11 ms·

Amazon Seeks to Ease Ties with UPS

42 points by uptown 11y ago

aaronbrethorst 11y ago
As always, click the little link marked "web", and then click the first result on Google.
ghaff 11y ago
Just so long as it doesn't increase USPS share. The USPS (somewhat understandably) hates coming down my long driveway. But, as a consequence, hangs stuff off my mailbox and overstuffs it (even though it's a very large size), leaving it open. In the winter, I've even had packages basically tossed in a snowbank.
- stock_toaster 11y ago
  A colleague at work and I used to joke that part of OnTrac's shipping pipeline must be a giant machine that blows cigarette smoke on packages and kicks them down stairs. Here's hoping they don't start using them more either.
  - jschwartzi 11y ago
    This used to also be a joke about UPS/Fedex, but they've become significantly better.
  - op00to 11y ago
    I have the same experience - any time you see a shady dude in a Jetta toss the package on my porch from the street, you know the whole house is going to smell like cigarettes from the box.
  - xur17 11y ago
    I'm guessing Amazon Flex is what they are planning to use long term.
atomical 11y ago
The bigger problem is that it's taking Amazon longer and longer to ship packages -- unless you have prime. It's not good for the customer.
- stinky613 11y ago
  My Prime deliveries used to arrive in 1-2 days. Ever since they started diversifying their shipping partners, I have been getting my Prime packages in 2-3ish days. I think the real standout was the time where they jammed the package into my vertical-style mailbox on a rainy day, leaving my auto insurance bill soaked beyond recognition. Thanks, USPS.
JoshGlazebrook 11y ago
I've noticed that Amazon really has been relying on USPS more at least for my area (West Austin). I have Amazon Prime, and of the last 10 items I've ordered with 2 day shipping (and even overnight shipping), 9 of the 10 have come via USPS. I would prefer if they would come via UPS or Fedex as the item comes right to my door as opposed to me having to find the time to make it to my apartment's main office during their business hours (they close at 6pm), to retrieve my package.
- pcarmichael 11y ago
  North Austin here - we routinely get packages from USPS intended for other houses. Once they mixed up mailbox keys so we got someone else's packages, and then had to track down whose key they got, then followed the chain to get to our package. UPS and Fedex here have been much much better in comparison.
  - Shank 11y ago
    It's telling that USPS customers regularly experience these kinds of issues. Packages that come via UPS are at least handed off with some care. In my neighborhood, USPS is a lottery if your mail ends up in your box or someone else's.
nkw 11y ago
Now that Amazon is shipping more and more with USPS with their pitiful tracking and erratic delivery, I really don't know why I have prime. It certainly isn't for videos, music, or whatever else they have piled on to it lately. Now that I'm paying sales tax on Amazon orders, if Amazon can figure out same day delivery they will stay my go to place to buy everything. If not they are now the choice that costs more and takes longer.
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  Depending on where you are located, you may have needed to pay taxes all along.
  - douche 11y ago
    Generally the situation is that you're supposed to pay sales taxes, even for out-of-state purchases, but absolutely nobody does. Aside from huge-ticket items like automobiles, where the taxes have to be paid to register with the DMV. A lot of people in New England shop in New Hampshire, to duck the sales taxes in their states.
    - Grishnakh 11y ago
      Oh, I'm sure there's a few goobers out there who actually do dutifully send in their use tax. Maybe even more than 5! This would make a great Onion article. "Man keeps track of all his online purchases and pays use taxes to his state" I wonder what kind of picture they'd pick for the guy in the article.
- jschwartzi 11y ago
  I would for sure pay about $50.00 more a year to only receive packages via UPS. USPS has made some really inconvenient mistakes, and OnTrac has repeatedly left packages in strange locations. Frankly the only saving grace is that I can have packages delivered to an Amazon locker in most cases. Otherwise Prime has become significantly less convenient than it was when it was UPS/Fedex only.
foobarian 11y ago
Funny coincidence, just today an Amazon van delivered some packages to me in Natick, MA. I wonder where the warehouse is; there were a number of blurbs over the last year on different potential warehouse locations. Nothing against UPS but at Amazon's volume it does make sense to integrate the operations. You can imagine all sorts of automation opportunities opening up in the warehouse.
tempestn 11y ago
Like USPS, that probably means more Canada Post for us up here as well. Which is unfortunate, because it's definitely an inferior experience. I've even paid extra for two day shipping before, been told it's guaranteed to arrive on a Friday, and had it not show up. Called Amazon and been told it would arrive the next day, because the carrier unexpectedly had a short day on Friday. (WTF) No package on Saturday, so I call again, and find out it's being shipped by Canada post - which doesn't operate on the weekend, but apparently Amazon didn't know that.
- AYBABTME 11y ago
  Same here, I've been using Amazon heavily for all my purchases and recently they started using less and less UPS to my great displeasure. Canada Post is awful to deal with, I've been considering if my Prime membership is worth it at all. Getting delivery is supposed to be a smoother experience than physically shopping. With Canada Post, or Fedex or Purolator or others, it's not. It's just a major PITA when I have to drive to their distribution center to get a package of soap that I wish they would just have dropped at the damn door. It's weird to me, because Amazon has "Customer Experience" at the core of their values. The customer experience is definitely degrading with the use of non-UPS delivery.
  - tjl 11y ago
    Canada Post is far more reliable for me than UPS. In my building, I've had UPS say that they "missed me", when I know for a fact I was home all day. This has happened on multiple occasions.
larrik 11y ago
I was wondering the other day if Amazon should have just outright bought UPS. I doubt it would be in the public's best interest, but it seems like it would make sense for Amazon. Of course, they seem to be on track to compete directly with them instead. I told my friend a few years ago that Amazon was my best guess for an existing company to become "the company" from the Alien movies (or other corporate future scifi), and it seems more and more likely every year.
- protomyth 11y ago
  I would imagine UPS's union would give Amazon pause.
  - busterarm 11y ago
    The UPS's union is the Teamsters, who Amazon definitely does not want to deal with. The Teamsters have already picked their side in this battle anyway. https://teamster.org/news/2015/06/sinister-motives-lurking-beneath-amazoncoms-minnesota-debut https://teamster.org/news/2015/06/sinister-motives-lurking-b...
  - goldenkey 11y ago
    That union wouldn't allow Amazon to cry workers at their desks over the OLR performance purging process.
    - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
      The UPS Teamsters union represents drivers, not desk workers. There are quite a few non-union employees at UPS.
mabbo 11y ago
If you're interested in being part of developing Amazon's own delivery system (Amazon Flex, https://flex.amazon.com https://flex.amazon.com), the software team is hiring in Seattle, Toronto and I think Phoenix. I just transferred internally to it, looks like it's going to be a fun project. Lots of really great people involved. My username @Amazon.com.
- justicezyx 11y ago
