Amazon - what do you think of it?

Specifically, Amazon as a retailer (but general comments welcome too).

I’m asking because I think they’re miles ahead of everyone else right now (from the perspective of a customer). Almost everyone I speak to absolutely loves shopping at Amazon and I think this is in no small part because of their extremely high customer service (although other things play a factor too, such as next day delivery, usually fairly competitive prices, etc).

I guess part of this is because they’re very numbers focused, and so they ‘rate’ customers based on shopping activity and not social status (which, other retailers probably aren’t - the better written or spoken your complaint or query is, the more likely you are to receive a positive outcome with those other retailers).

Just to give you an example, I had two items to return in December, one was a silicone strainer which when received actually contained plastic on the base (so not what I wanted) and the other was an anti splash top for a cast iron pan which when received contain teflon (again not what I wanted) - so I had my usual 30 days to return these back in December but couldn’t do so because of the lockdown, so I just happened to mention this to them when I had to contact them about something else - they said they’d refund me and that I wouldn’t need to send the items back. I know this is not an isolated example as several people have said the same (and sometimes for much more expensive items). I doubt there are many other retailers who would go that far.

What about you? Have you experienced similar? Do you like shopping at Amazon?

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@AstonJ I have also had a very good experience with shipments as well as returns. For example, they have local lockers for receiving your shipments.

Also, they deliver on Sundays and one can track the exact location when it’s close to being delivered. How cool is that? This is something that I spoke to FedEx employees about this and they were pretty much saying that it was too difficult for them. I guess when you own and operate a cloud platform anything is possible.

Furthermore, they tend to have many dropoff locations for returns where one doesn’t need the original shipment box. I have seen others return stuff without the original packaging for the item. Amazon just cares about getting the original item.

I remember Amazon and FedEx couldn’t agree to shipments here in the US. Thus, FedEx stopped shipping Amazon packages and days later Amazon rented white mini-vans and hired drivers to deliver their packages. 2 - 3 weeks later, Amazon had their own branded Amazon Prime mini-vans doing these deliveries.

BTW, I have had several packages taken from my doorstop and they were replaced by simply making a call to the customer service. Every time, the customer service person always had given me the option to replace, refund, or Amazon gift card. Others that I have dealt with in the past wasn’t this easy. Thus, it would take weeks to get a resolution.

In summary, I believe Amazon is so far ahead of their competition where there’s simply no competition.

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Good to hear you’ve had similar experiences Conrad :smiley:

Not sure if you have DPD over there, but here in the UK they were the first to have this service (on the day before they’d also offer you a choice of two one hour slots for when you’d like your delivery - marking one as ‘eco-friendly’). Amazon actually used DPD before they brought in their own ‘Amazon Logistics’ service.

One of the lads who goes to the gym is an Amazon driver, and they basically have to either user their own vehicles or rent an Amazon van (think they have to pay £100 per week). AFAIK they are classed as ‘self-emplyed’ (so don’t get paid if they don’t work/are off sick etc).

It’s extremely rare for a courier to leave a parcel on your doorstep over here. What they generally do if there’s no answer is try a neighbour (or two) and leave it when them instead.

From what I gather it seems to be the norm there? I wonder how many go missing every year! :joy:

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Well once the guy put it inside of my bin, and let me a note in the mailbox to lookup my bin for the parcel :rage: , and my bin is the street side-walk, thus anyone could have seen him putting it there and grabbed it…

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Nobody’d touch it as they’d be worried about catching coronavirus :joy:

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It was a long time before the pandemic :wink:

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