Amazon claims amazing Christmas Amazon.co.uk is claiming this Christmas was its best ever with sales peaking on 10 December. The UK version of the site also sold more than ever before. In its busiest 24 hours the UK site sold 700, 000 items. The busiest day, 10 December, was a week later than last year which Amazon claimed showed an increased faith in its …
Scan the shopaholics forums and see how what people are saying about Amazon UK at the moment. They certainly did it to me - I thought I was all sorted and paid for with the kids DS Lite to arrive Dec 20 then instead I got a cheerful e-mail advising me of a delay until mid-Feb 2008! Guess what, that news went down like a grand piano full of lead bricks on Christmas morning.
This year I purchased about 50% of my Christmas shopping on Amazon, accounting for most purchases of books, CDs, DVDs, toys and consumer electronics.
The remainder was mostly a combination of online at The Body Shop, various smaller e-tailers and online reservations at Argos.
This method of shopping is convenient, cost competitive and normally allows me to order from reserved stock items which I know I want but otherwise would be difficult to obtain.
I still shop for three types of items on foot -
Those special somethings - I don't know what they are but I need some every year, major department stores, my local sci-fi/comics store and curiousity shops tend to sell them.
Greetings cards - cards for my nearest and dearest that are a 'good fit' are expensive and time consuming to locate, I'd like to be able to browse and buy great greeting cards online.
General Groceries - I can reserve my 'special' christmas items such as large joints and party food but not the general groceries, if I order these online then I have to take pot luck as to whether they are instock or not, consequently if I want to be sure of having cocktail cherries, cream or stuffing then I need to be in the store, a few days before Christmas, at opening time (generally queueing up 3 hrs later to pay with a good book).
I think it would be great if I could place an online order with a major supermarket for my groceries against 'reserved stock', saving me the 3 hrs of gridlock and the worry of whether or not ai'll be able to get hold of the right sort of cream, fresh spouts or mixed nuts.
"Parcel services" have a bumper Christmas? They're the ones who make the real money not the online shops.
Given the delays that many people experienced it would be interesting to see some of the supply and delivery contracts.
For the record I bought one product online this year: the Tuxdroid from Kysoh. The rest was done in a drunken but successful half-an-hour last Saturday.
...but don't deliver the goods. In mid-december my wife ordered a gift certificate, delivered by email so hardly something likely to be affected by Chistmas post or stock issues. It still hasn't arrived with the recipient, and two messages to Amazon customer support have been ignored.
Amazon.co.uk don't publish a phone number, and since we're not in the UK the callback "service" on their 'contact us' page is unusable (it insists on a UK/Ireland phone number). Needless to say, her credit card was debited straight away.
I can understand them having issues delivering concrete goods, but there's no excuse for a web retailer failing to send a gift certificate by email.
Sure for books and music selection cannot be beat, but unless something says "ready to ship" I wouldn't bother trying an online order for many things. Too often sites like Amazon will list something is available because an item is in a distributor catalogue; it's only when you actually order it that you find out if that's true or not.
So, buyer beware as usual. I would also stay away from them for DVD...they seem to now be using a Channel Islands-based 3rd party called Indigo Starfish. Ordered the Blade Runner collector's tin which was thoughtfully put only into a bubble-wrap envelope and *surprise* came in the post bashed up. Stuff like that you're better off paying the extra fiver and knowing what condition it's in by getting it from a shop. I can get games from a private retailer near my office, so unless it's a brilliant price from a retailer I trust like play.com, the shop for me.
Online is fine, but too often traders are still listing stuff as available when it's not and you're always at the mercy of whatever 3rd party is carrying out delivery. I've had good and bad experiences; at the moment I don't think it's a real threat to the high street.
I ordered a gift certificate by email earlier this year, but found out that the recipients email had changed. Contrary to your experience I found it easy to get it re-issued. All I did was fill out the contact form explaining the situation, and they cancelled the code and refunded the money immediately. I then just re-ordered it with the new details.
To be honest, the problem with the email not getting through is most likely going to be at the recipients end. Amazon have sent the order out and therefore debited your account. Of course their customer services should really respond within a day, so can appreciate the frustration. Personally I trust Amazon enough that I'd just order a new one to go to myself and deal with the old one later. It's just a code, so they can see if you have used it before issuing a refund, and you can then just send the code to your intended recipient.