  Despite being a relatively shitty working place, Amazon indeed have so many great opportunities for engineers to explore their interests and skills.
delinka 11y ago
I guess I've just been relying on Prime too much for the last year, but I wonder: is Amazon relying on USPS more often or are other sellers on Amazon's site relying on USPS? I ask because, as an infrequent seller, Amazon's shipping credit barely covers USPS First Class for the Standard Shipping option that most customers choose. I certainly can't afford to lose money shipping on UPS's slowest/cheapest offering instead.
protomyth 11y ago
Its funny how different the delivery companies are to different parts of the country. In my particular area of NoDak, UPS is really good and can find people with fairly vague local directions. USPS is pretty ok, but has absolutely no home delivery. FedEx and FedEx Ground[1] have earned my total hatred. FedEx overnight is often FedEx 3 day and they are the only delivery company that has made me drive 90 miles to get a package because they weren't going to deliver it for a week. Never mind the condition of some of the packages we get. 1) I thought they were the same company but was told differently in a pretty rude tone by one of their drivers this was not the case.
- jcrawfordor 11y ago
  My experience is that UPS works a lot better in rural areas. When I lived in a small town off the freeway but otherwise in the middle of nowhere, UPS had a very small service center in town (open an hour a day because it was staffed by the driver) and kept 2-day deliveries on schedule. When the whole town was snowed in, they couldn't get the trucks out, but still showed up at the service center so you could pick things up. FedEx didn't have a service center within an hour, always missed their delivery estimates, and a couple of times declared addresses undeliverable for no clear reason. When the town was snowed in, they just lost a package forever.
op00to 11y ago
Amazons own delivery folk - In my area they are mostly Amazon Fresh or whatever the grocery service is - are excellent for me. It's the strange 3rd party couriers like A1 and OnTrac that do stupid stuff like mark packages as delivered at 7:59 PM (there's an 8PM cutoff) with the package actually appearing the next morning if ever.
- busterarm 11y ago
  Amazon just cares about the lowest bid. They still use LaserShip, for example, who has a long-standing and well-earned reputation for being the worst shipping service ever. I got something sent next-day via Amazon recently and LaserShip made an extremely half-assed first attempt. I had to spend an hour on the phone with a LaserShip rep and pass my phone number along to the driver (who is an independent contractor) to get a second attempt that same day, after they tried to punt it to the next day with no guarantee that a better delivery attempt would be made (I live in a no-doorman apartment building). The interesting thing is that I wouldn't have even have been able to complain to Amazon until LaserShip noted that they completed delivery -- so I could have spent days or weeks in limbo. If there were checkboxes on Amazon where I could choose which carriers they couldn't use, I would...even if I had to pay the difference in shipping.
  - stinky613 11y ago
    That sounds awful. LaserShip was very prompt for me. They promptly lost my package. "Thank you for your tracking inquiry. Unfortunately, Lasership is unable to confirm control of your package at this time. So that you may be promptly assisted we are deeming this package as Lost by LaserShip. Please contact your Seller for further assistance."
    - tamana 11y ago
      This is the premise of the classic Jiffy Express SNL skit.
  - macNchz 11y ago
    Oh LaserShip–after lots of pain with them a few years ago that actually made me wary of using Amazon at all and risking they'd use LaserShip, I just last week had a great reunion with their services: they left a package on the sidewalk outside the front door of my apartment building on a bustling shopping street in Brooklyn in the middle of the day. It's a very safe neighborhood, but c'mon... if I had actually been at my office rather than out for a coffee while working from home, it 100% would have been stolen by the time I got back.
moondev 11y ago
Any other prime members notice that packages take longer then 2 business days to deliver recently?
mcarrano 11y ago
I am starting to question whether my Prime subscription is worth it or not. I only have it for the 2 day shipping as I don't watch Prime Videos, listen to Prime Music, etc. Recently, I attempted to purchase a TV from Amazon. They used a third party courier, XPO, to do a scheduled delivery. The day before delivery, I get an email from Amazon saying things are on track. Delivery day comes and I wait, wait, wait... Lo and behold the scheduled time comes and goes. I give Amazon a call and they tell me that XPO has had issues all week and that the earliest they can get the TV to me in next week. No thanks, cancelled the order and went to BestBuy to get the same TV. I ended up spending more time on the phone with Amazon CS than it took to buy the TV from BestBuy. I dislike when Amazon uses USPS to deliver my packages. Usually the package will arrive in the 2 days like expected but it goes to my local USPS office which will deliver the package the next day.
- tolmasky 11y ago
  Best Buy will also match Amazon prices. Also they have a really nice buy online, pick up at store system. I actually do like Amazon Prime TV though.
  - xiaoma 11y ago
    I do too. Netflix is going to have a very, very hard time remaining #1 in the market. http://relentless.com http://relentless.com
    - mahyarm 11y ago
      Not until they have the same work on everything attitude netflix has.
      - tjl 11y ago
        Plus, Amazon Video is only in the US (and I think the UK). Amazon is pretty bad at rolling out services internationally. Here in Canada, we still can't buy MP3s from Amazon, despite the fact that we were told "soon" years ago.
slumberlust 11y ago
I Love it when Prime is late. Open a chat and let them know you expected it on time and they always give money back or extend Prime. Either is OK by me for the day or two it is late. I even let them off the hook for any tardiness around the holidays.
t0mas88 11y ago
As a Dutch guy who recently moved abroad I have to admit we're extremely spoiled in the Netherlands. There is no Amazon here (neighbouring countries do have Amazon). But our main Amazon competitors (bol.com and coolblue.com) can both deliver almost anything ordered before 10pm by the next day anywhere in the (arguably quite small) country. And delivery costs would be between 0 and 5 euro depending on the size. Mostly free or 2 euros for both major sites. Living abroad for a few months has really opened my eyes to how bad this is in the US. And why people pay for Prime.
- striking 11y ago
  Considering the US has 231x the area of the Netherlands (and the infrastructure is far worse), we rely on hacks, kludges, and private industry for stuff to get from one place to another. Y'know, if you really think about it, the US is just one big growth hack. Makes me all the more eager to move back to Poland.
  - sandstrom 11y ago
    Sweden has 30% lower population density than the US, but still a comparatively great postal system. I don't think the large area is the only explanation.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - erikpukinskis 11y ago
      I don't think population density is really the right metric: http://popdensitymap.ucoz.ru/76.Population_density-administrative_boundaries-ma.png http://popdensitymap.ucoz.ru/76.Population_density-administr... http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/89/71789-004-88879E35.jpg http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/89/71789-004-8887... Russia is almost a third as dense as Sweden. To some extent it really is just the huge distances that makes the problem hard.

