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Comment by nataz | Hacker News Reader

Amazon shipping hack - order what you want to order, wait 48 hours to see if it ships, and if it doesn't cancel and order elsewhere.

This assumes you value ordering through Amazon (I do b/c prime shipping, easy return policy, and I have a large gift card balance)

One thing I've noticed is that amazon may list a delivery date far out in the future, but it's possible you still get the product quickly, depending on what I can only assume are local warehouse logistic issues.

Over the past two weeks I've ordered packing/shipping supplies, a high chair, some electronics, and a board game which all had expected delivery dates of +1 month, and they all arrived in 2 days.

YMMV.

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I've also noticed that if you order multiple items, and one of them has a short shipping time, they'll suddenly ship your other items that are waiting. Presumably if they're all at the same warehouse, and they're already shipping one thing, they put the other stuff in the box.

Flip side is sometimes something that could ship fast ends up being delayed so they can group it with something that comes from a further away warehouse.

That makes no sense. If you order 2 items, and they're in 2 different warehouses, you'll get 2 packages. They aren't going to ship from 1 warehouse to a 2nd warehouse and then bundle them.

In my experience, they are (if more economical than sending 2 packages). That is often one reason when it takes long to ship.

If you are a FBA seller, you can see these warehouse transfers in the event reports often between a new order coming in ("pending") and the order being shipped.

This is obviously more common with slower shipping options - they won't have a lot of time to combine anything with 1-day shipping.

I've also clearly seen the difference myself as a buyer between the shipping options - if I select faster shipping, the items tend to ship quicker but they are split into more shipments more often.

Also, they may do the same when you order a single item as well - they first move the item to a nearer warehouse and only then ship, if cheaper than shipping directly and if they have the time.

> Amazon shipping hack - order what you want to order, wait 48 hours to see if it ships, and if it doesn't cancel and order elsewhere.

Amazon used to have a history of banning 'bad customers' (lots of returns, cancelled orders, etc), is this no longer the case?

Anecdotal but I've cancelled a TON of orders and haven't been banned. Returns I can see, but definitely not cancelled orders.

> I've cancelled a TON of orders

Out of curiosity, why?

Might depend on when you cancel, if you cancel after the order's been dispatched then they return it to the warehouse if possible. That may be treated the same as a 'customer return'. I've done this maybe twice.

It is still the case.

I've done this. It doesn't work for some third party shippers who claim to ship immediately (cancel option removed) even if they don't.

I really wish they could provide more clarity. I haven't tried ordering things that list as May, but browsing items, I randomly see individual items that for some reason have much closer dates. I even saw one with 1-day shipping. It makes no sense to me. I wish they could give a slightly better window prediction than "this may take a month"...

I needed some surge protectors. The ones I really wanted were all May, but then the AmazonBasics one was this week. Hmm...

> I really wish they could provide more clarity.

I'm not sure but I think this is because of some virus or something, from what I've heard

The 10% of items that show as available for 1-day or 2-day shipping are likely the ones in your nearest Amazon warehouse. There's 119 other warehouses products can be in that they would have to ship by UPS/FedEx/USPS instead of a local delivery by their own contracted drivers.

They are shipping "priority items" quickly. Who knows how they determine what are "priority items".

When I ordered hygiene items (shampoo, soap, etc.) they shipped the next day. But my order of kitchen equipment has expected delivery in May (which I'm totally fine with).

This is going to be great, because the last time I ordered soap (in mid February, before most of the lockdowns started), it took Amazon 10 days to get it to me, even with Prime. Looking forward to seeing this improved on my next soap delivery ...

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