I can't say it's the greatest experience.
I'm not looking for a "delivery experience".
With flex, it's likely the same quality process, only the workforce is larger and more likely to churn. So no matter what the performance of the quality process it has some non-zero time to detect and correct worker performance, so I don't see how one avoids a larger rate of delivery faults just from the workforce dynamics.
Plus, your costs are offset by having labor cost be variable instead of fixed, not paying benefits, etc. So if your margin is 10% higher as a result and you have a 5% increase in issues, you still come out better.
> If the “her” he is referring to is me, then the first part of this statement is false (the second I cannot attest to). During the first week of my nightmare, the customer service team at Airbnb was - as I stated in my June 29 blog post – helpful, caring and supportive. In particular, one customer service manager - and the company’s freelance photographer - were wonderfully kind to me, and both should know how grateful I am.
> And since June 30? On this same day, I received a personal call from one of the co-founders of Airbnb. We had a lengthy conversation, in which he indicated having knowledge of the (previously mentioned) person who had been apprehended by the police, but that he could not discuss the details or these previous cases with me, as the investigation was ongoing. He then addressed his concerns about my blog post, and the potentially negative impact it could have on his company’s growth and current round of funding. During this call and in messages thereafter, he requested that I shut down the blog altogether or limit its access, and a few weeks later, suggested that I update the blog with a “twist" of good news so as to “complete[s] the story”.
> Look, despite what some of you are saying, I am not an idiot. I understand why Airbnb called me and asked me to bring this story to an end; it is in their best profitable interest to do so. Unfortunately for me – 5 weeks and counting – there is no end in sight. Too much about this case remains unknown and unresolved, and according to both the District Attorneys and the police, it could be many more months before the criminal investigation moves forward.
> And for those who have so generously suggested a donation fund be set up to help me recover, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and suggest that instead, you keep the money and use it to book yourself into a nice, safe hotel room the next time you travel. You’ll be glad you did.
I'll just leave this here.
https://www.airbnb.com/host-protection-insurance
> Effective January 15, 2015, if a guest is injured in a listing or elsewhere on the building property during a stay, the Host Protection Insurance program provides coverage for Airbnb hosts and, where applicable, their landlords under a general commercial liability policy.
There are a variety of gaps, and have been, where AirBnb and/or its insurance failed to cover things. It isn't until this year that insurance coverage was anywhere close to what I'd consider acceptable and basic. It still isn't "complete" as far as what I'd use for my rental property.
i even have a black list of delivery companies i try to avoid (when purchasing from amazon vendors)
These missing packages have been primarily from when UPS/FedEx decides to use a last mile delivery service, instead of delivering it themselves, which is primarily staffed by low wage workers with frighteningly high turnover.
Amazon hasn't honored the two day guarantee for me in these instances.
FedEx (unlike UPS) routinely delivers packages a day late, and they often leave packages in front of my garage door (where they can get rained on) with no notification.
I've done it once because it didn't arrive on Friday, wouldn't come until Monday, and I wanted it for that weekend so I just went out and bought it and returned what Amazon delivered Monday. I felt kinda guilty but when it came Monday it looked like it was run over by a truck anyways, as in, had actual tire tracks on it.
Why would part-time people be any less responsible? They have less to deal with, more time to deliver, use their own car, choose their schedule, and set the radius and familiarity of their route. I'd expect them to make better deliveries and more accurately.
Uber/Lyft have shown this model works fine.
> I'd expect them to make better deliveries and more accurately.
I wouldn't. I'd expect the additional supply would get you faster, cheaper delivery at the expense of accuracy and a slight increase in other problems. I'm not against that trade off but there's no need to pretend it doesn't exist.
> Uber/Lyft have shown this model works fine.
Uber/Lyft and particularly Lyft where you're less likely to get an experienced professional, have shown that the model is not without it's tradeoffs.
I don't see how accuracy is going to be a problem. These people aren't driving across the country with hundreds of items and it would be very much in their interest to make sure the right thing is delivered to the right person.
I think the "experienced professional" of a shipping carrier driver is vastly overrated here. Just what, exactly, do they do that can't be done by another part-time person?
Let's assume there is zero difference between the quality of full time people and part time people, but, being people there is distribution of people that a) need to be trained over time to handle certain on-the-job situations (e.g. dog in yard, etc...), and b) the system needs time (or some number of deliveries) to discover that some people are basically not fit for the position - including people signed up with the intent to scam the system. Let's compare two groups of employees, a full-time group and a part-time group.
