Buying a stairlift on Amazon: Is it a good option?

By Chris Clayton

You can buy many things on Amazon, but did you know that you can now buy stairlifts on the website?

The question is, is it a good idea to buy one through Amazon?

And below I will give you my opinion whether it is or NOT. But before I do, I will explain a little about what type of stairlifts are available on Amazon, from who and what the prices are like.

a stairlift on Amazon

Image of a stairlift sold on Amazon.com.

The sellers

The first thing to know is that Amazon themselves aren't directly selling stairlifts. It is third- party companies who are using Amazon to sell them. And unfortunately, there aren't many of these companies selling stairlifts through Amazon. I only found two reputable companies selling new stairlifts on Amazon.com for the US market (Jameson Medical and Harmar) and one on Amazon.co.uk for the British market (Care and Able). And none of these are well-known companies in the stairlift industry.

In addition to these three companies, you can also find people on Amazon selling used stairlifts. However, I would strongly advise you against buying one of these. I have no idea who the sellers of these are, so you can't trust what they say or what the quality of the stairlifts they are selling are.

In the rest of this article I will just focus on the companies selling new stairlifts on Amazon.

The type of stairlifts

Due to there being few companies using amazon to sell their stairlifts, there is a limited range of brands that you can buy (you can't buy an Acorn, Stannah or Thyssenkrupp stairlift for example). However, this isn't such a big problem.

What could be a problem (depending on your staircase) is that the only type of new stairlift that is being sold on Amazon are straight track/rail stairlifts (for a straight staircase). So, if you are looking for a stairlift that has a rail/track that curves or bends, you are out of luck.

The price

Like every product on Amazon, you are told what the price of the stairlift is. For buying a stairlift, this is not common. The vast majority of companies that sell stairlifts will only tell you what the price is when they have had one of their salesmen come out and assess your stairlift.

The prices which they are selling them at for vary from ok to a little too expensive. On Amazon.com the prices range from $2,619 to $3,495. Whereas on Amazon.co.uk, a new stairlift from Care and Able will cost you £1,500.

What's included in the price

The price definitely includes shipping of the product to your home. But it doesn't say for any of them if it includes fitting. From what they've written in the details, I would presume it does. I wouldn't expect the companies to simply ship it to you and then expect you to fit it or pay somebody to fit it for you. But none of them say 'the price includes fitting'.

I tried to contact the three companies (in both the UK and the US) to clarify this and whether they will fit a stairlift in any part of either country. Unfortunately, I was unable to get in contact with one of the companies and the other two have not replied to the emails which I sent. This does not give me much confidence.

A big possible problem

One of the main things which makes me think that buying a stairlift that is sold on Amazon is not a good idea is that the companies who are selling them don't do home visits to assess and measure the staircase (something which is standard when you buy directly from a stairlift company). Instead, it is you who is required to provide to them the measurements of the staircase (so they know what length to cut the track/rail) and check whether there is enough space for one to be fitted safely.

Although this isn't difficult to do and should be ok in most cases, it makes me wonder what will happen if a person makes a mistake with a measurement or there is something which prevents a stairlift being safely fitted which wasn't noticed and told to them. For the first situation, will the person who bought it have to pay extra for the track to be modified? And for the second, will they still have to pay for the stairlift even if they can't have it fitted because it isn't safe?

Because I haven't been able to contact the companies (or they haven't replied to my emails), I don't know. And that for me is not a good sign.

To learn what are the normal requirements to have a stairlift installed on your staircase, read my article called 'Is a stairlift possible on your stairs?'.

So should you buy a stairlift through Amazon?

The simple answer is no. Although the some of the prices that they are sold at aren't bad (but if you know what to do you can still get them cheaper), there is just too uncertainty about them (if the price includes fitting, what happens if you make a mistake with the measurements of the staircase you provide to any of the companies?).

Instead, I recommend that you contact stairlift companies directly instead. By doing this, you know that the price you pay will include the cost of fitting and they will send somebody to your home to take the measurements of the stairs and say if one can be safely fitted or not.

To find out more on how to pay less for a stairlift, read my article on 'how to lower the price you pay for a stairlift'.