Do you get angry about waiting too long for things you've bought online?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I bought some fountain pen ink through a third-party retailer through Amazon.com late last Sunday (11/11). The order was marked as “shipped” on Amazon on Monday (11/12). I received the email from Amazon stating that my order had shipped on Monday as well, but in it, it said: “Ship Date: 11/13”

So, it apparently shipped Tuesday, USPS, and I haven’t received it.

Normally there would be no problem here, because I usually go for Amazon’s free “super saver” shipping (though that didn’t apply in this case), and with standard shipping otherwise. I don’t get bothered by something taking a week or a week and a half or two when I pick those options.

However, I planned to leave town this weekend for the next week. I’m a student and there are no classes here next week, so I was going to go home. Realizing this, I chose “expedited shipping” which gave me an estimated time of arrival from “1-3 days.”

The 1-3 day range from Monday, when my order was processed, is Tuesday-Thursday. The 1-3 day range from Tuesday, when my order was shipped, was Wednesday-today.

I can’t recall having something shipped expedited before, but it seems to me they’d take a little more care to have it there when they say they would, since the person having it shipped cares enough about it to pay extra.

It’s obviously not the end of the world, being a bottle of fountain pen ink, but I did pay the extra and it has thrown a bit of a wrench into my plans (even more if it doesn’t arrive tomorrow). The shipping information on USPS.com hasn’t updated since “carrier notified to pick up package” on Tuesday.

I’ve had books arrive in times ranging from four days to nearly two weeks using the free shipping option. What’s your experience been with upgraded shipping? Am I right to be a little miffed, or should I at least wait until tomorrow before writing a slightly disapproving email to the company (by that I mean write it whether or not it comes tomorrow, or don’t write it if it does come tomorrow)?

2

I waited 10 days for a package to arrive from the next county over. By the way, it is the same postal system. Amazon standard shipping sucks donkey toes.

Their free shipping offer is abysmal…4-6 weeks. In my experience they take every bit of it.

If online retailers are wondering why people use eBay, this is why. Very few sellers there use the convoluted shipping of places like Amazon.

And yes, it nerves me to no end. Utterly pisses me off. I do allow a reasonable time for the handling portion of the shipping & handling, but what is wrong with first class mail? I was tempted to send back a letter to the seller from Amazon, making note of the post date of shipping it First Class.

I won’t even discuss the horror story I had with A1books who sells on eBay, Amazon and BN.com. Absolutely ridiculous shipping time/process.

3

I am getting a little impatient waiting for my bacon salt. :mad:

4

Since you ordered it Monday I would think that 3 day expedited meant it should have been there Thursday. I would complain.

I ordered three things on Tuesday. All from different companies. I got two emails. One on Wednesday stating the item was shipped, one on Thursday stating the item was shipped and nothing from the third item. Item two and three came yesterday but item one that was the first to send the email about the shipping has not arrived.

I never had any problems with Amazon free shipping. I usually got my item within a week or so. I don’t recall ever using their expedited shipping.

I also don’t get billing practices. Item one has cleared my bank, again this item has not been delivered but item two and three which have already arrived have not cleared the bank. Weird.

5

If “expedited” means the seller gets it out of the warehouse faster, maybe the problem is with the post office or UPS.

I use Super Saver when I can, and delivery time varies but the item usually arrives within a week to ten days. When I can’t use Super Saver, I’ve been getting the item really fast – three or four days from the date of order.

But yeah, if I paid extra for expedited, I’d be upset if the item didn’t arrive within a week.

6

I’ve found with a lot of those E-mails, when the seller claims it’s “shipped” and you go to the UPS website, what it says is that they’ve just received electronic billing information. So typically this happens late in the day, and UPS is notified they have a pickup to do, and they don’t get there until the next day because that’s how their route works, etc.