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Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say

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Re: Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say

#161

Post by ryanwaggoner »

richthegeek wrote: post #67
sxates wrote: post #60

Anecdotal experience buying on Amazon recently: Bought a new induction cooking pan. A nice one at $90. Didn't really pay much attention to who was selling it, just bought it like I do everything else from Amazon. It took about two weeks to arrive because it was from an independent seller, and was not 'Prime eligible'. When it arrived, I took it out of the box and was immediately disappointed. It was really heavy, and…

Wow, I really am amazed how few consumer protections you seem to have! In the UK we're protected on two levels: firstly the "Distance Selling Regulation" means we have the right to cancel many contracts/purchases made not-in-person within 14 days of delivery. And secondly, if a good is faulty, not as described, or unfit for purpose then we have a right to a refund under those terms also. Probably because of these alr…

the "Distance Selling Regulation" means we have the right to cancel many contracts/purchases made not-in-person within 14 days of delivery.

First of all, the Consumer Contracts Directive replaced that in 2014, no?

Second, how exactly would this have protected the buyer? Maybe no restocking fee and only difference between free and basic shipping? In EU, does seller HAVE to pay for return shipping?

Third, you know that "protection" isn't free, right? You're paying for that in terms of higher prices and lost economic opportunities.

Finally, the pro-EU, anti-US condescension laced with pity is so tiresome and ignorant. We get it, things work differently there. Some are better, some worse. It's hardly paradise.

(For the record, I've lived in the US and the EU.)

Re: Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say

#162

Post by Sleeep »

javajosh wrote: post #127
xiaoma wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "About 2 years ago I sold an item through the marketplace, shipped through Amazon, and at 30 days the buyer requested to return. I ignored him, and then... (blah blah blah) I haven't used Amazon to buy or sell anything since" So it sounds like buying on Amazon is great way to avoid merchants who ignore support requests. Thanks for the info.

There was nothing illegal or immoral about ignoring a request I wasn't going to accept. It was after 30 days and his window for returning had closed. Certainly I wouldn't do business with someone like you who feels that fraud is justified when some arbitrary condition you place on the other party isn't satisfied to your liking.

Amazon's policy says you have to respond to buyer's inquiries within 24 hours. You literary had to just reply "Sorry my return policy is 30 days and it's been 40 days." One single sentence and you probably could have avoided the return completely. You could do that in bed. What did you think would happen if you ignored the buyer? Of course they are going to complain to Amazon.

>Certainly I wouldn't do business with someone like you who feels that fraud is justified when some arbitrary condition you place on the other party isn't satisfied to your liking.

Read the comment you are replying to, it does not say that and it does not imply that.

Re: Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say

#163

Post by bigtunacan »

Sleeep wrote: post #151
bigtunacan wrote: post #143

My experience on Amazon is that I try not to buy from sellers that aren't shipping directly through Amazon even if it's a lower price due to too many issues. I broke my rule recently yet again and purchased a "new" book on Amazon from a third seller that was about 1/2 the price of any Amazon shipper for the same item. When it arrived the book was not only not new, but was seriously damaged. Pages were all stuck toget…

Just contact Amazon directly they will give you your money back right away. Same exact thing happened to me. When the seller balked I went right to Amazon. (Was this shipped from India by any chance? Mine was.)

Yeah, that's what I'll end up doing as well.

This was shipped from Michigan.

Re: Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say

#164

Post by threatofrain »

sxates wrote: post #60

Anecdotal experience buying on Amazon recently: Bought a new induction cooking pan. A nice one at $90. Didn't really pay much attention to who was selling it, just bought it like I do everything else from Amazon. It took about two weeks to arrive because it was from an independent seller, and was not 'Prime eligible'. When it arrived, I took it out of the box and was immediately disappointed. It was really heavy, and…

Buying clothing on Amazon is also hell. I suspect that some vendors deliberately mis-size their items. For the extreme majority of items around $20-30, I don't bother returning them.

If Amazon's purchasing experience was smoother, I'd be doing less paranoid research ahead of time, looking up the company, trying to figure out if the reviews are fake. If only Amazon could shape up how much buyer's disadvantage I'm experiencing on their store, I'd be buying more often and more confidently, especially from anything other than popularly reviewed items.

Amazon needs to shape up their game because, yes, ordering online is convenient, but you can shop online at Walmart AND get the offline return assurance. And most stores price match Amazon now.

Re: Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say

#165

Post by Sleeep »

javajosh wrote: post #108
rexaliquid wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why you ignored the return request. Was the nature of the product one that made you suspicious of fraud?

It was after 30 days, and my refund policy was "no returns after 30 days". I probably should have sent a message back, but I was a little lazy. While I may have made a customer service error, I don't think I was actually breaking the law, or any part of the customer agreement by doing this.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hel...

