Amazon.co.uk > Reviews > A Jungle Full Of Products

Author's product rating:   

Range of Services / Products	Very complete
Products & Services Pricing	Excellent value
Security & Privacy Statement	Excellent
Purchase Tracking Function	Excellent
Customer Services Support	Excellent

Advantages:	makes recommendations based on previous purchases, choice of delivery options, easy to navigate layout
Disadvantages:	P&P can be extortionate if ordering from lots of 'little people' or if ordering lots from one 'little person'

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

***How I Stumbled Across The Jungle***
I have been using Amazon for years. As a forever student, I am always buying my books for school from this website. it saves me having to go into town, search shelves for books that half the country are also searching for, only to find that the last ones of the copies i want was sold 5 minutes previously and the next delivery is not due til next Monday, but they won't have the books i want because they are currently out of print. Trust me, this is no exaggeration and after suffering the same plight two years in a row, I knew I had to find a new solution, cause I weren't about to think of book buying earlier than what i was doing already...It would mean I start studying far earlier than planned and lack a social life for 10 instead of 9 months of the year.

***The Sign-up Process***
The signup process is really easy. As with most sights these days, you give them a whole bunch of info such as name, DOB, address, etc and you register at least one card with them so you can make your purchases as and when you want.

I get a bit suspicious using my card online but feel Amazon is safe because even if you've logged on, you will need to re-enter your password at the checkout before your purchase can be finalised.

***What's On Offer***
The site sells a range of products. For me I am more interested in the books than anything else but have and would continue to use the site to purchase other goods.

There are 11 main sections as follows:
WELCOME - This is the homepage, regardless of whether you have logged on or not. The advantage of signing up is that everytim,e you rate an item or purchase an item, similar examples are recommended and shown on the welcome page (up to 3 examples from each of the main categories)

X's STORE - This is a little similar to the welcome page but contains more info. It is basically a page of items which Amazon feel may interest you, based on recent searches, purchases, and ratings. It's really useful because it gives you a reason as to why it has been recommended inthe first place and allows you to state whether you are interested or own it, in which case you can tick the relevant boxes, refresh your recommedations and instantly, new items are added based yet again on your responses. Admitedly, I do try to avoid this area when i haven't got money to burnm because the recommendations are so spot on that you end up being tempted to buy, buy, buy...

The remaining categories are self explanatory:
BOOKS
ELECTRONICS AND PHOTOS
MUSIC
DVD
VIDEO
SOFTWARE
PC AND VIDEO GAMES
HOME AND GARDEN
TOYS AND GAMES.

***Purchasing***
The site is extremely up to date and has the latest products in stock most of the time. If the item isn't available then Amazon usually state why and give an expected availability date.

On purchasing items, there are a range of options available. Most cards are accepted eg Visa, Amex, Mastercard, Solo, literally everything...

You can choose where to have items delivered to and whether to have them gift wrapped and a personalised message sent - I can't remember how much extra this cost but it was basically a typed message with no care paid to the formatting and so it looked quite tacky. The gift wrapping is decent enough though.

Each time you select an item to purchase you are offered the choice of buying a brand new, unused product or you can be directed to the market place where there are 2nd hand copies available.

I have experienced buying both new and used products. As you would expect with new products they are usually in mint condition. Although on one occasion one of my 'new' books had already had the first two chapters worth of exercises completed in pencil, I wouldn't have minded but when I went to mark them, they were mainly wrong... I would normally have sent this back but had waited so long for it to come in stock in the first place (remember my luck had run out at the shops) that i kept it, made a complaint and received a slight discount, although hardly worthwhile, on my next order.

I would say that it isn't really worth going for the express delivery as even when it states that items will be delivered in 3-4 days you normally get them sooner than expected. The only time you really need to concern yourself with delivery options is when you have ordered a whole range of products. Amazon will ask if you want to save on postage by waiting for all your items to be available and dispatched together. I tried this once and because one of my books was out of print and not expected for another month, you can imagine how long I was waiting.

***Advantages of the Site***
The best features of this site are numerous.

The layout is easy to navigate even though there is a lot going on, on each page. The site is extremely fast for the information it is required to generate and there are tabs for everything, everywhere and so you can navigate around with ease.

I love the security feature which means you have to enter your passwords if you want to make any changes, or to complete your transactions, or even to look up the tracking of your items.

There is a superb range of goods, products and services, with many up-to-date items in stocjk and available at RRP prices. Also the community that uses Amazon are very quick to discard of items and so you can often find up to date items in the market place at cut prices (just be sure to look at P&P costs as the seller sets there own prices and can sometimes work out to be more expensive).

The search facility is excellent. I don't think it has let me down once and there has been many an occasion when i don't have the full product title or have entered an incorrect spelling and yet the correct suggestions are still proposed. (In fact this would be a perfect phone a friend on millionnaire it's so fast and so clever).

Lastly I have to clarify a few points about the market place...If you are making one off purchases, then the market place could give you a generoud discount. You can choose how used the product is from the list provided. The 'Used scale' uses a great classification scale that includes: new, like new, very good, acceptable and so you can weigh up the state your product is likely to be in. I have only ever bought used books and have gathered that if it says acceptable it has jottings in the margin or creases down the spine, but any other condition is almost as good as new, so you can't really go wrong.

All in all, this is a site for those of you that don't have time or are just too lazy to go to the shops. It's great for buying in bulk cause at least you don't have to obtain a car or pay out on taxis to get the goods back home and you can track your products every step of the way. You can list a number of different cards on the sight and so you have a range of payment option available to you.

So happy shopping all, I hope you find the site as brilliant as I did!