To give up and order everything on Amazon?

I’ll always order from somewhere that has the product cheaper or free shipping for the item.

So sorry to whatever shop but if you want me to pay £7 shipping on my £50 Item and Amazon just want £50 then Amazon gets my order.

and yes free returns as a must. If you are sure of your product I won’t need to return it. But I shouldn’t have to pay to return a faulty or late parcel.

AI seems to think they paid 1.3 billion in direct uk tax last year

@NumberOneFanNot but I think they pay all the tax they have to pay? Otherwise they’d be fined surely. The don’t voluntarily pay extra tax but no business would. It’s up to our government to change the tax regs if we want more tax from them

I'm weaning myself off Amazon, even if I have to pay more and wait longer. I realise I have the privilege of being able to pay more so no shade to anyone for whom that's not an option, but I don't want to give them my money anymore and I don't want to be reliant on them.

That and not paying tax

But Amazon has tons of small businesses on it! In fact 60% of what is sold on Amazon globally are from independent small and medium sized and in UK 50%.

Many times I’ve found shoes or clothes I want to buy in a high street shop only to be told they don’t have it in my size. Get home and they want high postage to purchase on line.

I cannot fault amazon. Have never had a problem with returns and they were exceptional when I asked a real human being on their customer services if I could return roller skates 2 month after the return deadline. Had bought them months in advance for granddaughter and on her birthday realised I had ordered wrong size!
They were collected following day and I was reimbursed same day ! Brilliant service.

River Island wouldn’t even refund the shipping for an item I sent back because it was faulty.

I don’t shop there anymore.

That’s why I only ever use Amazon if possible

Well you wouldn’t have your bus fair refunded if you bought them from a high street shop. Businesses, especially small businesses make a loss on refunding postage so it’s not to be expected although I do agree bigger retailers (I’m looking at you, Next) could do with refunding the postage.

@Tippexy - you are absolutely right, I take it all back! My DH actually physically placed the order on my laptop and told me it was £18, but I've just looked at my bank statement and they had indeed only charged me £9.97. They've obviously bestowed some sort of promotional discount upon me, but when I looked up what 'promotional discount deduction' referred to last night after doing the return, there were lots of people frothing on Reddit about it being to do with shipping, and it was a heavy item that would probably have cost about £8 to ship, so I figured that was what it was.

It’s up to retailers to match the service from Amazon if they don’t want to keep haemorrhaging customers.

So easy to return stuff with Amazon- often refund as soon as you send it or refund without returning.

Did you actually pay £17.98 - did that come out of your bank account? Sounds like they gave you a voucher for some reason?

Or - was it a multi buy discount but you've only returned one item?

Or - did you pay on instalments?

Whatever it is, they haven't withheld £8 for shipping. It's some other reason.

Slightly unrelated….My email account was hacked last year and I couldn’t recover it. Which has been a hassle but every company/bank etc has been helpful. Except Amazon. It’s been virtually impossible to get my Amazon prime account back. I spent hours and hours with the customer helpline. To no avail. I then decided to accept I’m losing all films that I had bought digitally and sign up with my new email account. But even that was fraught as I still had the same phone number … I know! Crazy!
I pleaded with the helpline people… until I thought… hold on…. I’m begging you to be allowed to spend my money with you…?

So I cancelled my account and haven’t bought anything from Amazon all year.
and I feel good about it. I buy more locally, or direct from the online shop or eBay (I know, might be just as bad). In general I’ve noticed I buy less.

But I’m glad I’m not contributing to Bezo’s wealth. Not that he’d know…

Contact them and tell them to refund the shipping. As long as you notified the of your intention to return within 14 days and posted it within 30 days of receipt of goods and returned the whole order and didn’t keep any part of it the they have to refund the postage. Lots of places try this I email them and ask for it back. I’m sure they do it on purpose hoping that either people don’t know they have to refund or cat be bothered with the hassle of getting it back

I think pretty much everything in my house, apart from clothing, is from Amazon. I can think of just one item that isn't, my bed. Even my sofa came from Amazon.

I have tried to buy clothing from there, and I have an odd item (trainers, dressing gown) but I find the reviews are often fake and the clothes look nothing like what turns up. Or maybe I have been unlucky?

I live very remotely and the nearest town is a long drive away, about 1.5hrs, so for me Amazon is worth its weight in gold.

Screenshot from the order page for the item I ordered and returned - it clearly says 'Free Returns' but that's not what I got (the image might take a bit of time to be reviewed). I am going to dispute it, actually.

I haven’t RTFT but the £9 shipping fee should also be refunded, legally.

I have gone right off Amazon.

I have ordered a couple of things recently from Amazon only to find out they were coming direct from China. The items arrived and were perfectly OK - but I don't want to order from China!

It's not always clear to me whether the items are coming from a UK supplier or not. Maybe it's me being dense, but I just feel Amazon has got too big and is now just a website for random tat.

I’m not always swayed by the argument we have some kind of moral obligation to support local businesses, at a premium cost, with no benefit to the consumer.

If a local business has an item I want but it’s 10 or 15% more expensive, am I supposed to get in the car, drive to town, pay for parking, buy the item paying more for it and go home, purely on the basis that someone has opened a shop and is selling the stuff? Or, is that business model flawed if it expects me to do that? I’ll happily pop in and buy it if I’m passing and the cost differential isn’t significant, but if their business can’t rely on profit from passing trade, is that my issue?

I have a long time acquaintance who opened a clothing store in a nearby town selling what I suppose were “boutique” type clothes (I’m not a fashionista!!) She also had a range of country wear which seems to have a very specific market that didn’t really exist in the area. At first I felt obliged to support her and I would go and browse with the intention of buying something, but honestly of the few pieces that matched my entirely lacking style, the quality wasn’t brilliant, the prices were extortionate, the place was largely empty whenever I was in it or passing by. She was constantly posting about how people should support local businesses, complaining that she’d had a really quiet week or that people were choosing to go elsewhere to get her stuff cheaper, complaining the local council were charging business rates and that the rent was too high etc. She even reckoned the local parking warden was targeting her street and that was bad for business. The shop closed after a few years. She is fortunate not to have to work, lovely house, her children are at private schools, her husband is a very high earner. Really it seemed like the store was more of a hobby for her than a serious attempt at a business, I’d be surprised if she made any money at it. But in the end, it was all of us that were at fault for “not supporting local businesses”.

I understand there are pressures on local businesses, that some of the rules and regulations are unfairly balanced in large businesses favour, that it can be a real struggle to get places up and running, but if in this day and age you are opening a store selling exactly the same stuff as people can easily get online and they have no reason to come to you, then I have to question what they thought would happen.

I try and use local stores and I happily pay a bit of a premium but Amazon and stores that sell via Amazon are often considerably cheaper, have far more stock and are available the next day (or even the same day!)
I order off Amazon a lot and I think its customer service is excellent. I can ‘talk’ (usually online chat) to a real person far easier than most online retailers and they are helpful.

Returns are very easy although TBF returns for most companies are much better than they used to be.

I have an issue with fake reviews on Amazon though and I have a big issue with their overall dominance hence trying to buy locally if I can.

TBF to Amazon it’s clear when things have free returns.

But she never said she ordered from Sports Direct so that's irrelevant.