Amazon Fr Marketplace

[nomoss]

I have bought several books through Amazon France's "Livres anglais et étrangers" section, as I can often find a book cheaper there than on the UK site, especially when the postage cost is added.

Many books, as on all Amazon sites, are offered by third parties via Amazon Marketplace.

I have not previously been very concerned about the delivery delays showing as rather long when ordering, as books have almost always arived in much shorter times, such as one ordered on January 31st. and shipped on the 4th., which arrived on February 6th., although the estimated date was between the 5th and 14th.

However, another, ordered on February 2nd., shipped on the 3rd., has not yet shown up. The estimated delivery was between the 11th. and 27th., but I didn't take much notice of this when I bought it.

When checking the order I looked at the profile of the vendor in case any bad feedback had appeared since I ordered the book; the supplier of a book I was waiting for went out of business around Christmas, and their feedback became flooded with recent complaints. Amazon refunded the cost and postage, but, being a present, it was inconvenient.

There is no negative feedback on the vendor's profile, but I found that I had not noticed previously that the vendor is in Canada! The postage cost is low, suggesting that they ship out consolidated orders for re-posting in France.

This seems to explain the large range in the delivery time, and I will look more carefully at suppliers details in future, besides checking out their feedback.

[Chancer]

Its amazing how cheap postage can be from any country other than France, often things I buy are first sent from the far east to remailing centres in the UK, Germany or Holland and then  sent on to France, two international deliveries for far less than the cost of one domestic one in France.

Someone needs to shape up the French postal and courier delivery systems, then E-commerce can take off, it will take them yet another century I fear.

A german girl moved here a couple of years ago to be a teaching assistant at the lycée, it was cheaper for her to ship her stuff by Deutsch Poste than for her parents to do a return trip with the car, she came by train with just one suitcase, there were heavy things sent and also voluminous like her quilt [:-))]

When it came to return she understandably expected La Poste to be a similar price, IIRC it was something like 20 times the cost and they gave her such a bad reception that she said she would rather throw everything away then risk sending it with those rude ignorant people even if she had the money, her parents came for her in the end saving several hundred euros.

[Jonzjob]

They always say to wait 28 days before any queries.

I have reciently bought from Amazon U.K. and what I bought worked out to be about 1/4 the French sites price. 1 1/2 kilos of Marmite for about £15 including the P&P. From France   16€/600g !!!

A quick question about boos. Does anyone know why almost all French books have the name upside down on the spine?[8-)] Aussy, yes'cause they is upside down already, but France???

[Judith]

And the contents page at the back!  So contrary!

Sadly Jonzjob, even as a professional librarian [retd], I have never found out why the spines are printed the other way round.  I agree, it's totally annoying, but all on a par with many of the things we discuss on here, I suspect!.