Mixed experiences with Amazon my delivery was fine (which coincidentally included a well packaged Blade Runner collectors tin which didn't arrive bashed) yet had family get only very very last minute delivery of stuff ordered on 3rd December, and as a result of chasing delivery firm who had lied about delivering the items already.
Some conspiracy theorists might suggest Amazon are trying to get people to cough up the £50 for the "free" super-amazing-rapid-delivery now and for all time option.
Sounds plausible, except that the recipient email address was actually also my wife's - she wanted to print the certificate and enclose it with a card. She got the order confirmation mail, but not the certificate, so we know the email works just fine. Re-issuing didn't help. We've bought lots from them in the past, and up to know it has been fine, but this time they just seem to have overstretched themselves.
... with Amazon myself, although most of the ones I have heard / read seem to be with the delivery firms rather than Amazon themselves.
I guess I'm rather lucky as all my next day stuff are by City Link (and my delivery bloke is actually nice and considerate!) or with Royal Mail for the other stuff.
Nothing has ever gone missing, and they have only got one off my orders wrong once (a wireless router) and even then it was no problem swapping it for the right one.
In three years about 4 next day orders have not turned up, and every time Amazon have refunded the postage.
Just thought I'd re-balance all the "Amazon Are Evil" comments.
Well, Just thought I'd do what Peter Appleton is doing and defend Amazon. For what it's worth, I had no such problems with Amazon. In fact, the opposite happened last December- Amazon upgraded an order I placed on it (a dozen DVDs and about 4 music CDs) to express free-of-charge. I'd originally expect the package to arrive in a month. It arrived in a little over a week.
However, it seems that every time X-Mas season rolls around, I keep getting stuff that I bought off eBay lost in the mail. So far, one plush and one action figure set have vanished down the black hole of Canada Post and the British Royal Mail respectively (I take it that whoever made off with the lost CDs El-Reg talks about a lot recently also has my action figure set). Yes, I was refunded, but I'm not satisfied as both items were out of production and difficult to find in stores over here, let alone on eBay.
I ordered Christmas gifts for my daughter and her partner complete with gift wrap and personal message on a next day delivery.
Got an Email from them the next day saying that it would not be delivered as promised and refunding my carriage costs. It did however get delivered the following day and I was able to track the package online and see that it was actually on the delivery van somy daughter could wait in for it.
to Steve
Your comment regarding Amazon new delivery offer is interesting as I have noticed items ordered via their free super saver delivery now seem to take much longer to arrive than they used to.
In fact, I ended up paying for regular shipping for most of my deliveries and realised by the end of it that next year I could save money by taking advantage of the aforementioned offer.
Funny that...
To others whose items didn't arrive until after Christmas - I don't tend to rely on ordering anything online unless the items in question are in stock and the latest delivery date is at least a week before Christmas, I've not really had a problem with Amazon when these conditions are applied.
I ordered presents early...11 December...and had problems receiving 2 out of 5 shipments. One was clearly FedEx fault, as they tried to claim an incorrect address...on a split shipment 1 of 3. I receive 20+ Amazon shipments at this address every year. The other was from a non-Amazon source, and they never delivered. I cancelled that order after getting someone on the phone at the source who informed me on Christmas Eve that "the order would ship today." Not a very useful response.
I echo the experiences of others getting slower "super saver deliveries" since ditching the Royal Mail. All was fine up until then, in fact many packages would arrive earlier than their expected delivery date.
My guess is that as courier services cost more than 2nd class postage on a parcel, this costs then more, thus is eating into their profits.
Since the change, in addition to the need to have somebody in for it to be delivered (no return to local sorting office if everyone's out) I admit I've gone off shopping on Amazon. I've told their customer services this, but whether they will take note is another matter.
I don't use Amazon enough to make spending £50/yr on their unlimited delivery worthwhile (based on average orders over the last year) and the cost difference is such that its cheaper for me to go to the shops and buy what I want rather than via them.
Anyway, suggestion for everybody here: Start your Christmas 2008 shopping now - if you see something you think would do for a friend or relative, buy it now or throughout the year and store it away. Don't wait until December before starting. Take advantage of sales throughout the year.
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