Are Amazon free "standard" charges for delivery unfair?

mecheng

Amazon offers free "standard" delivery for orders over £35. However, at checkout, the default option is paid for delivery not the free "standard" delivery. I think this is a misleading and unfair practice. 

DullGreyGuy

Have prime so cannot see the checkout page of a non-prime customer but on the Basket page as above gives clear instruction that you must select the free delivery option. 

Its therefore not misleading, though maybe not ideal either.

There is a similar issue for Prime users, over a certain value and its free Same Day or Next Day delivery but it normally defaults to next day rather than same day. 

Peter999_2

No, if you don't review the order properly you deserve to get charged.

It is pretty clear that you are paying for the postage.  They could default it to the free postage but of course they aren't a charity but a business and a business needs to upsell as much as they can.

I just see it as a bit of a game of monopoly.   They want me to pay as much as possible and I want to pay as little as possible and with a bit of work on my side it's quite easy to save a lot of money.

As regards Amazon, I left prime a couple of years ago as it got ridiculously expensive.    Everything I buy from Amazon goes to the locker and therefore you don't have to pay for delivery charges - again, it still defaults to the paid for delivery but is easy to change.       I ordered a thing for my computer yesterday that on the free delivery option wasn't supposed to come until Thursday - however it is actually coming today.   This happens a hell of a lot to me and the majority of the time it is delivered next day the same as prime.

Pollycat

I'm always very careful when shopping on-line - even with companies I've bought from before.

I would see the same as DullGreyGuy.
And therefore I'd select the 'free delivery' option at checkout.
So I wouldn't consider it misleading and unfair.

I'm sure some people who rush to click on 'pay' and don't read things would find it a scam or con.

lr1277

My guess is this is fixing a previous problem. Historically Amazon used to offer you free delivery but would automatically subscribe you to prime. The customer would then be billed a month later for a 1 year subscription to Prime. Many customers were annoyed by that and got Amazon to reverse the charge, but they were also no longer subscribed to Prime.

My guess is Amazon are showing the delivery figure because if you request the free delivery, you will be subscribed to Prime and charged for Prime in the near future.

If my analysis is right, I think this approach is better because the customer then knows what they are paying for before committing to the purchase.

kimwp

I do think they make it is as tricky to select the free delivery by covering the page in information and hiding the free delivery option as much as possible, you have to be really on the ball to make the correct selections. 

Pollycat

lr1277 said:

My guess is this is fixing a previous problem. Historically Amazon used to offer you free delivery but would automatically subscribe you to prime. The customer would then be billed a month later for a 1 year subscription to Prime. Many customers were annoyed by that and got Amazon to reverse the charge, but they were also no longer subscribed to Prime.

My guess is Amazon are showing the delivery figure because if you request the free delivery, you will be subscribed to Prime and charged for Prime in the near future.

If my analysis is right, I think this approach is better because the customer then knows what they are paying for before committing to the purchase.

I'm not sure that's true.
I've read lots of threads that allege that people were automatically signed up to prime but I've seen lots of screen shots that disprove that.

Pollycat

kimwp said:

I do think they make it is as tricky to select the free delivery by covering the page in information and hiding the free delivery option as much as possible, you have to be really on the ball to make the correct selections. 

If you're buying on t'interweb, you should be 'on the ball'.
Otherwise, any mistakes you make are down to you.