Looks like Amazon Warehouse is doing an additional 20% off certain items.
I would be very cautious of Amazon Warehouse items. These are returned and restocked items, in most cases. Sometimes you'll get lucky and it's just a damaged packaging item and, if it's just cosmetic to the packaging, you're a winner. I used to work for Amazon and Warehouse Items are to be 'checked' and returned to stock. Yeah, not so much. I was in Amazon retail and then a business unit. I wasn't directly connected to the warehouses in any way.
So, one day I asked a warehouse management person what goes into the check and assignment to warehouse stock process because I had very bad experiences with warehouse items missing parts or not as described. He told me that the sheer volume of return processing results in the selection of a candidate item and "checking" it is about 15-30 seconds per item. Occasionally, someone actually opens a box but, due to processing time constraints, it's usually just look at the item, does it feel like there's something inside the box and assign to warehouse inventory. That's it. If you're really lucky, you'll just be missing accessories. If you're not-so-lucky, you might actually get the correct functional item in the box but maybe not. Return fraud is rampant at Amazon.
There are 3 kinds of items at Amazon: SBA, FBA and 3P.
SBA - Sold by Amazon - Amazon actually owns the product sold and it's in their best interest to try to mitigate losses from the return of the item if it had much value to begin with. Returns are decided whether they go to Warehouse (which is a small percentage realistically) or dumped. If it's a low profit item it typically ends up in a dumpster. If it has some value, it may get palletized to go to pallet sales. I've seen some exposé shows where trackers were put into items ordered and returned. The items were never touched other than to put the tracker (such as an air tag) into the item and returned as customer changed their mind. So, theoretically, it should have gone back to stock. Nope. In almost all cases the items were found in dumpsters. Amazon's algorithm assigns a value threshold to an item. Even though the product was never used, it's too costly to return to stock due to labor and logistics end costs. They'd rather dispose of it than move it.
FBA - Fulfilled by Amazon - these are items where a third party pays Amazon to warehouse and then ship the items. This is the bulk of what you see for sale because Amazon never loses money. They charge the seller monthly to take up warehouse bin space. Then Amazon gets a cut for the item sale itself and the shipping factorial. It gets even more complex because there's charges involved if the seller sends inventory to a single warehouse to be redistributed across the warehouse network or the seller may choose to freight it themselves to warehouse locations. Logistics and fees get really complex but, like I said, Amazon never loses. They get a cut of everything no matter what the seller decision process. When I worked there, FBA items never went to Warehouse because it wasn't Amazon's property to begin with. If a seller chooses to take an FBA return, they decide to either have Amazon dispose of it (this is where you see Amazon pallet sales come from) or return it to the seller (basically cost prohibitive). So, Amazon wins again by pallet selling returns.
3P - Third Party Seller - doesn't even fit into any of this. These items are sold by a third party and shipped by that business. Nothing but the monetary transaction is handled by Amazon.
All of these can be determined on an item page on Amazon. They all show sold by and shipped by information. If sold and shipped are the same, it's SBA. If only the shipped is Amazon, that's a FBA item. If both sold and shipped and not Amazon, that's 3P. There is one special case which is technically an SBA but it's a drop-ship circumstance. You will see some items where you get Prime free shipping benefit but the item is listed as much longer than usual shipping time. That's a SBA drop-ship situation. Amazon has agreements with some manufacturers that they hold the Amazon inventory in the manufacturer warehouses and ship for Amazon from there. You still get free shipping but it will go through a lengthier fulfillment process than Amazon would take.
Back to return fraud. This happens A LOT in a few different ways. In a minor situation, the buyer doesn't return everything received. Even if Warehouse checked the item, they really don't have the time or a clue what exactly all was supposed to be in it. They likely didn't even look anyway. The next tier of fraud is you have X item and it's broken. You order X item from Amazon and return your item as "defective." Voila, free new item. Even worse fraud scenario and a friend had this happen to him. He ordered a very expensive gun scope off a Warehouse listing described as like-new. He receives item, opens it and there's a flashlight inside instead of the scope.
Amazon tries to manage the outright frequent fraud customers. If you've hit that threshold and you're tagged as a returns fraud risk then, if you try to return an item, you'll be asked to hold because you need to be transferred. Congratulations, you've made it to a special team specifically tasked with fraud. I've never been privy what happens on that end of the call but it's not going to go well. The same team also handles the frequent "I didn't receive my item" people. I know those people will eventually be told to file a police theft report and to send the department a copy of the report.
So, that's WAY more than you ever wanted to know about Amazon and Amazon Warehouse. I just wrote it all out to hopefully help people with understanding Amazon processes.
