Amazon lowers free shipping minimum back to $25

I'm not sure if the following is only for Prime Members or not, but I have noticed that Amazon will sometimes ship multiple items from the same order on different days or by different carriers. Even if you add an item or two to reach the $35 minimum for a 1-day or same day delivery, the added items might not be in stock at you local warehouse and thus will probably ship in their normal time frame. For example, one item is listed as same day delivery, but a second item is listed as 2-day delivery. So in other words, Amazon will go ahead and honor the same day item delivery rather than wait and ship it with the 2-day item. Just because we place multiple items in a single order doesn't mean they will ship the same day, by the same carrier, come from the same warehouse, etc. It is better for Amazon to combine items into a single box, but they cannot always do that.

[JoHunt]

I placed an order with free shipping (no Prime) on Monday, May 22 and today on Friday, May 26 it still has not shipped. All items are shipped from and sold by Amazon. Any other large retailer would have had the order in the mail by now. Unless the price is really good, I'll be shopping elsewhere from now on. We should not be penalized for not being a Prime member.

[tdonline]

Originally Posted by JoHunt

I placed an order with free shipping (no Prime) on Monday, May 22 and today on Friday, May 26 it still has not shipped. All items are shipped from and sold by Amazon. Any other large retailer would have had the order in the mail by now. Unless the price is really good, I'll be shopping elsewhere from now on. We should not be penalized for not being a Prime member.

Amateur.

I placed my order on May 16 and it's just shipping today. Give it another 5 days

[Kolja]

My only problem with Amazon Prime shipping has been when an item was turned over to USPS to deliver. On 2 recent occasions items scheduled for delivery on day 2 per Amazon were not delivered by USPS. On one occasion the USPS mail carrier even lied and said a delivery attempt was made at 11 PM but my mailbox couldn't be accessed (standard unlocked mailbox at outside entrance). No delivery attempt slip was left and as I was home at the time I (or my dog) would have heard someone trying to open my mailbox.

[tdonline]

Like USPS makes deliveries at 11PM...

Amazon is promising delivery by 8pm tomorrow...

They must have a warehouse nearby if that's the case.

Edit: There's an Amazon facility in Baltimore.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Kolja

My only problem with Amazon Prime shipping has been when an item was turned over to USPS to deliver. On 2 recent occasions items scheduled for delivery on day 2 per Amazon were not delivered by USPS. On one occasion the USPS mail carrier even lied and said a delivery attempt was made at 11 PM but my mailbox couldn't be accessed (standard unlocked mailbox at outside entrance). No delivery attempt slip was left and as I was home at the time I (or my dog) would have heard someone trying to open my mailbox.

My local Post Office does this all the time when something is scheduled for Sunday delivery. They enter it as an attempted delivery and state no one was home, which I find amusing since they are happy to dump stuff right in front of the door any other day of the week, and even more amusing since I am pretty much ALWAYS home. So I usually contact Amazon to tell them that the Post Office is lying again, Amazon then lights a fire under USPS and 9 times out of 10, they send a truck out with my stuff that same day, or first thing the next morning (instead of sending it out with the regular mail delivery).

Amazon has been using their own delivery service more and more in our area lately. We have one warehouse within an hour drive time and the big one in KY is same-day close. It's mostly orders coming from the West Coast warehouses that end up coming via USPS.

Some carriers are better than others. Here in my area, USPS has actually become more reliable than FedEX and UPS. USPS used to be the worst around here. And a lot depends on the delivery person. There is one woman USPS delivery person who has to be watched carefully. I've met her at the door a few times after reciving text messages that my package is out on the vehicle ready for delivery, but she doesn't bring it to the door with the rest of my mail. When I ask her about it, she gets a puzzled look, then says it might be in the truck. Obviously she is not very organized, as it is in the truck and she does go get it. I haven't seen her in weeks, so maybe she got reassigned or fired. At any rate, that is not Amazon's fault.

I agree that if Amazon has items in stock then they should ship them within one or two business days even for those who are not Prime Members. Prioritizing shipments is one thing, but making people wait that long is ridiculous when nearly all other major retailers ship within one or two business days. Does Amazon take that long to ship orders when you have to pay for shipping? I'm talking about orders that Amazon ships and not a 3rd party retailer selling on Amazon.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

Amazon has been using their own delivery service more and more in our area lately. We have one warehouse within an hour drive time and the big one in KY is same-day close. It's mostly orders coming from the West Coast warehouses that end up coming via USPS.

