When I order from Amazon, I am very careful to only choose items that are marked “Usually ships in 24 hours.” Now, to be fair, I never really need things shipped that quickly, and if I did, I would go to a local book store. However, I can also say that in the last 3 years I cannot remember one shipment ever shipping in 24 hours.
Has anyone else ever had anything shipped in 24 hours? This seems like false marketing to me.
“Ships in 24 hours” means they can find the product, throw it in a box, and ship it out that quickly; a longer amount of time means it will take them longer to get the book (need to order more from the supplier, it’s at a far off warehouse or something, etc.). The time of its actual arrival on your doorstep involves that amount of time plus whatever shipping service you pay for. I’d be surprised if you could actually get a book on your doorstep within 24 hours.
When Amazon says “ships in 24 hours” it usually means that the book is in stock and they’ll have it boxed and ready to ship out in 24 hours, not that you’ll have it in 24 hours, unless you pay for the next day shipping. I ordered 3 books on just this past Thursday, and received them yesterday, which means I got them in 3 business days. Not bad, I think.
LOL. Thanks for the semantics lessons guys - but I understand the term. Ships means ships and when I say that in three years I have never had an order ship in 24 hours, well, what I mean is, you know, one hasn’t shipped in 24 hours. None. Usually they ship in 5 or 6 days. To help clarify what I meant, I placed an order last Thursday. It was shipped today (well past 24 hours.) I will recieve it in five to 7 business days from today.
I live in Maryland, and Amazon maintains a distribution center in Delaware (IIRC) so if the wind is blowing in the right direction and the planets are properly aligned, I can order a book one day and have it waiting on my doorstep when I get home from work the next day – roughly 24 hours. It’s not to frequent, though.
Ah, sorry, thought you were misunderstanding the term. I wouldn’t know about their current shipping time; I’ve refused to do any business with them for the last few years since I don’t much like them for various reasons.
Well, I understood what you meant, Khadaji.
I only order from them 5-6 times a year, but no, in the last 2 years they have never shipped an item in 24 hours. It usually takes 2-3 days to ship. For the longest I thought I just had bad luck, but I finally concluded that they were either using a different definition of “usually” or “ships” than I was 8-).
Other online retailers I use do not seem to have that problem.
–jack
–ps. a couple of the others do define “ships” as “we have transmitted the order to our warehouse, picked it, and transmitted the shipping information to the UPS computer”, but I can live with that definition 8-).
I’d say that almost 50% of books I’ve ordered from Amazon have shipped within 24 hours. I haven’t purchased anything from them except books, so I have no idea how they do on their other goods.
I’ve never noticed, but I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten “Your item has been shipped” notices from them within 24 hours several times. In a few instances I’ve gotten the books in 2 or 3 days. Best shipping experience I’ve ever had was I ordered a digital camera from Outpost.com at around 10PM on December 23rd. It was a personal item and not a gift so I didn’t specify any rush shipping and assumed I’d get it sometime after the new year. It was on my front step when I got home from work the next day. BTW, Outpost doesn’t charge for shipping or sales tax (or didn’t at the time.) I was EXTREMELY pleased and surprized.
In the past, yes. Or so I remembered, but then, I just went back and checked my old order history and quite frequently, the items had been shipped within 24 hours (and occassionaly 48)
Recently, yeah right. My last order from amazon, where 1 thing was marked “3-5 days” and the other two “within 24 hours” took 4 weeks to arrive. (Times have been getting longer over the past 2 years).
The last item I ordered (Bad Astronomers’s book on bad astronomy) was ordered on 3/12, shipped on 3/13, and received about 3 days later. So yeah, I got 24 hour (or very close) shipping.
Ugly
Yes, I have recieved notice of shipping from Amazon within 24 hours.
I once ordered a book from Amazon.co.uk on a Wednesday afternoon, got the e-mail notification about 10:00 am Thursday, and the book had already been delivered in the morning mail.
I found them to be extremely prompt a couple of years ago ( this is Amazon.co.uk, BTW) but less so now. One of first orders was made about 5 p.m. on a Sunday, the following day was a bank holiday and the order arrived on the Tuesday.
I’ve had orders from amazon.com shipped within 24 hours. (I haven’t checked, but I’m pretty sure the same applies to amazon.co.uk - with whom, obviously enough, I tend to do more business). Have to say I’ve never had any earth-shatteringly bad customer experiences with either one.
I’ve had mixed luck. Usually if it’s something I don’t need in a hurry, it ships right away from a warehouse on Long Island or Pennsylvania. I have it within a day or two.
Stuff I really really want now (but am too cheap to pay express shipping for) tends to ship from Reno where it typically takes days to get from the warehouse to the shipping center (although big A will claim it shipped right away). Then it’s onto the local pack-mule for the trip east.
I buy from Amazon quite often, and don’t think I’ve ever gotten the “your order has been shipped” email within 24 hours. But I must say that almost everything I’ve purchased has arrived within 5-7 business days which is more than satisfactory for my needs.
If the product doesn’t say “usually ships in 24 hours”, I tend to purchase the product from “Zshops” which means it’s used. I always get my Zshops shipment before my regular Amazon shipment. I don’t mind that the Zshops item is slightly used. Heck, brand-new books from Amazon look that way after a couple months in my house anyway.
I frequently order books, CDs and DVDs. Without exception they have all shipped within 24 hours. They often ship out the same day if I order before noon.
I wonder why the different levels of service exist? Am I lucky or are you unlucky?
Currently I’m annoyed at them because of this particular item. It’s listed now as 3-5 days and was the same when I ordered it on April 2.
Yet the order is currently listed as “Delivery estimate: May 10 - May 30”. What the hell?! That’s 6 weeks at the minimum! What’s the point of being so specific with shipping availability if you’re going to be nowhere near it?
Here we go. Just received my birthday gift from my brother yesterday from Amazon.com. It says it was ordered on April 7th, it was shipped from Reno and I received it on April 9th in the San Francisco area. There’s some coding on the bottom of the page that reads:
367/uycc2251/-1-//RENO/3599/std-us/1460951/0407-13:59/0407-19:05
The last bit intriques me as it seems to imply the order was received on April 7th at 13:59 and shipped on April 7th at 19:05. Approximately 5 hours. Not too shabby!