The first thing that might surface in this model is that the part-time group requires more people to fill the same number of deliveries that the full time group can fulfill. So, in terms of numbers of bad deliveries, you'll have more failures just because you had to draw a larger number of individuals for the part-time pool vs the full time - even if quality of individuals for the full time vs part-time are exactly the same.
Adding further assumptions doesn't improve things. Maybe one might assume that part-time employees are more likely to move on to other jobs and leave the Flex workforce - well that's more churn and you get more people in category b, and more people temporarily needing training/experience. Maybe the distributions aren't exactly the same between full time and part time - one might theorize that scammers are more likely to take jobs under flex (maybe even under multiple aliases to keep from getting caught)... again this makes the performance under Flex worse...
Maybe even given the quality differences, it only ends up making sense to offer Flex delivery on the periphery of where it doesn't make cost sense to install or expand full-time infrastructure.
I've spent whole weekends waiting in at home for a delivery from Amazon Logistics only to get emails at 7pm each evening telling me they tried to deliver and failed.
Amazon might not do this yet but they could and obviously should.
People who are totally unconcerned about someone totally random showing up at their door carrying a potentially large(!) package are a whole different level of naive. Most of the world is not like your suburban home culdesac or Silicon Valley.
Yodel are worse than useless, and I can't see this being much better.
Everybody has jobs. Everybody finds it annoying to buy something on line. You never know when it's going to turn up. You have to take a day off, and hope your driver is competent at his job.
Why can't you just say "I'll be at home on Thursday after 5pm. Call me on #555-333-9999 if you have any issues". Courier delivers the package after 5pm on Thursday.
One delivery. No wasted delivery attempts. If an attempt is failed, charge me for it.
"Everybody has jobs"And my mailbox is a slot in the door. It's not going to accept my packages for me.
If you're picking a more specific delivery window then you're throwing off that planning and it likely requires the delivery driver to take a less efficient route than they otherwise would. That costs the company, and therefore it costs you.
Of course, there shouldn't be any logistical impediments preventing the delivery company from notifying you once a more precise delivery window is known.
To my mind, their system far outstrips the other couriers.
Because picking a delivery slot imposes a constraint which creates a cost for the delivery provider.
> Everybody has jobs. Everybody finds it annoying to buy something on line. You never know when it's going to turn up. You have to take a day off, and hope your driver is competent at his job.
Most everybody has jobs, but most people I know don't find it annoying to buy stuff online; many people can have packages delivered to work, and many people have no problems with packages delivered to their home when they aren't there.
> Why can't you just say "I'll be at home on Thursday after 5pm. Call me on #555-333-9999 if you have any issues". Courier delivers the package after 5pm on Thursday.
Because, as you note, everyone has jobs, and if there was no cost to request delivery times, pretty much everyone would request something like "after 5pm". Which would eliminate the freedom of delivery companies to efficiently use delivery vehicles. Which would drive up their costs.
Asking for something which imposes an additional constraint on the service provider which has a cost to fulfill either costs everyone extra to subsidize you, or must cost you extra.
At present ( in the UK ) most courier delivery fleets stand idle in the evening after being out during the day missing deliveries to people who are in work. And having to call again the next day.
It perplexes me why they don't shift their delivery period six hours later to start at 15:00 and end at 21:00. That would cover both business and residential hours.
Apart from that it's a good idea.
Before I graduated high school, I lived in rural-ish area where the nearest commercial couriers were 50+ minutes from my house to the north and about 90+ minutes to the south. Wal-Mart was literally my only choice for consumer goods, so I spent a good chunk of change online.
I always had the same driver for a certain courier. I asked him how often he had to come down that far, and if it was significantly out of the way compared to the rest of his route. He told me that there were occasionally other stops in my town, but it wasn't the norm. The city and the immediate suburbs were the vast majority of their deliveries. Driving 100 minutes round trip for a couple deliveries probably sucked.
They would have to split the fleet, all business deliveries still need to be made 9-5.
Amazon have actually started doing this in reverse in the UK, you can set an address as a business address and your package should only be delivered 9-5. In practice the 'Amazon Logistics' drivers (the aforementioned blokes in cars) are terrible and rarely manage to get this right.
