Why is Amazon delivery so expensive compared to other websites?

shamelessidiot

For two day delivery on something that weighs under 1kg it costs £20, the item itself isn't even that much. I find this a lot so I usually just stick to free delivery, but I've never understood why it was actually so expensive compared to places like play.com and the like.

Cabaal

Do play.com even offer a two day express delivery service?
You sure you are comparing like with like here?

At the end of the day Amazon offer a free super saver delivery service for items they dispatched, you say play is an alternative but play really isn't for alot of stuff people want to buy.

shamelessidiot

Cabaal wrote: »

Do play.com even offer a two day express delivery service?
You sure you are comparing like with like here?

At the end of the day Amazon offer a free super saver delivery service for items they dispatched, you say play is an alternative but play really isn't for alot of stuff people want to buy.

Play was just the website that came to mind. Let me rephrase that as "every other marketplace/online seller on the internet".

Even stuff like Asos, Asos is much cheaper and doesn't wildly differ depending on the amount of items either. I do love Amazon, I just wish the delivery prices would be cheaper than they are. Sometimes it can add it up to €50+ if you're ordering a number of items.

munchkin_utd

If you want express delivery then (thanks to the fact that Ireland is an island) quite possibly they factor in transport by air freight and with that weight does matter and its costly.
If you go regular delivery then it comes by sea/ land/ truck then for them it would be MUCH cheaper to send.
Also, the freight company arent guaranteeing a time of delivery so dont have to bust themselves to drive half the length of the country just to drop a puny single small packet in order to meet the promised deadline. They can instead group deliveries in an area in a more economical way and "pass on the saving to you".

EDIT, Ireland is considered as a whole so someone looking for a 2 day delivery in Clifden or Belmullet might literally entail sending a van on a 2 or 3 hour round trip out of their way from the nearest large town or city simply to drop a single packet. Thats 3hours of van and person time for one packet. Not obvious to someone in dublin who sees a UPS van on their street every day that could drop a parcel off with no extra effort, but you are probably paying for covering the more awkward drops down the country.

shamelessidiot

munchkin_utd wrote: »

If you want express delivery then (thanks to the fact that Ireland is an island) quite possibly they factor in transport by air freight and with that weight does matter and its costly.
If you go regular delivery then it comes by sea/ land/ truck then for them it would be MUCH cheaper to send.
Also, the freight company arent guaranteeing a time of delivery so dont have to bust themselves to drive half the length of the country just to drop a puny single small packet in order to meet the promised deadline. They can instead group deliveries in an area in a more economical way and "pass on the saving to you".

EDIT, Ireland is considered as a whole so someone looking for a 2 day delivery in Clifden or Belmullet might literally entail sending a van on a 2 or 3 hour round trip out of their way from the nearest large town or city simply to drop a single packet. Thats 3hours of van and person time for one packet. Not obvious to someone in dublin who sees a UPS van on their street every day that could drop a parcel off with no extra effort, but you are probably paying for covering the more awkward drops down the country.

Still doesn't really explain why it's so much more expensive compared to other sites, really just what I'm asking. I'm just curious about it, not complaining.

Cabaal

shamelessidiot wrote: »

Still doesn't really explain why it's so much more expensive compared to other sites, really just what I'm asking. I'm just curious about it, not complaining.

You're not comparing like with like again though.

If we look at asos.com it states that express delivery for them is 2-7 working days but they charge anything from 5 - 20euro's. Thats not very fast if you're paying 20e for a 5 working day timeframe.

Amazon express delivery is 2 working days, it is generally 17-20euro.

Also, you don't have to pay such high shipping with Amazon. If you don't want to use free shipping you can pay for standard delivery to make things quicker and its generally cheap enough.

Both sites offer a free delivery service as well though, Asos is 5-9 working days and Amazon is 4-5 business days. Again Amazon is faster.

On top of that Amazon ship much heavier items then Asos ever would...shoes and some clothes for the most part won't be seriously heavy,

Amazon ship pc's, tv's, food items. All which weight alot more. For example I got 16kg of cat food to Ireland from Amazon this month.

debabyjesus

Not a huge purchaser on amazon maybe 5 or 10 things a year, I don't think I've ever paid shipping always supersaver delivery... Amazon is great.

rubadub

debabyjesus wrote: »

I don't think I've ever paid shipping always supersaver delivery..

Same here, there is a huge selection so you can always find things to get over the £25 limit.

You have to compare the landed price, most with cheap postage simply have high product prices to cover the postage, there are no volunteer postmen so no free postage.

Amazon want to encourage you to pay over £25 to make the transaction & admin costs worth their while. As a marketing strategy they might purposely overprice postage to discourage low spenders, and also to make the "free delivery" savings seem really good.

debabyjesus

rubadub wrote: »

Same here, there is a huge selection so you can always find things to get over the £25 limit.

You have to compare the landed price, most with cheap postage simply have high product prices to cover the postage, there are no volunteer postmen so no free postage.

Amazon want to encourage you to pay over £25 to make the transaction & admin costs worth their while. As a marketing strategy they might purposely overprice postage to discourage low spenders, and also to make the "free delivery" savings seem really good.

I find them unbeatable on price on more expensive items.

Recently got a baby travel system for £309 with free delivery. Exact same item from bricks and mortar store in Ireland was €529 delivered. Also got a new head unit for my car for £298 with free delivery. The Irish dealer wanted €699+€15 delivery! English online retailer wanted £409 delivered iirc.

I don't think I've ever bought something under €50 on amazon and if I did it was because it was unavailable elsewhere.

rubadub

debabyjesus wrote: »

I find them unbeatable on price on more expensive items.

Even if its more expensive I will consider them, I consider it a valuable type of insurance, and I rarely take out insurance policies on things. It can depend on the item, if I think it is likely to fail, same reason I go to argos the odd time even if it costs a bit more.

I know I will get it fast and will be well packaged, but their returns policy is great too, no hassle or trying to weasel out of reponsibility.

irishproduce

Came across this when searching the topic.
Keep in mind, the supersaver delivery isn't actually free, the items are more expensive if you want to use the supersaver delivery.

For example, here are two links to the same product

Non supersaver

Supersaver Delivery

By my reckoning, that is about a fiver (€) for delivery

I notice this a lot, but just thought i'd post it here when I came across this thread.

nompere

irishproduce wrote: »

Came across this when searching the topic.
Keep in mind, the supersaver delivery isn't actually free, the items are more expensive if you want to use the supersaver delivery.

For example, here are two links to the same product

Non supersaver

Supersaver Delivery

By my reckoning, that is about a fiver (€) for delivery

I notice this a lot, but just thought i'd post it here when I came across this thread.

Neither of these examples is being sold by Amazon - they're both third party sellers, who can charge what they like. I've never seen an item differently priced when I'm buying it from Amazon.

irishproduce

nompere wrote: »

Neither of these examples is being sold by Amazon - they're both third party sellers, who can charge what they like. I've never seen an item differently priced when I'm buying it from Amazon.

Ok, I wasn't aware of that.
I will keep it mind, thanks.

mdolly123

They are simply market leader and its the site people go to to get stuff first