Amazon Marketplace - why did I bother?

Hezzawithkids

I need to buy 16 set texts for an OU English Lit course that I've signed up for. Thought I'd be thrifty by using Amazon Marketplace instead of my student discount at Waterstones.

Placed an order totalling £83 earlier this week from 11 different Amazon sellers, saving of £25 vs Waterstones. Selected all books in a "Used - Like New" condition.

Today the emails started to arrive.

One says along the lines of: I thought it was in an As New condition but now I've looked at it the first few pages have been marked with a highlighter pen.

Another says: I put your book in the post today but I forgot to put any stamps on the parcel. Let me know what the charge is and I'll send you a cheque.

Yet another says: I thought I had this book in stock but it turns out I haven't.

FAIL. Might as well have spent the extra 25 quid and got all the books guaranteed in one parcel and in brand new condition and with free delivery and with a lot less hassle.

What's the point of trying to be responsible and recycle, be thrifty, support small business etc when the people on the other end can't be arsed to get it right??

Never again. :mad:

BaconandEggs

Never experienced problems using the market place before.
Definitely worth checking out seller ratings. We often use it to buy and sell the odd book. We have a 100% rating and package and post things well and on promptly. I'd say on the whole it's been worth the extra savings. Plus, like you say, it's also recycling.

Raksha

Hezzawithkids wrote: »

FAIL. Might as well have spent the extra 25 quid and got all the books guaranteed in one parcel and in brand new condition and with free delivery and with a lot less hassle.

:

Not necessarily - Waterstones use Yodel to deliver (or used to...)

tattycath

What books do you need?

Hezzawithkids

tattycath wrote: »

What books do you need?

A load of 20th century texts, some famous authors like Daphne du Maurier, Chekov, Virginia Woolf etc but also some obscure poetry and drama stuff I've never heard of!

Hezzawithkids

BaconandEggs wrote: »

Never experienced problems using the market place before.
Definitely worth checking out seller ratings. We often use it to buy and sell the odd book. We have a 100% rating and package and post things well and on promptly. I'd say on the whole it's been worth the extra savings. Plus, like you say, it's also recycling.

I've used them successfully in the past too but so far 3 out of 11 sellers is a miserable 27% fail rate. All the seller ratings were over 95%, but not after I've finished with them!

Crowqueen

(((Hezza))).

This is unusual - I've had hundreds of good purchases from Amazon over the last twelve years - but I suppose it must happen, just like I have never had any luck on eBay with electronics, but since eBay is full of people who find it profitable, I daresay other people have a successful time.

I don't receive anything problematic, and only two items ever went missing (both in the last nine or ten months, funnily enough - in fact INR is happening more often over all sites I buy from in the last two years than in the previous ten of me buying online).

I don't mind pen-marks in books; in fact I just as soon add my own (one textbook I bought from Blackwell's s/h was full of highlighter - but in all the right places so it wasn't a problem, and it was £17 as opposed to £35 so still a bargain). An eBay seller sent me a book with some ...interesting graffiti in it but it is in pencil and is unobtrusive and it will soon probably have coloured highlighter all over it - I just want the book though. Academic books are so expensive new that a £5 copy with a bit of graffiti is preferable to buying a £40 or even £100 pristine volume.

But I can imagine it is really frustrating if these are otherwise not rare texts. Incidentally, did you buy from the Book Depository or from Zoverstocks or from personal sellers? I hate to say this, but the big megalisters have better condition stock sometimes, perhaps that's it.

I'm listing stuff now on Amazon, I check everything thoroughly, I was going to list something but then I realised that when I was depressed a few years ago I doodled on it . When I list on eBay I take a lot of photos of any marks inside it. My books from uni have a couple of notes in them but not particular graffiti, meaning perhaps my notes might provide a bit of commentary and not get in the way of things - and if people want a pristine copy they then know to avoid my books. At least I have space to make sure people know there is scrawl in them.

But anything with weird scrawlings in it is going out when I finally get round to turning out my room - which is looking a lot like a book warehouse at the moment, between the things I've got out to sell and the things I've bought during the spring!

johnnyboyrebel

From my experience, 'Used-like New' simply means an item that isn't new regardless of wear and tear or damage no matter how bad it may be. I think a lot of sellers think the only options available to list under are 'New' and 'Used - like New', they don't realise there are 2 or 3 others that decline depending on the condition.

Even though I used to sell on Amazon I would personally never buy from a marketplace seller, it would always be Amazon. A-Z claims, 'thought it was in stock but it isn't' all add up to hassle you just don't need when you simply want an item.

kelfen

OP, are you doing A230?

soolin

johnnyboyrebel wrote: »

From my experience, 'Used-like New' simply means an item that isn't new regardless of wear and tear or damage no matter how bad it may be. I think a lot of sellers think the only options available to list under are 'New' and 'Used - like New', they don't realise there are 2 or 3 others that decline depending on the condition.

Even though I used to sell on Amazon I would personally never buy from a marketplace seller, it would always be Amazon. A-Z claims, 'thought it was in stock but it isn't' all add up to hassle you just don't need when you simply want an item.

To me like new means as new but with some cosmetic damage. Both ebay and Amazon explain the conditions and are quite strict about it.

I recently sold some DVDs , some on Amazon and some on Ebay for my son, all watched once but sold as 'very good' as they were not 'like new' as they had been watched.

Hezzawithkids

kelfen wrote: »

OP, are you doing A230?

No, E300, my first Level 3!