to be considering only ordering online from Amazon ongoing?

[Americasfavouritefightingfrenchman]

I’ve been trying to avoid Amazon and order direct from smaller companies if ordering online for I can’t find things easily in the shops. Over the past week ordering Christmas gifts though:

1. My husbands beer advent calendar has been delivered to completely the wrong place (there is a delivered photo of a door that looks nothing like anything on our street). I can’t get a response from the company that it was delivered by (DHL) or the shipper

2. A set of beauty products sent with Evri show as having been delivered (at 2am?!) but are not here three days later and no delivery photo. I emailed the seller and they responded the courier tracking shows them being in the area and it’s marked as delivered and the photo shows it was. I’ve responded saying that may be true but if it is I can’t see any of that info in the Evri tracking app so can they please share it.

3. A 3rd parcel with some personalised items for the kids (again delivered via Evri) was just dumped on front steps while it was raining and some are now ruined. Seller is blaming me as says I shouldn’t have allowed delivery to a safe place (the front door step isn’t my safe place, the shed is)

I don’t love Amazon but round here their delivery drivers at least actually show up with things and on the odd occasion there is an issue you just fill in a form and they refund you without any fuss. I’m currently down £200 in things I may or may not be able to get the money back and with loads of additional hassle/admin. Am I just horrendously unlucky here or are deliveries generally a total disaster area?

Touching wood, but I’ve never had a problem with Evri or Yodel, and our DPD driver is lovely, he insists on carrying parcels into the house if they are heavy. That said, I have read horror stories on FB from people in the next village to us, so maybe I’m just lucky. Personally I am shunning Amazon wherever possible, I’d far rather support UK businesses and TBH it pays to check their prices too, as sometimes I can find things cheaper elsewhere. I hope you track down the missing parcels,especially the beer advent calendar, I’d be bereft if my wine one had gone astray 😱

I totally agree on the supporting uk business front and we do try where we can. Think I’m just feeling super fed up at the moment. I particularly want the beauty one as it has a cool free gift they are out of stock of.

I use Amazon a lot because it just works. Reliable delivery either to my house or a very convenient locker, arrives on time and any returns accepted no problem at all.

Sure, if you're happy with there being no bricks and mortar shops left in your local area.

Amazon are fast, reliable, never any issues with returns. They’re not massively cheaper now, they’re just easier and better.

We went to a large department store yesterday, they had hardly any sizes of anything. Just order online!! Was the answer from the assistant.

A lot of UK businesses sell through Amazon...

Get your parcels delivered to an Evri pick up point or to an inpost locker and pick them up at your convenience. I never get Evri parcels delivered to home, for the reasons you describe (I've had Evri drivers insist they've knocked on the door when I'm 3 feet away from it)

I think that ship has sailed. You’re about 20 years too late to make that argument.

Anyway, at this point, unless it’s a bookshop (and ours are doing fine) I’ve stopped caring if there are bricks and mortar shops.

On the actual OP though - just be sure to order mainly from ‘fulfilled by Amazon’ stuff. Some of the small retailers are hit and miss.

Nail on the head. Huge numbers of small UK businesses trade through Amazon via their "fulfilled by amazon" service. Amazon pick up from the business, or the business gets their suppliers to deliver directly in bulk to Amazon warehouses and then Amazon deal with the selling, packing and delivery. I've got clients who do this who either operate from their homes or from small shops/lock ups. It's usually cheaper to pay Amazon's selling and handling fees than to rent your own premises, employ staff to do the packing, etc. One of my clients has a turnover of 1.5 million which isn't bad for a couple working from home who never even touch the goods they sell as they get everything imported straight to Amazon's hub! I've got a small record/cd shop client who use Amazon alongside their physical bricks n mortar shop - the shop itself wouldn't be viable without the enormous amount of sales via Amazon!

The delivery issues are still there with Amazon but you can very easily ask them to send a replacement if the parcel has been stolen/damaged/delivered to the wrong house.
No time wasted writing emails or over the phone, no need to interact directly with the courrier. And free returns.

Other companies don’t want to change their model yet but when they do it will be too late.

