Sneaky Amazon

[Phil Pascoe]

I ordera few times a week from Amazon. I live in a remote area and if it's cheaper on Amazon I'm quite happy to use them. I'm glad they keep my details and make it so easy to order.

Likewise. It's an unusual day we don't get something from Amazon.

 

[clogs]

we use Amazon rarely.......
mostley for referance on prices and info.....
I almost push the keyboard keys with an insulated stick.......hahaha......
If their business attitude changed for the better I'd def use em more .....
they dont need the money that much anymore...
they have almost KILLED the opposition......

 

[AlanY]

we use Amazon rarely.......
they have almost KILLED the opposition......

I use Amazon a lot. In fact, if they did groceries, I doubt I would ever leave the house again. But, whilst Amazon definitely hurt the High Street, what killed it was Lockdown.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

What killed it was Lockdown?

It didn't help but the inexorable march of time took its toll as well - remember how the department stores and supermarkets killed the village shops?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I use Amazon a lot. In fact, if they did groceries, I doubt I would ever leave the house again.

Not heard of Tesco's deliveries?

 

[AlanY]

Not heard of Tesco's deliveries?

Ever tried to get a delivery slot?

 

[Garno]

I genuinely have no problem with being a Prime member and would of renewed regardless. It would of been better/easier if I knew they were going to take that money from me.

Amazon now do a Morrisons shop, we tried it and it was delivered to us 2 hours later, not sure if it's a prime member benefit or available to everyone, I would imagine the latter.

 

[RobinBHM]

A call or chat to Amazon and they will cancel the Prime membership and refund your fee, assuming you haven’t used the Prime benefits yet. I had to do this when I found out they had charged a duplicate Prime membership when I trialled the business account. It was absolutely no problem to get the refund.

yes -sneaky though they are, they dont quibble about refunds for prime IME

I have often got free prime and then cancelled -I do it immediately otherwise I forget.

 

[RobinBHM]

Ever tried to get a delivery slot?

We get Tescos deliveries every week -my wife books it at 6.30am for the furthest ahead that can be booked -with their super delivery saver, you also get an extra week.

we are able to get the day and time we want every week -but we always have 3 booked up at any time.

although it must depend where you live -we live near Gatwick which has a huge fulfillment centre - a "dark supermarket", set up for delivery only.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Ever tried to get a delivery slot?

We had problems for a few months last year, but none in the last few months. We try to keep a month head. We've had Morrison's deliveries as well - they were easier to get - but they're not so reliable and their time keeping is dreadful (route planning is foreign to them).

 

[Sideways]

Haha, I see they caught me too.
I also try to avoid but decided to buy a couple of months prime for the sake of some video series. Being charged for a year when I didn't expect it, I'm reminded of why I dislike them. All funding sources now deleted so they can't con me out of anything else when I'm not looking.

 

[TominDales]

I was looking for a wheel for my bike on Amazon. Found one at £68, but didn't buy it. I decided to try rebuilding a new wheel using an old rim. Day later, I gave up trying to build the wheel, the rim was too far out of shape, so i went back to Amazon to buy the wheel. To my disgust, it was now £80+ I hunted for the one at £65. Nowhere to be found, so I tried with Firefox rather than Chrome. I have Firefox set to clear all cookies on exit and it doesn't sign me into Amazon automatically, Straight away I found the £65 wheel,

I have mixed views on Amazon and agree with our comments
- I think the price gauging is the suppliers on their site and not amazon themselves? I've found waiting a few days, a week, for the gauge to go off.
- I think they should pay higher business rates on their warehouses, the tax model of shops paying high rates as they are high added value land, is years out of date, business taxes ought to be raised on those business that have reached critical mass and are in valuable sectors. - this is not amazons fault but our bureaucrats in treasury have been slow to see how the economy is evolving.
- until Covid, unemployment was at a historic low, the government, missed opportunity to put up the minimum wage and trim abuse of zero hours contacts - I cant believe how its profitable to ship me a £2 item from china door to door with free postage - someone is paying for the subsidy I get. And the delivery driver gets next to nothing. Again, this is not Amazons fault but the treasury economists being slow. The consumer is benefitting at the expense of poorly paid delivery folk, a bit of a readjustment seems fair.
- I try to find goods from other suppliers where possible but Amazon provide a very good service so its hard to find competitors. However, as others have said, Tesco delivery is fantastic (really pleasant delivery folk), although the limit on items at hight of lock down was concerning give how much food teenagers eat. And Aldi keep them on their toes. We went a bit OTT (strictly speaking my better half did) leading up to Brexit/Covid and she stuffed the stair-cupboard with long lived food items (4 boys to feed), I suspect destocking is affecting our national statistics
+ I get free prime as my wife subscribes, and it allows free use by family members so I to use it as do our boys at Uni. I like the no-quibble returns and I trust there payments system, the speed of delivery is phenomenal. The kids like watching amazon prime movies.
I think a lot of what is wrong with Amazon could be fixed with a tweak to national policy on employment rights and how rates are calculated - we may find the US government imposes reciprocal taxes on UK exports as they are supper defensive of their commercial interests, but its worth facing that down.

