Hacker News Reader

Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

Amazon bundles Prime Video with next day shipping!

Kind of off-topic, but serious question: How long are shipping times in the US if you're not on Prime? I'm in Germany, where basically any domestic mail and parcel arrives within one day of sending it off (unless you're on Helgoland or something). Amazon still wants me to enroll in Prime to get next day shipping, but I don't and still get the item the next day anyway.

Many things with standard shipping and handling take a week or two to get to you.

A letter will take anywhere from a day to 3-5 days in the country, depending on where you are mailing to and from. This is mostly due to the expanse of the country. Boxes generally take a bit longer, and you pay for priority instead of just waiting until their load is big enough. In addition, a good number of places only work during the week to ship it out. This along with other upfront delays make it go a bit longer as well.

Oddly enough, sometimes you get packages from overseas before you get a domestic package, even though the quoted mailing time was longer.

Prime customers get priority shipping in Germany which most often means that you receive your order next morning even if you have placed the order only late afternoon. Rarely happens when you're not on Prime.

That depends on where you are in the US relative to where the good you want is stored. One thing to remember is that the US has 26 times more land mass than Germany[1]. But in general, it's 3 to 5 business days.

[1] http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Germany/Uni...

I don't know that land mass has all that much to do with it. Even in-state mail usually seems to take at least 3 business days if you're not paying extra for the rush.

I have the opposite experience. In fact, I stopped using Priority Mail because regular First Class tends to be at least as fast, generally next day within 100 miles or two days almost anywhere within California... for 49 cents.

(First Class Mail package is a little over $2 for 2 ounces.)

The value for a lot of people, myself included, is achieved without the video, music and books. If they went away tomorrow, I would still keep prime for shipping alone.

In the US, I feel this is no longer worth it. I've found a lot of people attached to Prime for the addon services, but I wouldn't pay for Prime now that Walmart offers free two day shipping for orders over $35.

Nearly as good as Prime, no subscription. I've almost entirely switched from Amazon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com