I am wondering if the Prime shipping infrastructure is the cause of this...everything is faster now, and it would cost money to artificially slow non-Prime shipments down, so they get the ancillary benefit of Prime-ish speed.
I am wondering if the Prime shipping infrastructure is the cause of this...everything is faster now, and it would cost money to artificially slow non-Prime shipments down, so they get the ancillary benefit of Prime-ish speed.
The advantage of Prime is really that you can have everything shipped for free without worrying about minimums. Well that and all the other perks, like streaming video, photos, etc.
They now have warehouses located within 1 day ground shipping distance of everywhere in the continental US. It's not that hard, I doubt they need more than a dozen locations.
That said, and I have run into this, if your item isn't commonly ordered and is in one of the warehouses that isn't close to you ... they will adjust the delivery date and still ship it to you over Ground. I have called to complain and they said that Prime 2 Day guarantee only applies to Prime items that are geographically close to you. If it it's a Prime item and for whatever reason it has to travel pretty far to you, no 2 day delivery. I've had items arrive a week after order and they still considered that OK and quoted some legalese. Now, this happens rarely, but it does happen.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...
There's nothing in there about it being different if it's not close to you. The only exception to "two days" is the typical "it's business days, not actual days" exception, and an exception for stuff that can't be sent right away.
If they are indeed behaving as you say then it's a flat-out lie. The advantage of Prime is, as stated, that you can have everything shipped for free without worrying about minimums and get it fast.
http://smile.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId...
The first line is very important: "Items sold by Amazon.com that are marked on the product page and at checkout."
Emphasis mine. As an example, I ordered a Logitech Mouse. The item was listed as Prime. It was shown in stock. It showed a guaranteed delivery date within 2 days in the item page. I simply ordered and didn't pay attention to anything else.
It showed up a week later. When I called, it was pointed out to me that the "guaranteed delivery date" that matters is NOT on the item page. It's on the checkout page and those emails they send you after you order. They were correct, the email I got said a week later ... of course, I didn't pay attention, because most things come in 2 days and the item page did say it'll come within 2 days time before I ordered.
Is that false advertising? Sure. I forgive them.
I've also ordered Prime items that were listed in stock and had a guaranteed delivery date on the item page, but then mysteriously went out of stock later and simply weren't shipped at all.
I order a lot. Maybe 2-3 items every week. This has happened only a few times. With the breadth of their operations, these hiccups are understandable. I did manage to get a few 10 dollar credits once in a while, but sometimes they just refuse to own up to it and tell you to get lost.
* Prime
* "Want it $DayOfWeek, $Month $Day? Order within XX hrs XX mins and choose..."
where "$DayOfWeek, $Month $Day" is 2 days away and I've bought it and it didn't show up until 4,5,6,7 days later. Same thing with the email. It's not "sub-par UI" it's very clearly designed to make you think... no fuck that, it's not just "thinking" they TELL YOU when you will get it and even give you a countdown to "lock in". It's not even deserving of "shitty UI" if they can't honor that text they shouldn't show it. Period. You can't lie on your product page then turn around and point to emails no one reads confirming my purchase. I buy prime because I know it will get here within 2 days and if I can wait (which I normally can) then waiting is worth not having to deal with more shit traffic and going to the store. If it's not going to be here in 2 days I need that in FLASHING RED LETTERS, sometimes I will still be fine. Sometimes, like when it's medicine, I need to know it's not coming when I expect it.
I've had times I've ordered something with the text from above, it not showed up after 2 days and then Amazon telling me it won't be here for another 3-4 days when ON THEIR WEBSITE it still say's "Want it $nowPlus2Days? Order within...". That's bullshit.
All of that said I love Amazon and this inconvenience is minor compared to the value they provide. I just wish they would be a little more honest on the product page. They KNOW this is happening but are choosing to do nothing about it, that really disappoints me. I expected better from Amazon.
I suppose I could be wrong here, so I apologize for doubting you, but next time that occurs double check that you bought from the same seller as the Prime seller that's listed when you go back to check. I still suspect you are getting lost in the UI. Specifically, I think you may have bought from Seller Y, which when you checked out specified was not Prime, and then when you went back to the same exact product page you saw Seller Z offering 2-day prime. I've seen lots of people get tripped up by the way Amazon displays multiple vendors selling the same product on the same page. Vendors will go back and forth competing on pricing, so often the "main" seller that's listed on a product page will continuously switch among several sellers.
When I had this happen to me, the orders were NOT from a 3rd party seller. They were directly from Amazon proper. This is not a UI issue.
I accept that it happens, but if it does then they are outright lying when they talk about what they offer, and because they are offering two-day shipping then Prime definitely does have everything to do with it, even if they might try to back out of it sometimes.
Not quite. Hawaii and Alaska are explicitly excluded from Prime's 2-day shipping.
Amazon does not have a warehouse within 1 day ground shipping of me in Minneapolis, MN. I think the closest is Indiana which is 2 day ground shipping. There is a lot of the continental US that is not New York or California. Amazon still has more work to do cover all of if they want 1 day shipping everywhere. Now, they are planning on building a warehouse about 90 minutes of the Twin Cities so we will be within 1 day shipping in a couple years, but how many other metropolitan areas are outside of 1 day?
Here is nice little map from UPS to figure out shipping times. If you put in 55414 as the zip code (Minneapolis), UPS only considers Minnesota and Wisconsin as 1 day. Hell, If I am reading these maps right, Chicago is just at the border of 1 day and 2 day ground shipping from Indiana, the closest warehouse.
http://www.ups.com/maps?srch_pos=1&srch_phr=time+in+transit+...
I think that Amazon is already doing some transportation, some of my purchases during the last winter holiday came from the west coast but did not appear at UPS until Kentucky.
Only couple of times, I think, the packages got held up for weather or errors, and I just sent them back without a hitch (they were too late to be useful).
It feels like, since I'm so close to a distribution center they can only make Prime worth my while by sitting on the packages longer unless I pay them. And probably the only time I paid extra to have something next day they botched it.