Amazon love/hate

[NancyJohnson]

Amazon is first port of call for me. 

 

I detest shopping at the best of times; Amazon is generally way cheaper, I get next day delivery included in my Prime membership, I don't have to pay petrol/parking or spend hours walking around a town chancing my luck trying to find stuff that probably isn't available or in stock locally.  

 

 

 

[naxos10]

With regard to pricing I have not found Amazon to be the cheapest recently in fact up to 20% dearer on some of the products I have been looking for. Also found their search engine throws up anything it thinks is close to what you want even when the part or product entered is specific, it's becoming tedious.

 

[neepheid]

1 hour ago, naxos10 said:

With regard to pricing I have not found Amazon to be the cheapest recently in fact up to 20% dearer on some of the products I have been looking for. Also found their search engine throws up anything it thinks is close to what you want even when the part or product entered is specific, it's becoming tedious.

 

 

Absolutely - their search is absolute rubbish.  It's designed for people who don't really know what they want.  You try searching for a specific thing and it throws up so much irrelevant garbage in amongst the stuff you're looking for.

[LeftyP]

16 hours ago, nilebodgers said:

Yes, Wiggle are good. I also use Chain Reaction, Evans, Cyclestore, Merlin and Tredz. I’ve had a good few chains and tyres from ebay stores, but I don’t usually buy things that might need returning off ebay.

Chain Reaction were taken over by Wiggle and I believe Wiggle are now part of some large conglomerate!  Always had great service from both sites for my cycling stuff.

[nilebodgers]

23 minutes ago, LeftyP said:

Chain Reaction were taken over by Wiggle and I believe Wiggle are now part of some large conglomerate!  Always had great service from both sites for my cycling stuff.

The problem with Chain Reaction now is that they have almost identical stock to Wiggle at almost identical prices, so they aren’t a real alternative like they used to be. I agree service is very good from both.

[Crusoe]

5 hours ago, naxos10 said:

With regard to pricing I have not found Amazon to be the cheapest recently in fact up to 20% dearer on some of the products I have been looking for. Also found their search engine throws up anything it thinks is close to what you want even when the part or product entered is specific, it's becoming tedious.

 

I've been looking for a new camera bag and found one I liked on Kent Faith, for £66. The same bag on Amazon is £93. I went with neither as I need it for next Friday and K&F are quite slow to deliver as the stuff comes from China, I believe. I ended up buying a cheap one on Amazon for £34, although it will probably fall apart quickly.

[LeftyP]

I see Amazon is making a stand against Visa for their recent increases in transaction fees.  Amazon will no longer accept payment via Visa credit cards after 19th January 2022.  I know of a couple of local small businesses who no longer have payment by credit card because of the fees.  Let's hope Amazon can force Visa to lower its charges.  Visa's value on the stock exchange dropped with the announcement.

[Woodinblack]

2 minutes ago, LeftyP said:

I see Amazon is making a stand against Visa for their recent increases in transaction fees.  Amazon will no longer accept payment via Visa credit cards after 19th January 2022.  I know of a couple of local small businesses who no longer have payment by credit card because of the fees.  Let's hope Amazon can force Visa to lower its charges.  Visa's value on the stock exchange dropped with the announcement.

 

Amazon don't care about other people, and any change that is done won't help them (in fact, almost certainly amazon will avoid that), this is purely pressure from Amazon to get Visa UK to give them a lower cut (which you can bet is already percentages lower than anyone elses), which presumably they will do, so Amazon will have yet one more advantage over everyone else.

[mikel]

Never use them, a horrible company. Treat their workers like dirt and get away with paying little if any tax in this country. I mean, how much money does one man need? Pay your workers and pay your taxes. Having an unfair trading advantage is the reason Amazon are omnipotent. Even the Wife has stopped using them due to the ridiculous website constantly trying to force her to sign up to prime and bombarding her with stuff she has no interest in. Give me a nice high street shop to browse anyday.

[tegs07]

10 minutes ago, mikel said:

Never use them, a horrible company. Treat their workers like dirt and get away with paying little if any tax in this country. I mean, how much money does one man need? Pay your workers and pay your taxes. Having an unfair trading advantage is the reason Amazon are omnipotent. Even the Wife has stopped using them due to the ridiculous website constantly trying to force her to sign up to prime and bombarding her with stuff she has no interest in. Give me a nice high street shop to browse anyday.

Problem is the high street is typically rammed with large chain stores who also don’t care, treat their indifferent staff like commodities and are hopelessly inefficient, have nothing in stock, take ages to order anything and can only deliver it on the only day your not available.