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?

Thanks all for the comments. Sounds like while my experience isn’t universal it’s not entirely uncommon. I’ve eventually got a hold of someone and got a refund for the second order and the third one I’ve been able to sort a replacement for the bits that got drenched. Still no joy with the advent calendar 🤦🏼‍♀️

Bear in mind 60% of sellers on Amazon are small independent sellers.

I have been selling on Amazon for many years. I am a sole trader, work alone from home, and juggle selling online with family caring roles and family life.

Totally agree.
In the last week I have wanted, and ordered, photo frames, shoes, a tin opener, grout whitener and a foot stool. Buggered if I am schlepping all over the place to get all that when Amazon is so easy and quick. And I have never once had a problem with an Amazon delivery.

Amazon delivery in my area is absolutely fantastic. If I can order from Amazon, I will. I'm paying for prime so it's silly for me to buy elsewhere and pay delivery.

I know exactly what you mean.

On the very few occasions I've not had my Amazon item turn up as expected, I've received a full refund very quickly, no arguments.

I absolutely detest Amazon as a company for the way they treat employees however they can't be beaten on delivery and customer service.

Such a shame that delivery companies are ruining it for smaller businesses. I really try to but local where I can but it's difficult.

You could have your parcels sent to collection points or those pick up lockers.

Just ask the seller to write in the package do not leave unattended . That should prevent package being left on a doorstep but can’t say it would stop them delivering to wrong address ? Royal mail delivered my parcel to the basement where lady is never home for weeks at a time they just threw it through their grill door even though I was in upstairs doorbell working . I had to get a pole and fish it out all would have been seen on women’s security camera 🫣Had so many bad experiences of lost parcels with Royal Mail now its a race to the bottom

For all Amazon’s many faults, it has a fantastic reputation for logistics innovation. Very few companies put as much focus and intentionality into getting this aspect of commerce right.

We had a tablet delivered by DPD ,to completely the wrong address and they took a photo of the tablet sat on the door of wrong house .
Even being able to prove it wasn't our door ,it's been a nightmare trying to get a refund.
Worse is the fact that either the persons house it was delivered to ,kept the tablet and pen , despite it not being paid for by them ,or the DPD driver thinking it was an apple tablet delivered it ,took a photo and kept it ....
My only consolation,was it was the cheapest tablet possible,and I hope they were disappointed when they opened it to find it wasn't an apple tablet

I fear this is what will happen with the advent calendar. DHL have eventually called to say their driver will aim to retrieve it but since they left it outside someone else’s door vs handing to them if that person says they didn’t receive it then it’s down to whether or not the seller will refund

Same.

If I get at-home deliveries, they are always here around the same sort of time of day, around 6pm, so I know to be looking out for them. I often see the driver on his route as I'm arriving home from work.
9 times out of 10 though, I get my Amazon delivered to a local supermarket a 5-minute drive away. Very convenient, and I know my package is safe until I can conveniently pick it up.
I also used to use the lockers. Also very convenient.

Honestly, if I can't get it from Amazon, or from a local shop in person, then more often than not, I don't bother.

I understand where the OP is coming from because deliveries seem to be a nightmare where I live unless it's Amazon and the reality is that it's a myth that towns have all these wonderful shops we can Christmas shop in, the town centre is my area is all bargain shops and pawnbrokers.

I've had some nightmares with DHL this year, one of my parcels was dumped 1.5 miles away in a different suburb, my partner was in all that day and they didn't even bring it here, they clearly decided to cut the round short and dump it a huge distance away and all they put on the email
was "left with neighbour"! How was I ever meant to find it! It was only by luck of tracking it down via community Facebook groups that I found it!

Just had my partner's main & expensive Xmas delivered by parcel force which is a relief as I've been worried about it getting here for months since I pre-ordered it.

And I don't have the shops in my area for Xmas shopping, I wish we did have loads of interesting independent shops but we don't. If you can find things you need locally, you'd paying a far higher price for it than online too.

I use Amazon almost exclusively and will only order from somewhere else if I can see they dont use Royal Mail as a delivery service. SO many issues with RM, who barely turn up and on the odd occasion they do they lob a card and it takes me 3 days to track down my item at their miles away depot with no parking. No thank you. Evri are fine though, largely.

I'm fine with my high street being nice cafes and delis and experience places like board game cafes. There will always be pop in card shop type places and pharmacies etc. A high street shop can no longer compete on price or service level for things like clothes, houseware items etc. Makes sense to centralise physical shops in destination areas imo, not local high streets.

