Amazon Prime to offer 2day EU Delivery

CHERUBboy

I saw this on the Telegraph website:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/business/amazon-entrepreneurs/10961531/two-day-delivery-europe.html

If you've got Amazon Prime membership, it's going to make it really economical to pick up Lego bargains shown on the Brickset price comparision pages.

hantot

Does that mean no additional charge to the CURRENT postage rates (ie just quicker delivery) or completely free two day delivery?

jockosjungle

No I think it means they will start selling stuff on the UK site from europe, not that the EU sites will offer two day free shipping to those in the UK

monkeyhanger

I find Prime such a con. Since Prime was introduced, I have found that Amazon is happy to sit on an "in stock" item for 4 days before they send it out to a non-prime customer like me on a frequent basis. That never happened before the advent of Prime. It seems to me that Amazon.co.uk unnecessarily delay items to non-prime customers, to encourage you to switch to prime. I don't buy enough stuff in a year from there to justify the (£68?) annual subscription cost.

drdavewatford

jockosjungle said:

No I think it means they will start selling stuff on the UK site from europe, not that the EU sites will offer two day free shipping to those in the UK

I don't think so - "more than 3 million products stored in its European Fulfilment Centres will be made available for Two-Day Delivery for customers in the UK by the end of this year. Prime customers in the UK will automatically qualify for Two-Day Delivery on these products at no additional charge.". Sounds like UK customers will have easier access to items sold from other EU Amazon sites.

Also, "the Two-Day Delivery service for products stored outside the UK is available at no charge for Amazon Prime customers". Seems pretty self-explanatory.

Loooks like the European price comparator will really come into its own for Prime customers - can't wait !!

Billybrown

drdavewatford said:

jockosjungle said:

No I think it means they will start selling stuff on the UK site from europe, not that the EU sites will offer two day free shipping to those in the UK

I don't think so - "more than 3 million products stored in its European Fulfilment Centres will be made available for Two-Day Delivery for customers in the UK by the end of this year. Prime customers in the UK will automatically qualify for Two-Day Delivery on these products at no additional charge.". Sounds like UK customers will have easier access to items sold from other EU Amazon sites.

Also, "the Two-Day Delivery service for products stored outside the UK is available at no charge for Amazon Prime customers". Seems pretty self-explanatory.

Loooks like the European price comparator will really come into its own for Prime customers - can't wait !!

Well I don't know about any one else but I find EU stock is often despatched from Amazon warehouse in the UK anyway.

CHERUBboy

Amazon's systems are pretty sophisticated, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if they shipped an item from a UK warehouse if it saved them money!

FYI, Prime costs £80 a year. It inculdes the Netflix like Prime Video service, which I never use and unlimited free delivery. I probably do a couple of deliveries per week, so it's less than £1 per delivery for me.

As for the comment above about delivery not being as fast for non prime members. I don't think it's as fast for prime members nowdays either. I think in the first two years I had prime, only one or two deliveries didn't arrive next day. Now it seems to be about one in three.

I was actually toying with cancelling, but this euro wide thing, plus the fact that I often need books quickly for work purposes probably tips the balance in favor of renewing for another year.

monkeyhanger

Billybrown said:

Well I don't know about any one else but I find EU stock is often despatched from Amazon warehouse in the UK anyway.

My Amazon.it bought #10212 was despatched from the UK and never left the UK to be delivered to me. I felt a little cheated having to pay the pan-European postage rate, but the savings more than made up for it.

SirKevbags

This has come up time and time again about .It .fr shipping things from the UK. Taking #10212 as an example. I don't believe that was ever sold by Amazon UK so why would they be holding stock in a UK warehouse?

It LOOKS like it's come from the UK because it only has a UK courier label. City Link most likely. That's because .it will package everything from their warehouse in Milan or wherever and then send it straight to the Amazon warehouse here in the UK.

drdavewatford

Billybrown said:

drdavewatford said:

jockosjungle said:

No I think it means they will start selling stuff on the UK site from europe, not that the EU sites will offer two day free shipping to those in the UK

I don't think so - "more than 3 million products stored in its European Fulfilment Centres will be made available for Two-Day Delivery for customers in the UK by the end of this year. Prime customers in the UK will automatically qualify for Two-Day Delivery on these products at no additional charge.". Sounds like UK customers will have easier access to items sold from other EU Amazon sites.