We sometimes get Amazon Logistics as the delivery service. Usually it comes late when they deliver. That's why I don't like them to deliver.

[JSWolf]

Newegg is better at shipping than Amazon.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I agree that Prime is best for those of us who order a lot over the course of the year. If you only place 10 orders a year, and you don't have any interest in the other perks of Prime membership, then it simply isn't a good investment. However, for me it is a good investment.

Prime is my streaming video service; I don't subscribe to Netflix or Hulu. So it's well worth the $99 yearly fee for that alone. When you add in all of the other perks that come with membership, it's a super value for me.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

My local Post Office does this all the time when something is scheduled for Sunday delivery. They enter it as an attempted delivery and state no one was home, which I find amusing since they are happy to dump stuff right in front of the door any other day of the week, and even more amusing since I am pretty much ALWAYS home. So I usually contact Amazon to tell them that the Post Office is lying again, Amazon then lights a fire under USPS and 9 times out of 10, they send a truck out with my stuff that same day, or first thing the next morning (instead of sending it out with the regular mail delivery).

My post office also lies to me all the time about attempted delivery. The letter carrier is great and reliably delivers small packages, but anything that comes on the truck is hit or miss. Either it comes early in the day or not at all--I think once it's the end of the day, the driver doesn't bother with whatever's left in the truck and just scans them as attempted deliveries--I'm at home and there's never any notice left in my mailbox, as there should be, yet the tracking info shows an attempt. The local post office supervisor absolutely denies that this happens, yet it repeatedly does.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Catlady

The local post office supervisor absolutely denies that this happens, yet it repeatedly does.

A typical government bureaucrat.

In my area we have actual USPS employees and also we have contractors. The contractors don't seem to last as long, don't seem to give a crap, and they often bitch about everything. The last house I lived in they dinged a neighbor for having their mailbox one inch too low. That home owner had to install a new mailbox at the curb simply because the contractor didn't want to reach 1" lower. Once they dinged me and a couple others on the street because the numbers on the mailboxes were not large enough or were faded. I think all of this was because some of us had complained to the local Post Office about poor service. I saw the contractors on multiple occasions put notices in my mailbox that they tried to deliver the package but no one was at home. I was standing right next to the mailbox one time that she did that. I got mad, drove the 4 miles to the Post Office to pickup my package, asked to speak to the manager, and lodged a big complaint. Others did too. After that the contractor started the retaliation campaign. I then went back to the Post Office and had another long talk with the manager, and after that we never saw that contractor again.

Since I moved 10 miles to another town, I haven't had any issues with the delivery folks from the USPS. But here we have actual USPS employees and none of those darn contractors. And they deliver right to our front porches too. None of that drive up to a mailbox at the curb crap like they did in the last town. And definitely none of that centrally located wall of mailboxes like they do in some newer suburbs. We get the good old fashioned mail delivery person walking up to our door with the mail and packages.

As far as Amazon's own delivery, they contract that out to other companies. A few months ago they had a news story on the local TV stations about a crooked company owner who was not paying his employees. He would hire contractors, but never pay them. So he got a reputation for losing most of his new employees in a month or so. Amazon discovered what he was doing and cancelled their contracts with his company, but no telling how many deliveries got screwed up by that crook's company. I think he was contracting out to Amazon in several large cities around the country. So contractors can be a PITA too. At least Amazon tries to react quickly and get rid of bad ones.

[JSWolf]

I once had a major issue with with a UPS home delivery driver. At the time we lived in apartment. We were at home and the driver didn't ring the bell. The package was just put in the public entrance and it ended up being stolen. We were very lucky. It was something we needed by a specific time and the seller was able to make a new item and get it to us Fedex overnight in time. But that was not a good experience. Lazy shit almost screwed us over.

In the UK I've read of people buying cameras because of Yodel (delivery service) so they can prove the driver was at fault for whatever went wrong. Also, I've read that some won't order online from a shop that uses Yodel. in thye UK, the best delivery service is DPD. They actually text you with a 2 hour windows and you can track where the driver is with your package.

We lived in a condo in the US and we've had the pink slip (USPS) in the mailbox when the package didn't fit and yet someone was home.

Sometimes getting a package delivered is a crap shoot.