Nail on the head again. It was firstly supermarkets and identikit chain stores and then out of town retail parks which killed High Streets back in the 90s! The internet has just killed off what was left of it, including, ironically, some supermarkets and other large chains. Even without the internet, we wouldn't have the same kind of High Street comprising lots of small independents today. It would still be all the identikit Chain stores which people complained about ruining the High Streets back in the 90s!

You need to make sure its coming from amazon still and not a 3rd party seller on amazon. I have had that happen before and they sent it with not an amazon driver.

Emotionally, I feel a wrench at the idea of there being no brick and mortar shops. Not enough of a wrench to make me constantly and deliberately inflict unnecessary inconvenience and extra expense on myself every time I buy anything for the rest of my life though.

I think I've only ever had one delivery problem with Amazon, out of all the gazillions of things I've ordered. Evri mess up the delivery more times than they get it right!

My local Evri driver is great. He goes above and beyond.
The Amazon ones annoy me as they knock and run unless they need a signature.

If you filter by Prime you can usually avoid that happening at it's usually Amazon's own warehouses and drivers. Also look for next day delivery, as again, that's usually Amazon's own warehouse/drivers. I always filter by Prime first and then check delivery dates - I only use slower deliveries or non Prime if there isn't a Prime/Next Day available.

Most only care about convenience and its because life is too demanding now. I would love to go down the town centre and have a butcher, bakery, green grocer, general store experience like the old days but they don't all exist anymore and the town centre is a dump with groups of annoying youth or folks sitting smoking outside the local greggs so its not a fun experience sadly. They have really failed the country with this shit. Even cant go to the local library for peace as the youth come in shouting stupid noises and its right next to a smelly pub with drunks hanging around outside. I know I live in a crap town but honestly... don't most of us now... We drive to get away from it, but with all the talk of cars being replaced/ made extortionate that feels like it will be an issue in the future (according to a recent post on here)

ah great, thanks, I did not know that lol

We have fab very local independent shops that we do use that sell fruit/veg, artisan bread/cakes, books, candles/felted soap and similar, artwork & greetings cards. There are a couple of lovely clothes shops we don’t use as they just aren’t our style and a nice butchers we rarely frequent as my husband is veggie.
I stopped going into the nearest city to shop very much a while back as I so often couldn’t find what I wanted. I used to just buy from
Amazon when I shopped online (or order click and collect for M&S/john Lewis and similar) but I’m trying to switch my online orders to smaller places or buying direct from the manufacturer. Just can’t decide if it’s worth the aggravation when it doesn’t go as planned.

I went into the city centre and did half my Christmas shopping yesterday. It was way easier than waiting on deliveries plus half the stuff was cheaper. I know its a bit of a thought but maybe do that if possible.

I get Amazon stuff delivered to an Amazon locker or a collection point. It's always a pain using other online retailers as you often don't know who they'll be using as the courier so won't know whether a drop off point is an option until you've bought and then discover who they're sending it by and even then, some couriers have different options with different services, so sometimes you can go on their app to arrange a drop off/collection point or a different delivery day, and sometimes the seller has used a cheaper option with no such choices. That's why Amazon wins hands-down - it's just so much easier and convenient with specified delivery dates rather than the usual vague "3-5 days" and Amazon lockers.

That depends on your city centre. Ours is literally just vape, charity and turkish barber shops since M&S and Woolworths closed down - everything else worthwhile has gone - once the "Big" draw stores had gone, one by one the others have closed down due to the lack of footfall. Even worse now that the last bank has closed too!

I'd love to buy locally in person but a lot of basic food ingredients are no longer available in my town's Morrisons or ASDA - barley, wholemeal pasta, dried pulses (apart from lentils/chickpeas), rice flour, a decent range of other dried goods/cupboard items, decent bread flour, even dried milk ... all no longer available in the last year or two. Some of the local ethnic shops are great as they still sell a few items, but not everything I used to buy. It's ironic that I now have to go to online shopping to buy basic ingredients - I've just ordered and had delivered all of the above via Amazon!

my local evri driver changed from a nice lady to an older man and the parcels always smell like weed now, had a kids clothing order recently and it was stinking... I hate it. I can see how negative my posts look on this thread, its all reality for this area though.