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Comment by tedunangst | Hacker News Reader

They're pretty terrible at it. Whenever I get something shipped by amazon courier, I know it's down to about 50% chance of delivery. "Package was handed to a resident." Yeah, so where is it? "Ask a neighbor." Yeah, right, in a building with 100 residents I'm going to go door to door asking about my package. The "good" days are when they leave it on the sidewalk outside (in a city!) and I notice it's there before anybody else does.

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I've basically stopped using them because of this.

I would shop from Amazon again if I could choose to have something delivered by Royal Mail as then I know it would get to my door.

Amazon did the whole "left with neighbour" thing... but my neighbours are drug dealers and their clients come and go all the time... the packages never turned up and I'm hardly going to go confront the neighbours about it.

I shopped there for convenience, to reduce hassle, and their delivery service increased hassle.

This has been getting progressively worse for me. I suspect it is a known problem at Amazon but I'm confident this is actually an "innovation" of the delivery men. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they are gaming the system by dumping a street or apartment's deliveries all with one resident. They're all so stretched for time that they have to cut corners to meet their targets...

For Amazon they need to find a means of setting humane targets and then finding a way to accurately measure performance of staff...

That's not the Amazon way.

You might be on to something here.

I live in a safe neighborhood, the door and the number are easy to see from the street, so the delivery person should waste no time locating the place. I never had issues with Amazon.

Seems like they're pushing the system a bit too far.

> They're all so stretched for time that they have to cut corners to meet their targets...

> For Amazon they need to find a means of setting humane targets and then finding a way to accurately measure performance of staff...

Yeah, my suspicion is that this is the root cause of my troubles with them. I live in an apartment building, but I have a street-accessible front door, so I have a sign clearly saying to leave packages with the apartment manager in the office. Half the time they just dump the packages at my door anyway, the other half of the time they just dump them at the office's street-accessible door, because they got there when it was closed.

I don't know what's so hard about noting a delivery exception and attempting again the next day. All the other carriers seem to be able to handle that. A few of the drivers have called me for instructions, but it's kind of pointless: the next day's driver is just going ignore all the instructions and dump the package anyway.

It wouldn't be so bad if I could have all Amazon Delivery packages redirected to one of their nearby drop boxes, like I do with UPS. The problem is if I set things up to use an Amazon drop box, ALL my stuff will go there, not just the Amazon delivery orders, and they don't support 2-day shipping. I still want the USPS orders to go to my mailbox, since that's the most convenient option.

They really need to allow users to enter shipping preferences, since not all carriers are the same for everyone. For me USPS and UPS are the best, Fedex and Amazon Logistics are the worst.

Exactly. There's some amazon boxes not too far away, but less convenient than next door. If I could know which service they'd use, I'd tell amazon to put it in the box and have UPS bring it to me. But they don't make that information available.

I've been having tons of shipping problems from amazon, but the carrier is UPS. I saw someone mention here that I can call amazon and have them deprioritize a carrier. Need to get off my butt and do that.

Here the existing courier services won't leave the package with the neighbour or in front of the door even if you ask. The law is such that if they did that (left a package without it being signed off by someone whose name is on that address) I could just make a complaint about it and they would be forced to reimburse me even if in reality I got the package. Because of this all the courier services will call you before they try to deliver anything (most have some kind of automated SMS system in addition which you can use to choose from a few delivery times or redirect the package to another address/work) so that they don't have to make extra trips.

Nordic socialist consumer protection laws are nice :)

> Here the existing courier services won't leave the package with the neighbour or in front of the door even if you ask.

> Nordic socialist consumer protection laws are nice :)

Errr... so a law that I couldn't have a package left on my protected porch I've never had an issue with or with my neighbors with whom I'm friendly, even if I want to, is "nice"? No thanks.

To quote the SMS I got from DHL on Monday, in Denmark:

"Your DHL Express shipment #### from #### is expected to be delivered to you today between 9-20. If you are not at home, you can give DHL power of attorney to deliver the shipment to your address without signature. Reply PROXY and specify location"

Though I actually used their other option, which was to have it delivered to the collection boxes in the nearby supermarket.

I've had other deliveries left with my neighbour, but most seem to end up at the post office.

