this weren't being driven by Nintendo, much more so than Amazon.
This makes sense. Another issue with counterfeits is that many consumers are unable to recognize them. Instead they'll think it's just a defective product and waste Nintendo customer service's time.
What I don't understand is why would Nintendo/Amazon care if people sold things Nintendo were no longer manufacturing? It doesn't seem logical to prevent counterfeiting by preventing all items from being sold on the platform. I'm talking about out of print products only. So much for the "everything store"...
It takes effort to segregate products like that, and Amazon doesn't want to put in that effort. For most brands the approval decision is across the entire brand, not individual items. On a handful of items they do have item specific approvals but those are more expensive for Amazon to enforce.
How hard is it to request a list from Nintendo on what products they are currently manufacturing? They can create a policy were they only gate products those companies are currently selling. We are talking about millions of dollars for this brand only. If this continues to happen across the platform it can amount to billions of dollars of lost sales. Also Amazon would much rather take a cut from a third party seller (regardless if that seller makes money or not) versus sell it themselves.
Amazon did this for canon equipment some time back. I used to sell my older cameras and lenses on Amazon as used items; I'm not allowed to any more. It's too bad, but it just pushed me back to eBay, which has been perfectly fine, for the limited number of sales I've done.
Ebay is still great for used goods, most rare and lucky finds seem to come from random listings made by normal people. Amazon never seemed friendly for small first time sellers.
Warehouse Deals is just returned / damaged products. If someone returns a replica game cart to Amazon, it will likely end up being resold as authentic.
Unfortunately there's no real control here, but it's the same as any physical store. Cashiers are not counterfeiting specialists and scammers are crafty. Some will even shrink wrap and return an empty case. Ideally you would be able to track issues with the sale of returned products back to a single "customer", but not before several people are forced to return fake/nonexistent products.
They're starting with the easiest things to police, but at least they are making an effort. It really sucks for the legit third party sellers, so hopefully they make the approval process easy for them so they can continue to sell their legit hardware.