Amazon.co.uk General Thread

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

They always do this with low stock on titles, they limit them to only Amazon Prime buyers with UK shipping addresses.

They've been doing this for the last couple of years.

Once they restock each title above a certain threshold, they'll remove that shipping block.

Just bookmark each item and keep checking in, the block will lift eventually, I've encountered this with many items I've wanted to order over the last few years, and I was always able to order them eventually. Just be patient, it may take a month or so, maybe even longer with COVID. The more obscure the item and the older its release date is, the longer it'll probably take, I'm sure they restock big sellers first.

There's always the chance, however, that a certain title may be OOP and they may be burning off remaining stock, and may never restock. Discs are printed in much smaller numbers and go OOP much faster in the UK and Europe than in the US.

hmm the funny thing is that the Magnum PI blu-ray set that they would ship was limited to "only 12 copies left" while the two they wouldn't ship appeared to be full stock

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

hmm the funny thing is that the Magnum PI blu-ray set that they would ship was limited to "only 12 copies left" while the two they wouldn't ship appeared to be full stock

You're expecting logic?

[filmlover22]

question: on importing to the US, does amazon.uk orders fall into the >$130 USD goes through custom category?
Will be placing a large order and wondering if I should be breaking it up to be safe. Of course, that way I pay double the shipping :<

Thoughts?

[Reggie T]

The Bergman boxset that I ordered in the 17th October just showed up! Only shipped on Monday afternoon, very happy with that. Wasn’t expecting it till late November/December.

[gouryella]

Does anyone know a working phone number for customer services? The call back doesn't recognise my area code and the number they provide just tells you to contact us via the website.

[chuffster]

I always use this email address mate ecr-replies@amazon.co.uk They always reply to that one, saves faffing around on the phone!

[gouryella]

Originally Posted by chuffster

I always use this email address mate ecr-replies@amazon.co.uk They always reply to that one, saves faffing around on the phone!

Thanks I'll try that.

[chuffster]

Originally Posted by gouryella

Thanks I'll try that.

Good luck!

[gouryella]

Originally Posted by chuffster

Good luck!

That did the trick! Finally my issue sorted. Thanks again for the email address.

[chuffster]

Originally Posted by gouryella

That did the trick! Finally my issue sorted. Thanks again for the email address.

Excellent!

[Douglas R]

Amazon Germany are brilliant. I ordered something yesterday for normal delivery and it arrived by courier this morning. Amazon Italy are usually very fast as well.

[Jr7936]

Where did you get $130 from. I always though you could import $800 to $1000 before paying duty

Originally Posted by filmlover22

question: on importing to the US, does amazon.uk orders fall into the >$130 USD goes through custom category?
Will be placing a large order and wondering if I should be breaking it up to be safe. Of course, that way I pay double the shipping :<

Thoughts?

[filmlover22]

thanks for the reminder. No, have no idea of where the $130 came from!! I checked and you are correct, I have until $800 before I have to worry about that, and - trust me - I won't ever have to worry about hitting that limit!! Thanks again!

[Ste7en]

Originally Posted by Douglas R

Amazon Germany are brilliant. I ordered something yesterday for normal delivery and it arrived by courier this morning. Amazon Italy are usually very fast as well.

Both put the UK counterparts to shame. Especially the Amazon.it customer service.

[Member-222782]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

Does anyone know what is up with Amazon.co.uk shipping some in stock blu-rays to the US but not others? Not talking third party sellers, talking Amazon themselves.

Like they will ship Magnum PI blu-ray set and Columbo S1 but won't ship Wolf blu-ray or Bill & Ted's UHD even though all of them are in stock (not pre-order) directly from Amazon themselves.

I've tried to order several UK Blu-rays from Amazon UK and NONE are available to ship to the US. Are we at war with each other or something?

[malcy30]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

I've tried to order several UK Blu-rays from Amazon UK and NONE are available to ship to the US. Are we at war with each other or something?

