To give up and order everything on Amazon?

Heads up: Amazon returns aren't always free, as I discovered last night. I bought something on Amazon at the weekend for £18 and had to return it because it was no longer needed, and they took £8 for the original delivery - which I bloody pay for through Prime, thank you very much - off my refund, so I'll only be getting £9.97 back. They called it a 'promotional discount deduction' 😡

The destruction of the high street happened long before online retailing was even in its infancy. It started with the hypermarkets in the early 70s, followed by shopping malls and retail parks in the 80s and 90s. By 2010 only around 7% of retail spending was online and yet the U.K. saw the biggest period of decline in the high street between 2000 and 2010.

The High Street business model hasn’t suited most stores for over half a century. People want choice. A High Street doesn’t have the space to carry the amount of stock they need and “just in time” deliveries are really difficult in many town centres. Out of town real estate is much cheaper, space is not at a premium. Whether it is for warehousing or retail it makes much morse sense for brands to be out of town. The identikit nature of High Streets has put a lot of people off going, why would you go to the small store in the town centre where parking is difficult and expensive, when you can go out of town and get what you need. I decided in about 2012 to go to my nearest city to soak up the Christmas atmosphere and do my Christmas shopping. I had a list of 10 very mainstream items. I came home with 3 of them. I couldn’t get the latest blockbuster book in a fairly large but independent bookshop, but they could order it in for me. The kids’ craft and science kits were impossible to find, but they could order them in for me. I wanted to find a nice outfit for my daughter, none in her size, but they could order it in. I paid £15 for parking, was majorly stressed out, and had almost 2 hour drive both ways. Why would anyone do that?

The High Street may be more suited to small independent stores, but actually, these businesses have benefited greatly from online shopping. We need to get away from seeing town centres as a shopping destination and re-purpose them as residential / leisure spaces, with some more niche retail. Places which have done this have seen a huge benefit from it.

I order everything off there and have Prime membership. Next day free delivery. 🙌

I'ver always found Amazon to be excellent.
Only ever had to return a handful of items, but when i have the retund has been issued as soon as the return is scanned at the drop off.
None of the send it back, wait for processing and then refund in 7 days blah. Its been instant.

I have done many, many returns with Amazon without any issue whatsoever. Seems you’ve just had specific circumstances that were a bit more challenging.

I went shopping for my best friend’s birthday yesterday. I couldn’t get her main gift, a piece of jewellery. It isn’t even that out there. There was nothing, even to look at as the pieces were missing from the trays as SOLD. It was a waste of money paying for parking. I know now why I shop online.
Back to the internet and free shipping it is then.

Thank you for your measured response. It is so much nicer than what I was thinking but sums it up. Not everything HAS to be free. Why not contribute to the convenience of having things delivered and collected to your home.

I also quoted this law to modibodi who charged me shipping to my home and then kept it as part of the ‘refund’. They only allowed me to return using a label they created which was significantly more expensive than the post office. I think the item was £19 and total shipping £11. I got the standard AI response. Then a person. Then when I quoted the law to them and threatened trading standards they refunded.

I could have got the same item from Amazon with free shipping and returns.

Second incident, my son wanted a particular toy, whilst he was in hospital. They did a cheap copy on Amazon. I got the more expensive one from the original manufacturer, who used Evri to send and it took 13 days to deliver. It was rubbish! If I had paid £6 on Amazon and it came the next day and been a bit rubbish, I wouldn’t have minded so much. But I paid £16 from the original manufacturer, added p&p and then it took almost 2 weeks to arrive and was rubbish.

I now use Amazon almost exclusively.

That's not my experience. Returns have always been very straight forward and quick.

They are successful becuase they're good at what they do. I don't understand any of the "support local" stuff. If a local (or any) business is good, I'll use it. If it offers an inferior service at a higher price, I won't.

Amazon is great at returns! I’ve never had any issues with ‘normal’ returns and on several occasions I’ve been able to return things past the deadline by using the live chat with an assistant-they are always really helpful.
plus you get the occasional bonus of not having to return the item and still get a refund!

I buy loads from Amazon. Very rarely return but when I have it's easy and on occasion I've been told just to keep the item and still had a refund.

I don't ever buy multiples of an item to keep the best though. The reviews are detailed and I like that it tells you whether the item has a high return rate or not.

I also like that I can set up regular deliveries of things like dishwasher tablets, soap refills, dog food etc.

