By Jon Emont and Jesse Newman
E-commerce giants are enacting new restrictions on the sale of
seeds, but the moves are unlikely to eliminate the tactics
government officials and industry experts suspect are behind the
mystery seeds caper that gripped the world this summer.
Amazon.com Inc. is barring foreign sales of seeds into the U.S.,
The Wall Street Journal reported over the holiday weekend, and
e-commerce company Wish will ban the sale of seeds. Amazon said
sales of plants from outside the U.S. would also be barred and some
overseas sellers would have their offers removed from the site. A
representative for San Francisco-based Wish cited an "ongoing
threat to U.S. consumers."
The e-commerce companies' actions to restrict and eliminate seed
sales came after thousands of people in the U.S. over the past few
months received seeds by post they say they didn't order. Most were
postmarked from China, and the shipments were often labeled as
jewelry, toys or other goods. Canada and the U.K. are among other
countries that have also experienced the phenomenon.
In discussing their investigations into the mystery seeds, U.S.
officials have raised concerns about the ease of importing seeds
online, citing threats to American agriculture posed by pests or
diseases that such shipments could contain. E-commerce experts say
that restricting online seed sales will help solve the problem by
cutting off major retail avenues for foreign seeds to enter the
U.S.
Yet some experts familiar with e-commerce scams are also
skeptical that the latest actions by e-commerce companies will
solve the core issue federal officials believe may underlie much of
this summer's seed mystery: unsolicited seed orders used to
generate fake sales for other products, a tactic known as
"brushing."
"The only way they are going to reduce any successful brushing
schemes is by attacking brushing at the source," said Chris McCabe,
a former Amazon investigator and current Amazon sales consultant
who noted the company would have to devote more resources to
tracking down these scams if it wanted to prevent objects like
unsolicited seeds from being used in them.
Brushing scams work like this: Vendors selling on online
retailers like Amazon pay third-party brushers to place orders for
their own products -- which could be anything from stuffed animals
to televisions or furniture. The fake orders artificially boost
sales, which surfaces the products higher on Amazon's website and
gives the sellers the chance to write their own positive product
reviews.
To make the fake sales seem real to e-commerce sites, brushers
will send packages with tracking numbers to actual addresses. But
instead of sending the actual product being boosted -- which might
be bulky and expensive, such as furniture -- the brusher will ship
cheap and lightweight items such as seeds. These are placed inside
the packages with the hope that whoever receives it will assume it
is an unexpected gift and not raise a fuss with authorities,
according to e-commerce experts familiar with how brushing works.
From the e-commerce company's perspective, the tracking number's
arrival at the address makes it look like a genuine furniture
sale.
Online-sales experts say brushing is more than just an annoyance
for the people barraged by unsolicited products like seeds. It
generates fake reviews that mislead customers. It manipulates sales
volumes to promote products that may not deserve the extra
attention.
Amazon on Monday reiterated its view that seed deliveries linked
to orders on its site were genuine orders delayed due to Covid-19
and not incidents of brushing. A spokesperson for the company said
third-party sellers are prohibited from sending unsolicited
packages. "We take action on those who violate our policies,
including withholding payments, suspending or removing selling
privileges, or working with law enforcement." The spokesperson said
brushing is an industrywide scam, similar to phishing, and not
specific to Amazon.
Online marketplace eBay Inc. told the Journal it is reviewing
the seeds matter and any further restrictions that may be
warranted. The company's current policy holds that plants or seeds
prohibited by government or shipping regulations are disallowed. It
said most plants and seeds can be listed provided they are allowed
in the location the seller is shipping to, though there are
exceptions, including noxious weeds.
Jerry Kavesh, chief executive of 3P Marketplace Solutions, which
sells apparel and footwear on Amazon and advises companies on
selling on Amazon, said he found it unlikely that thousands of
people would get apparently unsolicited orders of a similar product
-- seeds -- if it wasn't brushing. "It walks like a duck and quacks
like a duck," he said.
