That option still existed last week…sort of.
Rhiannon8404 ordered a bunch of stuff (Jelly Bird Eggs, a Bluetooth speaker, dog poo bags, and other essential goods), and chose the “ship my items together” option, even though we were warned it would take a day or two longer.
All of our items arrived the day before we were expecting them, in five different shipments.
From my position, given the extra risks to going out to buy things these days, the value of pandemic-Amazon Prime that delivers stuff much slower is higher than the value of normal-Amazon Prime that delivered stuff slower.
Maybe Amazon should increase the price for everyone?
Disclaimer: I didn’t read the whole thread.
I just popped in to say that I get amazon deliveries 1-2 times per week and have ever since they came up with Prime, whenever that was.
All my orders have arrived and continue to arrive in a timely fashion; I’m not aware of any delays. A gift delivery that was supposed to come today (a box of candy for someone’s birthday) was actually delivered to the giftee yesterday. I got another delivery of my own today (vitamins).
If there are delays, I haven’t experienced any. That I’ve noticed.
Carry on.
You’re wrong on a number of counts. Transportation nodes are affected. Airlines represent part of the transportation airlift for freight and the reduction of flights reduces available space. There is a finite amount of airlift so all carriers are affected.
The workforce is reduced due to people infected with the virus.
Essential items get priority in a national emergency.
I don’t expect companies like this to give refunds in situations like this but I think it would be more than appropriate for them to extend contracts for as long as their “down time” lasted. If Prime services were down for two months they should extend your contract by two months.
I haven’t heard what places like Disney are going to do for their annual pass-holders but if I were one I’d be demanding a no cost extension for however long their parks are closed.
I have a gym membership that was paid through to the end of September. Once they re-open I’ll be making the request for an extension. If not they will be losing a member.
ETA - Just checked my gym’s website. They are indeed planning to credit members for the downtime with extensions.
This is a straw man. Nobody is disputing that this is what they should be doing, and nobody is suggesting anything that would compromise their ability to do this.
The issue is that Amazon is making a shit ton of money out of the massive overall increase in demand for their services. And that is what leads to the valid question of whether it’s right that they should be making so much money out of all this without using some portion of those excess profits to refund people who are no longer getting the service they paid for.
I don’t think you can generalize. If a company has been obliged to close temporarily or demand for their services has temporarily dropped to zero, I would not expect them to do this. If they can afford to, I would greatly appreciate it as a goodwill gesture, but I would not expect it.
Amazon, however, is not this situation. They are failing to provide the level of service I paid for because demand for their services has gone up, along with their income and profits.
As I have stated, the Act of God clauses mean that the contract can be cancelled by the promising party. Amazon can say, “You know what, bub, we just can’t do that two day shipping. Here’s your money back, now piss off.” It would then be up to a judge to determine if there was really an Act of God that prevented Amazon from fulfilling its obligation.
But some to be saying that an Act of God means that Amazon can not fulfill its promises, yet keep the full amount of the money I paid. That ain’t how it works…
And to this two day shipping “for only things they designate” nonsense. They still have to use good faith and cannot cite an outside influence as to why they don’t do it like they did before…reasonable expectations doctrine. They cannot just claim that now only a can of potted meat and nothing else qualifies for two day shipping. Basic contracts law, guys.
it’s more than just what they should do. As I said earlier, airlift is finite. Some of it was taken down in the form of passenger freight and some of it is moving chartered supplies. What is less finite is ground transportation. But that takes more time which results in delays.
They also generate a shit ton of expenses. And those expenses are going to be higher because they have to go outside their system to buy space and pay overtime within their system.
I don’t disagree with your logic. They WILL make more net profit. but it will be incremental to their normal percentage take of gross profits. Regardless of the profit margin they will take delays because of the situation. And they are not required to eat those delays if they are a result of an Act of God.
If they choose to lower their net profit as a gesture of goodwill and give it to the customer that’s great. I’d rather see them pay their employees more money but that’s me.
That’s not how it works. Amazon isn’t going to go to every customer and offer to cancel the order. They’re going to post something on their website that politely explains there are potential delays that are beyond their control. Sorry for the inconvenience. There’s no judge involved in natural disasters. A pandemic is so far over the line of Acts of God you need a telescope to see the line.
