Amazon Resellers
Recently I had some trouble with an Amazon Reseller. I’m not a big fan of resellers in general and this didn’t help matters much.
They were advertising Richard Burns Rally (PC) £2.48 and at that price you can’t go wrong. However it wasn’t Amazon that was selling it, it was a reseller. So I ordered it and got charged £1.99 for P&P. Still less than a fiver so it was good going. Undid the wrapping and guess what – it was the PS2 version. I had that moment of doubt – the time I added it, all the times I looked at it in my wishlist – did I never notice I had placed an order for the PS2 version? Quickly I checked my wishlist, yes that said PC. Checked the invoice that Amazon sent me – that said PC. Only when the Reseller (who will remain nameless as that is advertising) got hold of it did they change it from PC to PS2.
So I contacted them and they were quite quick to respond. Send it back and they would reimburse me for it but they couldn’t provide a replacement since they don’t have any PC versions in stock (so why advertise that they did?). I also asked if they would reimburse the cost of sending, they said they would if I told them how much and I said since they charged me £1.99 P&P I would do the same.
Couple of days later I checked and they hadn’t reimbursed me the return postage but had reimbursed me for the original amount and p&p. A snooty email was sent again and a day later a letter arrived in the post with 4 stamps in it.
That was just after Christmas.
Fast forward to today: I went to my wishlist and checked to see if there were any items on special offer (always one for a bargain:-). I did my normal routine: Show unpurchased, order by cheapest, Go. There in bold were the names of the resellers. So I change it to the condensed view and there they were again. Now I could see what percentage of items would come from resellers. In my list of 88 items I have a mix of CD’s, DVD’s, Books and Games. As of lunchtime 38 items were being sold by resellers – that is a whopping 43% of the items I want to order won’t be from Amazon. But at least now I can see who I am buying from and avoid them unless I feel it is a really good deal.
Still no way of setting it so it only shows items from Amazon, or better an option to only show resellers when Amazon has none in stock.
February 7th, 2009 at 11-33
Amazon resellers don’t actually get hold of your goods….. they forward the sale to amazon and the responsibility is then passed on to amazon.
February 7th, 2009 at 14-29
But the order isn’t passed onto Amazon as they advertised as having no stock. These were the only people who “have” stock. The invoice was their own and the return address was to their outlet and not Amazon.
I think Amazon usage of Reseller is a bit loose.