Presume you have checked the obvious.

Being sold by Amazon and not a third party trader via Marketplace, this always isn’t clear.

They are an in stock title for something already released. Amazon block sales outside Europe for most pre-orders.

[Jr7936]

very welcome, I have been ordering a lot of cd boxsets from overseas and I have never had to worry about that limit. I might have to worry if it was for the entire year, but since it's per shipment I don't have to worry at all

Originally Posted by filmlover22

thanks for the reminder. No, have no idea of where the $130 came from!! I checked and you are correct, I have until $800 before I have to worry about that, and - trust me - I won't ever have to worry about hitting that limit!! Thanks again!

[McCrutchy]

So, almost three weeks after the release date (and multiple conversations over chat and international phone calls, not that I know if they directly made any difference) the Blu-ray of Yield to the Night has finally been unlocked for shipping to the US. I believe this is literally the first time it has been available. About a week ago, it was listed at Zavvi, but, bizarrely, I couldn't ship it from them, either and it is now out of stock there.

I want to wait until next week (to get Smiley's People, which hopefully gets unlocked in a timely fashion by next Monday), but I'm terrified that it will get restricted again, so I broke down and placed the order, with lousy standard shipping, and now we have this bastard "sales tax" added as well, which of course, was never announced and I'm not even sure is legal.

During the wait, the following titles in my cart also slipped in and out of restricted / unrestricted shipping to the US:



Yes, while the Blu-ray was restricted the entire time (unless I was very unlucky), the new DVD version released on the same day by the same company was usually available, though it was briefly restricted multiple times. And the simultaneously released Circus of Horrors has always been available on both formats. Yet, no one could tell me why the Blu-ray of Yield to the Night was constantly restricted. The closest I got was when I finally got to an apparent supervisor in the UK, who was friendly and sympathetic, but who told me that even she couldn't remove the restriction and it had to be passed on by her to the appropriate "team". After several days passed with no change, on a follow up call I was told by another rep--not, apparently, a supervisor--that it was down to the "buyers team". Meanwhile, the other titles shown above were now passing in and out of restrictions, which made the whole thing that much more exhausting. Now, I've just looked tonight and miraculously, Yield to the Night is unlocked, and pretty much everything I wanted that's already out is, too, except for Il Postino...I guess that one will have to wait.

I am really disappointed with Amazon over how difficult this was and why I will probably never understand what is going on with these restrictions. I know I probably won't get much sympathy, because people in the UK have always got the shit end of the stick when it comes to importing. But the reality is a lot of these titles are not available to US buyers anywhere else, so when Amazon restricts them, the only choice is to gamble with a third party, and for someone like me who enjoys buying a lot of UK Blu-rays, that can get expensive and take extra time. I mean, I used to order around 10-15 Blu-rays a month from the UK before the pandemic and even over this summer it wasn't too difficult.

More than anything, however, I really want to understand these shipping restrictions. If it is simply a matter of stock levels, fine, but someone needs to be told that, so they can pass it on to me, along with an idea of just when I can order. However, to be honest, I think there's some level of human and/or automated error at play here which is not being acknowledged, much less corrected. I understand restricting pre-orders, but I think it's fairly obvious that whoever or whatever is in charge of removing these shipping restrictions sometimes forgets to do so once an item is released. It makes perfect sense because there must be thousands of listings that get unlocked every week, now, and we all know that many Amazon listings have errors in the first place, so even an automated process might be blind to or skipping some.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but I really can't wait for all these shipping restrictions to go away so I can go back to actually pre-ordering Blu-rays again. I know there are much bigger problems in the world right now, so hopefully this smaller one will get resolved soon, once we have a vaccine.

[manutd123]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

I've tried to order several UK Blu-rays from Amazon UK and NONE are available to ship to the US. Are we at war with each other or something?

