Amazon selling so much junk stuff

blue max

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I love Amazon as a retailer and in the past, they have sold stuff like Netgear switches at the best prices by far. Great kit.

But now, just looking at the upcoming 'Black Friday' deals, it just seems like absolute junk.

No doubt there will be a thread about things worth buying there, but I am amazed at the scale of the garbage they are peddling now.

So, maybe my question is - what brands do people like and find the best price on Amazon?

I have a gift balance that I'd love to spend, but struggle to find a damned thing to spend it on!
 
I love Amazon as a retailer and in the past, they have sold stuff like Netgear switches at the best prices by far. Great kit.

But now, just looking at the upcoming 'Black Friday' deals, it just seems like absolute junk.

No doubt there will be a thread about things worth buying there, but I am amazed at the scale of the garbage they are peddling now.

So, maybe my question is - what brands do people like and find the best price on Amazon?

I have a gift balance that I'd love to spend, but struggle to find a damned thing to spend it on!

Not sure it's confined to Amazon, I think the concept of most "Sales" are bogus. Retailers just use them to offload a lot of tat they can't shift, and pretend they are offering a load of bargains.

Thing is, they may have a few genuine loss leaders to draw people in. But only a few. Thing is, they are not going to be selling a whole lot of stuff at a loss, or they would go out of business. So if they are selling something at say "50% off", are we supposed to believe that normally they are getting a 50% profit margin?

Or, If just for example the normal retail price of a TV is say £1999, and they are able to sell them at £1999, why would they then sell them for say £1499 and lose money on them?

Black Friday - don't believe the hype.
 
You know, it’s not even the faux discounts that struck me - it’s the absolute tat that they’re peddling that amazes me
 
yep, I've been looking and saw nothing of interest really...tho, i'm after a bluetooth receiver if one I'm after is cheap...

but I managed tio get a pair of merrell intercept shoes a while back for 50 quid, and they went upto 64, 66, and now 70 quid... be interesting to see what happens to those..
 
Just Amazon, or the Amazon 'market place' or whatever it's called? Getting to be more like an ebay / play247 alternative these days. I spend most of my time clicking on Amazon links as something looks like a good price, then realising it's additional postage from 3rd party, or dozens of sellers, many in the far east.
I think Amazon is on it's way down. They should have two separate, very distinct sites. 1: Good old Amazon, in stock, one price, new items. 2: Amazon for other stuff that isn't sold by them.
 
Just Amazon, or the Amazon 'market place' or whatever it's called? Getting to be more like an ebay / play247 alternative these days. I spend most of my time clicking on Amazon links as something looks like a good price, then realising it's additional postage from 3rd party, or dozens of sellers, many in the far east.
I think Amazon is on it's way down. They should have two separate, very distinct sites. 1: Good old Amazon, in stock, one price, new items. 2: Amazon for other stuff that isn't sold by them.

Totally agree with that. I bought some Oakley sunglasses and there was no way I was going to gamble about them being genuine, so Amazon all the way.

At worse, fulfilled by them.

The black friday deal watches are full of brands you've never heard of. Just cheap tat, cheaper!
 
Wasn't it the same ahead of Black Friday last year, and possibly Prime Day earlier this year, in that the lead-up to it was a few offers from Amazon but most of it being third-party sellers' offerings?

From memory, some of the actual Amazon Black Friday deals were good last year.
 
Have a feeling its a bit of a bun fight to get a decent deal though. And there is not much I actually want!
 
Have a feeling its a bit of a bun fight to get a decent deal though. And there is not much I actually want!
Until the price is right. :)

I'm having to keep a close eye on myself this year. I'm quite keen on the idea of a Dyson V8 Absolute, and some of the discounts I've seen coming and going have been great. But it's still hundreds of pounds and I already have a vacuum cleaner that is perfectly fine.
 
Until the price is right. :)

I'm having to keep a close eye on myself this year. I'm quite keen on the idea of a Dyson V8 Absolute, and some of the discounts I've seen coming and going have been great. But it's still hundreds of pounds and I already have a vacuum cleaner that is perfectly fine.

I don't even possess a working one! :rotfl:
 
I don't bother with 'Black Friday' or other sales techniques.

Also Amazon over the last two years or so are slowly but surely losing the plot, too many 2nd and 3rd party sellers muddying up the waters.
 
As a Prime member, the first thing I do is tick the Prime only box. This pretty much only gives you 'from Amazon' or 'Fulfilled by Amazon'

I wouldn't touch the rest of it.

As for Black Friday - it's largely just hype. The prices creep up in the lead up to it, and then they drop all of a sudden.

I have a colleague who is actually taking a day off work to find the best deal on a TV. I'm fairly confident that whatever he finds on the day will still be at that price for a few weeks afterwards.