Also, "the Two-Day Delivery service for products stored outside the UK is available at no charge for Amazon Prime customers". Seems pretty self-explanatory.

Loooks like the European price comparator will really come into its own for Prime customers - can't wait !!

Well I don't know about any one else but I find EU stock is often despatched from Amazon warehouse in the UK anyway.

And you know this how ? Because per Kev's message above it has a UK courier sticker on it ? Not sure that's exactly definitive proof....

monkeyhanger

^ Drdavewatford: When I got my #10212 ordered through Amazon.it, it was trackable immediately. Within 3 hours of order placement, the tracking had shown that it had left Hemel Hempstead and was headed to the (Birmingham?) National Citylink hub for sorting. I got it the following day, a mere 23 hours after ordering. If they still did service like that as standard, we wouldn't need to pay for Prime at all. I'm quite (not 100%) sure that you couldn't order a 10212 from Amazon uk at the time of ordering.

Last thing I ordered from Amazon was a pair of 32Gb Micro SD cards to load up with films for our tablets on the flight over to Mexico for our hols. Ordered 9 days before our hols, in stock and dispatched 10 days later, arrived at home 2 days into our holiday - useless.

Billybrown

And you know this how ? Because per Kev's message above it has a UK courier sticker on it ? Not sure that's exactly definitive proof....

Because I received next day from Dunfermline. It was also tracked and traced from there right from the start. Its happened a few times.

The receipt even had dunfermline address.

SirKevbags

I've only repeated the process as detailed to me from Amazon Customer Services when I raised the question of international delivery charges from items "delivered" from the UK.

monkeyhanger

^ Aye, the thieving buggers, told me a similar story when I questioned why I had been charge something like £7.60 pan-European delivery. Mine definitely came from the UK given the tracking info and the timescale of delivery. Amazon had no comeback when i'd said that unless Silvio Berlesconi himself had immediately jumped on his personal jet to bring my 10212 from Italy to the Gateshead/Wardley depot of Citylink it couldn't have come from Italy to my doorstep in 23 hours. They then said it was the policy of the .it site to charge me that fee to the UK and never said any more about it - no refund.

CHERUBboy

monkeyhanger said:

^ Aye, the thieving buggers, told me a similar story when I questioned why I had been charge something like £7.60 pan-European delivery. Mine definitely came from the UK given the tracking info and the timescale of delivery. Amazon had no comeback when i'd said that unless Silvio Berlesconi himself had immediately jumped on his personal jet to bring my 10212 from Italy to the Gateshead/Wardley depot of Citylink it couldn't have come from Italy to my doorstep in 23 hours. They then said it was the policy of the .it site to charge me that fee to the UK and never said any more about it - no refund.

It takes a parcel all of 90 minutes extra to be flown from Italy to Newcastle than from London to Newcastle! Plenty of budget airlines fly into Newcastle nowdays, with holds full of parcels.

monkeyhanger

^ And what are the odds that they flew it to Hemel Hempstead from Italy within 3 hours of my order being placed, only to deposit it at an Amazon warehouse there before it went on it's way to Citylink's national hub and then onto their Gateshead/Wardley local office to deliver it to me? This is the only feasible way it originated from Italy and then tracked through Citylink thereafter as per the tracking information I could access. Just because the parcel could be physically flown to Newcastle or anywhere else in the UK from Italy in just less than 3 hours if the parcel was already at an Italian airport at the point of ordering and ready to go doesn't make it remotely likely that it happened that way.

Why would Amazon allow Citylink to post fictitious tracking information that (along with the timescale) confirms that the parcel for my Amazon.it order originated from within the UK unless it was flown from Italy to the UK more immediately than I would expect a harvested Heart ready for transplant to be?