Paul and Rachelle Baron sell washable swim diapers on Amazon. Like many other small businesses, they use the logistics arm of Amazon to provide distribution and fulfillment for them as consumers can buy their products on Amazon without ever knowing they are a third-party seller. Orders still arrive in 1-2 days and consumers are happy. And of course, Amazon makes it super easy to return items … which created a messy problem for the Barons when one consumer decided to return a used swim diaper covered in poop. Amazon didn’t inspect the return, resold the diaper. That led to a one-star review (with photos!) which was then upvoted as “helpful” by more than 100 shoppers and destroyed diaper sales in the process.
The Barons tried to complain to Amazon and quickly get the review removed but it took more than a year to get the review removed. That’s terrible on the part of Amazon and they clearly need a better arbitration process to remove reviews—but an equally big problem is the customer who thought it was ok to return a poop-covered diaper to Amazon in the first place and the more than 100 people who upvoted that review.
Returning a product is not a victimless choice. It can cost real small businesses a lot of money and in cases like the one described above, even destroy their livelihood. Promoting that review without knowing the full story makes the problem even worse. It’s easy to paint Amazon as the only bad guy here—and they definitely made the problem worse. But consider this: all of us have a responsibility to see the bigger picture.
Who is really getting hurt when we thoughtlessly return a used product, or quickly hit the “upvote” button on a negative review? Contrary to the popular narrative, Amazon isn’t just “strangling small businesses.” They have also given us a tragically effective platform to do that for ourselves.