Are you suggesting that god reprioritized their shipments?
It is 100% in their control to decide which shipments go first. Right now, they’re choosing to ship essential items first and delay other items.
I honestly don’t understand how you can argue that shipping cough medicine and toilet paper before shoes or books is beyond their control. It’s a choice. No one is arguing that they shouldn’t do it, they’re arguing that the people that are on the short end of that stick get a couple bucks back.
Also, if you look at their website, they do have a message up. It politely says “we have changed our logistics, transportation, supply chain, purchasing, and third-party seller processes to prioritize stocking and delivering items that are a higher priority for our customers”. It doesn’t make any mention of things being out of their control. It explicitly states they’ve adjusted their priorities to move certain items faster than others.
the pandemic is considered an Act of God. You can argue it until you’re blue in the face and nothing will change.
Ok, so the pandemic is an act of god. Amazon now delivers essential items first and non-essential items later on.
How is that out of their control? Again, are you arguing that they’re no longer physically able to ship things in the order they were received, or whatever method they used previously to get, more or less, everything to the customer in two days?
Just the fact that they’re still able to make deliveries makes the act of god argument moot.
If, due to this, they could no longer make deliveries, your argument would make sense. But that pandemic didn’t make them physically unable to deliver shoes or only deliver soap.
I guess what I’m saying is that you’re going to have to spell this out since I really don’t understand the point you’re trying to make.
What do you mean “continue to pay”? It’s an annual fee. Mine came up for renewal on February 1st and it’s paid through 1/31/2021.
Anyway, it’s irritating that they are giving us delivery dates weeks out and still failing to deliver “on time.” I placed an order on 4/12 that was supposed to arrive yesterday: it came today. Another order placed on 4/1 was supposed to be delivered tomorrow, now they’re saying Thursday…
I will echo that Amazon has always said 2-day from the time the item is “In Stock”. I’ve had to wait in the past due to an item not being in stock for account few weeks, but get it 2 days after the fact. The only difference is less things may be currently in stock (but it says that on the product page).
I will also echo that I haven’t personally run into any delays. In fact I’ve gotten out of stock items weeks before they were due to be in stock (which meant we had tons of peanut butter for a while rather than getting the next shipment just when we were starting to run out of the previous one).
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My understanding is that, YES, because of the pandemic, they are no longer able to get everything to the customer in two days.
This is because people are ordering way more stuff, because they are no longer able or willing to go out and buy what they need from brick-and-mortar stores. And because the pandemic has interfered with the supply chains: with Amazon’s ability to get items to their warehouses.
So, it’s not that, if they hadn’t made the choice to prioritize essential items, they’d be able to fulfill all of everybody’s orders in two days. And since they can’t deliver everything in two days, they’re choosing to deliver some things (“essential items”) in two days and other things in much longer, rather than having everything take however long it takes.
At least, that’s how I interpret the situation. I could be wrong.
We with Prime are still getting* free *shipping on so much stuff-- things might take a week now, but other people are paying a shipping fee for that week. Personally, I got Prime for the free shipping, not the expedited shipping.
Also, the Amazon Fresh delivery is for Prime members only. If you were refunded your membership for a certain amount of time, you’d lose your Fresh delivery for that time.
I suppose if you called them, and insisted that all you used Prime for was the 24-hr delivery turnover, and not for Fresh or streaming, you might get them to suspend your membership, then extend the end of your current membership by the suspension period (ie, if you are due to expire in September, 2020, but suspended retroactively for March, then for April & May of 2020, your membership would not expire until December, 2020); but this means you would lose ALL Prime privileges for the suspension time.
Personally, I’m satisfied with the Prime services I’m still getting. If the agitations of other people do cause a re-evaluation of Prime services, I hope there is choice involved, and I can choose to keep what I have.
ThelmaLou, you must be ordering only stuff that’s considered essential. Candy is considered a food item, and Amazon considers food items essential. Vitamins are also considered essential. I’m a Prime member, and I ordered moisturizer two weeks ago: it’s scheduled to arrive this Thursday. A shirt I ordered a month ago should arrive in another 6 weeks. But I ordered a snack food, and that arrived in two days. I’m OK with all that.
USPS and UPS both have alert notices posted about service delays. UPS’s indicates that delivery may be slowed.