Yeh we had a bad experience with Royal mail last year, we had £700 of Vietnamese money coming to us tracked delivery and it went missing and the company that sent it, wouldn't refund us or send anymore out until royal mail refunded them and that had a 4 week lead time and we were due away before that, it was a good job we could afford to buy extra currency before going away or we'd have been screwed.

I'm more inclined to order from Amazon because they use decent packaging. I’ve had three things ordered for birthday/Christmas presents recently, from two different retailers, that arrived with their boxes badly crushed because they’d been sent with just a thin plastic bag round the box - no padding.

It’s such a shame. I’ve been interested to hear from a few people they use Amazon for their small businesses. I know the awesome shop in our town that does sewing machines and haberdashery items relies on Amazon sales too. Not somewhere I go often as I just do basic repairs but clearly a similar example where the bricks and mortar store can continue because it’s also doing a roaring online trade. I don’t like the idea of them being a monopoly or their tax practices & I actually don’t object to paying more than their prices. I just don’t want to deal with endless hassle and missing items. It feels a pretty basic requirement to manage to actually turn up with the ordered items when you say you will.

That depends if the retailer and/or their courier offer such a service. Many don't! That's why Amazon are so popular as there are usually loads of options and you know before you order what your delivery options are going to be.

Yes I do like that you choose at the point of ordering. With a lot I ordered it didn’t offer options. I’ve now realised you can divert parcels if you click into the email right away.

Thats terrible with tracked . Its the stress isn’t it. I spend hours on customer service call wait chasing a Special delivery parcel for my mother . Parcel had return to sender clearly marked had to trust my mothers word but they sent it to their no return to sender location in Ireland. If a parcel has no return to sender address it gets sent there luckily it was Special delivery so I could get them to look into it. Parcel came back with return to sender address clearly marked . I ended up delivering the parcel by hand in the end as didn’t trust it would get there. Why it got sent off course was meant to be looked into but of course they never did.

It really is stressful, when I had a parcel dumped a mile and a half away earlier this year and didn't have a clue where it was, the retailer went into radio silence and wouldn't respond and this was me supporting an independent local brewery by buying some merch to put away for my partner for Xmas and they left me in the lurch so it was a good job I found the parcel via community Facebook pages!

I had a situation last week where royal mails parcel force tracking was out of synch and initially told me something was coming on Weds but it didn't, then I got message about 5pm on Thursday that it was out for delivery and then 6pm got a message to say it had been delivered - I had heart attack because I was waiting for my partner's expensive Xmas present, nobody came here to deliver anything, the online chat bot told me to contact the retailer but they don't tell you who the sender is and when you've a few things you've ordered for Xmas outstanding, you don't know what it is! Rang the number and an automated message told me it was the parcel I had received at 1.55 in the afternoon! They panicked me for nothing!

Out of curiosity do they spend around 750,000 on ads each year too? All those I know who make money on Amazon do so by spending at least half their turnover on ads.

I suspect Amazon is on the downturn. I've been reading/hearing of awful stories about deliveries (similar to this), quality, etc and they seem to have increased advertising too suggesting they're losing ground.

Haven't had any issues with Evri myself but it is undoubtedly harder to get a refund from a smaller provider if something doesn't show up and you can't prove it (plus it's hard to prove something hasn't happened when the 'system' says it has!). Amazon is able to give refunds easily because they can afford to lose money.

Why only bookshops? I mean, I get it, I love bookshops and I'm so happy you say yours have survived/are doing fine (most aren't, because of Amazon selling all books at a far lower discount, often making a loss to keep us all buying there), but why do you only care about those shops? What about fruit/veg/cake shops, gardening centres, home decor, etc. Don't care about those?

I have the feeling the tide is turning and more people want to buy local/from makers, because they're tired of getting the same old cheaply made plastic stuff that falls apart or doesn't work. One year I bought about five sets of Christmas lights before I got a set that worked properly, drove me insane! Nearly started considering candles on the Christmas tree! (Kidding.)

I think OP means to use Amazon in preference to other online retailers.

I don't really understand all the stuff about supporting small businesses. There are exceptions, but IME they're often terrible employers with very average customer service. Whichever company you use, you're supporting jobs etc.

Amazon is such a success because it does what it does so well. They are the only reliable delivery company round here , such that whenever I want something from another site, I have a look to see if it's available on Amazon first.