Maybe they feel that even people doing delivery jobs are entitled to be home with their family at the end of the day?
So yeah, adding a second shift isn't unheard of. My grandpa worked second shift his whole life, and I worked third shift the whole way through college.
More to the point, maybe they feel that the higher wage costs for that kind of shift work aren't worth whatever cost savings in other areas it would provide.
I would imagine that is because the highest margins are made off of next-day deliveries from business to business. They often guarantee these deliveries by 10 AM because many companies are willing to pay extra to ensure that their package is delivered by 10 AM.
Consumers, by contrast, are more interested in paying as little as possible for shipping. Shifting their delivery hours to accommodate a group of customers who aren't willing to pay extra for the service while simultaneously killing off business from their most profitable customers would likely be a poor business decision.
This is also an opportunity waiting to happen.
As well as the logistical issue others have mentioned: if they did/do offer such an option, you value the option so they'll expect you to pay for it (unless it becomes part of a race to the bottom with other distributors in which case eventually someone will offer that for free).
> after 5pm
That would definitely be chargeable. If evening deliveries were offered for free the majority of their customers would pick that.
> Call me on #555-333-9999 if you have any issues
Not going to happen: the delivery people work to pretty tight schedules in order to be as efficient as possible (and therefore cheap in terms of both man time and fuel). Taking time out to try get through to someone won't happen. You could be on another call, your phone might not be contactable for some other reason, and so forth. In circumstances where you are not ready and waiting to collect you are not unlikely to be in a position to not be able to immediately answer the phone.
Amazon do have their lockers. The problem with Amazon Lockers is that they're expensive. Even with prime it still costs extra on top (similar to one day shipping) to have it delivered to a locker.
I've noticed Amazon require a signature a lot LESS often now which does reduce this problem (since it can be left), and I guess Amazon are picking up the cost of the 1-5% of stolen packages.
PS - I've only had a single package in the last two years simply disappear (after it transitioned from a carrier to the USPO, it was a packet of underwear).
Or a combination of Amazon and the logistics companies. Mind you it's very safe to drop things at my house. (Rural home with a long driveway.) But I've noticed a trend toward a signature requirement becoming very rare whether it's Amazon or others.
Now add customer preferences and you have a mess that can't be satisfied because everyone wants their parcel 5-7pm.
If everyone wants later delivery, maybe that is something to look into (to meet/satisfy customer demand). Instead of the alternative of packages not getting delivered in the daytime and trying again the next day.
This is godsend for people who work standard hours. I buy on-line quite often, and whenever (90% of cases) there's an option, I pick up a paczkomat on my route home (big cities have a lot of them; mine has something around 50). If a particular shop doesn't offer this type of delivery, I order it to work.
Sadly, post office is no longer an option for me - they work standard hours, and only during Monday - Friday, which makes it hard to pick up anything there. In other words, I have to come late every time something big from Aliexpress comes.
EDIT:
> What I don't understand, is why I can't pick my delivery slot for free.
s/free/a fee/, and I think it could work. For large enough values of "a fee".
0. http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_366591722_2?encoding=UTF8&node=6442600011http://dailyweb.pl/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Paczkomat-InPo...
Slightly offtopic rant
Amazon offered my universities students union the chance to install some inside the union (e.g. to help students who are at lectures during the day/don't trust flatmates etc), however the union council (who are elected to serve the students interest) voted with a majority against the idea because of how little corporate tax Amazon pays. Ironically, the students union website is hosted on AWS, but they're able to overlook that.
Worked for Uber...
E-commerce businesses do however have strong incentives to ditch the completely unreliable delivery companies, because they cause a lot of mess on the business end (besides angry customers, you waste a lot of time finding the package and scolding the delivery people). As a result, most delivery options suck equally.
On the other hand, by having Amazon control the to-the-door experience, that gives them incredible granular controls over how things are done, when, by whom, and how they do it, including how they are supposed to treat you at the door (if you're there), what to say, etc. etc. As well as any additional things that could come in the future.
For example, what about a 5-minute tutorial for a new product you just ordered?
These are just the tip of the iceberg that Amazon could do with this.
> For example, what about a 5-minute tutorial for a new product you just ordered?
I highly doubt people who are essentially doing low-wage contract piecework will have the motivation or ability to give me an effective 5 minute tutorial on the random gizmo I just researched and ordered. When would they learn that stuff, on the drive to my house?
