alt Hacker NewsI don't think Amazon has ever outright admitted that they do, but Amazon's own terms give them the right to commingle their inventory with those of third party sellers.
F-4 Storage
We will provide storage services as described in these FBA Service Terms once we confirm receipt of delivery. We will keep electronic records that track inventory of Units by identifying the number of Units stored in any fulfillment center. We will not be required to physically mark or segregate Units from other inventory units (e.g., products with the same Amazon standard identification number) owned by us, our Affiliates or third parties in the applicable fulfillment center(s).
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external...
That combined with years and years of anecdotal reports of this happening certainly suggests a "where there's smoke there's fire" situation to me.
Right, that’s FBA. I’m talking about sold by Amazon. I’m specifically talking about a case where a sold by Amazon item came from co-mingled inventory from a FBA seller.
I also know from direct second party experience (I also personally saw the terms) that at least at a certain level of “brand” you can decline this option with Amazon for your registered product skus/ASIN even for FBA. I don’t know if this is offered to everyone though - I know it went through some sort of “deal reg” process in the one case I saw. I imagine this came through some sort of lawsuit or threats of one for a major brand at some point - but that is speculation on my part.