Then Amazon would say "Hey, while you're on your way there, mind taking a few packages with you?"
I can't remember the last Amazon package I got that wasn't on of their contract, on-demand drivers. Amazon already gives them packages and the optimal route to take and a pretty good estimate of how long that'll take the driver. They could use that and have the driver pick up/drop off people along their route and know a pretty good time frame the driver would arrive.
At the moment, there are 10 Amazon packages not yet delivered to my house - 4 haven't updated the computer with their shipping information, 2 UPS, 1 USPS, 2 AMZL US, and 1 from a Foreign Post.
> Amazon already gives them packages and the optimal route
Optimized not Optimal route.
Once you make that leap, and commit (via support permissions / manuals / budget) to making that happen, it's a better experience overall.
Not least because then it frees you as a business to what you should be focusing on. E.g. "We paid out $x million because of damaged packages. What can we do in the warehouse side to fix this?"
For instance, I recieved 2 vacuum tubes last night. (I ordered 4), and they came jammed in a huge box with no padding on 2 sides. Already scheduled for return. My return rate must be 1 in 10 these days.
Is their warehouse overhead so low as to cover this long term? I honestly don't know. But I also know I would stop doing biz wih them in a heartbeat if returning things was difficult. I did so with ebay/paypal nearly a decade ago and am happier for it.
The flip side of this is that my wife and I have returned 4-5 packages over the past year, out of 500+...
Its likely that your experience isn't even remotely typical