Also, wasn't there a big story a few years ago about how Amazons treats many of their low-skill workers as easily replaceable automatons (many of which are now being replaced by literal automatons)? I can't see this as being much different.
Think for a minute about the cost of sending someone trained out for a five-minute introductory session when a given gizmo is delivered. Think about the training required. Think about all the additional delivery complications this introduces. And so on.
There's value here, but it's not easy to realize. Places like Best Buy offer it through Geek Squad, but only in conjunction with a B&M service.
That's me! I have 0 interest in it. I just want the stuff on my doorstep when I get home and a way to address if it hasn't been delivered. Neither of these require a white-glove service I don't want to pay for.
You can't exert control (e.g. uniforms, greetings, etc.) over independent contractors, so Amazon would not be able to do any of this under their current model.
That's false as a matter of fact.
You can, but the degree, nature, and scope of such control will be part of any analysis as to whether they are bona fide independent contractors, or actually employees where you are trying to evade requirements of employment law.
AusPost won't accept anything but their own parcels / other national carriers (i.e. USPS but not UPS) into their parcel locker system, so it's a complete crapshoot whether your Amazon parcel is going to go around the world again.
Toll have tried to emulate this with their ParcelPoint system but there just aren't as many locations.
Amazon could seriously shake things up by launching Flex plus Lockers at the same time here. Flex would cover the rural areas quite well where the nearest courier depot is 1+ hours away (or more in WA, I'm sure)
1: http://auspost.com.au/annualreport2014/parcel-services.html but declining because our economy relies heavily on digging stuff up and selling it to China.
[1] I'm aware of Amazon Locker, but I don't live in Seattle, the Bay Area, or Manhattan; and dealing with yet another pickup point for a specific merchant just seems like an annoying hassle.
> What kind of things will I deliver? You’ll deliver ultra-fast Amazon Prime Now packages.
If you're ordering something for ultra-fast same-day delivery, surely you know precisely where you want it delivered to at the time of ordering?
I see this becoming more like China -- which has a truly impressive courier system. There there is no branding or uniforms for the most part. Just guys on scooters who ring up and drop off your package. It works great.
Oh, and it's shit. Order next day delivery at 9AM Monday? Delivered 7PM Tuesday! Get it Wednesday because the post room in my office closes at 6PM.
Also, I live 100 yards from Currys/PC World and they're actually cheaper on a lot of things (which was a bit WTF when I discovered it)
I hang out at coffee shops a lot and often times my bag and clothes end up smelling like coffee. Does that mean they are "damaged"? No. Especially since it's temporary (even more so in the case of the Amazon package, which is disposed of right away).
But they also said that sometimes the contents get smelly. That definitely qualifies as damaged.
Coffee smells come out a lot easier than cigarette smells, and you choose to go to those coffee shops, whereas the person I'm replying to does not choose to expose his brand-new clothes to cigarette smoke.
If I buy brand new clothes and they smell of cigarette smoke out of the package, damned right that means they're "damaged."
And again, cigarette smoke does not necessarily wash out as easily as you seem to think it does.
Would you be as understanding of the driver if he got ice cream all over the clothes instead? After all, wash it and it'll come out.
Also, "foul" is completely subjective in this case. Guess what: I hate the plasticy/industrial smell of certain types of clothing packages. But I'm not gonna go around claiming the item is "damaged" simply because I don't like the way it smells out of the box.
Here is today's 44 post discussion:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/forum/amazon/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_tp...
Amazon won't do anything about it. [I feel] If my last experience with Amazon CS is any indication they'll read a script, and just refund your money. (Not reship.. I've had that issue as well) Also, if you're a prime member and have spent quite a bit of money on Amazon.. They still won't care.
I plan on cancelling my prime membership and seeking out alternatives.
There's an easier solution for this problem: Use Walmart, Newegg etc.
info:
Trying to get any sort of resolution out of Amazon is impossible, as they insulate their logistics department from any customer service complaints. All you can do is point out that it happens nearly every delivery.
Plus it's just plain weird, that some guy in joggers turns up and hands you a package. There's no way to associate the courier as a courier, and as such my first thought is usually "Why does this man have my stuff? Did I just let a random guy into my complex?"
I've put specific instructions on where to leave the package if I'm not there or to give me a call when they've arrived, and so far no problems there. It's pretty easy to associate the courier as a courier since a notification pops up saying the driver has arrived and you can see the person holding a big brown bag with an amazon label on it. Pretty straight forward imo.
