Hacker News Reader

Comment by dv_dt | Hacker News Reader

Funny that the article mentions that Shein can’t match Amazon two to four day delivery, but at this point Amazon isn’t meeting that for Amazon. Amazon has messed up more orders this year for me than they have in a decade before of using them. I’m actively switching out subscription items just because I’m tired of dealing with it.

View on HN

Same here. Between this and the numerous price hikes I cancelled Prime this past year having been a subscriber for over a decade. The only reason I paid for Prime was the shipping speed and Amazon consistently failed to deliver on that so why keep paying $150/yr for it? It was $50 when I first signed up and felt like it had only gotten worse over the years despite tripling in price. I don't miss it at all.

I now try to buy direct or from mom & pop stores whenever possible and I find that the shipping speeds with UPS and USPS are more consistent and regularly faster than Amazon to boot. For the odd item that I need to buy from Amazon and need it quickly it's much cheaper to pay for one-off fast shipping instead of the yearly Prime fee.

Yup, agree. I know HN is not a complaint forum, but I’m starting to wonder why I still pay prime for 7 day delivery.

I have switched my pets’ orders to Chewy completely. Their deliveries have consistently been 2 to 3 days even over weekends.

We canceled our prime membership several months ago and have experienced zero difference in the delivery times or the benefits from Amazon. It makes me wonder what we were paying for before.

You’re paying for all the bundled crap like Prime Video, Music, Twitch, etc. You can actually be charged more for certain items as a Prime member as well, I guess they don’t need to attract you when you’re already a loyal Amazon customer.

Btw I had to cancel my Prime three times because it kept getting mysteriously reactivated with no action on my part.

7 day?? I get my orders almost always next day at the pickup machine. Even when it says it'll be there in a few days it's usually early.

In Barcelona fwiw

Ditto in Portland, except delivered to my door. It's interesting when these threads come up reading all these complaints, I buy stuff from Amazon on average a couple times per week and never have problems with counterfeits, used goods, not shipping speeds.

12 hours later... I meant "nor shipping speeds". Too late to edit.

Here in Tokyo, it's almost always 2 days for me, and I don't have Prime membership. Sometimes it's even next-day.

It seems like it's only the Americans complaining about shipping speeds: probably a byproduct of the transportation network there being so bad and everything being so spread out. Their other problem is likely bad labor relations and a labor shortage.

Increasingly same day delivery in London.

same here, 1 or 2 on almost all prime orders. Of course I live pretty close to a shipping center, but I figure most americans did at this point.

Maybe it’s your location. Bay Area Amazon is still consistently hitting its one day and two day delivery targets.

The question remains: is amazon the only one that can delivery you stuff that fast? And does it really matter?

> Bay Area Amazon is still consistently hitting its one day and two day delivery targets.

Maybe San Francisco is. The Bay Area in general does not get prime delivery speed, despite Amazon's assurances to the contrary. They don't even try.

Not only that, but Amazon long ago stopped packaging the stuff they ship out to prevent damage to it. Whatever comes from Amazon will come with shipping damage. If you return it, Amazon will ship you a replacement in equally inadequate packaging with similar resultant shipping damage.

If you're hoping to receive an item that meets the absolute bare minimum standard of arriving when the vendor says it will, without obvious damage from shipping, it's necessary to avoid Amazon.

Not in SF city but am in silicon valley.

OK, so? You are not familiar with the state of Amazon delivery in the Bay Area.

Here in Colorado (Denver metro) I frequently get items same-day, though most items are still 1 or 2 days.

I live within a half mile of a distribution center, and I've had missed 1 day delivery targets.

Their distribution network is heterogenous. Not all facilities ship orders to customers. Not all facilities that do ship orders to customers stock all product types and sizes.

Last I checked they were optimized for 2-day delivery. I imagine their 1-day delivery logistics are not quite as robust. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that next day is run by a completely different team.

We used to fairly often get 2 or 3 day delivery out here in the sticks (rural central Kansas). Nowadays I get stuff faster if I order it from eBay. Weird thing is, regularly Amazon doesn't ship my order for several days and then when it actually ships it only takes 2 days to get here.

My guess is that before the order shows as “shipped” in their website, the product is moving through Amazon’s internal logistics network. When to show as “shipped” is a somewhat arbitrary decision when the company runs a sprawling network that delivers to your door.

its probably not about distribution center, but how close you are to major warehouse where they stash popular stuff.

I'm inside the city of Chicago. Used to get ridiculous (like 1 hour) delivery on tons of stuff I ordered from Amazon. Now it's typically a week.

Amazon went from 2 day and often next day for me before Covid to a week at best, with prime.

Walmart free shipping even without Walmart plus is running 1-3 days. I cancelled prime.

That depends entirely on location. I've maybe had one item delivered late in the last two years, and most of what I bought recently has been free overnight shipping.

Yeah, it must depend on location. But I'm in Seattle—Amazon central—and overnight has recently come to mean 3 days or more. Not always, but regularly. This is the year when I started keeping a spreadsheet of the stated delivery dates vs. the actual delivery dates, because they sort of silently update them and I want some sort of evidence that I'm being gaslit. It's not even that I urgently need the packages, it's more that I need a predictable schedule so that I can plan on being home to pick them up.

Also in Seattle - I've never had that experience. Literally ordered something last night with next-day shipping, and it arrived in the early morning. Once in a blue moon something outright disappears, but so it goes with 20+ orders per month...

> Seattle—Amazon central

You need to be near Amazon warehouses, vs Amazon HQ

Or maybe they're short on drivers in your area?

It’s not just location or lateness - though I’ve had lateness on almost every order. I don’t even care if it takes longer it’s if the delivery is estimated for three days, don’t tell me there is a five day delay the day of the delivery.

Last month I had every single subscription switch addresses and had to fix multiple items I didn’t catch - in part because they’ve been coming to my address for a while. And then fixing required that the wrong items arrive before they would be willing to take any action on the problem.

This month I had another regular order and one subscription order get spontaneously canceled and refunded.

It really varies, out here a few dozen miles outside NYC, best I get is 2 day delivery. I used to have next day pickup a few years ago when Amazon had their own lockerbox nearby.

However, last time I ordered something to a relative in NYC, I was surprised to find that they even have same day delivery for many items.

I'm in London, and next day delivery is the norm, with same day delivery increasingly common. Two day delivery is in the "why am I even bothering with Amazon" territory.

Our Amazon delivery people regularly drop off 4-5 orders with neighbours before they get back in their car...

For me 2 day delivery is still pretty good since the alternative tends to be either waiting a week or two, or putting in a lot more time and effort to go get the thing in person (most likely by taking the entire day to go to and come back from NYC).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com