The issue comes if someone steals it from your porch and then you claim that you never received it. Just having a marking in the delivery system that it was delivered isn't enough proof in court that it actually was delivered and thus the courier company would have to reimburse it. Unless you give them permission to basically sign it in your behalf through giving them the power of attorney.

If you tell Amazon that you did not get the package, they will resend it no extra question asked. If law in Nordic country means that you can get reimbursed for delivered package without lying that it was lost, it's a stupid law. All my Amazon stuff is delivered unattended (~2-4 times a week) and I never had a problem. Not sure why it should be illegal. I would use Amazon way less if I needed to be home for deliveries.

The one doing the reimbursing would be the courier company not the sender as from legal perspective they still have the package as nobody signed it off. Similarly you shouldn't sign a package if it looks clearly damaged on the outside. If you do then getting reimbursement gets harder as the courier company can claim that you broke it after they delivered it.

The system is by no means perfect but I like that it dictates very clearly who is responsible for what/when.

And as pointed out by Symbiote most companies have a way to give them power of attorney to deliver the package without someone signing it.

This is a bit of a silly complaint, you're too scared to knock on your neighbour's door and somehow that's amazon's fault?

I'm having the opposite problem (UK also), my amazon deliveries are fine but roughly 50% of my royal mail post is going missing (bank statements, credit cards, gig tickets). Multiple complaints, nothing has improved.

Sample size of 1 says very little. My big complaint about amazon deliveries is the silly 8-8 time slot they allocate. Who on earth spends 12 hours in one place every day?

EDIT: Nice downvotes. Someone complains he has a drug dealer for a neighbour and that's amazon's fault and somehow that's my fault?

You could choose to have it delivered at a pick-up location.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeI...

If you're living in a bad area, Royal Mail will lose your mail as well.

Royal Mail put things that fit through the door (Amazon will not always do this).

Things that don't fit, Royal Mail will take to the concierge in the next building over (Amazon almost never does this).

The same with me.

Before, my problems were generally when USPS was making a Sunday delivery. They'd often leave the package outside the entrance to my apartment building - otherwise known as "the public sidewalk".

The last few weeks, most of my packages were handled (well, mishandled, to be more accurate) by Amazon's delivery service. I finally cancelled the two remaining orders that were somewhere in transit, and cancelled the auto-renew for my Prime account.

Now, I order directly from shops, and might get a Costco membership for bulk items.

My experience in a single family home is the polar opposite. I always get a txt or polite call (always originating from Seattle, WA) asking if I want them to put the package somewhere in specific or leave it at the door. I've went and spoken with a few of them.

They're far and above better than Fedex / UPS and never throw the packages over my gate into my flowerbeds.

Same here. Amazon has been great.

They also deliver on Sundays and they call me since my apartment building's package room is closed on Sundays.

I agree completely. I usually have the most problems with packages delivered through the US Postal Service and I haven't had any problems to speak of with Amazon delivery.

When I lived outside a major metro area for a couple years (Prescott Valley, AZ for reference), the USPS was horrible there, packages sitting on the mailbox in the rain, delivered literally blocks/streets off of both the address by number and street name... There were a dozen or so times a year we'd get someone else's packages. Actually getting packages from USPS was under 50%. I started having stuff delivered to work, as it was more reliable. And I panicked when I read about USPS doing last mile delivery for other carriers.

I haven't had that near as much in town, but USPS is my absolute last choice in the space.

Here in Hawaii, USPS has been at least as good as any of the other companies, while charging a fraction of the cost. We're talking 1/4 the cost or less, and delivery from most places on the mainland in usually 3 days, maybe 4.

It will vary greatly by area... I haven't had any issues in the Phoenix area... There are still a lot of neighborhoods in Phoenix that still have their mailboxes at the house, not the curb. Though I have friends farther out in newer neighborhoods that have less than great experiences.

This completely. If I order from Amazon and it shows them handing it to USPS, I email/call right away because odds are I will not get the package.

I complained to the postmaster multiple times. Although, as a typical gov. employee, he just laughed and said we do what we want, it is your neighborhoods problem. Eventually the whole neighborhood got together and made some changes happen. It is still not perfect, but better.

USPS is the only carrier that has claimed to deliver a package on the correct day, then actually deliver the next day.--My 2 cent anecdote.