I do think the prime service is no longer as brilliant as it was. I have had items delayed when I specifically ordered for same day delivery. Not all prime items are next day either you have to check.

I love I can easily send gifts direct to anyone.

Overall the service provided from Amazon is great so it's hardly surprising people use it.

I run a retail website. I've experimented with loads of different ways of business, and have settled on paid returns. After looking at our figures, sales go up when we offer free returns, but so do returns, making the offer cost neutral and environmentally negative.

Free returns definitely attract a different type of shopper. Paid returns equal more considered and careful purchases. It also means customers who do not return are not penalised by paying a higher initial cost for their product to cover free returns for others.

Our reviews are exceptional though, and I suspect our trust level is high enough that customers take the risk that they won't need to return.

If you’re happy to fund the destruction of your high street then fine but just don’t complain when there’s no shops left anywhere and a massive warehouse pops up in your nearest field!

If they are being like this with you then it means you have returned lots of stuff. They are making sure you are being legit. I have never had any problems with the service. By far the best out there.

I won't shop at sports direct anymore due to having to pay delivery and returns on some school trainers so effectively paid 10 quid for nothing ( no online returns in-store!)

I’ve just returned some stuff so we’ll see what happens.

i had a horrible experience with them during the pandemic. I ordered some refills for liquid soap bottles. The soap was in bags. When it arrived, all the bags were empty and tbe box was soaked in soap. Amazon insisted I returned the damaged goods. I said it was too difficult because the box was soaking wet. They insisted I had to return it it to get a refund. I got passed to a manager who said the same and then their manager who grudgingly agreed that returning a soggy box wasn’t that practical.

I do if it's available at the same or a better price, shoes often cost a fortune to send back from shoe shops so footwear always comes from a free delivery and returns shop so usually Amazon, M&S, JL or Next

Pretty much all major stores have a front on Amazon so you are buying from them direct. For example - LEGO and Disney. They’re not knock off coz they’re on Amazon, those brands just use Amazon as a platform

I only sell my products from my side business on Amazon as a very small business because they actually store the stock for me and handle shipping/returns themselves (fulfilled by Amazon) and reliably pay me with very detailed sales reporting that makes accounting a dream, so I get unreasonably annoyed at people who avoid Amazon. They are absolutely not screwing me over I get an unparalleled service from them as a seller and would never see the same ROI on a high street store paying council rates just to exist.

This! Amazon have got their claws into nearly every UK household now and the service has started going downhill fast.
I bought a mascara a couple of weeks ago that was clearly a fake! I have placed orders that are immediately cancelled and have had 'prime' next day delivery orders show up days later.
I find I am using Amazon less and less, it is no better than Shein or Temu now.

I'm also guilty of buying (in my case a selection of swimwear to try on) from Amazon because refunds are free and easy because I'm frustrated about paying for delivery and sometimes returns too especially when I end up not buying anything because none of it fit, looked like the picture, was rubbish quality etc. Plus the lack of choice/availability in shops because they expect you to buy online.

But we need to remember that delivery/returns have a cost, even if we're not overtly charged for it, and we'll end up paying for it somewhere, we can't expect to have endless goods delivered to our doors for free with no charge to send back the often large percentage we don't buy. Also, a lot of small businesses sell on Amazon, and it's not really a fair arrangement - Amazon make them pay for delivery and returns if the customer doesn't so they have a lot of costs to trade on there.

Where possible I buy from places that do free delivery and/or returns to a shop if it's not free to home and it's somewhere I can get to easily/cheaply. I'll then go and pick up the item, try it on if necessary and if I'm not keeping it, return it straight away. But that's not an option available to everyone, it can be time consuming and may have a cost attached so the alternative of paying a few pounds to simply try things on may be the most efficient/cheapest option - often the cost isn't as high as £9 - was this express delivery? I wouldn't pay that if I wasn't sure I was going to keep the item.

Yes, I have to agree with this following a recent shopping experience with the behamoth that is now Amazon, I recently returned something but made the mistake of clicking refund to my Amazon account instead of refund to my bank account. I received an email confirmation that the refund would be credited to my Amazon account with 14 days of the goods being returned and another confirming the goods had been received back. But trying to track the refund on the site was virtually impossible (due to ordering other items around the same time) that I basically gave up and just hoped it was in fact refunded. I never received any confirmation that the refund had been made made. Lesson to myself - always click refund to my bank account!