| Then Amazon is going to have to become much much better. I live in London, UK and do not use Prime. I've almost stopped using Amazon altogether now. Why? 1. Delivery - For our flat, their network either fails to deliver, mis-delivers or screws up in some other way far more than they succeed. There is no option to choose the one postal service that shines for my property: Royal Mail. Anything I order from Amazon may turn up eventually, but certainly isn't going to arrive whenever they claim. This is my #1 reason for abandoning Amazon. 2. Range and choice - Either you can't find what you want (the range within cycling for example is extremely limited) and have to look elsewhere, or you're swamped with marketplace sellers and what feels like a million grey goods. The Google engineer's "Which USB type-C cables are good" illustrates the sheer number of items that are of shoddy quality but are represented on the site as being of quality. There is simply, too much crap and not enough quality. 3. Price - I simply don't find Amazon the cheapest at almost anything. On their site it looks cheaper, always discounted, but if you take the manufacturers' SKU and Google it one quickly finds a whole load of places selling it for the same price or cheaper, also with free postage, or cheaper to the point that postage is irrelevant. 4. Bundling - Amazon Prime Video really isn't as good as Netflix, Amazon Prime Now isn't beating Shutl for me in London https://shutl.com/uk/, free postage hasn't been compelling (point #3)... but somehow bundling all of these things together into an
~£80 per year subscription is supposed to make a range of sub-par offerings value for money? 5. Warranty - I've purchased things on Amazon Prime, thinking they were covered by Amazon's customer service, only to discover that the obscure market place seller is really the seller and so my warranty complaints go back to them. They've been overseas and uninterested, and I've had to simply write-off the value of those items. If I buy elsewhere I can factor this in a lot more and choose a reputable seller. Depending on the item, i.e. I recently purchased a 40" 4K Sony TV, then I really want to be sure these high value items are going to be covered by a company that delivers great customer service... John Lewis in my case. There needs to be a Public Service Announcement in the photography section for the sheer number of lens that wouldn't be covered by warranty. I actually view Prime as nothing more than a hook, to keep shoppers too lazy to look around under a spell of "this is a bargain, you're receiving great value". In reality what Amazon once was is a long way from what they now are and Prime is a mask for that. |
7. I use a redelivery service for goods from German Amazon (because delivery to German address is often free but out of Germany very expensive). Amazon displays items to be delivered as one shipment before placing an order.
Right after ordering it displays that the items would be shipped in 4 separate shipments making the price of the delivery 4 times more expensive for me.