Should you buy Sebo parts on Amazon?
You probably know that when you buy Sebo bags on Amazon or other Sebo spare parts, Amazon is not usually the actual seller, it’s simply the platform that connects you to the seller.
In other words, an unnecessary third party is in between the buyer and seller taking a big cut.
Before you buy Sebo parts on Amazon or buy Sebo bags on Amazon, consider if you can get better value buying from the same seller direct.
It’s easy enough to buy Sebo parts on Amazon, it’s all designed to be super fast and really “one-click” easy, but do you know how much Amazon makes from your spend? Most people don’t know Amazon takes between 16% and 35% of your total spend. Sometimes more.
That money isn’t simply ‘absorbed’ by the seller, there isn’t the margin to do so. It’s simply added on by the seller. Most people think Amazon is cheap, often it’s not.
Here’s a simple example: if an item costs us £10 and we want to make a £3 profit, plus we have people pack and ship it via the cheapest economy method, which costs £4, and add £1 for overheads, we need £18 incoming to achieve that £3 profit.
However, when selling on Amazon, they charge a minimum of around 17% of the total sale price. Amazon also has very generous 30-day return policies, often at the seller’s expense, along with other policies that can penalise sellers. This also opens the door for occasional fraudsters who exploit the system to get items for free. These extra costs must be factored in across all buyers. Those ‘easy returns’? They’re covered by you, the customer.
For Amazon sales that we fulfill ourselves, we calculate an effective cost of 25%. This covers their 17% seller fee, plus additional hidden fees, and a margin to account for fraud, A-to-Z guarantee claims, returns, and dishonest buyers. Then there’s the time-consuming burden of Amazon’s compliance demands. So, the £18 we initially needed now becomes £22.99. You’re paying nearly £5 more.
Still think Amazon is cheap?
The above calculation is basic maths. There’s no magical way around those numbers for any seller, not if they want to make any profit. That’s actually the best-case scenario.
About Amazon Free Delivery
Amazon sellers are encouraged to offer “free delivery” on everything.
We all know that delivery is not really free, and it is simply included in the cost of the item. On our own site, we use a different model. The prices are what they need to be, and you pay for delivery on any order below £120 in value (over £120 and it’s free). We think that is more transparent.
We don’t want you waiting a week or more for a budget carrier, and we know you want tracking too, so our delivery charge is for a premium service, which is usually Royal Mail Tracked 24 or DPD. Amazon orders we fulfill get Evri/Hermes or whatever is the cheapest delivery, as we must offer “free delivery” on Amazon.
Why Amazon Sometimes Looks Cheap
For a small handful of very fast-moving items, such as a packet of bags, Amazon buys these in bulk from the UK distributor or maybe grey imports them. They put almost zero profit on them and offer free delivery via their own network. They’re the loss leaders to suck you in and make you think Amazon is cheap. If you only want one of that small range of items for under £20 using your Prime ‘free delivery’, they’ll be very competitively priced there for those reasons.
But if you want expensive items or several different items, and especially items Amazon doesn’t sell (only about 5% of our Sebo parts are on Amazon – our own site is our main platform), then you will absolutely get a better deal shopping direct with us.
Buy Direct to save Money on Big Ticket and Multiple Items
If you need a Sebo costing several hundred pounds or several items at the same time, here’s where you can really make savings by buying direct. Before you buy Sebo parts on Amazon, probably from us anyway, know that you’ll more than likely get better value on our own site.
Even with our transparent delivery charge for next day Royal Mail Tracked 24 delivery, you should still save money.
I’ll tell you why and show you two sample transactions to illustrate.
A Sebo BS360 is the top-selling commercial vacuum. It’s >>here on our site<< (links open in a new window) and >>here on Amazon<<. At the time of writing, our site is over £50 cheaper.
Let’s suppose you have a Sebo X7. You want a replacement onboard hose, three packets of bags, a new mini turbine tool and a replacement power cord. At the time of writing, on our site that comes to £99.20. With us, you’d pay a £6.99 delivery charge (free on orders above £120) and get it tomorrow with full tracking. So the total would be £106.19. And as it’s over £100, you even get a cool free pen with us.
Now let’s look at that same basket from Amazon.
