Hacker News Reader

Comment by mradamh | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotally (I know, I know), I've ordered a few things recently from Walmart that were cheaper than they were on Amazon. Each time I received the items multiple days later than what the website told me. e.g. "2 day" shipping taking 4 business days. I've had this happen to me maybe a couple of times over several years from Amazon, but its happened each and every time from Walmart.

View on HN

> Anecdotally (I know, I know), I've ordered a few things recently from Walmart that were cheaper than they were on Amazon. Each time I received the items multiple days later than what the website told me. e.g. "2 day" shipping taking 4 business days.

Meh. Amazon does that to me (yes I have Prime) ~1/4 of the time too, and I don't live in the sticks. They also don't use any of their weird non-FedEx/UPS/USPS handlers here. "2 day shipping" becomes 4-5 business days. At least if Wal-Mart does it I haven't paid a membership fee for the privilege.

The few times that has happened to me (not very often) I've complained and they've been happy to give me a credit for the inconvenience.

You shouldn't have to complain though. Amazon knows exactly when it was ordered, when it was delivered, and the delivery time frame they advertised.

Hah. Imagine the press if they were as customer-centric and data-driven as they are portrayed, and they proactively sent compensation based on their errors of estimation (i.e. customer expectations).

That's horrible business practice, you always count on a certain number of people dropping out, not noticing, and not caring..... it's kind of like overselling seats (free revenue)

So? Reward people for telling you that there are some people who aren't into your thing, but that they did try. This information has value.

"Sorry it didn't work out, here's a coffee!"

I mean, by what standard of "business practice" is this "horrible?" Keep in mind we're in an era of exploding conventions.

They don't do that anymore. They just say "two days is the time in transit not counting weekends" (despite them absolutely delivering on Saturday and sundays.

I literally had someone run into the problem and they received a credit towards their Prime membership. That was a week ago.

I received multiple month's Prime credit for several 'same day' delivery items taking an extra day just a few weeks ago

Amazon does that now as a matter of course - maybe I just manage to order obscure Prime items, but it's common to see the order summary show a date > 4 days out, while having the Prime 2-day shipping also checked.

Same here. It's been a bit disappointing. I've been considering canceling my Prime membership, especially since I don't use any of the other Prime perks. But I'll wait this year out to see if it improves.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com