Commingled stock VS discontinued products.

If you have a lot of an item that has been discontinued and “replaced” by the manufacturer who didn’t give the new version a different UPC or SKU, do not send your stock to Amazon without requesting to NOT put it in commingled stock.

For an example, V05 shampoo for normal hair has been discontinued and “replaced” by daily revitalizing but the UPC for the normal hair formula has been put on the daily revitalizing bottles.

The normal hair shampoo is selling for an elevated price, but sellers who let Amazon put their shampoo in commingled stock are having customers get sent the wrong shampoo. I assume some people who ordered daily revitalizing got sent normal hair.

The order pickers, human and robot, don’t care about the words and colors of the labels. They just pull 10 bottles from the bin and assume they’re all the same, because they’re in the same bin with the same UPC.

Another problem with commingled stock is new items can get mixed with used and damaged, and there’s no guarantee that your customer buying your factory new in perfect box item won’t get a damaged box, new open box, or worse – unless you pay the extra to keep yours separate.

One more issue is if you decide to stop selling a product and want your remaining stock back, Amazon will count out X units from commingled stock and you get whatever was on top of the bin.