Heh, everyone's experience is different. Until recently Amazon used UPS for everything and I never had a problem. They deliver the packages to the business next door. Just like it says on the sign by the front door.

And since Amazon is incredibly customer-focused, I have an easier time believing the positive anecdotes.

Why do you assume people are lying, just because other people have different experiences than them? It is possible for both to be true. You sound like a marketers dream.

It's still a pretty hard problem to solve, though. My experience is that it's taken Amazon about 3 years to figure out how to do their own deliveries in LA.

The first ones were terrible. They seemed to have no good fallback if the building's gate was locked and nobody was available to buzz them in, and stuff just got lost. They were customer focused, yes, but that just meant they shipped me free replacement stuff with free overnight non-Amazon shipping. Not the best experience overall, though, compared to getting it on the original date.

Fast forward to 2016 and they're pretty good here. Though USPS has been best for my building (and elsewhere people here are talking about USPS being the worst - again, it's a hard problem to solve for every area for everyone).

I've had nothing but problems with them:

* Package marked as delivered on Saturday. Package actually delivered on Sunday.

* Package not delivered because there was no safe place to leave it (there's a sign next to the front door with instructions do leave it in the complex's leasing office across the street).

* Package delivered to my door, despite my door being behind multiple card-access doors.

* Package left at the door to the leasing office, even though the leasing office was open and the lights were on.

These have all happened in the past three months. I'm borderline ready to cancel Prime.

Each of these will get you an extra month of Prime if you complain to Amazon.

Much like a cable company giving you a month of HBO when you complain, I fail to see how giving me more of an unreliable service will fix the broken elements of that service.

Great, except what if I ordered something for a specific date because, you know, I needed it for that specific date? An extra month of Prime isn't going to help me there.

Then enjoy the fact that literally no mailing provider actually guarantees delivery date.

At least Amazon is more than willing to work with you to figure out how they can make your experience more palatable.

Royal Mail offer a guaranteed next day delivery service [1]

UPS in the USA do [2]

[1] http://www.royalmail.com/personal/uk-delivery/special-delive...

[2] https://www.ups.com/content/us/en/shipping/time/service/next...

"The guarantee does not apply when late delivery results ... from events beyond our control ... or the exercise of any lien in accordance with our Terms and Conditions of Carriage."

If you can void your guarantee based on "forces outside your control" in something like shipping, where you're at the mercy of traffic, weather conditions, and human error, it's not really a guarantee.

The UK is a substantially easier country to ship in logistically than the US. I don't doubt that Royal Mail's guaranteed delivery works.

I'm in the exact same boat my prime membership is due next month... May cancel

At least they tend to go good for it when they screw up, without much pushback, in my experience.

Apparently that customer focus hasn't translated into competence in running a residential package delivery service.

I've only had positive experiences. I accidentally screwed up the numbers for the address for a package. UPS and USPS showed up at the address and just returned the package. The Amazon Courier called me to check to see what the real address was.

I didn't order a package from Amazon, but it was shipped from the company to me via amazon. (I refuse to buy from Aamzon) The amazon delievery person ended up putting on the slip "in the flower bed." I've had other horror stories about delivery people being clueless about leaving it, and/or where to leave it.

I've had a lot less issues with UPS than I've had with the Amazon delievery service.

>I didn't order a package from Amazon, but it was shipped from the company to me via amazon.

Are you sure about that?

It sounds like you bought from an arbitrager: someone who's just a middleman, posts something for sale which they don't even have, but at a higher price than some retailer that does. Then, when you buy it, they go buy the thing (on Amazon in this case), use your address as the delivery address, and then pocket the difference. It's extremely common on Ebay and Amazon both, and many other places.

It was the company who made the item.

So here's the thing. I don't want the carrier to call to ask how to deliver a package. I have never had a FedEX or UPS carrier do that, they just put it where all packages for my building are supposed to go.

I've had Amazon Logistics carriers: Be unable to find my door (it's a non-gated, outward facing door in a row-style townhome with street access). Leave things at an _entirely different_ residential complex, whose address matched neither my street name nor number. They've done this twice, and not even at the same wrong complex (the hint is it said "left at reception", and we don't have a reception area). Try to pressure me into letting them just leave something on the sidewalk outside a gated apartment ("would that be safe?").

