Amazon: Service level declining?

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

I am a Prime member, and I have found that some of my purchases are now taking 3 days to get to me especially when USPS is involved.

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

I have noticed longer shipping times. I have Prime, but if I order on Wednesday evening, I used to get on Friday. Now I get on Monday. Used to get next day delivery on some items, even though I didn't pay for next day shipping, but don't now. This is due to the USPS delivery at the end of the UPS.

Same here. I can no longer rely on 2 days and sometimes pay extra for 1-day shipping now. Prime shipments are coming to me often in 3 days when USPS is involved. I had one prime shipment take a week. Frustrating!

In my area they also use Ontrac for shipments. Ontrac only delivers to 8 Western states, and I've read several complaints on the Amazon forums about their service also increasing delivery times beyond 2 days.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No problems for me in the UK. I'm a Prime member, and get 100% reliable next-day delivery. Service has improved over the last year with the introduction of Sunday deliveries.

To be precise:
What exactly does "next day" mean in practice?
Example:
When ordering around, let's say, 2pm, Amazon easily should be able to ship on the very same day. Let's say within 4 to 8 hours. (I'm stunned, when the info about some merchants states "on stock, processing may take up to 4 days". Why would I wait 4 days for a product on stock? Within a driving distance of 1 hour, I can reach dozens of malls, stores and whatever to buy from, check availability online and take the product directly with me). When shipping on the very same day, at least in a small country like Germany (you can drive from one end of the country to the other within 8 hours), delivery on the very next day shouldn't be a problem.

Meaning:
Ordering Monday 2pm.
Package shipped before Monday 8pm.
Delivery before Tuesday afternoon.

That's what I've had for years in the past, way before Prime. And in the beginning of Prime.
Now, in the example above, it most likely still will be shipped on Monday evening. But I won't receive it on Tuesday, it will be Wednesday. Even a standard letter by snail mail won't take longer than Thursday.

[mgmueller]

I've added a brief poll, multiple choices possible
It's a bit complicated, I'm mixing some topics.
But it should be possible, to see some trends.

In my case:
If I order early, it normally gets shipped the very same day (when on stock, of course). So I don't see the problem in the Amazon warehouses, this still seems to work as usual.
In the past, even before Prime (and in the beginning of Prime), I did receive the delivery the day after shipment. So usually I've got my delivery the day after I had placed the order.
Now this never is the case anymore, I get it one day later.
I'm a Prime member and I experience a decline in service level (time for delivery).

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

When ordering around, let's say, 2pm, Amazon easily should be able to ship on the very same day. Let's say within 4 to 8 hours.

I would never expect an order I placed at 2pm to ship the same day. That's late in my experience in the U.S. Midwest. If I don't get it in before 11:30am or so, I usually don't see it ship until the next day (keep in mind that "shipped" often means "the carrier received the data about your order," so it's not always that newsworthy to begin with). But even so, I've had exactly one (out of many, many) Prime orders take 3 days instead of my guaranteed 2 days; and I've had a handful of next-day bonuses--so I'm ahead of the game! But mostly, my orders are 2-days like clockwork. My stuff (small items mostly) usually ships Fedex Smartpost -- meaning it ships Fedex to a Smartpost hub close by, and then the USPS delivers it the rest of the way to my home.

I had one order ship directly from the Smartpost hub. I'm pretty sure that was some of that predictive shipping to a zipcode stuff that people were talking about a while back. Cool stuff.

But yeah ... two days like clockwork. No complaints.

Growing up in the hey-day of mailing in an order-form and "please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery," I think consistent, two- (and the occasional next-) day deliveries (not just from Amazon, but anyone) are nothing short of amazeballs.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

To be precise:
What exactly does "next day" mean in practice?

It means that if I order before about 4pm, I'll get it the next day.

[pwalker8]

I'm a Prime member as well. My experience is that most of the time, I get very good service. Orders arrive on time, or sometimes even early. Every so often, usually when they use the alternate shipper to save money, I have an order that is shipped and doesn't get delivered until a few days later, but that's fairly rare. If I need something next day, I order it with the 1 day shipping rather than the free shipping.

[soulfuldog]

I'm not a prime member and generally use the free delivery option. Amazon are certainly a little slower in despatching than they used to be. My most recent order was placed on 3 July and arrived one day before the delivery estimate of 11 July, but I've no issue with that as they are clearly trying to promote prime membership. Any time I've ordered something and paid for next day delivery, I've always got it the following day.

[Xanthe]

I'm a Prime member. If I order something Monday, I'll sometimes get it Tuesday, but it's usually Wednesday.

The delays often happen, I find, when UPS delivers it to the local post office for the final leg of shipping (I think this is what they call "Smart Post" shipping). A number of times in this type of situation, I check online and they show that the package has been delivered, when in reality it's still on the mail truck and it shows up the next day. It doesn't always happen that way, which makes me think that there's one Post Office employee who's cooking the numbers to makes sure that everything on his truck is shown as "delivered" at the end of his shift.

I actually got an Amazon delivery on a Sunday one time - first time that ever happened. They used a different third-party delivery service that I'd never heard of before. That was weird, because nothing ever gets delivered on a Sunday - except pizza and Chinese food.

[QuantumIguana]

I've always gotten my Amazon packages on time.

[wawasteele]

I'm a Prime member. I usually have two day shipping without any problems. Occasionally something has arrived in one. Very rarely, will it take three days.

I have an advantage that the various delivery companies will leave packages on my covered, front porch. Weather is not an issue. Also there is no need to bother neighbors or go out and pick up the item if no one is home. We do try to make sure not to order if we aren't going to be home for an extended time, like a weekend trip. We don't want things sitting outside that long.

[AnemicOak]

I've been a Prime member since they first launched it and can count on one hand the number of times I haven't gotten my items within the promised time frame and two of those were this year due to extreme winter weather.

[GeoffR]

Standard shipping direct from Amazon takes about two weeks to New Zealand, and is very expensive. It usually works out cheaper and faster to use a freight forwarder: free shipping from Amazon to the forwarding address in US or UK and have the seperate parcels unpacked and repacked as a single much smaller parcel for shipping to New Zealand.

[drofgnal]

No problem here.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by mgbino

The majority of my problems with Amazon are shipping related. UPS is just absolutely terrible, and they seem to the be the shipping agency of choice when I do 2 day delivery (with Prime).

Agreed UPS can be horrible. If a vendor uses them, I look elsewhere.

[jersysman]

I have seen no decline in service. In fact, it's the other way around. I've been getting orders on Sunday for the past few months and this is so nice. I've noticed any bottlenecks in service usually occur whenever the USPS is involved.