So far a much better experience than OnTrac leaving shit wherever they please.
I've also had problems with companies using alternative shippers for cold-packed stuff, presumably because it was cheaper. Then it sat in someone's hot car for 12 hours and was delivered with room temp ice packs. Sure it was delivered on the right day, but not well.
For example, delivery services routinely leave packages at my garage rather than my front door, because it saves them 15 seconds of walking. This is less convenient for me but more convenient for them.
But that's not all! Once they put a package low to the ground and not out of the way, so that when I went to drive somewhere, I backed over it.
I once saw a delivery guy deliver to a neighbor. He dropped the package at their garage door, knocked on the garage door, and left. I assume they are required to knock but it doesn't say where.
And of course because they never knock or ring my doorbell, the only way I know a package has been delivered is if I sign up for electronic notifications, or I discover it on my way out.
In other instances, I've had packages simply delivered to the wrong house, I guess because numbers are hard. Once I had a package delivered to the wrong city.
Usually it works well enough, but there's plenty of room for improvement for me.
I'm in a fairly dense urban area, one of the next-day prime locations. Our apartment gets about 4 packages a week I'd say. Probably 90% arrive on time or ahead. I've had a couple where the driver just threw the package up the stairs to the apartment, instead of to the door. Still, considering the sheer number of packages, I've yet to have a misplaced or stolen package.
They do drop off without ringing fairly often. Personally I don't mind, but it seems like that could be standardized.
The "magic" is the stuff that happens behind the scenes, all of these companies, from the frontline employees to the backend systems have a lot of details.
Examples of why your experience would suck:
- Late packages
- Lost packages
- Stealing of your stuff
- Damage to your stuff
- Lower-tier people learning your habits
- Generally high level of fuckups.
IMO, Amazon's path here is a sign that they are in trouble. In the late 90's, ecommerce players looking to cut costs did stuff like use Airborne Express (later acquired by DHL) and the company that become Fedex Home/Ground. Both companies used contracted out delivery drivers or courier companies, and both were big fuckups.
UPS/FedEx/USPS are pretty efficient at this stuff, so the final frontier for Amazon is exploiting the workforce to cut costs. So you'll have folks driving their mom's car to deliver packages Uber-style, with inadequate insurance and insufficient income to maintain a vehicle suitable for the purpose.
A few times a delivery guy stole my packages (>1000€) and most of the time it gets simply placed in the hallway without further notice...
Insurance covers this, but it's aggravating non the less :\
On the other hand, right now I am waiting on a parcel being delivered by DPD on behalf of Amazon. They have given a one hour window, I can track the location of the van online, and I could have text them this morning to rearrange the delivery of the parcel or provide different delivery instructions. And the drivers wear uniforms!
I really prefer DPD because you can track the vehicle and you also get a delivery slot. Recently, Amazon have delivered some stuff for me via Royal Mail and ParcelForce (I ordered in the week) and whilst the packages did get to my house the next day, the tracking was much less informative/useful than what was offered by DPD.
I'd be interested to read an account of someone who has actually done this "job"* (*technically self-employed, therefore treated like "unemployed" to most financial institutions and don't receive normal benefits like holiday time).
Interesting that one got the mobile numbers of the customers to arrange delivery, while others clearly failed to deliver and then didnt get paid.
Yodel offer 50-85p per parcel: http://codforum.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11911 Amazon Logistics in the UK: http://codforum.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11936
There is also lifestylecouriers.net for anyone who wishes to delve deeper into Yodel, co (requires registration)
In the past, I've had private car deliveries from Amazon, but I think they were generally LaserShip.
Echoing the author's sentiments, I had one delivery guy that looked sketchy. I forgot I was waiting on a package, and a guy showed up in my driveway, idled there for about five minutes (which my dogs alerted me to), then started lumbering up the driveway with a package in hand, smoking a cigarette, which he disposed of in my garden. The guy wasn't obviously from anywhere, in that neither his clothing nor car indicated any company affiliation whatsoever, so I stopped him and asked him his name and employer, and it was LaserShip, not Amazon.
If the rest of their uniform were neutral, it might work out.
Prime is an important part of Amazon's strategy, if they're not going to actually deliver packages properly then they're screwing themselves over.