As you can see, it’s £119.80 from Amazon, two of the items are coming from us anyway, and only part of it qualifies for free delivery. So we’re at least £13.61 cheaper and you’ll get it tomorrow!
And that’s before you go through the confusing Amazon checkout with them trying to sell you subscriptions to things, Prime, credit cards, TV, and adding a delivery charge because at least one item comes from another seller.
And there’s a thing about multiple sellers. Many Sebo parts you might buy on Amazon come from third-party sellers. Sometimes dispatched by that seller to you, sometimes stored in Amazon’s warehouses and despatched by Amazon on the seller’s behalf from different locations (which costs the seller circa 35%). So if you make an order of half a dozen items, you might get six parcels from six locations spread across several days. How green does that sound?
Why not shop with us, save money and have it all arrive the next day in one box?
Get Your Delivery Faster
We are the biggest sellers of Sebo spare parts in the North West, we sell on our own sites, eBay, and Amazon to all of the UK. We ship hundreds of Sebo spare parts orders every single day. Do you think we prioritise Amazon orders? Of course not. Amazon gives us two or three days to ship by slow economy methods (a must to meet the price point there – remember the “free delivery” above?), charges us the most, and costs us the most in customer service time. Priority goes to our own direct customers who get Royal Mail Tracked 24 delivery at seboshop.co.uk. Then comes eBay (because they cost a little less) and last is Amazon.
Amazon Retains Sellers’ Stock and Withholds Their Payments
Yes, you read that correctly. Amazon sometimes refuses to return sellers’ stock from their warehouses. In October 2024, we sued Amazon for refusing to return approximately £7,500 worth of our inventory.
On top of that, Amazon regularly withholds payments from sellers for extended periods. When you buy something from Amazon today, the seller might have to wait between 2-6 weeks to receive their money. Amazon also freezes sellers’ accounts (and their funds) without warning, at least once a year. Sellers’ efforts to resolve these issues are often met with automated AI responses or customer service agents who reply in broken English using copy-paste templates. There are no account managers or native English speakers to assist.
So, who benefits from all the interest earned on that delayed, withheld and frozen money? Amazon does. Do you want to support that business model?
About Returns
Amazon has very high return rates. This is because Amazon listings are often ambiguously written by AI or copied from elsewhere on the internet. Many have the wrong compatibility information or the wrong photos. People tend not to read the listings on Amazon so much, and if unsure, they order three similar-looking things, see which one fits, and return the other two. For free. That’s a nightmare for sellers and inconvenient for buyers.
Our return rate is almost zero. And here’s why: the listings on our site are written by us, we know what part fits what machine, and we take the photos, so buying mistakes are highly unlikely. If something looks very much like something else, we highlight it and point you to the other to make sure you get the right one the first time. We try to stop returns before they happen by having accurate listings. And it works.
Last but Not Least: The Ethics
We’ve all read the media reports that discuss the poor working conditions at Amazon. Or the story about how millions of pounds worth of returns get tipped. Or the story about how they paid no corporation tax. The list goes on. That’s what makes some of the stuff cheap and that’s how Jeff gets to buy a spaceship. And that’s why many local high streets are littered with kebab and vape shops, shops purporting to be “Turkish barbers” and charity shops, and all the independent stores have closed.
Amazon has destroyed thousands of British businesses.
When you shop with us you’re buying from a British family business. The profits help put sandwiches in a school lunchbox, not rocket fuel in a billionaire’s spaceship or dividends to US shareholders and Canadian pension funds.
British businesses have long been the backbone of the economy, providing millions of jobs and contributing billions of pounds to the GDP. In recent years, however, they have faced increasing pressure from global giants like Amazon. Amazon’s dominance in the online retail market has driven many small businesses to close, and its reputation for low prices has made it difficult for British companies to compete.
There are still many reasons to support British businesses over Amazon. British firms are more likely to invest in the local economy and create jobs, while Amazon tends to divert profits overseas. Additionally, British businesses are more inclined to source their products from UK suppliers, which helps support British industry. So, the next time you’re looking to make a purchase, think twice before buying Sebo parts from Amazon or anything else, for that matter. Instead, consider seeking out a British business that can offer you the same product or service, often at a better price.
The Sebo Shop at Manchester Vacs are approved Sebo dealers offering the full range of domestic and commercial Sebo vacuums together with consumables and spare parts.
