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The article shows an Amazon which is exactly the opposite of what I experienced 3 weeks ago. I needed several items for my wife's birthday. We are on extended

The article shows an Amazon which is exactly the opposite of what I experienced 3 weeks ago. I needed several items for my wife's birthday. We are on extended stay in the U.S., away from our home in Shanghai. I wanted some Chinese comforts for my wife: tea, chopsticks, chinese cooking spices, rice noodles. After some searching on the web, it looked like I could buy all these through Amazon. I picked 4 different items from 4 different suppliers. All items showed "in stock, ships immediately". So I added them to my shopping cart and went to checkout. I see a whopping and opaque 50% charge over the costs of goods for shipping, no shipping breakdown. I decided to go ahead and do it, its my wife's birthday after all. In the days following the purchase, I receive 4 different emails from each supplier, not Amazon, telling me various things about the item's true availability and when it should ship. It took 3 weeks to get all the times in individually. It is clear Amazon was just operating as a sales affiliate for these other providers which is far cry from what they portray on their site. Amazon lost a lot of credibility in my eyes. Next time, I'll go to each supplier and make separate purchases and skip the middleman that is adding so little value.

billswift 17y ago
They tell you on the item's page, right under the item itself, when the item is being shipped from another seller and is just listed on Amazon. If you don't carefully examine the information they provide, that's your choice.
- jhancock 17y ago
  All I can tell you is I was being pretty careful, as I always am in my online transactions, and I feel I was both misled and that Amazon did not provide value to the transaction. I am absolutely certain each item I put in my shopping cart said it was "in stock", yet days after the purchase, I received emails from the various providers telling me the real story. I am also certain that even though I tried hard to find out prior to the purchase, it was not possible to see the breakdown in shipping costs. Only seeing one shipping cost line item is one reason some might believe its all being bundled together from a big amazon warehouse somewhere. Especially with widespread business articles like the OP educating the world that's what Amazon has become. Otherwise, why not show me 4 different shipping charges, maybe I want to send one priority and the others not. I also filled out feedback on these purchases after I received the shipments to state what my complaints were about the shopping experience, but never heard back from anyone. This part of course, doesn't surprise me. Simply pointing out that if I were to do something like this again, I may as well buy direct from the real supplier so that if I did have a problem, I wouldn't be complaining through a middleman.

billswift 17y ago

They tell you on the item's page, right under the item itself, when the item is being shipped from another seller and is just listed on Amazon. If you don't carefully examine the information they provide, that's your choice.

jhancock 17y ago
All I can tell you is I was being pretty careful, as I always am in my online transactions, and I feel I was both misled and that Amazon did not provide value to the transaction. I am absolutely certain each item I put in my shopping cart said it was "in stock", yet days after the purchase, I received emails from the various providers telling me the real story. I am also certain that even though I tried hard to find out prior to the purchase, it was not possible to see the breakdown in shipping costs. Only seeing one shipping cost line item is one reason some might believe its all being bundled together from a big amazon warehouse somewhere. Especially with widespread business articles like the OP educating the world that's what Amazon has become. Otherwise, why not show me 4 different shipping charges, maybe I want to send one priority and the others not. I also filled out feedback on these purchases after I received the shipments to state what my complaints were about the shopping experience, but never heard back from anyone. This part of course, doesn't surprise me. Simply pointing out that if I were to do something like this again, I may as well buy direct from the real supplier so that if I did have a problem, I wouldn't be complaining through a middleman.