In my experience, the quality of customer support has degraded as the volume of sales in the online marketplace has increased. Recently, I had an Amazon customer service supervisor in India (or at least, everyone in the chain had an Indian name and they didn't seem to understand the difference between USPS and UPS) mouth off to me about an issue that eventually resulted in a refund and apology from someone in the USA.
I imagine it is even worse for sellers, because they aren't traditionally viewed as "customers" (thus they are not "always right") and many of them are indeed pushing counterfeit merchandise -- especially when it comes to shoes and apparel. I would not be surprised if Amazon characterizes seller support as a cost center, rather than a profit center.
Personally, when it comes to oft-counterfeited items, I view a brick-and-mortar presence as an indicator of greater trustworthiness. For me, the takeaway from the story about Mr. Govani's lost inventory is that (A) Amazon's seller support is poor, (B) Amazon has no idea how to counteract its problem with rampant counterfeiting, (C) Amazon doesn't see much value in treating sellers as customers of its platform, and (D) Mr. Govani moved way too much existing inventory to Amazon rather than transitioning gradually with freshly acquired product.
I imagine it is even worse for sellers, because they aren't traditionally viewed as "customers" (thus they are not "always right") and many of them are indeed pushing counterfeit merchandise -- especially when it comes to shoes and apparel. I would not be surprised if Amazon characterizes seller support as a cost center, rather than a profit center.
Personally, when it comes to oft-counterfeited items, I view a brick-and-mortar presence as an indicator of greater trustworthiness. For me, the takeaway from the story about Mr. Govani's lost inventory is that (A) Amazon's seller support is poor, (B) Amazon has no idea how to counteract its problem with rampant counterfeiting, (C) Amazon doesn't see much value in treating sellers as customers of its platform, and (D) Mr. Govani moved way too much existing inventory to Amazon rather than transitioning gradually with freshly acquired product.