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I massively prefer FBA products, cause I do have Prime and FBA means I have it in 2 days. I hate dealing with non-FBA because experience has taught me that non

by Vendan 10y ago

I massively prefer FBA products, cause I do have Prime and FBA means I have it in 2 days. I hate dealing with non-FBA because experience has taught me that non-FBA stuff has no real shipping promises, and I've had times where it took 4 weeks or more to get stuff. So yeah, this seems like it's putting my wants first.

hga 10y ago
A couple of caveats on FBA: I've noticed in the last few years that they didn't pack FBA books hardly as well as they did their own, and I got quite a few that had suffered from sliding around in the box. I don't know if they're still as willfully careless, since I pretty much stopped buying books delivered that way. And I've had great overall experiences with Amazon Merchant booksellers shipping themselves, by following a couple of rules: really, really avoid anyone with a score lower than 96% and/or too few shipments to be statistically significant, and use that to bias choice. And try to get books scored better than Good, among other things, that means minor damage in shipping like bent corners is, to me, inconsequential. Also in theory avoids underlining/highlighting, which I really don't like (it can't be 100%, e.g. I remember both myself and the seller missing some underlining in the middle of the book until I actually read it). And I've been generally lucky when I choose to buy a "Good" quality book, ah, one other tip is to of course look for specific to the copy of the book condition description instead of boiler plate. Pretty much the same for CDs, although for my purposes a CD's case is sturdy enough to survive Amazon or anyone else's packing (can almost always replace the case if I want to anyway), and if you're really only interested in the music, you can sometimes get great deals when collateral is missing (inserts, covers, etc.). And in terms of shipping time, for general goods, a 96% rating and a realistic promise for delivery time is good enough. A company can't screw up too many times and maintain a good rating like that.
- Vendan 10y ago
  It's not a matter of them "not meeting the promise", it's them promising "4~6 weeks delivery". Sure, they made the promise, but I'd rather pay $2 more for FBA and get it in 2 days.
  - hga 10y ago
    Ah, yeah, companies like that I never buy from, something that far out means either they don't have it in stock and e.g. may have trouble getting it, and you're likely to get a better deal elsewhere from a vendor that deals with the item in quantity, or they're so messed up they can't get it out any time sooner, which I take as a very bad sign. Of course, if something is being shipped slowly and therefore cheaply from e.g. Japan, that's fine. And the U.K. book and CD vendors take a while, but they don't quote periods hardly that long, and in my experience under-promise and over-deliever. But I'll frequently pay a bit more to get something sooner than from them.

by Vendan 10y ago

hga 10y ago

A couple of caveats on FBA: I've noticed in the last few years that they didn't pack FBA books hardly as well as they did their own, and I got quite a few that had suffered from sliding around in the box. I don't know if they're still as willfully careless, since I pretty much stopped buying books delivered that way. And I've had great overall experiences with Amazon Merchant booksellers shipping themselves, by following a couple of rules: really, really avoid anyone with a score lower than 96% and/or too few shipments to be statistically significant, and use that to bias choice. And try to get books scored better than Good, among other things, that means minor damage in shipping like bent corners is, to me, inconsequential. Also in theory avoids underlining/highlighting, which I really don't like (it can't be 100%, e.g. I remember both myself and the seller missing some underlining in the middle of the book until I actually read it). And I've been generally lucky when I choose to buy a "Good" quality book, ah, one other tip is to of course look for specific to the copy of the book condition description instead of boiler plate. Pretty much the same for CDs, although for my purposes a CD's case is sturdy enough to survive Amazon or anyone else's packing (can almost always replace the case if I want to anyway), and if you're really only interested in the music, you can sometimes get great deals when collateral is missing (inserts, covers, etc.). And in terms of shipping time, for general goods, a 96% rating and a realistic promise for delivery time is good enough. A company can't screw up too many times and maintain a good rating like that.

Vendan 10y ago
It's not a matter of them "not meeting the promise", it's them promising "4~6 weeks delivery". Sure, they made the promise, but I'd rather pay $2 more for FBA and get it in 2 days.
- hga 10y ago
  Ah, yeah, companies like that I never buy from, something that far out means either they don't have it in stock and e.g. may have trouble getting it, and you're likely to get a better deal elsewhere from a vendor that deals with the item in quantity, or they're so messed up they can't get it out any time sooner, which I take as a very bad sign. Of course, if something is being shipped slowly and therefore cheaply from e.g. Japan, that's fine. And the U.K. book and CD vendors take a while, but they don't quote periods hardly that long, and in my experience under-promise and over-deliever. But I'll frequently pay a bit more to get something sooner than from them.