AIBU to think that Amazon has gone to shit?

[SophieGiroux]

It now seems to be full of third party sellers from China. You used to be able to get stuff delivered next day but this seems to be a rarity these days. All I wanted to buy was a pool noodle but it seems this is not possible without having to wait about 3 weeks. It feels just like eBay now and you can't guarantee anything you get is genuine, I've heard of a lot of people getting fakes. I don't know if it's just the things I've been searching for but not much is now supplied by Amazon, just delivered by them.

I'm not particularly worried as felt a bit like Amazon were taking over the world but with this business model I can see sales only declining.

You just have to be careful, read who the seller is and where it’s being dispatched from and check the reviews. It’s usually very obvious what’s fake shit and what will take ages to arrive.

It's just a case of looking really carefully at who is selling it, tbh. I've had some shocking fakes (shampoo, deodorant etc) so now don't buy any kind of toiletries. And have bought a few things that I've then been offered the full price back for in exchange for a 5* review.........

It has def become a victim of its own success sadly.

I use Amazon a lot - not that it's something I'm particularly proud of - and I've had few issues. I find their customer service excellent and usually stuff arrives when it says it will arrive and is as described.

I don't really get all the 'made in China' complaints. Even premium brand stuff tends to be made in China, even if they don't advertise the fact. I do find it annoying when you have basically 100 variations on the same thing: for example a few weeks ago I was buying a floor mop (glamorous eh?) and clicked on about 10 'different' items only to find they were basically the same item with very slight variations in price and features.

As for reviews, I do sometimes wonder about glowing reviews for th same product, so I tend to focus on the 'Verified purchases' reviews. There's no way to cheat on that one, is there?

@IcedPurple yes there is a way around that

Get your team to purchase items and review

Team gets money back, and returns item

Done

I stopped using Amazon a while ago, prime delivery is hardly ever next day on the stuff I want or the extra p&p is added into the "free delivery cost". I've being using argos a lot this last yr.

[quote MarleneDietrichsSmile]@IcedPurple yes there is a way around that

Get your team to purchase items and review

Team gets money back, and returns item

Done[/quote]
Yes that did occur to me.

I wonder how prevalent that is?

Think how much it’s worth to them

I no longer trust reviews now

I don't trust reviews on anything, not just Amazon. It's a shame as reviews should be really useful.

Yanbu. There's SO much shit on there.

I'm finding more and more that I avoid it where I can. For years I respected that they focussed on what customers wanted (fast delivery etc) and thought it was fair play they beat the competition, but lately I've had so many bad experiences. They do a sort of print on demand thing where they print colouring books and the like for sellers and its just full of poor quality copyright frauds. I've been very concerned lately generally about the amount of fake/fraud stuff on there sold by overseas third party sellers.

Surely people just check price for everything they buy and get it from best supplier for the item, whether it be Amazon, John Lewis, Argos, etc.

@User56439876 exactly, that is what we are talking about. The lowest price is never Amazon any more

I looked for an umbrella yesterday the same one on ebay wss £10 cheaper.

[quote MarleneDietrichsSmile]@User56439876 exactly, that is what we are talking about. The lowest price is never Amazon any more[/quote]
But it often is...

I bought a 2021 iPad Pro from Amazon, it was about £50 cheaper than elsewhere, delivered next day by Royal Mail special delivery

You need to check if it’s dispatched and sold by Amazon. If it’s fulfilled by Amazon that’s good too. I have noticed that those that are third party sellers do tend to come a lot earlier than it’s estimated time. It will say 2 weeks time but in fact will come in 4 days for example. Sometimes packages come much earlier than if it was sold by Amazon.
My sibling neve buys anything from their parties as they think it’s bad and makes it difficult to return items. Where if it’s at least fulfilled by Amazon, any problems will be easier to sort. But I have to no problems with their parties and as I said they usually don’t take long to come at all.

I agree op.
I’ve just cancelled my Prime membership which I’ve had for several years.
It’s not worth it anymore and out of principal I’m going to support smaller businesses.

Amazon prices on most items go up and down regularly; it’s not like a traditional shop where they might have a sale a couple of times a year. If you put item links into camelcamelcamel you can see the price history of items. I put items into my basket/ save for later and wait for them to price drop before ordering. It’s different hour to hour in some cases!

I have prime and have not had any issues with getting next day delivery, sometimes it’s a couple of days but I can live with that.

I agree that there are too many third party sellers coming up when you search, lots with items costing 1p plus postage. I filter by choosing prime and 4* reviews. I wish I didn’t have to filter by prime because I’d be happy to buy from third party small shops in the UK as delivery is only a few days and prices often cheaper, but I can’t find a way to filter these from the products coming from abroad when too many come up.

Sometimes I discover a UK seller though them and buy directly from their website, but not often as I like the extra protection that buying through amazon gives.

I agree re reviews but I find it pretty easy to spot fakes. Most of the reviews where they’re gone to great lengths with videos they’ve been given the product for free in exchange for a review but the videos can still be useful, I just ignore the text in those. There are a few warning signs. Once filtered to 4 plus only I check reviews because seeing an item is 4 overall means nothing any more.

I recently made an order though a well known store. The whole thing was a disaster from start to finish, with customer services refusing to admit that there had been an error with their website which left me massively out of pocket. I only got it resolved after two weeks because I contacted someone very senior within the company! This would never have happened with amazon - I can’t fault amazon for their customer services; they always sort any issues out, no problem. I miss being able to use the chat function as I don’t have the app but i can’t complain other than that.

Amazon prices on most items go up and down regularly; it’s not like a traditional shop where they might have a sale a couple of times a year. If you put item links into camelcamelcamel you can see the price history of items. I put items into my basket/ save for later and wait for them to price drop before ordering. It’s different hour to hour in some cases!

This is exactly what I do, you have to pounce at the right moment, just got a large Le Creuset saucepan I wanted for £92, I watched it slowly go down in price, nabbed it and then saw it go back up to £155.

@User56439876

Amazon prices on most items go up and down regularly; it’s not like a traditional shop where they might have a sale a couple of times a year. If you put item links into camelcamelcamel you can see the price history of items. I put items into my basket/ save for later and wait for them to price drop before ordering. It’s different hour to hour in some cases!

This is exactly what I do, you have to pounce at the right moment, just got a large Le Creuset saucepan I wanted for £92, I watched it slowly go down in price, nabbed it and then saw it go back up to £155.

Yes, I can understand why people think it’s overpriced if they don’t realise this and take the price at the one moment they click on an item as ‘the’ price.

Also, I know you’re looking for a general solution, @SophieGiroux (besides just making sure you look for “fulfilled by Amazon” or sellers in the UK, and even that isn’t a foolproof way to avoid cheap Chinese crap, as people will buy stuff from China and then sell it out of the UK). But for now, I know pool noodles are particularly difficult as Decathalon is even sold out of them, but I searched and this place is a UK company, just sells swimming stuff, is actually cheaper than the top “Amazon recommend” (they wanted something like £16 for 2 and this is £5 for 1) and even has a little video so you can see it’s not cheap and mangy. Might be an option, just for the pool noodle problem? I don’t know much about their shipping rates, though. They say it’s express and free over £24.99 and flat rate below.

www.mailsports.co.uk/swimming-noodles-pool-noodles