Totally Wiped Out?

Even on Amazon, what you see may not be what you get. There is a severe shortage of luxury brand, two-ply toilet paper, and “vendors” we’ve never heard of have suddenly appeared. Mostly from China. Beth Franssen, cited in Daniel Miller’s article in the April 16^th Los Angeles Times, bought a package of 10 rolls of TP for the alarming price of $28.70 from a Chinese seller on Amazon. Unlike orders from other such vendors that never show up, at least these arrived. But there was a catch: “They are doll-sized rolls.”

Daniel Miller also shared his experience with an Amazon TP order: “The toilet paper promised to be ‘gently textured’ yet ‘durable enough for the task at hand.’ The package’s lettering was in Chinese, save for one word: ‘Face.’… It wouldn’t come for several weeks, and at $23.90 for 10 rolls, it seemed pricey. But it was available for purchase immediately… So, on March 20, I did what countless other anxious Americans have done during the coronavirus outbreak: I clicked the ‘Buy Now’ button on Amazon.

“It’s been more than three weeks since I placed my order with the seller in Guangzhou, China, and I’m still waiting. A parcel tracking website indicates that China Post has created a logistics order for my toilet paper. Destination: Finland. (I live in L.A.)

“‘It’s likely that you will never receive your toilet paper,’ said Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse. ‘I would not bet on it. Or you will receive a product that is not what you are expecting — specifically a lower-quality product or a different product altogether.’” The marketplace is flooded with inferior product, never intended for the US market, or scammers with no intention to supply anything. The visual jokes circulating around the Web may draw a chuckle, but there are lots of folks quite uncomfortable with their bathroom choices. And few such recently added vendors ever respond to direct questions or challenges.

“There are vendors in Amazon’s new toilet paper economy that are indeed delivering on their promises, but e-commerce experts said others appear to be carrying out byzantine schemes that are difficult to monitor and, in some cases, even fully understand. Certain sellers are offering toilet paper that doesn’t match product descriptions. Others, experts said, could be peddling nonexistent items, leaving consumers empty-handed — or, given the circumstances, caught with their pants down.

“Recent one-star reviews left for Amazon Marketplace sellers described a litany of issues, many bordering on absurd… ‘The company charged $127.96 for toilet paper that never arrived,’ one review said… ‘I ordered 20 rolls of toilet paper and after a month got 10,’ read another that complained of shipment in a ‘filthy black bag.’ It continued: ‘And are you kidding me WE ARE GOING THROUGH A WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC.’… ‘This is HIGHLY misrepresented,’ another said. ‘With no exaggeration, the size of each roll of toilet paper is not much larger than the size of a roll of register tape.’

“Amazon acknowledged in a statement that there are ‘bad actors’ in the [Amazon] Marketplace but said that it uses a ‘range of rigorous fraud detection and prevention measures’ to proactively protect customers. Among the Seattle company’s efforts is a vetting process that blocks ill-intentioned operators ‘before they are able to provide a single product for sale.’… ‘As a result, bad actors that attempt to abuse our systems make up a tiny fraction of activity in our store,’ Amazon said.

“A large swath of the mushrooming toilet paper business in the Marketplace is coming from China, recent Amazon sales show. An analysis of 306 one-star seller reviews mentioning toilet paper that were left from March 18 to April 8 found that 172 of the reviews — or 56% — were for third-party sellers in China, according to data provided to The Times by Kaziukenas, whose company tracks millions of online sellers… [Amazon Marketplace] profits by charging a commission for each Marketplace sale, with most sales incurring a fee ranging from 8% to 20% .” Miller.  I might add that the pandemic has exploded Amazon’s value to a $1.1 trillion market capitalization, and they are hiring tens of thousands of new workers at a time, all over the world.

Amazon is supposed to protect consumers, and they have indeed acted against other egregious sellers, for counterfeit items, price gouging and pure scamming. “In March, Amazon suspended thousands of seller accounts that appeared to be jacking up prices on items such as N95 masks and ‘gated’ certain products, such as hand sanitizer, requiring sellers to gain approval before offering them. That hasn’t happened for toilet paper.