> Our research shows that orders with messages responded to within 24 hours receive 50% less negative feedback compared to orders with messages responded to after more than 24 hours... Timely, high-quality responses to customer inquiries are an important factor in customer satisfaction and can help prevent negative feedback or other order defects and claims. While scores that do not meet our standards generally do not result in the suspension of your selling privileges, slow response times can lead to negative feedback and claims, which can impact your selling privileges.

Re: Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say

#166

Post by tomjen3 »

fenwick67 wrote: post #6

> Additionally, Amazon said that it's introducing "returnless refunds," a feature that the company said is "highly requested by sellers." The change enables sellers to offer a refund without taking back an item that may be expensive to ship and hard to resell. Wow, I can literally just say "I don't like it", and there's a chance they'll literally just give me my money back, but let me keep it?

I have done exactly that on a faulty ipad to hdmi cable (though not through amazon), they just send me a new one. A good thing they did too, I was kinda pissed at them and might not have brought from them in the future.

Re: Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say

#167

Post by signal11 »

throwanem wrote: post #120
jorvi wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not do a chargeback on your creditcard (or raise a PayPal claim)? The law is very clear, if an item is faulty or not as described the seller is on the hook for all costs. This includes return shipping and/or sending you a replacement. A lot of sellers will try to strong-arm you but if you just do the chargeback/claim they have no option but to eat the loss. Creditcard companies and PayPal thankfully nearly always…

I'd be a little thoughtful about filing a chargeback against Amazon - businesses do have considerable latitude in their choice of response beyond the immediate situation. For example, Steam's been known to permanently disable accounts in response to chargebacks, which means that even though you probably get your money back for the one game you had a problem with, you're still out everything else.

I would love to know if that's legal (in various jurisdictions). You may have hundreds of dollars worth of games, blocking the entire account in response to one incident seems disproportionate.

Re: Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say

#168

Post by freeone3000 »

currymj wrote: post #26
tomduncalf wrote: post #2

From a consumer point of view, this is a good thing. It sucks to have a different experience depending on whether something ships from Amazon or a third party, especially as their easy return policy is one of the main reasons I continue to use Amazon and pay for Prime. I can understand sellers frustration, but to my mind that's the price of having your products featured on Amazon. I've never encountered a third party…

it's a good thing in the short term, but it also feels like an exercise of monopoly power by Amazon, which is going to be bad for consumers in the long run. can a business afford not to be listed on Amazon? in the long term, does Amazon have any interest in listing third parties? at some point I think the answer to both of these questions will be no, and then I'd expect the good customer experience to erode pretty qu…

Monopoly power? Please. They're far from the only online retailer; it's not as if online retail has some huge capital barrier to entry. You don't like Amazon? List on ebay, or etsy, or craigslist, or kijiji, or... Or set up your own store and handle payments through Paypal or if you don't like Paypal then Stripe or Moneybookers or...

ecommerce is too large a field, with too easy entry, to be a monopoly.

Re: Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say

#169

Post by jasonlaramburu »

sxates wrote: post #60

Anecdotal experience buying on Amazon recently: Bought a new induction cooking pan. A nice one at $90. Didn't really pay much attention to who was selling it, just bought it like I do everything else from Amazon. It took about two weeks to arrive because it was from an independent seller, and was not 'Prime eligible'. When it arrived, I took it out of the box and was immediately disappointed. It was really heavy, and…

As a hardware startup who sells on Amazon, 3rd party sellers are a total nightmare. They hijack your Amazon product page, and often sell returned merchandise as 'new other' at a significant discount. Customers typically don't notice the distinction, and think they are just getting a sweet deal on a new product. I'm glad Amazon is imposing more restrictions on 3rd party sellers. Hopefully this will force some of the junk sellers to move to eBay.

Re: Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say

#170

Post by mindslight »

dminor wrote: post #118
sxates wrote: post #60

Anecdotal experience buying on Amazon recently: Bought a new induction cooking pan. A nice one at $90. Didn't really pay much attention to who was selling it, just bought it like I do everything else from Amazon. It took about two weeks to arrive because it was from an independent seller, and was not 'Prime eligible'. When it arrived, I took it out of the box and was immediately disappointed. It was really heavy, and…

As you found from looking into the costs of return shipping, "free" shipping can actually cost a retailer quite a bit of their margin. They are attempting to remain price competitive by not pricing in the cost of returns. Amazon has a massive advantage here over small retailers because their shipping costs are much lower due to their scale. These sorts of shipping policies used to be the norm, until Amazon realized t…

I think much of the staying power of free shipping has to do with manufacturers' price fixing. If all retailers are forced to sell at the same exact price, then the most competitive thing to do is to pay shipping out of their overhead, similar to how a brick-and-mortar store's logistics costs are covered.
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