If it’s going by regular US mail, delays are very normal. UPS should be mostly predictable, even UPS Ground has certain guidelines on how long a package will take.
I won’t get home for Christmas until late Christmas Eve, so all of my family/friend gifsts need to be ordered online and delivered there ahead of time or I have to buy something in-person and carry it with me. The other day I ordered some $200+ worth of stuff, confident that I would get my goods arrived before Christmastime because, after all, they said a certain date was the last date to guarantee pre-Christmas delivery for free shipping and I was a day ahead. Towards page 5 of 534 of the order form they started telling me none of my stuff will get to me until well after Christmas. I ended up going back and paying another bundle for faster shipping, buying from a couple of affiliates in the ‘new and used’ with less reputable shipping service, and it’s still looking like come Christmas morning all I’ll have to show for the folks is a couple of receipts.
Or, looking at some of the posts here maybe I jumped the gun and actually hurting myself. Sucks to my wallet, hope it all gets there.
My experience is the Amazon Prime 2 day and overnight shipping is very good. Of course that costs you $75 a year. Otherwise for Super Saver Shipping or buying from “Amazon Partners” the shipping time varies widely.
There is a long and reasonably intelligent thread going on at Amazon about many people’s problems with DHL. Many Prime customers report that they are not receiving shipments that use DHL until several days late. A couple of very similar threads have popped up recently as well.
95% of the time Prime ships to me by UPS. That’s good. Last week they shipped to me by Fedex and it arrived a day late. DHL, don’t even get me started. They’re always late.
Another ex-Amazon employee here.
From my experience, when Xmas season hit ALL orders were processed ASAP regardless of shipment method. (This is only for Amazon.com fulfilled orders, not the partners/merchants etc). I did a bunch of purchases this year that went out much faster than usual so I assume they’re still doing that.
Ok, poll:
When offered free shipping, did you take it? ~ always. I ordered well enough in advance for the usual Super Saver Shipping arrival and items went out much faster than estimated.
If so, when was the promise date and when did they really ship? (Relative to when you made the order) ~ I made eight orders, and all but one shipped out within a day.
If you took free shipping, and made another order, when did they promise and when did they ship. ~ as above
If you didn’t take free shipping, and made another order qualified for free shipping, when did they promise shipments? ~ n/a
I’m also thrilled that I’ve never had an order shipped from Amazon by DHL (though ominously, I saw one of their grubby, banged-up trucks in the neighborhood yesterday). I buy more of my books at Powell’s Books than at Amazon. I’ve only had one Powell’s order delayed, and that was due to a specific item that wasn’t shelved where it was inventoried; Powell’s e-mailed me an explanation and my options. I’ve also had several very pleasant exchanges with their webmaster Nathan, and he’s always been very helpful.
I always use the free shipping since they started offering it. I’ve made dozens of orders over the past few years. Once in a great while I’ll notice that an order takes 2-3 days to ship out, even though all the items were in stock. But mostly they ship the next day, just like they would have with the standard shipping option. I don’t know why anyone would use the standard option anymore. It’s spoiled me, too; I hate ordering from other places because paying for shipping seems like such an imposition.