Last Tuesday I bought a new battery for a camera of mine on Ebay. $5.95 with free shipping. Before buying the battery, I emailed the seller asking if I would have the battery before today, the 16th, as I am leaving on vacation tomorrow and would like to have a spare battery for my camera. He say no problem, it will arrive in plenty of time.
Shipping information did not appear till last Thursday, and it just stated that the shipping had been purchased. He was shipping it Fed Ex Smartpost. My first thought was the battery might get here on time.
On Saturday it showed that the package had arrived at a Fed Ex facility in Allentown, Pennsylvania. On Monday it left that same facility.
Yesterday it showed arriving at a Fed Ex facility in Martinsburg, West Virginia. It took 3 days to travel about 173 miles. 4 hours later the shipping info said it left the Martinsburg facility.
This morning, the package arrived at it’s next destination. Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Guess I won’t have my battery in time.
This doesn’t quite beat my best misadventure in shipping. A few years ago I bought some printer ink. It went from Chino, California to Federal Way, Washington. I live about 10 miles from Federal Way. It then went to some place in New Jersey, then to New Orleans then back to Federal Way. It actually took only 7 days for that package to travel the US.
At least the shipper got it out in a couple of days. I’ve cut back on ordering from Amazon because, since I’m not a Prime member, they no longer ship quickly and it will take a week or more before my order gets out the door.
I love the way you can track your packages nowadays. But it also drives me nuts because I can see how slow the package moves.
However, this takes the cake. They sent your order back to the shipping facility it started from? This is the point where I’d be on the phone with FedEx. It never helps get anything faster. The customer service person just looks at the exact same information I’m seeing. But it makes me feel better to vent.
Hope you’ve got a place in town you can pick up a battery.
I order a fair amount from Amazon and I’ve never had a late package. I do choose the free shipping whenever I can (I just don’t order anything that’s needed quickly). What’s weird is I’ll watch an order sit for days and then it goes by overnight courier to arrive on time.
It might be that all the items are being transported from different warehouses to a single shipping point.
I’ve never had a late package for Amazon, but they allow themselves a three week window. It’s just before they never needed it.
I remember the good old days when Amazon was books. I’d order something and it would get shipped out that day or the next day at the latest. Three to five days after the order I’d have an overly packaged item wrapped so well it wouldn’t budge at my front door.
Now, since Prime, my order sits there for a week to ten days before it gets shipped. And when it arrives at my front door, it’s barely got any packaging, just a few air pillows tossed in the box.
Funny thing is, Amazon’s lost money on me the last few times I ordered. They keep screwing up my orders (items missing or damaged) and then having to reship it to me using the two-day shipping. I’ve got to say the customer service always makes up for the mistakes. But it’s got to be costing them their profit margin on those sales.
Quick update. The battery finally reached a local Fed Ex location this morning and is being transferred to the post office. Being as I am now in Crescent City, California, the battery is not going to do me any good. Fortunately it was just a back up for my Nikon P500 which is a back up for my D5200, I don’t know if I would have really needed it.
Fedex Smartpost (which travels via first Fedex and then the Postal Service) is a very slow delivery method. You should have checked the delivery method first.