> It's easy to say "don't allow this to happen"; I'm curious about what that actually translates to in practice.

It translates into "don't allow this to happen," because any other standard can and will be gamed. So for instance testing a bottle or two at random would work fine if Amazon really does test a random and representative sample of what's being sold, and to me that's a reasonable level of diligence to expect. But if Amazon Testing emails the supplier: "Please send over a batch of X MAX SUPER ENERGY so we can test if for these substances which we hope we won't find, and make absolutely sure what you send is the same thing you're selling!" -- then that will work somewhat less well. There are endless ways for Amazon and sellers to wink and nod and skirt the intent of the rules, if Amazon is just checking a box for the FDA, and doesn't actually care.

The way to get Amazon to care is to hold it responsible for the outcome. Of course there will be sellers that find a way to skirt whatever process Amazon puts in place, but that needs to be Amazon's problem. Amazon can survive taking its lumps when it messes up.

Does Amazon test any other product in its marketplace? I mean, other than Amazon-branded products. That seems like an odd expectation. I don't expect Amazon, or Ebay, or Aliexpress, or even Walmart.com to physically test anything. Mostly I expect them to give me quick shipping, cheap prices, and hassle-free returns or refunds if I'm not satisfied.

I hope I wasn't unclear, I'm not stuck on testing per se. I want Amazon to stand behind what's sold on its site. I don't really care what goes into that: if it needs to physically test products to do that, then it should, but if there's a different/better/cheaper way of getting the confidence to take responsibility than that's fine too.

No argument that that's burdensome and makes it more expensive to run an online marketplace; of course it is. But what's the alternative? Pure buyer beware doesn't work when I can't physically inspect what I'm buying and there's often no way to know much of anything about the seller. Hassle-free returns are nice when you're only out money, but undisclosed drugs in supplements can be genuinely dangerous. A refund isn't going to fix things in the really bad cases.

This is how liability has worked in the American and British legal systems for at least three centuries: when there's been harm done, the person harmed can recover the full value of the damage from any party that helped cause the harm. Plaintiffs don't need to worry about who was most at fault; that's for the defendant to work out with the other parties afterwards. Similarly the FDA can't and shouldn't need to start a separate regulatory action for every seller on Amazon's platform. It's totally appropriate for them to lean on the large domestic company with the fixed address and known officers, and rely on Amazon to enforce compliance with the law down at the seller level.

Supplements should probably not be sold in a marketplace fashion by fly-by-night distributors by a major trusted brand (amazon).

Businesses that sell supplements should create trusted relationships with their suppliers to not break the rules and to limit their own liability.

For products like this what you need is some entity in the destination jurisdiction responsible for asserting regulatory compliance. That doesn't necessarily have to be Amazon -- it wouldn't be Visa, for example -- as long as there is some domestic manufacturer or domestic importer the FDA can go after instead. And the latter is really what you want, because otherwise Amazon has to play whack-a-mole as the perpetrators just create new accounts, whereas the government could charge them with a crime to actually deter them.

The only reason you'd need to go after Amazon is if they're selling products dropshipped from another country, which they could avoid by simply requiring sellers of products meant for human consumption to have a domestic presence. They wouldn't even have to ship from here, just have somebody here who gets arrested if they break the law.

Every brick and mortar store has to assert the safety and legality of everything they sell or else risk serious liability.

From what I can tell, Amazon does not present itself as a farmer's or flea market, yet it tries to limit its liability by pretending it does. To the average consumer things purchased from it come "from amazon", as compared to ebay which makes it much more obvious you are purchasing from a particular person or shop.

Amazon really tries to have its cake and eat it too here, and it sort of blows my mind that consumer product safety regulators haven't clamped down on this.

It's really one thing to have basically anything available on ebay/aliexpress/others (consumer trust is much lower) and another to be a huge retailer (just like walmart) and yet to be able to sell whatever unsafe stuff you want (unlike walmart).

Amazon is kind of a third thing though. They're a warehouse in addition to a marketplace like eBay. If you buy a thing from an auction site and it's defective, the site might be able to get you a refund (or not, if you didn't pay through them), but they can't get you a replacement product unless the seller has one. The site has none to send you.

Amazon will send you another one, possibly from a different seller. That's... weird. It's like they inverted the model where the wholesaler sells to the retailer who sells to the customer. Instead the retailer sells to the customer through the wholesaler, combining different kinds of products into a warehouse instead of splitting up a warehouse with large quantities of the same product into smaller retailers.

But you still want to put things like this on the "retailer" because they're the one who knows anything about the product. It's the same reason you don't put it on eBay or UPS or a self-storage place. And the same reason you don't need to -- you want to shut down or punish the retailer selling the fraudulent product, not all the other retailers or the surrounding infrastructure providers.

It's not.

