Do Amazon actually sell anything themselves?

BigBouncyBall

More and more it seems this great online shop is becoming a car boot sale. Hundreds of different retailers selling through amazon's shop front. It's very annoying when you want to buy 3 or 4 things and they all come from different retailers and all have a postage charge, for each item.

Do Amazon just let anyone sell anything they like at any price and any postage cost?

fox2319

Pretty sure there's a way to filter it so that can only show items which are available for next day delivery, that's Amazon stuff.

KILL_BILL

fox2319 wrote: »

Pretty sure there's a way to filter it so that can only show items which are available for next day delivery, that's Amazon stuff.

no there isnt apparently which is annoying because say for example you want to get free delivery - the free delivery only applies to amazon stuff and not to their marketsellers

also the amazon evouchers are only reemable with amazon and not through the marketsellers - which seems dumb

superscaper

It's still pretty clear whether it's Amazon selling it or not and what the third part sellers are. All the sellers also stick to their predefined postage cost (this is what part of gets paid to Amazon I believe, hence why you can't bundle the postage) which you can view. Personally I've got some great bargains (even a £50 text book in mint condition for free) and I mostly use 3rd party when the items are very hard to find. The more Amazon expands then the more items there are that they're not going to be able to stock themselves. It's pretty simple though if you don't want to pay a particular price or postage or buy from a 3rd party then don't.

BigBouncyBall

Yes i know it's clear when amazon are selling something themselves, but it's still becoming a jumble sale of products from all sorts of sellers. It's annoying when you want to buy about 3 books and 2 of them come from amazon (free postage) but then when you come to check out you see there is a postage charge of about £5 from some charlatan.

I think it reflects badly on amazon that they allow so many items to be sold by third parties.

DaisyFlower

Theres an option at the side to select the seller so you can filter Amazon only items.

superscaper

BigBouncyBall wrote: »

I think it reflects badly on amazon that they allow so many items to be sold by third parties.

I don't see why, it's your choice to buy from the 3rd party or not. If there's no option for amazon then obviously they aren't stocking that item whether there are 3rd party sellers or not. It's pretty clear well before checkout who you're buying from, ie on the item page itself. It's giving you more choice not taking any away. As I've already said it's your choice who you buy off and each seller makes it quite clear on their shipping page what the charges are which you can look at before you even decide to put anything in your basket so I'm not sure why anything should come as a shock.

BigBouncyBall

OK sure it's your choice, but it still doesn't change the fact that what used to be a very easy shopping experience; all items stocked by amazon and all postage costs upfront. Now if you want 4 items and 3 of them come from 3rd parties then you have to pay 3 postage costs, and wait for 3 deliveries which could sometimes be days apart.

Irritating to say the least. Thanks for the tip Daisy, I'll be sure to turn that option on!

superscaper

BigBouncyBall wrote: »

Now if you want 4 items and 3 of them come from 3rd parties then you have to pay 3 postage costs, and wait for 3 deliveries which could sometimes be days apart.

Irritating to say the least.

But that only happens when you deliberately choose to buy from the 3rd party sellers. I'm still not getting why it's a problem Amazon having a particular service that you are choosing to use. If you don't like it don't use it and just buy from Amazon. There's nothing stopping you. Amazon's own stock levels are not affected by having 3rd party sellers as well. You're talking as if you didn't know you're buying from different people until after you ordered. It's a bit like saying you had to pay separate postage and wait for different delivery times after buying different items on ebay. At what point are you prevented from buying every item that Amazon have in stock from Amazon themselves? If Amazon have it then they're automatically first choice even if you don'y look at who you're buying it from. If they don't have it in stock you wouldn't have been able to buy it in the first place if there weren't 3rd party sellers.

Maybe you should use play.com instead as it'll suit your sensibilities in that the third party sellers on there don't charge for postage.

BigBouncyBall

but i don't want to be buying from 3rd Parties. I want to buy from Amazon, but it is annoyingly difficult to dodge all the other sellers. My question is why have amazon opened their doors to third parties?

Stop telling me i have a choice, i know i have a choice, i choose to direct my browser to amazon.co.uk in order to buy products from Amazon. If i want to buy stuff from somewhere else i'll direct my searches to another site.

Books are quite easy to get from amazon to be fair. Try searching for an electronic item like a camera memory card. A lot seem to be priced at £0.01p with about £10 postage!

deanos

Have to agree with the OP it is very annoying, searching on Amazon is tough enough as it is now its even harder