Very disappointed with Amazon.it - I bought Harry Potter 4k 8-film collection brand new. They sent me a used and damaged collection instead. Tried to use the chat facility, nobody spoke English. Tried the callback system, they only call within Italy, when I tracked a telephone number, no-one again spoke English.

Eventually, managed to communicate with someone in English and they said they will ship a replacement item. I had really been stressed trying to get this sorted out, then they said I have to go to a courier and send the other item back, which is fine, but all this extra hassle and trouble because they sent out a used and damaged item. No offer to compensate for all this hassle, they tried to justify it by saying you got the replacement item 8 days later and we received back the damaged item and refunded the courier charges, whats the big deal? Really felt messed around by their attitude towards the whole thing, as if they were doing me a favour....

[oldmario]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

So, almost three weeks after the release date (and multiple conversations over chat and international phone calls, not that I know if they directly made any difference) the Blu-ray of Yield to the Night has finally been unlocked for shipping to the US. I believe this is literally the first time it has been available. About a week ago, it was listed at Zavvi, but, bizarrely, I couldn't ship it from them, either and it is now out of stock there.

I want to wait until next week (to get Smiley's People, which hopefully gets unlocked in a timely fashion by next Monday), but I'm terrified that it will get restricted again, so I broke down and placed the order, with lousy standard shipping, and now we have this bastard "sales tax" added as well, which of course, was never announced and I'm not even sure is legal.

During the wait, the following titles in my cart also slipped in and out of restricted / unrestricted shipping to the US:



Yes, while the Blu-ray was restricted the entire time (unless I was very unlucky), the new DVD version released on the same day by the same company was usually available, though it was briefly restricted multiple times. And the simultaneously released Circus of Horrors has always been available on both formats. Yet, no one could tell me why the Blu-ray of Yield to the Night was constantly restricted. The closest I got was when I finally got to an apparent supervisor in the UK, who was friendly and sympathetic, but who told me that even she couldn't remove the restriction and it had to be passed on by her to the appropriate "team". After several days passed with no change, on a follow up call I was told by another rep--not, apparently, a supervisor--that it was down to the "buyers team". Meanwhile, the other titles shown above were now passing in and out of restrictions, which made the whole thing that much more exhausting. Now, I've just looked tonight and miraculously, Yield to the Night is unlocked, and pretty much everything I wanted that's already out is, too, except for Il Postino...I guess that one will have to wait.

I am really disappointed with Amazon over how difficult this was and why I will probably never understand what is going on with these restrictions. I know I probably won't get much sympathy, because people in the UK have always got the shit end of the stick when it comes to importing. But the reality is a lot of these titles are not available to US buyers anywhere else, so when Amazon restricts them, the only choice is to gamble with a third party, and for someone like me who enjoys buying a lot of UK Blu-rays, that can get expensive and take extra time. I mean, I used to order around 10-15 Blu-rays a month from the UK before the pandemic and even over this summer it wasn't too difficult.

More than anything, however, I really want to understand these shipping restrictions. If it is simply a matter of stock levels, fine, but someone needs to be told that, so they can pass it on to me, along with an idea of just when I can order. However, to be honest, I think there's some level of human and/or automated error at play here which is not being acknowledged, much less corrected. I understand restricting pre-orders, but I think it's fairly obvious that whoever or whatever is in charge of removing these shipping restrictions sometimes forgets to do so once an item is released. It makes perfect sense because there must be thousands of listings that get unlocked every week, now, and we all know that many Amazon listings have errors in the first place, so even an automated process might be blind to or skipping some.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but I really can't wait for all these shipping restrictions to go away so I can go back to actually pre-ordering Blu-rays again. I know there are much bigger problems in the world right now, so hopefully this smaller one will get resolved soon, once we have a vaccine.

if the stock is available to buy for people with a UK address have you looked into proxy shippers for temp use? like someone in the thread said, it's probably related to stock levels and i assume another factor behind it is also warehouse stock too as i ordered some stuff on prime this week with some of the items being able for delivery the next day but other items in the order told me i could only get them a couple days later