That said - if you're after an Echo or a Fire etc. - this is probably the best time to buy.
 
Black friday has lost it's way here in the UK for most stores IMO.

Amazon one is ridiculous, 99% tat. They really need to sort out the way they lay this out, even something simple as being able to drill down into sub categories i.e. computers and accessories > software.

There search functionality for black Friday doesn't return result for deals that are coming in the next few hours.
 
Amazon used to be good, just like Ebay and Play.com.
 
I see most of the stuff in the todays special on amazon as a bunch of rubbish, it's the same stuff all the time. The last couple of years i had a look at a few shops and saw nothing that i thought was a bargain.
I did however, buy a 24" monitor off amazon warehouse with a 20% off discount last night. It was £72 and it arrived today. I did need a monitor though so it wasn't a spur of the moment thing.

I have always found amazon's search facility total crap. Even the options at the side to limit the number of things to a specific category still has incorrect items in them.
Now when i search on amazon's website a lot of cheap chinese rubbish shows up, even clothing that has comletely incorrect sizes, measurements and weights in feet, inches, lbs and oz.
But thats probably an irrational annoyance.
 
I use Amazon for about 90% of my online shopping. If you put a wee bit of effort in you can still get some very decent buys.

I just add anything I’m interested in to a wish list, then wait. And check. And wait. Yes, I do need to get out more. But with Amazon’s dynamic pricing (which I wish I understood better) there is almost always a decent deal on an item, and an absolutely ludicrous one more often than you’d think

I’m buying a lot of clothes just now (for mid-life crisis purposes) and most stuff I buy is about 50% less than I can find it elsewhere. I like Hilfiger jeans purely because they fit my weird shape. £95 in John Lewis, but often £35 or so on Amazon.

Fitness gear is the same, which pains me as I work in sports retail, but Amazon frequently sell stuff at less than cost, much less than I can get it for from my employer with a hefty staff discount.
 
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As long as you use something like camel camel camel i have no problems with the black friday stuff..... its just a chore to separate the wheat from the chaff.
That said, the search function is horrible and doesn't help you doing that. The filters and just rubbish. I remember about 4 / 5 years ago seeing loads of good stuff come up on amazon - they used to have about 10 news things every 15 minutes but the majority of them were worth buying. Now there is just so much volume its so much harder to find things to buy those things that you never knew you wanted!
 
It seems to me that lots of "retailers" buy the nastiest crap they can find from AliExpress in September purely to advertise for Black Friday. They are still making a huge profit on everything they sell, but it's only crap that no-one really needs or even wants - it's just cheap plastic crap!
 
It seems to me that lots of "retailers" buy the nastiest crap they can find from AliExpress in September purely to advertise for Black Friday. They are still making a huge profit on everything they sell, but it's only crap that no-one really needs or even wants - it's just cheap plastic crap!
Agree to an extent, unless it’s in stock and sold/fulfilled but in stock by Amazon then forget it,I’m out
 
You know, it’s not even the faux discounts that struck me - it’s the absolute tat that they’re peddling that amazes me
no surprise after those fudgeing rems fighting over Polaroid TVs a few years ago
 
Didn’t Which? claim this week that 60% if items on sale during BF were cheaper before or after BF?
 
Didn’t Which? claim this week that 60% if items on sale during BF were cheaper before or after BF?

I ccc'd a G Shock last year, bought it before black Friday. On black Friday itself it was £5 more than its average selling price.
 
I see most of the stuff in the todays special on amazon as a bunch of rubbish, it's the same stuff all the time. The last couple of years i had a look at a few shops and saw nothing that i thought was a bargain.
I did however, buy a 24" monitor off amazon warehouse with a 20% off discount last night. It was £72 and it arrived today. I did need a monitor though so it wasn't a spur of the moment thing.

I have always found amazon's search facility total crap. Even the options at the side to limit the number of things to a specific category still has incorrect items in them.
Now when i search on amazon's website a lot of cheap chinese rubbish shows up, even clothing that has comletely incorrect sizes, measurements and weights in feet, inches, lbs and oz.
But thats probably an irrational annoyance.


yep, amazon is good if you are searching for a specific item, but if you're browsing for items like earrings, jeans etc then it can be woeful... :(
 
Sales are to get rid of dead stock and release some capital, even if that means making a loss on some stuff.
 
Sales are to get rid of dead stock and release some capital, even if that means making a loss on some stuff.

I think that may be a bit simplistic. These days, it's as much about attracting customers in the hope they'll spend elsewhere too. I'm not even sure if Amazon buy stuff in advance. I have a feeling they probably sell on sale or return.
 

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