“‘They are not going to gate everything,’ said Chris McCabe, who runs ecommerceChris, an Amazon seller consulting firm. ‘The more they gate, they are excluding people from potentially selling something and costing themselves that way.’

“Third-party sellers appear to have found a lucrative business, according to sales data provided to The Times by [James Thomson of Buy Box Experts, which advises Marketplace], who used the analytics tool Jungle Scout to generate the information… For example, over the 30-day period that ended April 9, a 10-roll pack of Face sold 800 times from multiple sellers, generating about $21,000. A 12-roll pack available via the same page sold 2,300 times, accounting for about $71,000… ‘It’s a pretty good way to make a lot of money quickly,’ Thomson said.

“Considering the delivery window for the Face toilet paper that I bought spanned from April 10 to May 1, I should have known that this was not a good way to receive such an important household item quickly.” Of course, Amazon is just the world’s largest online retailer (how about just “retailer”?). The scams, counterfeits and price gouging are spread pretty evenly across the Internet.

So why is this big news in the United States and not so much in Europe? The April 14^th The Guardian UK has a clear answer. Bidets. Americans had never taken to them. “America’s disdain for bidets has no clear basis. Douching was once thought to be a kind of birth control, and in 1936 an onlooker suggested that ‘the presence of a bidet is regarded as almost a symbol of sin,’ according to the Atlantic. One convoluted theory holds that American soldiers in Europe during the second world war visited French brothels and saw the basins, which they instantly associated with prostitution.” It was almost un-American to have one!

Until the pandemic, bidets and all-in-one toilet/bidets (like the one pictured above) were considered luxury items for premium or newer homes and upscale hotels, particularly venues that catered to European tourists. The modern versions, with heated seats, not only wash your derriere (or other “parts”), but some go so far as allow a quick blow drying as well. Suddenly, Americans want what Europeans have accepted as normal for years.

“In the first week of March, ‘we saw [US] sales starting to double what they had been the month prior,’ said Jason Ojalvo, CEO of Tushy, a bidet company founded in 2015. ‘Then two days later they were triple what they usually are, and then suddenly it was 10 times what normal sales are. A few days later it peaked at a million-dollar sales per day.’… Rather than chasing rumors of where toilet paper was last seen on shelves, some millennials see purchasing a bidet as a kind of pandemic lifehack…

“In Italy, where bidets are in every household, the American rush for toilet paper remains a mystery. It’s completely unthinkable that Italian bathrooms would be without such an essential piece of equipment. As far back as 1975, a hygiene law stated: ‘For each accommodation, at least one bathroom must be equipped with the following sanitary facilities: toilet, bidet, bath or shower, washbasin.’” The Guardian. Meanwhile, Amazon is attempting to redress the TP situation:

“First, sellers create listings with reasonable prices. High prices would trigger Amazon’s ‘anti-gouging algorithms,  said Thomson… They usually set shipping estimates at two to six weeks. The lag may lead a buyer to forget about the purchase and therefore not complain if it never comes, allowing the seller to pocket the proceeds.

“Customers who notice they never received an item can ask for their money back. And Amazon described forceful actions it takes when it detects fraud: ‘We notify and refund customers if we believe they will not receive their order, block the bad actor, withhold funds disbursement, and work with law enforcement to hold them accountable by pursuing civil and criminal penalties.’

“Amazon’s protocols also protect it from paying out the proceeds it collects from buyers to bad actors. For newly registered sellers, the company said it retains payments for a week after the expected delivery date to cover returns, refunds or other issues.

“Those protections safeguard Amazon, but they may be cold comfort [oy!] for consumers who find products to be of poor quality or different from what was advertised. As with Franssen, some may ask the seller for a refund. But there still could be room for the merchant to profit. After a back-and-forth with the seller, Franssen was given a refund of $8.82 — less than a third of what she paid.” Miller. Toilet/bidet anyone? You can buy a toilet seat that retrofits older ceramic thrones for a lot less than replacing the entire unit!

            I’m Peter Dekom, and I bought one of those toilet/bidet combinations after a surgery that made that a necessary choice; once you buy one, however, you won’t – you’ll pardon the expression – look back.