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Comment by patejam | Hacker News Reader

I haven't had this experience at all. Prime ships in two days almost always. Same day prime does was it says. I've had refunds without having to ship back products, and when I did have to ship back a product (shoes) I got the refund right away and free return shipping like they advertised. I'm also in a major US metro area.

Prices don't seem too bad. My latest purchase was head and shoulders. Looked up the price at Walmart and it was 10 cents more expensive than Amazon. This is my experience for most home goods. For anything not home goods, they're certainly cheaper than any in-person store that I can think of.

I'm not sure which of our experiences is the outlier. One thing that might be different is that almost all my purchases are Prime shipping items.

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In the UK Prime was supposed to be 'next day' but this seems to have slipped back over the past year or so? My pet gripe is the 'preparing for dispatch' black hole that generally (in my experience) means 'you're going to be waiting a long, long time'.

Recently ordered a keyboard in UK to be delivered to Spain. Despite being in stock it stayed in 'preparing to dispatch' for a week and I couldn't cancel.

In frustration I ordered another one thinking I could just refuse to accept delivery of whichever didn't arrive first and get a refund.

Sure enough, that time I left the office for half an hour I returned to find two packages on my desk waiting for me :)

The service you experience with Prime definitely depends on where in the UK you live, or rather where the item is going.

I live in a city centre, within 50 miles of an Amazon distribution centre, and it often offers me same day delivery. Like, order at 3am, items arrive at 8pm.

But if I change it to my parents' address (more remote but still in civilisation), it takes them 1-2 days to deliver.

They were just trying to batch process ;)

I recently moved from being twenty miles from a distribution center to the middle of nowhere.

After eventually getting annoyed enough to contact Amazon, it was explained that Release Date Delivery and Prime 2-Day Shipping aren't actually guarantees.

And that mostly lines up. When I lived next door they were super fast to refund instantly. Now that I don't, they are a lot less likely. A proper return and refund is the same, but just a "So... where the hell is my coffee grinder that I ordered last Friday?" exchange results in "It is on the way. You might see it Thursday" response.

I still prefer Amazon and still go for prime shipping products (it is still worth it price wise), but I am a lot less likely to buy time sensitive stuff through them anymore and a lot more likely to just go with the "I don't care when it gets here, give me some store credit" shipping.

There is a bit of compensation available. If an item doesn't arrive in 2 days you can request a free month of Prime:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

"If you received free shipping through Amazon Prime, you may be eligible for a free one-month extension when the promised delivery date isn't met. Prime Extensions are limited to one per free trial and 12 for an annual membership. Free Amazon Student Memberships do not qualify for this extension."

Just contact support about that order and tell them the item didn't arrive in time and you'd like your free month of Prime. Since they switched to the Amazon delivery service I'm about to max out my 12 free months.

I am aware of that. The fact of the matter is that I don't mind too much (small towns are great for lowering your expectations when it comes to quality of service...). I can afford amazon prime annually and even just not having to care about making a 20 buck order for free shipping (let alone the video on demand stuff) is worth it to me.

I just recall doing a quick chat to ask where my video game was when it was a day after release and getting offered a full refund and blah blah blah. And now? It can be three or four days outside the window and I just get a "it'll be there eventually"

And I know it is definitely regional as I have had a few friends back where I used to live who still got the borderline obsessive offers of refunds.

Huh, interesting. I (and my wife) have contacted Amazon a number of times about shipping estimates being off/wrong and have only ever received the same form response (even when we respond to the form response, CS reps just mail back the same form response again). I'll keep this in the pocket for the next time it happens.

I'm not positive, but I think you specifically have to ask for it. Before I found that the best I ever got was a shipping refund if I paid for the 1-day upgrade.

Now I just quote that line and paste the link and it's always approved. They usually act like it's only done as a customer retention move and at the discretion of the support rep.

I pretty much only get two day shipping if I go into the chat and ask for it. Been a Prime member for years; I just went to look at some more baby stuff being sold by Amazon - overnight is guaranteed by Tuesday, 2 Day Prime Shipping is Thursday. Amazon is pretty good about "making an exception" if I open a chat with a rep and call them on their bullshit. I make four or five Prime purchases a week, and rarely do my goods get a guaranteed date of 2 days. (They often show up in two days, but that's not the same thing.)

I have. Many items are "Prime (ships in 3-5 days)". Seemingly at random, be they big or small (I usually shop more in the electronics and household sector).

I also live ~15mi from an Amazon distribution center, and ~50 miles from a second.

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