I'll see how it goes but if there's many more problems I'm cancelling Prime.
EDIT: WTH am I getting d/ved for?
Ether I or my wife buy something once a month 'next-day'. Amazon fail to deliver it, we complain to customer service, and demand a free month of Prime.
Rinse/repeat.
No idea, so I upvoted you.
Now don't downvote me people just because I'm commenting about it. I didn't start it so it's not fair.
i have my packages delivered to a friendly shop nearby - to my house, it's a nightmare.
The collect+ system also works reasonably well, i take that option if offered. (where it's delivered to a local cornershop or similar and you walk to pick it up)
I really feel there should be a gap in the market for "last mile" delivery to be solved properly, but i suspect there's not enough money to slow things down, and residential delivery is inherently difficult anywhere that doesn't have regimented street layouts.
Try addresses for all lo - if no reply, deliver to pre-arranged local shop. Text/email alert allowing redelivery to address or changed address within an hour or two, for a premium fee (bicycle couriers and other instant courier delivery)
that would solve all of my issues anyway..
They provide a one-hour delivery window, a map with local van tracking, and the driver usually arrives in the earlier half of the time slot.
You can choose an alternative date or delivery to a neighbour right until the van rolls up.
Short of Star Trek teleportation or Magic Drone Technology[tm], it's probably as a good a service as it can be.
The only time I have any real issue is when it requires signing for e.g. speciali delivery, in which case I have to go collect it.
Saying that, I did have a delivery (ebay purchase delivered by courier) that was stolen. they must have watched the driver try to deliver and when there was no answer he went to the shop and dropped it off there. a few minutes later someone went in and asked for the parcel and the shop gave it out. not their fault and it should have been signed for so I was able to claim a refund.
AusPost: Our national carrier, realised a few years ago that no one's sending letters any more and "pivoted" to parcel delivery. Parcel Lockers [0] are a "new" innovation here but heaven help you if you try to get a courier parcel into one. Royal Mail = Good, DHL = Bad in this case and you might not even know until the seller receives the parcel back.
Fedex: Sorry, we missed you. (And the nearest depot is 30+ minutes away somewhere where buses don't go and you can only collect after 4 on weekdays)
DHL: Sorry, we missed you.
UPS: Sorry, we missed you (or handed your parcel off to StarTrack, in which case it'll go to a parcel locker, but you'll never know if this is actually going to happen)
USPS, Royal Mail etc: Handed off to AusPost, can go to a parcel locker.
StarTrack: More expensive, more blue version of AusPost - semi private (?), the only courier that AusPost will let into the lockers
Toll: Sorry we missed you, there's a redelivery fee in a lot of cases. Tried to start up a Parcel Locker competitor and then didn't expand to many locations [1]. The website returned 500 errors for the first 6 months of its existence.
Amazon: We're not going to actually tell you who is carrying your parcel because we outsourced it to iParcel who sometimes use UPS and sometimes use AusPost. Send an Amazon (US/UK/DE) parcel to an AusPost locker at your own peril
eBay: Most Aussie sellers use AusPost, so that works, but for some reason overseas orders go through some kind of Pitney Bowes reseller - see UPS, DHL, FedEx, Amazon above.
[0]: http://lockers.auspost.com.au [1]: http://parcelpoint.com.au
They have someone at their office 24/7 to receive packages and another guy that does the "last mile". Once I urgently needed a package that arrived out of office hours on Friday - I sent them an email and they bought it to my house on Saturday. It's awesomely convenient!
But as to it not being the greatest experience, well, yes they are not always as professional as real courier companies. And a lot of the time they've just said "User24?" while handing me the package, so Amazon probably need to put a bit more effort into training. And I wonder how easy it would be to provide fake ID to Amazon and just steal a whole load of admittedly random packages? But, maybe that was the point of this possible trial, to identify issues like that so that the launch experience would be better?
I vastly prefer their own couriers to USPS (the increased usage of which has caused me to consider cancelling Amazon Prime multiple times now -- loved Prime when it was basically all UPS here, USPS finds new and interesting ways to screw up my Amazon package deliveries on a monthly basis).
One day I lost a 512 gig Samsung 840 Pro to this as someone walked off with the package as I was out. Amazon sorted it next day but that's not the point.
Seems on-time or faster with no damage is all that's needed. I prefer not even having to see/interact with a person for it.
At least Amazon customer support is great.