In years past Prime meant true two-day shipping, always (when marked as such in the listing).
In the recent several months I have noticed a trend: the delivery times split into two groups, very fast and very slow.
Occasionally I have ordered something Saturday evening and had it appear Sunday at noon–that’s way too cool. But those times are balanced by the many shipments that manage to “technically” meet the rules of two-day shipping without meeting the spirit of it. Besides that, the number of truly late packages this year exceeded the late packages from the previous several years.
It’s annoying when companies make big bold statements of X that are undermined by their own definition of what “X” means. They know they are gaming the system and it’s tiresome, but they all do it so there is little way to avoid this.
Actually, they changed the deadline between the checkout page/order confirmation email and the shipping notification email so it will not show as late. Sneaky, sneaky.
The checkout page should have had a delivery estimate reflecting the fact that it’s coming from overseas. Apart from that, why should it matter? I’ve had it happen a few times - note that the delivery time says 3 weeks, order anyway because it’s not urgent, and later notice that it arrived from China. Fine by me.
Yeah, I’m just saying that since the original date on the product page, the check out page and the confirmation page isn’t until Sunday/tomorrow/the 28th (probably at 8:00pm), they may want pohjonen to wait until that time passes before they’ll offer anything.
You can try now, I’ve had it go both ways, some reps will just give you the credit (or whatever they’re offering up at the time) sometimes they’ll ask you to recontact them after the delivery has missed the original deadline. Since that hasn’t even come and gone yet, it could still show up tomorrow, especially considering that USPS’s tracking is awful, you may not know.
OTOH, it’s worth a shot now since you could get the credit AND it could show up on time.
The checkout page probably did say that, but like I said, I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon so I often don’t pay attention to that when I “know” (or think/assume) I’m buying something prime. I just add it to my cart, go the checkout and hit the button to make the purchase.
It’s not that it came from overseas that mattered, it was the two weeks that mattered. Even non prime things that just come from else where in the country, assuming they shipped the next business day* still get to me in one week or less.
Furthermore, had I realized that I wasn’t buying direct from Amazon, which I almost never do if I can avoid it, I would have read a few reviews for the store itself and probably avoided just on the basis of the two week shipping time when I could have purchased something similar, from Amazon and had it in two days.
*And to make it even faster, Amazon will ship things on Saturday and Sunday as well. You can order something on a Friday and often times it’ll start moving on Saturday. You can order on Saturday and sometimes it’ll show up on Monday or even Sunday. Their strange connection with USPS makes things happen real fast on weekends…which reminds me, I think I ordered this thing on a Friday which had the following Monday as a holiday, so that added 3 or 4 days on top of everything else.
Weak pitting, imo. Sure, Prime is not always exactly two days (as in 48 hours from right now), but for anything shipping from an Amazon warehouse they are clear and transparent about expected shipping times throughout the order process, and the failure rate is a few percent in my experience. And for the rare problems a human being responds promptly for online chat, and issues get fixed efficiently, usually with a sweetener.
Once I didn’t renew Prime because I had the misguided impression that I rarely need stuff urgently, so I’d just use regular shipping. Three days later I needed something urgently.
Life is too short not to use this service. If you think it’s sub-par, what’s the competition? Where else can I get service comparable to what they provide?
I’ve had Amazon Prime for years & am quite satisfied with shipping speed. Nearly all Prime items arrive within 2 days. Free. I do order stuff from non-Prime merchants–usually books at excellent prices; of course I don’t expect them as quickly.
Prime Video & other percs are just icing on the cake.
I find them to be pretty accurate- maybe not a strict 48 hour period, but if I ordered something now (9:23 on a Sunday night) I could legitimately expect it on Wednesday.
Sometimes, since there are fulfillment centers in the area, things will be delivered in one-day even if I didn’t choose that option, so that’s cool.
Only very infrequently do they flub it, and they’re usually pretty eager to make it right- if it shows up late, they’ll give you some freebie, and if it doesn’t show at all, they’ll re-send it and overnight it to you, even on the weekends.
I live in the DC metropolitan area and some crazy percentage of the stuff I buy ships from a warehouse less than an hour away in the boondocks. But I generally agree that the 2 day guarantee is not really 2 days for all the prime items anymore. Its 2 days if they have it in the warehouse near you but I have waited over a week for some stuff on prime.
I am more upset with Amazon for getting rid of their $1 credit on amazon videos for “no rush” delivery and replacing it with a $5 credit on groceries that come with a $5 delivery charge.
Huh? Are you confusing me with someone else, or do you just use “Trump supporter” as a general-purpose insult on anyone who upsets your delicate sensibilities?
The OP mentioned putting the screws to the third party vendors and I think that’s the problem, no third party vendors offer prime delivery. There may be some misconceptions, but most people that have Prime are aware that you have to buy things that are sold by and shipped from Amazon to get the two day delivery promise. Even if you aren’t aware, you only make the mistake once or twice and then you start paying attention. It’s an [Amazon] life lesson that we all make.
I still can’t bring myself to use Amazon grocery. It bugs me that I’m required to have prime to use that service and then I still have to pay a delivery charge. So far, I still haven’t checked to see how their prices are compared to grocery stores. I’ve used Jet once or twice and they were pretty good.
My problem with Prime is how easy it seems to be to accidentally sign up for it. I never wanted it, because I didn’t want my packages delivered by UPS and left on my front porch if I wasn’t home to receive it. Aside from the chance of theft (my apartment is right next to a major street), on one occasion a package left at my door while I was at work was found and opened by a neighbor’s 3-year-old kid. In that instance the package, fortunately, only contained some Pixar DVDs. I would really not want that to happen if I ordered some “adult” products.
For some of us, Amazon is part of the local economy- I’d wager their fulfillment centers around here employ more people than a hundred mom and pop shops.
To some degree, that kind of thinking is about like worrying about the slide-rule producers in the 1970s when electronic calculators and computers came about. There’s a sea change in retailing happening, and no realistic amount of local buying is going to change that particular tide.