Amazon Prime 'free delivery' not all it seems

funkyjams · 18 November 2024 at 12:41PM

Increasingly I'm finding items on Amazon Prime with 'free Prime shipping' are cheaper when I log out of Amazon and buy as a non-Prime member. See the attached for example. £18.99 with free delivery but when I log in to Prime it becomes £26.99 with Prime delivery. The non-Prime cheaper delivery isn't even an option in the 'other sellers' drop down.
It seems like an absolute con to me, capitalising on people's trust that they're getting a good deal by paying a monthly fee. Is this even legal from a trading standards point-of-view? How can Amazon claim free delivery when it's an additional £8?

(Images removed by Forum Team)

cmthephoenix · 18 November 2024 at 12:50PM

They are different listings (hence the different pictures). I can see both listings under my prime account

DE_612183 · 18 November 2024 at 12:54PM

oddly enough one is listed as aged 8+, the other is 14+...

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head · 18 November 2024 at 1:10PM

14 quid (new) on eBay....

As above 2 listings, the expensive one says "Genre Aktion & Geschicklichkeit, Wirtschaft & Handel" so maybe an import or the listing is being pulled from another Amazon site into the UK catalogue?

funkyjams · 18 November 2024 at 1:15PM

From the same seller though?

I've had this happen on other items too.

Alderbank · 18 November 2024 at 1:25PM

funkyjams said:

It seems like an absolute con to me...

How can Amazon claim free delivery when it's an additional £8?

Lots of reasons.

1. Amazon aren't even selling it. The seller is Real Merch. Amazon just do the delivery which is free to Prime users. How Amazon and Real Merch actually pay the real cost of delivery is between them.

2. Real Merch can sell for whatever price they like to whoever they like. They can sell to different buyers at different prices. They just have to make the price to you clear at the point of sale, which they do.

3. Amazon state prominently on the page 'May be available at a lower price from other sellers, potentially without free Prime shipping'

Why does that seem like an absolute con to you?

Tucosalamanca · 18 November 2024 at 1:31PM

Alderbank said:

funkyjams said:

It seems like an absolute con to me...

How can Amazon claim free delivery when it's an additional £8?

Lots of reasons.

1. Amazon aren't even selling it. The seller is Real Merch. Amazon just do the delivery which is free to Prime users. How Amazon and Real Merch actually pay the real cost of delivery is between them.

2. Real Merch can sell for whatever price they like to whoever they like. They can sell to different buyers at different prices. They just have to make the price to you clear at the point of sale, which they do.

3. Amazon state prominently on the page 'May be available at a lower price from other sellers, potentially without free Prime shipping'

Why does that seem like an absolute con to you?

I'm not sure if Amazon even do the delivery. The product doesn't distribute from Amazon.

As I understand it, the vendor ships next day delivery, sometimes in Amazon packaging (usually Amazon branded tape), but mostly plain packaging like any other parcel.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head · 18 November 2024 at 2:16PM

Alderbank said:

Why does that seem like an absolute con to you?

There was a DVD seller years ago, created their own page for everything sold, listed at a particularly high price and then promoted everything, the only reason you'd buy was because you found your way to their page rather than the original product page.

It's hard to say in this case as it doesn't seem the seller has set up more than one page, rather both have been active for a fair amount of time, and it's possible there is a difference between the two. Not sure why a monopoly board game has so many barcode numbers, (there's 12 between the two listings) and the higher priced one is listed as "Amazon's choice", why that would be their choice who knows? The way the search is displayed (on desktop) does push you to the higher price, row 1 is other Monopoly games (sponsored results) and the cheaper one appears at the end of row one where as most people would skip the first row and drop to the "Amazon's choice" as that is usually more likely to be what you are looking for.

There should be a single page per product and everyone lists against it but due to the way only 1 person gets the Buy Box and sellers chip away at price to obtain that box it's not surprising some do their best to work around it.

Either the two board games the seller has are indeed different or they are listing one against a product page it doesn't match, or all those barcode numbers are made up and Amazon should have better control over their catalogue and possibly display their results in a more friendly manner.

If those are two different products it would be handy if it was clear why, is one an import, is one an older release (Amazon sometimes has a "there is a new version of product" link on pages) is it something else?

One listing shows the box, the other the board, why don't both show both as you would expect?

Basically it's a mess with too many questions when looking to buy something like this that is branded and there should really only be one result (rather than 4 pages worth!).