Mr. McCabe was also skeptical that mass unsolicited seed orders
were something other than brushing. He was also doubtful that a
possible brushing scheme of this scale wouldn't involve boosting
Amazon products. "If you're going to do any brushing you would
probably focus on Amazon because that's the biggest and most
important marketplace," Mr. McCabe said.
Howard Thai, the Shenzhen, China based head of Signalytics, an
e-commerce consulting firm, said he didn't think Amazon's new
policy restricting seed imports would have an effect on sending
seeds from China for brushing purposes, because seeds used in
brushing schemes are purposely disguised and logged as sales for
other, non-prohibited products.
Agriculture officials have been concerned the seeds could
introduce harmful weeds, pests or diseases that might hurt U.S.
agriculture. In an interview last week, Osama El-Lissy, a deputy
administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service, said the agency had received
nearly 20,000 reports from seed recipients and collected some 9,000
packages. The USDA has so far assessed more than 2,500 of those
packages, he said.
The USDA has identified several seeds of noxious weeds, called
dodder and water spinach, according to Mr. El-Lissy, as well as a
few diseases and pests.
Mr. El-Lissy said the findings to date haven't sparked
significant concern or necessitated the enactment of a federal
emergency-response plan. Still, he said, the USDA is very concerned
about the potential that one or more of the seed packages could
contain a threat to U.S. agriculture.
Amid the mystery, the Journal reached out to 70 recipients of
mystery seeds. The Journal's reporting found, based on people's
best recollections, that the majority had accounts consistent with
brushing schemes. Of 68 people who said they were recipients of
unsolicited seed packages, about 20 people said they hadn't
recently ordered seeds online but received at least one seed
package in the mail. Approximately 20 others said they had recently
ordered seeds, mostly on e-commerce platforms, and after receiving
their order, they received additional unsolicited seeds. E-commerce
experts including Messrs. McCabe and Thai said these cases all
suggested brushing, as the people had received unsolicited seeds
not connected to any specific e-commerce order they had made.
Not everyone who received unsolicited seed packages was
considered a likely brushing victim. Some of the people the Journal
corresponded with said they never received their original seed
order, and then received a seed package that wasn't what they
ordered. Cases like this could be possible delivery mix-ups or
straight-up fraud where sellers offer one product but instead send
another, less expensive one, according to some Amazon sellers. Some
people may not have recognized seeds they ordered because they
lacked labels, and online order statuses didn't confirm
delivery.
Even if the bans on e-commerce seed sales and imports don't
prevent the use of seeds in brushing, the extensive attention given
to this summer's unsolicited seed packets may render seeds less
effective as a brushing tool. Because government officials and
media reports have warned citizens to be wary of unsolicited seeds,
scammers will likely opt for other cheap and light items -- such as
kitchen implements -- to send in brushing packages instead, said
Mr. McCabe and others familiar with brushing schemes.
There are signs that Amazon's seed-import block has been
effective at halting seed sales that aren't connected to brushing
on the platform.
A seed exporter in East Asia said that before Amazon's crackdown
there were simple workarounds that allowed him and others to sell
Chinese seeds on Amazon without supplying documents to the company
proving the seeds could be safely imported. The seller said he used
abandoned seed product listings created before 2016, which is
roughly when Amazon started regularly requesting such verification,
he said, as a way to avoid scrutiny from Amazon. The seeds he
shipped were declared as "gifts" to bypass checks by U.S. customs,
the seller said. But he said his seed offer was removed by Amazon
after its new ban on seed imports was put in place last week.
--Annie Gasparro and James R. Hagerty contributed to this
article.
Write to Jon Emont at jonathan.emont@wsj.com and Jesse Newman at
jesse.newman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 07, 2020 19:23 ET (23:23 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2024 to May 2024
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Historical Stock Chart
From May 2023 to May 2024