[mgmueller]

Interesting development!

As a Prime member, for the last few weeks I often had received my deliveries the very next day, when placing the order early (around noon).

But in the last few days, things have changed drastically.
This seems to be solely a German problem, though.
My last 3 shipments are from Eastern Europe! They take 3 to 5 days! I've never had anything like that before with Amazon.
There was a brief article about this today. Because of the Trade Union Ver.di and the risk of union strikes in their German hubs, Amazon supposedly advised their partners, to make about 30% of their shipments via hubs outside of Germany.
Obviously, Amazon wants to put pressure on the Trade Unions. Something like "we, Amazon, don't need German hubs at all, we can ship from outside Germany".
But, in my opinion, they forget about 2 things:
a.) The German market has tenacious memory. Nokia never recovered from their disastrous retreat from the German plant in Bochum. Nowadays, given the low market share of Nokia, nobody bothers anyway. But back then, about 7 years ago, Nokia had been champion everywhere else, but lost dramatically in Germany.
b.) Ordering standard products (in my case, it's a gaming device, a cover and some memory cards) with a lead time of 3 to 5 days nowadays doesn't make any sense at all. I already had contemplated, whether to go to the Saturn Markt in my neighborhood. All in all, this will take 30 minutes and I can check online the availability of the products in each of their markets. If I frequently have to wait more than 2 days, I'll only order "exotic" stuff that's hard to find elsewhere from Amazon, but for the "standard" products there are tons of alternatives.

And, interesting enough, Amazon in Germany doesn't have any cost advantages anymore.
For the last 15 or 20 products I bought in the electronic markets in my neighborhood, I've checked the prices from Amazon for comparison.
In most (maybe 75%) of the cases, the prices had been more or less identical. One sales guy even told me, he's checking the Amazon prices at least 3 times per week and adjust the prices in his department (cameras) accordingly.
In the few cases, where there had been significant price differences, I directed the sales people to the Amazon website. With the exception of one case, they reduced their prices accordingly.
So, to me, Amazon solely is about convenience.
But that convenience isn't worth 3 to 5 days shipment.

I'm amazed by such decisions from Amazon. Obviously their pressure on finally generating some profits has increased and forces them to such measures...