I'm a Prime addict and I feel like my dealer just started cutting the supply. At least let Prime members opt-out of Amazon Logistics (hell, I'd pay extra in my annual fee to do so).

This isn't unique to Amazon's couriers. I've had UPS leave a package "at loading dock" in a similar row-style townhome with street access. I still have no idea where that one ended up.

Not sure that I've ever had a package delivered by Amazon, but if I did there weren't any problems. That UPS incident is my only personal shipping issue in years.

>>So here's the thing. I don't want the carrier to call to ask how to deliver a package. I have never had a FedEX or UPS carrier do that, they just put it where all packages for my building are supposed to go.

I wish I could say the same. I get calls from UPS delivery guys/gals about 30% of the time because I live in a duplex and my unit faces the alley. So they come in through the main street, can't find "Unit B" and end up calling me. I have to explain to them that they have to enter through the gate on the side.

This one time they left the package in front of the mailboxes, out in the open. When I got home, the entire box was soaking wet from the rain. Gross.

I've gotten a lot of downvotes for this and I'm not sure why. Am I saying something controversial?

People being weird I guess. You just got 2 upvotes from me.

I'm also a Prime addict, and have noticed vast improvements in the past year or so with Amazon Logistics (Bay Area).

Just like you mentioned, it was really bad at first. Packages would routinely arrive late, wrong address, etc. I live in a gated apartment complex and they would always leave the package with the leasing office instead of using the code I provided (UPS, FedEx, would always leave at my door).

Now it is indistinguishable from other carriers, in that all my packages arrive on time, at my door, without any problems.

The only thing I don't like is PrimeNow, which uses 'part time' carriers like Postmates, and they ALWAYS get confused by my apartment complex - so I stopped using it.

PrimeNow in Seattle leverages Amazon logistics -- and it's actually very nice. I've never had a problem with PrimeNow here :)

UberEats on the other hand can never find my house as their routing sends them down an alley that has no street numbers.

I had this problem as well. I used to live in an apartment complex with a key entry that UPS, USPS, and FedEx had access to, but not Amazon. I never knew when they were going to arrive and they kept saying that they tried but couldn't deliver the package (we didn't have a code, only key entry).

Since I couldn't guarantee what carrier would be used, I eventually had to use Amazon Locker only. I live in a house now and no longer have this problem.

Yep. I used to associate Amazon with reliability, but now I'm lucky if a package is delivered at all, let alone to a neighbor or by the "guaranteed" delivery date. I'm seriously considering dropping my Prime membership because it doesn't seem to be paying for anything.

Last week I paid extra to have two packages delivered by Monday. On Monday the expected delivery date had changed to Tuesday; on Tuesday, it was Wednesday; on Wednesday, Thursday; and on Thursday, my packages finally arrived. As far as I can tell Amazon has kept the fees I paid despite failing to hold up their end of the bargain.

Yeah you have to call them to recover your shipping. Don't let them give you a gift card either.

Late one night (like 9pm) I was just arriving home in my car and hit my garage gate when I saw someone with a flashlight at my front walking gate (like 15ft away). I drove in to my driveway while looking at the person, got out of my car and walked back around to see what they were doing. When I got back to the sidewalk they saw me, threw something over my fence, and then ran away.

It was my package, they were the Amazon courier and couldn't figure out how to open my front gate.

It was bizarre.

The problem I see, when its not just a general "fuck you" attitude (common with USPS workers for example) is that a lot of people willing to take these delivery jobs are often from suburban and rural area businesses that take these contracts and hire local talent. These people are not given the appropriate level of training to handle dense urban environments. I live deep in the heart of Chicago and if you leave a package on my doorstep it will either get stolen or opened up to see if anything of value is inside and discarded in the bushes.

I had to put a sign on my mailbox asking delivery people to toss the package over the fence and into my yard if I'm not home. This is basic common sense in a big city. Sadly, its sometimes ignored. I now just deal with work delivery which means a good chance of a package getting lost in 30 floor skyscraper I work in. Its incredible how shitty package delivery is in general.

I use the deliver-to-shop method unless the item is huge. They deliver to a newsagent (grocery store) on the adjacent road and it's always before 7AM. Very nice, though I feel obliged to buy some milk to make up for using the shop as a dropship point.