 

[RobinBHM]

I think a lot of what is wrong with Amazon could be fixed with a tweak to national policy on employment rights and how rates are calculated

Globalisation of trade has led to a new problem: taxation.

We all need the big players like Amazon, Google, Apple....but they play the system and put their headquarters in low tax jurisdictions.

And they are so powerful it's hard for governments to impose taxes on them.

Buying from Amazon means no corporation tax going to the treasury.
Buying from an SME UK online retailer does mean corporation tax being paid here.

I buy from Amazon but I try not to, I hate the monopoly Amazon marketplace has over sellers......small ones don't have the finance to drive traffic to their site.

 

[quintain]

Yup. I had to do same as Phil.

and me

 

[Phil Pascoe]

They don't "play the system", they do perfectly legally what the law allows. They do their best to mitigate any taxes paid, as should every business. Businesses don't exist to suit the government.

 

[Sandyn]

I'm afraid I use Amazon a lot. I have prime. I really disagree with just about everything they do business wise, so I'm a bit of a hypocrite, but I find they are often as cheap as alternative sources by the time you take delivery costs into account and getting things next day, or even the same day, is so convenient. It's modern life, the way things are going. Amazon gives you access to an incredible selection of items. I would never buy any electrical items which I consider safety critical from Amazon.

 

[AlanY]

They don't "play the system", they do perfectly legally what the law allows. They do their best to mitigate any taxes paid, as should every business. Businesses don't exist to suit the government.

They don't just do their best, Phil, they drive the conversation with HMRC. Amazon have better tax experts than the Treasury, better tax lawyers than the Treasury and they are better politicians than our politicians, too. HMRC have a team dedicated to Amazon which, when you consider how little Amazon pay the UK (the last time I bothered to check I think it was around the £30 million mark), shows how much Amazon frightens them. Very few other businesses have that sort of clout (Apple, Google, etc, obvious exceptions) and small businesses have no chance (and are often targeted as 'low hanging fruit' by HMRC).

I do not begrudge Amazon et al for maximising their profits (particularly considering the numbers employed in the UK) and I cannot understand why, when the UK is now free to do so, it does not introduce low corporation tax rules to attract the likes of Amazon to move their European headquarters to London? Even at 10%, that would be 10% of billions, rather than 20% of nothing as a present.

 

[bryan267]

I was looking for a wheel for my bike on Amazon. Found one at £68, but didn't buy it. I decided to try rebuilding a new wheel using an old rim. Day later, I gave up trying to build the wheel, the rim was too far out of shape, so i went back to Amazon to buy the wheel. To my disgust, it was now £80+ I hunted for the one at £65. Nowhere to be found, so I tried with Firefox rather than Chrome. I have Firefox set to clear all cookies on exit and it doesn't sign me into Amazon automatically, Straight away I found the £65 wheel, so I copied and pasted the amazon description back into Chrome. Amazon would not let me see the £65 wheel when signed in with my details on Chrome. I eventually had to sign in using Firefox to be able to buy it.

Best thing is if your in doubt stick it in your basket, maybe then click save for later, they will then update you on price changes in your basket and possibly offer you a lightning deal or voucher. Vouchers recently have been good for just 15 minutes but they can be restarted, sometimes, by taking the item out of your basket and adding it again. They certainly are not always the cheapest but depending on what your buying, sometimes they are, and their customer service is great. I rarely buy tools from Amazon as almost always they are cheaper elsewhere

 

[Crazy Dave]

I often put things in my basket and then move them to "save for later" because I know I'll be looking for them soon and it just saves searching when the time comes and it amazing how many time the prices increase because "Amazon always shows you the latest prices". This often makes me delete the item and buy elsewhere.
The other thing that really gets my goat is they'll change the seller for you, I Search out UK sellers for many reasons and I found that Amazon will send my order to an EU company/seller or even worse China. I've offer cancelled the order as soon as I notice but I then get told "Amazon is trying to cancel your order but it may have been dispatched" yeah right.
And one more thing Amazon sends out returned items without even checking them first, I've had many pre opened items including a sandwich toaster with bread crumbs in it.

Well I feel better now.

 

[Nelly111s]

I use Amazon occasionally, but particularly now because of lockdown I search for local suppliers where I can. I’m willing to pay extra to keep small businesses in business. Most of the people on here who run businesses have small / family businesses. We should “do everything in our power” to support them.