Amazon’s “Two-Day Shipping” Is No Longer Two-Day Shipping
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I no longer trust Amazon's committed and communicated delivery dates.
I suppose I could be all pro-active and self-advocating and repeatedly complain until I get some credits or whatever -- or at least an acknowledgment of the individual situation.
But, that's not really the point of Prime, is it? It's supposed to reduce my hassle.
Not this year, Amazon.
Maybe before you continue your relentless expansion, you should shore up your extant services that built you your current position.
As for me, I'm debating whether I allow or kill my 12/1 Prime auto-renewal.
It's also more than a bit insulting to see new members getting Prime sign up deals for $80, year after year, while you're charging me $100. Who's been the loyal customer? Are you focused solely on growth? Are you such a "monster", "too big to fail", that you don't need to and don't worry about retention?
I'm starting to more actively consider and use alternate purchasing vectors, despite Amazon's erstwhile convenience and payment data security.
P.S. The Bluetooth speaker I order came with a small dent. A lot of items now ship "rattling" around inside a poorly packed shipping box. And the Amazon Basics USB C cable whose page says it supports fast charging, doesn't.
My Amazon experience has been increasingly crappy. The one thing that's improved is that Prime video doesn't pixelate and stutter especially after first starting, like it used to.
Well, that's disappointing. Myself, I find myself being notified of the delay almost immediately. Let me walk you through it: 1. Page for the item says, "Order in the next 4 hours and get it by Tuesday". 2. Sounds sweet, I really need it by Tuesday. Order now with 1-Click, please 3. Email shows up seconds later: "Your item will arrive on Wednesday!"
Fuckers. That's not a one-off, either, I'm finding it to happen pretty regularly these days.
Sometimes I can get it isolated to one of the items in my cart, although it can't remember if they then came from different warehouses.
Don't know about this being a Dark Pattern, though, vs. Amazon regressing to the mean, as others have noted in this context in other HN discussions, there are bound to be consequences to treating your technical staff horribly, with search's eternal awfulness being front and center.
I don't know, either. Frankly, of late I'm content to write it off as either apathy, incompetence, or left-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-right-is-doing.
In the end, I don't care other than intellectual curiosity so that I don't slide into the same cesspool in my work. What matters, in a world of nearly infinite online vendors, is Amazon's reputation. Without that, they're nothing in my book. And in my book, Amazon's reputation isn't anything near what it was ten years ago. Nothing major, I guess, but that reputation is being chipped away one hammer stroke at a time. Knock-off items, okay, I can mitigate that. Blatantly lied about when my item will be delivered? Bah, I grew up in an age of "allow 4-6 weeks for delivery", one more day won't kill me. But those things start to add up. Which is why I continue to seek out other vendors, and don't see myself doing much business with them in the next couple of years.
I still have a higher trust in them than pretty much any other general on-line merchant (a finely honed BS detector and general suspicious nature about anything "too good to be true" makes a difference, plus watching my father get burned on an iPhone purchase on eBay where the merchant played eBay like a fiddle) ... but they're getting me to start to look at others, which is not what I think they want....
I feel like this comes up a lot with subscription pricing. Is it not enough that they try to continually add value to the service despite the issues they encounter?
Since we are otherwise treated the same, I and other existing members are essentially subsidizing that intro rate. For a system that, per my complaints above, is becoming worse rather than better while taking on those new customers.
Also per my original comment, keep the stuff you're already doing working and working well, before adding on the new stuff.
Maybe the new stuff attracts new customers. But the worse stuff is pissing me -- Mr. Retention -- off.
We get stuff on Sunday, but it's now delivered by a truck/van with an Amazon logo on it.
Maybe what we are buying, but things ordered via Prime are here in two days. Most recent was bathroom fans. Builder on Friday said the ones we ordered wouldn't fit, ordered the smaller version, said come back Monday. UPS dropped them off at 10AM and they were installed by noon.
I live in Redmond, WA. Someone with a good arm could throw a rock from here to Amazon HQ. I've probably also done the most complaining on this thread. Make of that what you will, because I sure can't make anything of it. :-)
According to the site 2 day shipping is 2 days from the time of shipping. It does not mean it will get to the purchaser in 2 days - Saturday and Sunday don't count.
Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
Anyway I look at it, prime works for me. I've even gotten stuff next day even though they predicted more days. It's amazing since sometimes it takes me few day to get to my local target to get the stuff I need.
>If the item you're ordering is out of stock or unavailable to ship immediately, the shipping method time starts when the item ships. For example, it will take two business days after an item ships to reach you with Two-Day Shipping.
Simply put - the item does not ship immediately. If you read the 'Guaranteed delivery date' message it gives you an "If you order in the next x hours and y minutes". That is when the shipment is expected to be made.
Why are the boots 4 day shipping? Because the next guaranteed delivery time is in 61 hours (>48 hours, so 2 days to ship then 2 days to deliver = 4 day delivery). If it was "in the next 73 hours" it would be a 5 day delivery.
The exploding kittens is 3 days because the order is within the next 24 hours. I wager if they waited 17 minutes one of two things would happen: it would estimate 2 day shipping or the date would be pushed back an additional 24 hours (never falling under 24 hours).
I imagine this is because the companies selling these items can only guarantee shipment within 24/48/72 hours of receiving an order. If they set this to 72 then "2 day shipping" is really 4-5 days.
My personal experience, nearly all of my 2 day shipping comes within 2 days, even when the guaranteed date is 3-4 days out. Items with 12-15 business day shipping often arrive in just a few days. I'm a bit forgiving when my 2 day shipment comes in 3 days when my 2 week shipments frequently come in 3-5 days...
And also direct from / Fulfilled by Amazon.
It is two day shipping. Starting from the time it ships which they calculate using the guaranteed delivery date. Often the delivery date is "sooner" rather than "later" but they're only going to guarantee the "later" date and not the "sooner" date for obvious business reasons.
While it is technically correct it isn't how people talk about shipping. Overnight means overnight to people - not overnight after I decide to ship it 3 weeks late. Which is why I agree it is a dark pattern. I imagine "Quick shipping" (no promise of X-day) doesn't market nearly as well.
E:
I'd like to make it clear I'm not meaning to defending the practice... only explain it. It seems very logical to me - even if confusing and unfriendly to many users who expect "2 day shipping" to mean "arrives in 2 days".
"Guaranteed delivery date: Dec 2, 2016 if you order in the next 9 hours and 27 minutes"
With this it has "2 business days FREE Two-Day Shipping" selected. As of now, there are four business days (inclusive of delivery date, but not of today- the window listed above).
What makes it worse:
"One day shipping, Wed Nov. 30"
So "one day shipping will be Wed Nov 30, but two day shipping will be Fri Dec 2"?
Note that now they don't even mention "get it by" for anything other than one-day. I get the following:
- Wednesday Nov 30 - $11.97 - One-Day Shipping
- 2 business days - FREE Two-Day Shipping
- 6 business days - FREE Two-Day Shipping
- 7 business days - FREE No-Rush Shipping Get a $5 credit for Prime Pantry.
No idea why anyone would choose 6 day delivery given the choice between 2 day and 7 day (plus credit).
9 hours = ships tomorrow. So 1 day shipping from tomorrow = Wednesday. But using my assumption above - the two day shipping would be Thursday, not Friday.
For example for the boots:
One-Day Shipping -> 1 day of processing + 1 day of shipping = 2 day turnaround
Two-Day Shipping -> 3 days of processing + 2 days of shipping = 5 day turnaround
Amazon Prime simply cannot scale at the given price point. People who place >= 100 orders a year are paying <= $1 per shipment. The $100/year Prime subscription is not sustainable if people use it. I'm sure they claw back a significant profit from people who buy Prime and then only order 10-20 times a year, but it's possible it doesn't earn back what excessive users are costing them.
Is it a little shady that they offer 2-day shipping with caveats? Yes. They should either make it much more clear that there are no guarantees, or increase the cost of heavy Prime users to be profitable enough to scale it properly.
It is all third party now. Rarely delivered by Amazon...
Give your head a shake man.
If we pay for 2-day shipping and the service isn't being provided as promised that's IS the topic, not whether you care about the arrival speed or not.
Not everything is about you.
Like OP, I don't care if it's 2-4 days; I can order from the iOS app with a few taps, and that's worth not ever having to shop other online retailers or drive to a store.