As I was about the write a reply to this I had one of them come up to the porch at my work. They looked at me through the open door. They looked at the mailbox. Then just put down the package and walked away. It was surreal.

My first thoughts exactly. I think I am below a 50% success rate with them. There was about a week and a half where _none_ of our Amazon orders showed up.

That sounds exactly like my experience with UPS. We are in fact at the mercy of the carrier assigned drivers to ensure our packages' safe delivery.

Some neighborhood are fortunate to have great responsible delivery worker/driver who actually cares about delivering packages safe and sound; but to many of them though, it's just a job.

I've had Amazon couriers lie on the tracking system on more than one occasion. Last week it was "Delivered to resident <name>" at a time I knew everyone was out of the house (I later found the item behind my bin).

I get a month extra Prime each time, but I likely won't be renewing when it runs out.

I really have to wonder here: why didn't they just put in their tracking system, "hid item behind bin"? I don't really care if they hide my delivery, as long as I can find it. It's better hidden than stuck out in the open where someone can easily steal it.

The problem with this anecdote, and many of the comments I see about "Amazon delivery" is it only manages to address Amazon as a last-mile carrier.

If you look at the "Ground Control" infographic in the article, a significant portion of logistics is in the linehaul network: tractors + 53' trailers full of thousands of packages. At the end of the day you don't really know if Amazon, Fedex, or USPS handled these shipments, all you see is the guy who shows up to your door. I imagine there is the potential for huge savings to have Amazon vertically integrate this.

Sure, personalized delivery to your doorstep is a tough problem to solve. But delivery of thousands of packages between point A and B? Not as tough.

I don’t know what to think. I live in Miami, and packages ALWAYS have been delivered here, on time. I’ve been buying from them for five years, two and a half of those as a Prime customer, so it’s clear the are not real differences besides delivery times.

Maybe it’s the state you live in? They have never given anything to my neighbours when no one was at home during delivery, they always tried next day, call or leave a form to schedule next delivery time so someone DOES receive the package.

Can you clarify if this was just typical UPS/Fedex deliveries through Amazon or Amazon Courier service?

Similar experience here, although not as frequent or egregious, it's still noticeably inferior to other means of shipping.

My experience is different and was vastly better than Fedex (UPS/USPS I generally don't have issues with). They have consistently come after business hours so I'd be at home fto receive the package. They even called me once to schedule a time to deliver the package.

FedEx is the only courier I have trouble with. I've never been home when they tried to deliver and they ignore the signed "I accept liability for this getting lost, just leave it leaned against my door" slip.

Going to the distribution center to pick up the package typically entails a 30-45 minute wait. They require both an ID and proof of residence (e.g. electric bill) if the address on your ID doesn't match the delivery address - and of course nobody in line knows about this so you end up spending that 30-45 minutes with a crowd of angry people who can't even pick up their packages.

For the past 10 years, I've used a UPS Store Box (or similar) for as many of my deliveries as possible. They accept any kind of package, and email you when it arrives.

The security and peace of mind is well worth the cost. There are very few packages I need the minute they're delivered.

P.O. Box - same thing. Very few shippers don't ship to a P.O. Box and 99% of those will do it after a polite request.

USPS now allows you to use a street address for your PO Box so it can receive non-US Mail.

I started renting a PO box for deliveries that I can swing by after work. It sucks to have to carry heavy stuff the last mile, but the alternative is just not getting deliveries ever, and I buy most things through amazon these days.

I just order everything that is not too heavy to carry to our office. I never miss any deliveries this way and most of the time the items are small enough to carry in my bike bag.

I totally understand why you'd do that, having considered it myself, but this is a really backwards solution. The article is all about how the last mile delivery is difficult. So the solution is to suck at it until the customer gives up and solves it for you?

I have too many issues with amazon delivery.

In my case when it is raining for example, there is little chance for them to bother with delivery.

Your anecdotal evidence is not representative of all Amazon customers... or even most.

Edit: saw your response, fair enough.

70% of my "one day" prime deliveries result in false delivery attempts -- due to either A1 International, Lasership, or "AMZN" couriers. Reporting these problems to customer service I've been told that they're aware of the problem, so it is definitely happening at some kind of scale.

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