The Barons told Amazon repeatedly\u00a0that they weren\u2019t at fault\u00a0and that the review should be taken down.<\/p>\n
Yet\u00a0it remained on the site, inflicting lasting harm.\u00a0The couple says they\u2019re $600,000 in debt, including a loan secured by their home that complicates the prospect of filing for bankruptcy.<\/p>\n
They make enough selling diapers to pay down debt and order more inventory, they say, but it\u2019s not\u00a0a living.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last four years have been an emotional train wreck,\u201d Paul Baron said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShoppers might think returning a poopy diaper to\u00a0Amazon\u00a0is a victimless way to get their money back, but we\u2019re a small, family business, and this is how we pay our mortgage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amazon removed the review a few hours after Bloomberg published this story.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we learned about this incident four years ago, we quickly made improvements to our product returns process to prevent this type of used item being returned and sold as new,\u201d Amazon spokesperson Chris\u00a0Oster said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the returns inspection process, our teams are instructed to open the box every single time and validate the integrity of the inner seal. We are not aware of further incidents with this type\u00a0of\u00a0product since these improvements were made several years ago.<\/p>\n
More recently, we have updated our policy so that no returned products of this type can be resold under any circumstances.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s extremely rare for these types of mistakes to happen, and when they do we take them very seriously to improve the experiences of customers and sellers.<\/p>\n
There is no data to suggest this was anything but an isolated incident.<\/p>\n
We have removed the negative review in question and are investigating why it was not removed previously.\u201d<\/p>\n The Barons\u2019 entrepreneurial journey began a decade ago.<\/p>\n They had enrolled their newborn son Beauregard in swim class. But the swim diapers they purchased were too tight on his legs and had to be removed like underpants, making cleanup messy.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n So the Barons turned their frustration into an idea: a reusable swim diaper with snaps to make it adjustable and easy to remove.<\/p>\n They used a credit card to place their first order with a factory in China and launched Beau & Belle Littles\u00a0on Amazon. Before long, the business had reached $1 million in\u00a0sales.<\/p>\n The couple appeared on the Rachael Ray Show and were profiled in Forbes. Theirs was\u00a0\u00a0the kind of small-business success that Amazon loves to tout, especially when regulators accuse it of\u00a0hurting mom-and-pops.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started this as a dream to make enough money for Rachelle to be able to stay home,\u201d Paul said. The alternative was Rachelle working as a teaching assistant, which barely covered the cost of childcare, they said.<\/p>\n The Barons were executing a plan to triple their annual sales to $3 million in 2020, when the review landed with\u00a0a thud.<\/p>\n Even though the diaper had a four-plus-star rating from hundreds\u00a0of buyers, it was hard to miss the stain photos. More than 100 shoppers upvoted the damaging review as \u201chelpful,\u201d which increased its visibility.<\/p>\n The algorithm was suddenly working against the Barons. Sales plummeted.<\/p>\n \u201cIt should be common sense,\u201d Rachelle said. \u201cWhy would something like a diaper ever be put back into inventory to be resold?\u201d<\/p>\n The amount of time Amazon workers spend inspecting returns varies, depending on what the item is, according to the former employee.<\/p>\n But on balance, a worker\u00a0shouldn\u2019t spend more than a minute eyeballing\u00a0each return, the person said.<\/p>\n Employees\u00a0often don\u2019t even bother opening packages if they appear to be sealed and just assume they\u2019re\u00a0unused, the former worker said. But because\u00a0seals are often just a sticker or zipper it\u2019s not always clear if the product is as-new, the person said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The breadth of Amazon\u2019s catalog exacerbates the problem. The company sells hundreds of millions of items. An Amazon worker handling returns might see a particular product only once and never develop\u00a0expertise about a given\u00a0category.<\/p>\n It might seem unlikely that a stained diaper would be resold,\u00a0except that Amazon also sells\u00a0fake dirty diapers<\/a>\u00a0as gag gifts.<\/p>\n An Amazon distribution facility. Photographer: Alejandro Cegarra\/Bloomberg<\/p><\/div>\n Amazon\u00a0says it doesn\u2019t allow reviews that address packaging or shipping problems or product condition and damage.<\/p>\n The guidelines appear to prohibit the stained diaper review since it suggests the item had already been used, and the Barons were hopeful that a quick note would fix things.\u00a0But their emails went unanswered.<\/p>\n Paul recalls spending\u00a0hours on the phone, getting passed from one department to another. Seller support representatives acknowledged a used diaper had been mistakenly resold, but told him they couldn\u2019t take the review down, he said.<\/p>\n The couple tried the famous jeff@amazon email that supposedly goes to founder Jeff Bezos himself. Nothing happened.<\/p>\n Amazon knew\u00a0reviews could be misused when it designed the system, according to a person who worked on the project.<\/p>\n Executives realized it would be impossible to hire enough people to adjudicate every disputed review. The best remedy, they decided, was to encourage as many authentic reviews as possible so that false ones would get washed out, the person said.<\/p>\n The company also doesn\u2019t let businesses respond to critical feedback, unlike\u00a0Google and Yelp.<\/p>\n \u201cThere should be a very simple appeal process where a seller can get the review removed if a used item is resold as new,\u201d said Jason Boyce, a long-time Amazon merchant who now runs a consulting business for online sellers.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that process has been broken for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n In the same month as the diaper review, the Barons\u00a0got an email from another customer. She had ordered a swim diaper on Amazon for an upcoming lake trip and received a stained one.<\/p>\n The\u00a0customer didn\u2019t leave a critical review and just emailed the business owners directly.<\/p>\n \u201cI just received one of your swim diapers via Amazon today and when I opened it looks like it had dirt or mold on the inside. Looks like it\u2019s possibly been previously used,\u201d the email said.<\/p>\n Rachelle responded that Amazon shouldn\u2019t resell used diapers, but sometimes it does anyway and that it was beyond their control. She offered her apologies and sent the shopper a replacement.<\/p>\n \u201cIt had a stain on it, and I\u2019m not sure if it was poop or not,\u201d said Jessica Salerno, the shopper, when reached by Bloomberg. \u201cThe business owners\u00a0were really great about it when I contacted them. I feel really bad this happened to them.\u201d<\/p>\n For a long time, the Barons wondered if the first review was fake, posted by\u00a0a competitor bent on sabotage. Merchants have been known to buy\u00a0a competitor\u2019s product solely to leave a bad review with hopes that it elevates their business\u2014a tactic known as \u201csniping.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Amazon-distribution-facility.jpg\")