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Ranting about Amazon.com Shipping

adk

adk

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 11, 2005
1,937
21
Stuck in the middle with you
I buy things off of amazon.com practically weekly, and I am just getting fed up with their shipping process. Their "Super Saver Shipping" is an absolute scam. I'm beginning to believe that amazon purposely takes its time in shipping items when free shipping is selected. Take for example a currently open order I have. I purchased two items on wednesday that are "in stock" and selected the free shipping method. As of today, they have not been shipped and have an estimated arrival date of September 4-10, a full 2-3 weeks after I placed the order.

This delayed shipping absolutely infuriates me, almost to the level of anger that Neflix's practice of "throttling" give me. As another example, I placed a different order on august 11 and selected the free shipping, and once again Amazon decided to take their sweet sweet time in shipping an item that I needed pretty quickly. After two days of it not being shipped I upgraded to two day shipping. Amazon shipped my item later that day. To me that suggests that amazon is not experiencing any sort of backlog.

I don't think I should have to pay more just to get my item shipped in reasonable amount of time. If they want to send my my things by camel for the free shipping, that's fine by me so long as they get it out of their warehouse in a decent amount of time. Instead, I must pay a fee for the same shipping method (priority mail or UPS ground) as I would get for free, just to get my item shipped sooner than never.


and please, please, don't tell me to upgrade to amazon prime.

[/rant]
 
I dont know why they ship so slow for you but I ordered books last thursday and on monday one package arrived and on friday the other one. so pretty fast free shipping.

Depends on which books you get - they may be in stock but takes a few days to few weeks to ship.
 
You can always select a faster shipping method if it really bothers you. You just have to pay a few more dollars.
 
adk said:
I buy things off of amazon.com practically weekly, and I am just getting fed up with their shipping process.
Click to expand...
and please, please, don't tell me to upgrade to amazon prime.
Click to expand...
Why are you so against Prime?

If you order weekly, then the cost of Prime averages out to $1.50 per order, and that's for guaranteed 2nd-day shipping. Order more frequently and the cost goes down even more. Split the cost with an "unmarried partner" in your house (5 family members in your house can use the feature) and the cost goes down even more. ;)

But if you're seriously asking if there's a way to get Amazon to consistently speed up their "Super Saver Shipping" so it doesn't frustrate you, I think you're SOL. :(
 
I have had NOTHING but GREAT service with Amazon Prime.

I re-upped this year as it payed for itself in savings last.

You should upgrade to Amazon Prime.

Best shipping policy Evar!
 
Amazon is by far simply the best! I will always give Amazon my business. If shipping is delayed, it's most likely a stock issue.
 
That never happens to me...the Super Saver stuff always ships in a few days. Maybe they just hate you personally. ;) My only complaint is that, in to provide "better" service, they frequently break up orders. This isn't what I want because it sometimes means more trips to the post office if the boxes are too big. When I say to ship all items in one shipment, I'd really prefer that...would be better for me and them (I mean, it's got to cost them at least a little more surely?).

--Eric
 
I'm happy with Amazon generally, and I also shop there near weekly, but I have noticed that, very recently (i.e. in the past couple of weeks), there have been many cases where something lists as available immediately or in 1-2 days, and then when you go to shipping, today on 8/25/07, if you select a paid shipping option, the estimated ship date (not receive) will be 8/27/07, but if you select free shipping, it'll be 9/1/07 or something like that. I never noticed them doing this before. I cancelled an order for a scanner because of this (and bought it on eBay, conveniently also for $25 less). I ordered an in-stock UPS on the 19th, and it did not ship until Friday, which is not something I would've expected before.
 
phungy said:
I understand where you are coming from but "You get what you pay for" :eek:
Click to expand...

Well, yes and no... As a customer, I care about dependability of the seller, delivery time, availability, total price, quality of information provided on the website, etc. Amazon's shipping may be free (if you select that option), but that doesn't necessarily mean their overall price is lower. And it also wasn't always like this. In fact I never had this happen to me until very recently, and Amazon has been doing free shipping for years.

I've actually taken to using their Marketplace sellers more and more. The vast majority of them ship very quickly using basic USPS and I get excellent results from them. Buying a book from a Marketplace seller is only sometimes cheaper / slightly cheaper than getting it new from Amazon themselves (bc of shipping), but it's actually faster quite frequently.

Plus, I come from a business background where using premium freight is considered bad practice and sign of poor management. I forecast my needs in advance the vast majority of time, and I'm almost always quite able to tolerate reasonable shipping times. But 2-3 weeks for items that are in stock and ready to ship doesn't make sense.

