Fabric.com vs Amazon
 

I read earlier on the board that Amazon had previously bought out Fabric.com. I guess my question is, if Amazon owns Fabric.com why can't I find everything on Amazon that I can find on Fabric.com? Am I missing something, or searching on Amazon incorrectly? Example: I really like the King Tut thread, its my favorite (well until I find my next new favorite:o). I can find it on Fabric.com but at Amazon its much more expensive and the seller that it shows is not even Fabric.com Sometimes I just want 1 spool and I have Amazon Prime to get free shipping, but at Fabric.com I have to spend $35 for free shipping (which I can do believe me, but I just don't think that I should) Any ideas?

I think you would get the best answer by contacting either fabric.com or amazon.com. Not everything on Amazon qualifies for Amazon Prime. One thing that I find interesting is that amazon.com has a section for fabric.com that looks unlike the normal fabric.com site - http://www.amazon.com/Fabriccom/b?ie...node=357131011

To answer your question about the different sellers... Amazon uses thousands of sellers. You will find a lot of different sellers selling King Tut, not just Fabric.com. And Fabric.com has over 3200 pages of products listed on Amazon. You might need to refine your search parameters. It's entirely conceivable that Fabric.com has a different pricing structure for Amazon buyers for contractual reasons and to cover shipping/handling costs.

Yes I understand your query. I buy books and was told amazon had joined with the book depository. From amazon if you use them pay postage book depository no postage, the book price is different.
I buy 505 postage free because I am prime. A 500ml can costs the same as a250ml can from local shops. Pricing to me is a mystery.

dunster: I saw that Fabric.com page on Amazon as well, and that is where I noticed my thread that I purchase from Fabric.com direct is not there. It is interesting.

I may call Fabric.com and see what they say... I just didn't know if anyone here had already came across this already. Maybe its a pricing contract thing??

I have been struggling with this as well. When I heard that Amazon had bought Fabric.com, I thought that meant there would be an option at the "pay section" where I could click Amazon. That is not the case...it is either PayPal or enter a credit card number. I hope they add the Amazon click soon, as ....how do I say this....we, meaning my husband mainly, trusts Amazon.com, whereas we aren't so trusting of other places. In the last 3 years we had two "folks" using our credit card numbers, and we had to cancel and start the credit cards over.

I can, however, go to Amazon and buy most of the fabric I have wanted, but it seemed to be buying one piece at a time. Each time I have done that, I had about six fabrics I wanted, and I just didn't want to do it as six orders. It seemed like I was paying postage for each separately, and at a higher cost.

Now that I have read this, I think I need to go investigate this farther. It has been a week since I looked at either site for fabric. Off to look at fabric and compare.

Dina

Okay, I have researched better, and if I know the name of the fabric I want, I can order it from Amazon. I can order more than one fabric at a time. There was a shipping charge until I passed $25. and then it said no shipping charge. The price per yard was the same as it was on the Fabric.com site.

Now I guess I will spend some time deciding if I really want all 8 fabrics in my cart! :)

Dina

Several times I have found the fabric cheaper on Amazon than buying it directly from Fabric.com. Even though on amazon it states the seller is fabric.com. I can't figure that one out but I bought it through Amazon to save a couple of bucks.

Pretty simple - Fabric.com is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com. However, fabric.com does it's own order fulfillment.

Other vendors can sign up to use Amazon.com in various ways, for various fees. For a fee, you can use Amazon.com's checkout services, thereby broadening your customers' payment choices. For a different fee, you can advertise on Amazon and also use their checkout services. For yet a different fee, you can run a store that is largely hands-off in terms of the product, i.e. you have the product shipped to amazon, and you make up the ad copy, then you let them sell it and do the order fulfillment.

It's a pretty good business model for Amazon, you take all the risks in terms of buying the product, and they collect from you for storing it, shipping it, etc etc.

Since Fabric.com is a subsidiary of Amazon, they use a combination of the available methods, including selling through their own website, and selling through Amazon.

One thing you might notice though, is that if you buy your fabric at Amazon, with fulfillment by fabric.com, you lose the ability to purchase in anything but full yard increments. This is because Amazon's shopping cart, as sophisticated as it is, is only set up to do unitary sales.

Fabric.com requires you to buy in 1/2 yard increments, and their website is set up to sell that way.

That accounts for some of the price differential. If every sale is a minimum 1 yard, and the sale increment is 1 yard, the seller can sell for a lower price.

Fabric.com has a 1/2 yd minimum and 1/2 yd increments. The reason for that is that the margin on a 1/2 yard cut is the minimum needed to (barely) make a profit once labor, cost of purchase, cost of packaging and all other overhead is figured in.

This is true of Zappos as well...owned by amazon but run as a separate business.