Near the beginning of December I ordered a couple of books from Amazon to be used as gifts. Neither were rare or out of print. The first one arrived a few days later, but the tracking notice said that the other one would arrive on December 26. I informed the intended recipient about this, but when the day came, instead of the book I got email from Amazon stating that the package would arrive on January 3. This morning (January 3) I got another email from Amazon apologizing for the delay and then stating “New estimated delivery date: Monday, January 26, 2026 - Friday, February 27, 2026”. That is less a “delivery date” and more of a “delivery season”, it seems to me.
That’s annoying. You may be able to get it somewhere else at this point obviously. I had something similar happen to me recently and I was able to cancel the old order and make a new one for the same item and get it much sooner. In my case they gave a reason for the delay which was weather related. They must have shipped the new one from an unaffected area.
Is a more than a month long delivery “date” a normal thing? I have never seen it before.
Added: Amazon’s own tracking page gives a delivery date of February 27.
It’s far from normal but with billions of deliveries it’s going to happen. I’ve only seen something similar once and I’ve used Amazon a lot since 1998. You might want to try to order another one and see what the date is and then cancel the first one if appropriate. It worked for me a few weeks ago.
The book is To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes.
I get similarly long ship dates. It looks like there are only two copies available, both are from third parties. That explains a lot. I bet that the first seller had an inventory glitch and didn’t actually have one on hand.
I think it actually is rare-ish and out of print. There are copies on other book sellers and eBay with similar ship dates all of whom may be the same ones as on Amazon.
It has got a print date of October 7, 2025, though.
Amazon Canada shows it as in stock and shipping from Amazon (not 3rd party). Maybe try ordering from the Cdn. site.
Yeah you’re right. It must have sold out the first run. It was featured on a CBS morning show which may have been the reason. It’s out of stock at Barnes and Nobel too.
Inventory control gets sketchy with Amazon during the holidays especially with third party sellers who do their own fulfillment. The seller will tell Amazon they have five in inventory. Four customers will click through to checkout, but a fifth will just put it in their shopping cart. By the time that customer comes back to checkout someone else has bought that last copy, but because it was already in the shopping cart, a sixth order is placed. Sometimes it’s a toss-up who gets that last copy shipped; the sixth customer or the fifth one who delayed going straight to checkout. Whoever loses has to wait for that item to be back in stock. As far as I know, that might also be an issue with items fulfilled by Amazon.
It showed the same thing when I ordered it from Amazon Prime. Is there any evidence that it actually shipped out, like reviews with a recent date?
About 1/3 of our Prime orders have been delayed in the last two months. An item with a 12/31 date shifted to 1/3 and then 1/7. Since we needed it already, we canceled. Replacement date on Amazon shows 1/14-1/30. We’ll buy it locally later today.
I’ve made 22 orders in the last three months and only one was majorly delayed, as mentioned upthread, because of rain storms. I think one other was a day late. It’s very rare for me to have a problem and when there is it’s almost always just a day delayed. I’m in Santa Barbara and our hub is in Camarillo which is 45 miles away.
I ordered a mug with a moon/star/herb motif on December 6, 2025.
Amazon and the seller kept changing the delivery dates.
Amazon sent an apology bot message asking if I wanted a refund.
On December 24, 2025 I requested a refund which was promptly processed.
The mug is then delivered on December 29, 2025.
Immediately I get an email from Amazon asking me if I want to cancel the refund or return the item since it as shipped so late (three weeks!).
I am all out of motivation to fight any of this so I just cancelled the refund.
Will try ordering from other sites as much as possible.
Never had problems of this magnitude before.
Most of my Amazon orders are not from third party sellers so maybe that is the difference.
Correction: The books were ordered on November 29th. The first one arrived the next day.
So we are looking at approximately a 3 month wait for the second book.
That is so unacceptable.
My orders referenced above are Prime/Amazon, not 3rd party.
Yes. I had two things ordered that crapped up on me.
One was like you say, delayed and delayed. I responded to the oops email from Amazon with cancellation of the order. Done promptly. I then reordered, it came in two days. Huh?
Then the first one came. Amazon sent me a email asking was I returning it. I said Nope. Flurry of emails. Could they charge my CC. I said Nope. Could they send a label and I return it. I said Nope.
Finally they said to toss it. And good riddance. I guess.
I’m watching my CC charges. They best not put it on there.
It is totally their fault. All they had to do was cancel the first order. If it was in transit they should have known it and not send me a Oops email. Their fault. Their loss.
(Oh it was a less than $20 sweatshirt, not some highly sought after toy or tech)