I... wouldn't do that.
There are few type of those, and you are looking for someone who knows what they are talking about and talk about shortcomings of a given product. They are usually pro's that have some experience with given category of a product. So they know what they want.
If you find one like that its ease to judge what features you need vs features pros need.
Usually, 1 stars are by entitled complainers (unless product is cheap knockoff) and 5 stars are by people that don't know what they are talking about or brought reviews.
It makes sense in my mind that the buyer should be the one to pay for the handling of what they buy. I don't want to subsidise your shopping/shipping via my taxes, they're high enough as it is.
Another factor in the nonsensicality of this tariff is that Sweden is more or less the only country which starts charging sales tax (called moms here, comparable with VAT in the UK, BTW in the Netherlands etc.) from a value of 0kr (i.e. free, but sales tax is paid on the shipping costs). Where other European countries start charging sales tax when the value of imported goods rises above (e.g.) €20, Sweden starts at €0. Many parcels ordered from China fall under that rate which make it a very common thing to be represented with the following:
price of ordered goods including shipping: €4
sales tax: €1
"handling fee": €8
total: €13, of which €9 goes to the Swedish state (directly or through Postnord)
Mind, this is not the shipping fee as that was already paid for in the €4 purchase price. If the same parcel were ordered to the Netherlands the customer would pay €4 and that's it, no import fees and no tariffs.The so-called "handling fee" is nothing but an excuse to put a tariff on international trade for individuals, a way to make sure the fruits of globalisation stay out of reach of the public.
But whenever I see: "sold by X" through their platform you can usually find a cheaper offer on their own website.
Also, stock co-mingling. That alone makes me buy as little from amazon and as much from elsewhere as I can.
And I’m not sure we have co-mingling here because I never heard of the problems that seem to be common in the US (/ on HN) with it and also never experienced it myself (I spend around 2.200 € on Amazon per year)
We do, the seller setting for that ("Barcode preference") is there in the Seller Central Europe and the help text explicitly talks about commingling.
I've had one item sold by Amazon as new that was clearly a fraud return, though, i.e. the item inside the product package was switched for a different model.
I think it’s the type of issue where it would be a major problem for the producer of a specific product that got ripped off, and any customers who are fans of that product, but may never affect the average buyer.
The only reviews you can vaguely trust are the non-5 star ones.