Question about Buying on Amazon

[nanuck95]

So, I've never really paid attention to buying Lego from Amazon before mostly because I've always been able to get pretty good deals everywhere else. Recently, I received an Amazon gift card and I thought this would be a great opportunity to use some of it to pick up one of the new superheroes sets.

I know people have posted about finding great deals on there, but I was really shocked at how expensive everything was. I guess I can understand that the superheroes sets are in high demand, and on backorder from S@H (my local Lego store was completely cleaned out), but it seemed like almost every set I looked at, regardless of theme was marked up, in some cases by considerable amounts.

My question for those who shop there regularly is, is this normal? Is this a result of post-Christmas and all the good deals are gone? If prices are going to come back down once things become readily available, then I'll gladly wait another month or so.

[wobnam]

In my (limited) experience, Amazon prices are LEGO retail prices or lower.

There are other stores operating on Amazon's system though, and they are free to charge whatever they want. As far as I can tell, all the Superheroes sets are offered by not-Amazon sellers who probably charge more now that they are hard to find. Look for "Ships from and sold by" just below the price/stock info.

[Kosh]

What wobnam says is true, Amazon both sells AND facilitates sales for others. So you can see, Sold by and ships from Amazon, Sold by whomever and Shipped by Amazon and Sold by whomever else and shipped by whomever else on their site. The pages look pretty much the same except for the line wobnam pointed out already, you need to pay attention to it to understand exactly WHICH of the above scenarios you are dealing with. Sold by and ships from Amazon should be a fairly rock solid experience, items should be at or below MSRP normally and most times qualify for the free shipping on orders above $25 (each product page tells when it qualifies). Sold by Whomever and shipped (fulfilled by) Amazon is also normally fairly solid, the prices may or may NOT be at, near or below MSRP but Amazon has the product in one of their wharehouses and handles all the logistics of it, billing you, shipping etc. The third type of seller can be hit or miss, it's more like an ebay scenario (but not an auction) where Amazon handles the listing and that but the 3rd party has the product, packs it ships it etc.
The main difference between the first two types are primarily the terms and conditions and the already mentioned pricing, if there's an issue with a sold by Amazon order there's a pretty consistent cut and dry process to deal with it, Fulfilled by Amazon the terms vary from seller to seller. The third type of seller frankly it's a roll of the dice, sure there are a number of decent sellers but it's also where the less decent ones are as well.

[nanuck95]

Thanks for the responses. That clears things up a bit and I'm assuming at this point the inflated prices are because Amazon hasnt received any of the new stock yet and it is just 3rd party sellers taking advantage of the high demand. I'll wait a few weeks and see what happens. Thanks again.