Not only that, but it doesn't make sense for Amazon either. They don't charge until they ship. What's their business benefit in holding the order for a week when they can bank the income immediately? The only thing I can think of is that Amazon may have negotiated some kind of bundling logistics process to lower their freight costs (i.e. the item is being held up to be shipped out with other items going to a similar geographical destination).
 
I've never had a problem with the free shipping. My orders arrive before I expect them usually. I did pay for shipping once and the order seemed to take a long time to arrive so I only use the free shipping. If its an item I need right away I just go to a store and pick it up.
 
I always pay for the shipping on Amazon and I always get my order quickly. If you were Amazon I am sure you would want to deal with your paying customers rather than the free delivery people first. This is why I always pay.

I think that even with the extra cost of shipping Amazon is usually cheaper than the high street.
 
phungy said:
I understand where you are coming from but "You get what you pay for" :eek:
Click to expand...

I'm paying/not paying for shipping, not the handling time. My gripe is that If I order a book It will arrive via priority mail whether I use "super saver shipping" or pay for basic shipping. I would have no complaints if amazon got my product out the door in a reasonable amount of time and then the post office took two weeks to deliver it. I'm fine with amazon using the cheapest, slowest method possible when they send me my stuff via free shipping. It's the fact that they seem to purposely hold out on putting the item in a box and dropping it in the mail that really infuriates me.
 
adk said:
I'm paying/not paying for shipping, not the handling time. My gripe is that If I order a book It will arrive via priority mail whether I use "super saver shipping" or pay for basic shipping. I would have no complaints if amazon got my product out the door in a reasonable amount of time and then the post office took two weeks to deliver it. I'm fine with amazon using the cheapest, slowest method possible when they send me my stuff via free shipping. It's the fact that they seem to purposely hold out on putting the item in a box and dropping it in the mail that really infuriates me.
Click to expand...

You make a valid point.
 
what they have started doing that i dont like, is with new DVDs they get them instock on monday, of course the dvd isnt released until tuesday, well, using prime i pre-order it and have it shipped over night, well, they ship it out on MONDAY using 2 DAY so i end up getting it wednesday, even though they have it on monday, and ship it out on MONDAY just do they can save money on shipping

that might be confusing i can clarify if ya'll dont understand what i just said
 
Maybe in certain situations they do fulfill orders for people who pay for shipping?

Why don't you ask them? Their customer service folks have always been straight-forward the two times I've called because something out of the ordinary happened with shipping on my stuff.

squeeks said:
using prime i pre-order it and have it shipped over night, well, they ship it out on MONDAY using 2 DAY
Click to expand...
So you pay the extra $3.99 to have something overnighted and they 2nd-day it instead? That's not cool.
 
I usually find that my Super Saver Shipping packages show up earlier than Amazon expects them to.

I suspect what happens is that the "estimated delivery time" with Super Saver Shipping has some padding built into it. I'm not sure exactly how their operations work, but I suspect they use this padding time to minimize their costs by shipping out full pallets of boxes to USPS. In addition, I'm sure they use this padding time to give priority to paid shipping items. If they have tons of orders with paid shipping, those will get fulfilling priority over the Super Saver Shipping orders.
 
aristobrat said:
So you pay the extra $3.99 to have something overnighted and they 2nd-day it instead? That's not cool.
Click to expand...

well, technically they say it comes out on tuesday, and we'll ship it to you when it arrives, but instead of being nice like they used to and ship it out monday so i GET it tuesday, i still get it overnight from when it was OFFICIALLY released...still...it didnt use to be this way

they are saving money im sure, and they can get away with it by saying its not offically released until tuesday so really i shouldn't be getting it until wednesday, blah blah blah
 
It's not just you. I ordered a textbook off amazon early this week and with free shipping, it wasn't going to get here for another week and a half to two weeks. I went ahead and paid for shipping (which isn't much at all) and I got it on Thursday. I love amazon and I think their prices are excellent, but I joke that they must pay the USPS guys to keep the free shipping orders on the truck a few days longer. Chances are, I would've gotten by textbook in time for class, but peace of mind is worth $3.99 sometimes.
 
When I order, I generally go for the free shipping and yes, they do seem to prioritise the orders by whether you pay for shipping or not. It makes sense for them to do so.

Generally, when they do that, I end up receiving the thing within 3 days instead of 2 weeks anyway. It's a matter of having patience. When I have less of it, I pay for shipping and the time for my order seems shorter because it's updated on their web site more quickly but the product takes about the same time overall.
 
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