Shocked by Amazon pricing

[MJconfessions]

I seem to be living under a rock, because I thought Amazon was the go-to for cheap things. Maybe it was like a decade ago but I haven’t realised the shift?

My Amazon wish list is probably over £1k, for relatively basic/unbranded/nice to have home items.

It randomly dawned on me check TikTok shop - there’s literally the same items there for a fraction of the price. Generally everything is at least £10-20 cheaper with free delivery, some items have more of a discount. It’s shocking considering the same items on Amazon have 1000s of reviews so presumably people are paying the higher prices completely unaware.

Feel like I have been living under a rock. Is there anything else I’m missing out on?

Amazon is the reliable place to get things. It’s often cheaper than the high street.

You can buy stuff on TikTok if you want to but don’t assume it will turn up.

I use tiktok for cheap, and amazon for quick, depends on what I need and when for.

I never got into all those cheap shops like Shein or Temu, but I guess I didn’t realise that a lot of Amazon sellers just drop ship or resell the same things!

The items on Amazon are often EXACTLY the same product as is on Temu, just at a higher price.

I don’t often purchase from Temu but I made a point for a few months there of looking up items I had in my Amazon basket on there and without fail the exact same item was on Temu without the mark up

Amazon haven’t been particularly cheap for a while. I buy quite a few books as Christmas gifts and always check pricing as they are often cheaper elsewhere. The Murdle game is the same price as my local Waterstones (or was when I looked last month).

@MJconfessions Amazon is often the cheapest but not always. I do a compare and use Amazon when it is cheapest or better delivery/return options with Prime. The stuff on Facebook is the worst for being over-priced - innthe (unlikely) event I want any of the FB tat I usually check the Amazon price/reviews first. Always worth checking eBay and others.

Amazon hasn’t been the cheapest for a while but that’s the model, undercut competitors and then raise prices when you are a market leader. I buy a lot from Argos, Waterstones, JL.

I like the fact with Argos you can often get it same day. I cancelled Prime a long time ago.

I use Amazon for convenience and quickness. Def not always the cheapest.

Not always the cheapest but they have the best returns policy by far! If you buy from temu and the like you have no effective recourse if it isn't the size/product that you expect nor should you trust the safety of any electronics. I also do not buy anything electronic from Amazon marketplace because again you cannot trust them

I think everything is hugely expensive but you pay for quality and safety. My friend had her bank emptied by Temu last week and has been told it’ll take up to three months to get it back. There are also countless other reviews from people saying the same.

Places like Shein/Temu/Tiktok shop aren’t held to any form of trading standards and can use toxic materials and paints in their products that are dangerous to children and pets, choking hazards and are just generally shit quality by comparison to other places. It makes me cringe when people on social media advertise their “bargain” toys for their young children from places such as these it’s beyond the realms of stupid. You get what you pay for in life and if it seems too good to be true then it usually is.

I think now that everyone uses them for convenience they have put the prices up, sometimes significantly.

You want to be cautious TBH because a lot of the unbranded stuff on amazon, yes, first of all it's the exact same stuff off Temu/AliExpress/Wish which costs a fraction of the price if you buy it from there, but also it's frequently cheap because it's made to much lower quality standards meaning that it may well fall below the very basic minimum safety we take for granted. And the companies never get pulled up on this because they operate under dozens of different random brand names and just delete the whole account if their reviews start to look too bad. Amazon pays lip service but doesn't really care that their platform is 80% these kinds of products.

Particularly if you're buying something to use with children or which will be in frequent skin contact or something you use with food. You wouldn't necessarily be aware of stuff like high lead content or plastics which have cancer-causing ingredients, and I don't mean a Daily Mail headline hysteria, but things where the link is so clear those ingredients have been banned for decades. You might notice if something breaks and becomes sharp. Electrical items are another where we take safety for granted, but a poorly constructed electrical item has the risk of exposing live parts or overheating causing a risk or burns or house fires.

I personally wouldn't buy anything that wasn't a known brand from Amazon. There's too many poor quality knockoffs there.

Sometimes Amazon is cheaper, sometimes it's not. Bulky items are often more expensive on Amazon because it costs them more to ship them.

A good example is the Starbucks dark roast bean coffee I used to buy from Amazon. I used to pay £24 for six bags of 200g each. The price before Black Friday went up to £40—a frikin 40% increase. Talking about ripping of people 🙄

I completely understand this, but my observations are the exact same identical items are being sold on Amazon for more. It’s not that the Amazon version is any higher quality.

Not found that myself but I only buy vitamins beauty products etc nothing big.

There is a lot of reselling on amazon now of cheap stuff from Chinese sites but aliexpress in particular a very well known for stealing images, so there's a good chance you are not receiving the real deal. I know many etsy sellers who have had their product images stolen. There are tons of fake loungefly on there for £20 less than real ones and they are a good copy but not real ones.

Yeah, but generally you can assume Amazon aren't going to nick all your cash.

I’m not sure what happened to that poster’s friend, but generally speaking it’s not normal for that to happen on Temu either. I ordered from them once a year ago, and it was fine.

I think now that everyone uses them for convenience they have put the prices up, sometimes significantly.

The price isn't always set by Amazon. For books, the price is set by the publisher.

Third party sellers set their own prices, too.

@MJconfessions I have never found Amazon to be especially cheap, certainly never the go to cheapest. What they are is convenient as you don't have to go and get whatever you want, you just push a button and it arrives.

The other thing is that they generally have what you want in stock, whereas the high street, and even online places often wait for customers to order and then order from their supplier.

Aliexpress is better than Temu. IMO anyway.

If you google there are lots of instances where Temu are taking fraudulent payments from people’s bank accounts after placing an order. You don’t have to heed the warning yourself I was just making people aware. The information is out there for people if they want to read about it I just wouldn’t personally touch it with a bargepole for more than one reason.