Walmart is not a 'marketplace', yet they could easily give you a replacement product from a different 'wholesaler', just like Amazon can give you a replacement from a different 'retailer'. There is no material difference here. Amazon owns everything about the interaction, they have just creatively outsourced creating product listings and a bunch of product risk.

>And the latter is really what you want, because otherwise Amazon has to play whack-a-mole as the perpetrators just create new accounts

How can they just create a new account to sell supplements without thorough testing, vetting, control processes, etc. by Amazon, the business actually selling the stuff? If Amazon doesn't have such controls in place to stop people from "just creating new accounts" then hold Amazon liable.

> How can they just create a new account to sell supplements without thorough testing, vetting, control processes, etc. by Amazon, the business actually selling the stuff?

Because they, not Amazon, are the business actually selling the stuff. Amazon is a payment processor and a warehouse provider.

You go after the person who knew they were breaking the law, not their landlord or their bank or the dealership where they bought their car by accusing them of not thoroughly investigating their customers. Criminal investigations are the role of law enforcement, not private businesses.

> Because they, not Amazon, are the business actually selling the stuff. Amazon is a payment processor and a warehouse provider.

That is legally questionable. When Amazon was losing on that issue in Pennsylvania higher courts, they settled to avoid having an on the record decision that Amazon was liable.[1]

[1] https://www.villanovalawreview.com/post/890-oberdorf-v-amazo...

Policy arguments don't depend on what the law is in a particular jurisdiction. Laws are often malleable enough that if you can convince the judge of what should happen, they can reach the corresponding outcome. When that isn't the case, the legislature can change the law. In either event the first step is to figure out how things ought to work and making them work that way comes after.

GNC (and likely other online supplement stores) have an online presence and likely has some QA for the products they sell. Amazon just insists on having 1,000,000+ listings for supplements rather than a more curated list. Perhaps some categories shouldn't have endless list of products.

The only QA in the "supplement" and "vitamin" business I know of is USP:

https://www.quality-supplements.org

Although, I have no clue if USP simply rubber stamps it once time, or if they do continuous testing of the products. If I were to bet, I would say they probably do not test often enough after initial certification.

Whatever level is needed, so that if I'm buying a product made be Nestle, I know that it was made by Nestle.

I think the policy mechanism here should be liability:

* If I buy a counterfeit memory card on Amazon, and it loses my photos, Amazon should be liable for the cost and effort of those photos. If I am poisoned with bad medicine, Amazon should be liable for the damages.

* If I spend money on 400TC cotton sheets, and get 300TC cotton/poly blend ones.

* If I write a book, and Amazon sells pirated copies, I should receive damages.

* If a bad medical product injures me, or doesn't have the intended effect, Amazon is liable (with standard astronomical damages)

Critically:

* It should be easy to extract those damages (Amazon can't tie me up in court or arbitration), and when this happens at scale, this should be class action or federal / state enforcement.

* Damages should include reasonable costs of enforcement. They should also be set at a minimum at treble damages, since not all instances will be caught / enforced.

At that point, the actuaries can do their thing on reasonable level of effort Amazon should put in. That may be shutting down all fulfilment-by-Amazon, co-mingling, and marketplace sellers, very different fee structures, inspections / enforcement, or something else. I don't know.

I actually think the most likely outcome is a verified supply chain, where Nestle (or any other manufacturer) sends to Amazon and Amazon to me with no middlemen. Vendors in compatible enforcement regimes with appropriate treaties (e.g. US and EU) are allowed in, so long as they have everything in order (corporate registration, etc.) and are selling under their own name. Vendors where the long arm of my local justice system doesn't quite reach aren't allowed in, at least directly, unless Amazon does a lot more scrutiny to the level to the point where I have similar guarantees about product safety, quality, environmental impact, labor laws, IP, etc.

I would not set a similar bar for eBay or Aliexpress, which claim to be marketplaces and not stores. However, when I buy from Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc., I believe that I am buying from a store (even if the fine print says otherwise). I'd want a very clear distinction between the two. Part of the way Amazon got itself into deep trouble is by trying to mix the two up. If I'm shopping at a flea market, it's caveat emptor, and those can be fun for some things. If I'm shopping at a store, I expect a certain level of trust.

What is clear, though, is that Amazon isn't self-policing, and we need regulatory enforcement.

They don’t need to inspect individual products, but they should be able to verify anyone selling supplements is who they say they are.

Verification only needs to be good enough to stop low effort fraud. This is entirely doable.

They also need to ensure the product you buy comes directly from the seller you bought from.

They need to prevent counterfeits from random sellers getting added to inventory of legitimate companies.

Separating inventory by seller is 100% doable. My company manages it. It just costs more.

It is an interesting question.

How much cocaine goes via Amazon?

Or ephedrine, or ecstasy... Etc