Quote:
Originally Posted by John F
How are customers "tricked" and cheated?
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Read up any decent Marketing text on subscription model vs sale of product.
Look at prominent advertising of Free on ebooks and Audible which isn't. Free is large (but needs subscription) and real price is fine print (or on search and ads with links not shown at all.
Checkout has big buttons and sign up to Prime, fine text for real link, and claims sign for Prime for free shipping. Then at shipping page the sign to Prime is again shown and that or premium shipping is checked, but often an unselected option is free. The different delivery speeds may be imaginary where Amazon has a bulk contract or done deliberately by delayed shipping.
Also ALL subscription systems are overcharging low usage customers and subsidizing big consumers. They make massively more profit for the company and favour the growth of biggest companies at expense of smaller. Subscription customers on average buy less elsewhere. Nothing is free on KU, Audible subscription or prime. The customer is paying more on average than ones with no subscription.
Then for suppliers on KDP Select there are are lots of cunning tricks to get people to give Amazon a monopoly.
We could also discuss Amazon's front page, search results, advert system and misleading "Market Place" (Actual Amazon products, products by others bought wholesale and sold by Amazon, 3rd party sellers but Amazon warehousing, selling & shipping where they try to fob off their UK & EU retail obligations to supplier and finally ebay style sales where Amazon only manages payment, but product is actually warehoused, sold & shipped by 3rd party and sometimes source country (like ebay) obfuscated. At least on 3rd party sales Amazon includes any VAT/Customs on imports to EU which is an issue on eBay).
Their return period ignores EU, UK and other laws on physical goods that are defective, not fit for purpose or deceptively sold. They seem to only implement Distance Selling Cooling off period,
No local shop anywhere in EU, UK or many other countries could advertise and sell as Amazon does.
See also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ions_by_Amazon
which includes many companies they shouldn't have been allowed to buy even by less strict USA law vs EU.
They are a Global trader and like most such on the Internet think local laws and tax only applies to local companies, or that they can use a subset of USA laws outside the USA.
Subscription offers should not be on the same sales channel as regular retail sales.