Amazon won't ship my faucet?

[rbryan4]

Picked out a nice American Standard Stainless Steel faucet with a pull down sprayer, and was planning to swap out the stock plastic faucet when I find myself at home. During checkout it generated an alert that they were sorry, but could not ship it to my address. Whuh?

$45 more in local stores. I smell a rat at American Standard.

[escape artist]

Originally Posted by rbryan4

Picked out a nice American Standard Stainless Steel faucet with a pull down sprayer, and was planning to swap out the stock plastic faucet when I find myself at home. During checkout it generated an alert that they were sorry, but could not ship it to my address. Whuh?

$45 more in local stores. I smell a rat at American Standard.

Hi: rbryan4... I think you've been "Hosed". Alf
escape artist N.S. of Lake Erie

[Greg A]

Looks like contraband to me....

[gbaglo]

Amazon.com won't ship to Canada. Perhaps you need to log on to Amazon.Texas?

[Jim Bennett]

Originally Posted by gbaglo

Amazon.com won't ship to Canada.

Only on some things. I have bought a fair bit of stuff off .com when it was not available on .ca. Mostly larger items though. This is where the sink for my 5.0 was sourced.

[steve dunham]

We bought the Anderson windows when building our cabin from Menards. Seven years later we were adding an addition to the cabin and went back to Menards to get the Anderson windows we needed.
No such luck ,Menards no longer sold Anderson Windows
The reason was that HD went to Anderson and made it clear that if Anderson wanted to sell windows at HD they could only sell them through HD. It's the Walmart business model.
We went to HD to buy the windows and found the price was now 20% higher than what we paid at Menards. My point is that it may not be American Standard or Amazon playing games
I ended up buying Marvin Windows from a local Lumber yard for less than the Andersons from HD and the local guy delivered them for free.

[jamman]

Originally Posted by rbryan4

Picked out a nice American Standard Stainless Steel faucet with a pull down sprayer, and was planning to swap out the stock plastic faucet when I find myself at home. During checkout it generated an alert that they were sorry, but could not ship it to my address. Whuh?

$45 more in local stores. I smell a rat at American Standard.

Any chance you were logged on to amazon.ca?

[Jim Bennett]

Originally Posted by jamman

Any chance you were logged on to amazon.ca?

He would have noticed right away. The price would have been triple that of a US base BORG.

[tdf-texas]

Were you connected to the internet in CA?

I set my VPN to a server in Canada and tried to buy
American Standard 4175.300.075 Colony Soft Pull-Down Kitchen Faucet, Stainless Steel - Touch On Kitchen Sink Faucets - Amazon.com

no go, Amazon read my ip address and said they couldn't ship. Changed the VPN to point to a US server, no problem.

[fudge_brownie]

Thomas,
You make a valid point. We do not realize that many of the IP addresses assigned by our local providers indicate near exactly where we are located. It does not take much for a retailer like Amazon to check your address and deny the sale. There are also allegations that web sites like (but not limited to) Amazon will show different prices depending on where you are geographically located.

[rbryan4]

I was on Amazon.com, logged in to my prime account, and shipping it to my home default address. IP or ISP doesn't enter into it. The product and the shipping address do. I've bought dozens of things on Amazon, while I was in a number of different countries. The site didn't give a reason for the shipping restriction, but I think it's pretty obvious that American Standard won't sell that faucet in San Antonio via Amazon - probably due to a deal with local retailers. I know the restriction is not from Amazon. They'd sell the whole world if they could. I'll just choose another one. I don't mind shopping locally, but I'm not going to pay 35-40% more for the privilege.

EDIT: Just to prove my suspicion, I asked my wife to try and purchase it from our home PC. Same restriction. This is a first for us.

[Greg A]

If ur gonna be in Phoenix anytime soon, Robert, ship it to me and I'll tuck it away in the garage until you come through. Or I can just add a label and ship it on over to you but then you'd have some shipping. Assuming of course they'd sell one to AZ.

[rbryan4]

Thanks for the offers to hold it for me, but it doesn't have to be that exact faucet. It's just one I liked.

Plot thickens though: called Amazon this morning and they advised there should not have been a shipping restriction. They think it's a database error that somehow references another product that IS restricted. Supposedly they're fixing it.

[algonquin50]

Make sure your billing address and the address you're shipping to are the same.

[OneOleMan]

Originally Posted by rbryan4

Thanks for the offers to hold it for me, but it doesn't have to be that exact faucet. It's just one I liked.

Plot thickens though: called Amazon this morning and they advised there should not have been a shipping restriction. They think it's a database error that somehow references another product that IS restricted. Supposedly they're fixing it.

Out of curiosity I just logged onto Amazon.com and it appears the "error" has been fixed, they'd ship it to me - - - if I were to complete the order.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by fudge_brownie

We do not realize that many of the IP addresses assigned by our local providers indicate near exactly where we are located.

... or a thousand kilometres away. I normally use a mobile network connection and when a web service says anything about my location, that usually means laughing at how wrong it is; common locations are somewhere near Calgary (about 300 km away) or in Manitoba (two provinces away). Back in the dialup days it was almost as bad. The location is precise, but it is related to the ISP's registered address, not mine. Wired internet service probably means a more relevant location.

[rbryan4]

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

... or a thousand kilometres away. I normally use a mobile network connection and when a web service says anything about my location, that usually means laughing at how wrong it is; common locations are somewhere near Calgary (about 300 km away) or in Manitoba (two provinces away). Back in the dialup days is was almost as bad. The location is precise, but it is related to the ISP's registered address, not mine. Wired internet service probably means a more relevant location.

Exactly. Add to that anonymizers, proxies, VPNs and Browser Networks, and your location can be anything you want.

[blue_bullet]

I had to order Horst Probes on Amazon shipped to my home address in Montana and then spend $25 to ship them to Chilliwack via USPS. Amazon states on their website they cannot ship hardware to Canada. So much for NAFTA.

[NW Cat Owner]

Originally Posted by blue_bullet

I had to order Horst Probes on Amazon shipped to my home address in Montana and then spend $25 to ship them to Chilliwack via USPS. Amazon states on their website they cannot ship hardware to Canada. So much for NAFTA.

Did you try ordering them off their Canadian site? I know I can set up different shipping addresses on my US account. I've not tried it on my Canadian Amazon account. I've ordered stuff off their Canadian site (mostly books not offered on the US site) and had it shipped to me without any problems. I never thought of having stuff shipped elsewhere with that account.

[blue_bullet]

Originally Posted by NW Cat Owner

Did you try ordering them off their Canadian site? I know I can set up different shipping addresses on my US account. I've not tried it on my Canadian Amazon account. I've ordered stuff off their Canadian site (mostly books not offered on the US site) and had it shipped to me without any problems. I never thought of having stuff shipped elsewhere with that account.

Never thought of having to jump thru that hoop. Just checked Amazon.ca->Your search "horst probes" did not match any products.