42 points by uptown 11y ago

As always, click the little link marked "web", and then click the first result on Google.

ghaff 11y ago

Just so long as it doesn't increase USPS share. The USPS (somewhat understandably) hates coming down my long driveway. But, as a consequence, hangs stuff off my mailbox and overstuffs it (even though it's a very large size), leaving it open. In the winter, I've even had packages basically tossed in a snowbank.

stock_toaster 11y ago
A colleague at work and I used to joke that part of OnTrac's shipping pipeline must be a giant machine that blows cigarette smoke on packages and kicks them down stairs. Here's hoping they don't start using them more either.
- jschwartzi 11y ago
  This used to also be a joke about UPS/Fedex, but they've become significantly better.
- op00to 11y ago
  I have the same experience - any time you see a shady dude in a Jetta toss the package on my porch from the street, you know the whole house is going to smell like cigarettes from the box.
- xur17 11y ago
  I'm guessing Amazon Flex is what they are planning to use long term.

atomical 11y ago

The bigger problem is that it's taking Amazon longer and longer to ship packages -- unless you have prime. It's not good for the customer.

stinky613 11y ago
My Prime deliveries used to arrive in 1-2 days. Ever since they started diversifying their shipping partners, I have been getting my Prime packages in 2-3ish days. I think the real standout was the time where they jammed the package into my vertical-style mailbox on a rainy day, leaving my auto insurance bill soaked beyond recognition. Thanks, USPS.

JoshGlazebrook 11y ago

I've noticed that Amazon really has been relying on USPS more at least for my area (West Austin). I have Amazon Prime, and of the last 10 items I've ordered with 2 day shipping (and even overnight shipping), 9 of the 10 have come via USPS. I would prefer if they would come via UPS or Fedex as the item comes right to my door as opposed to me having to find the time to make it to my apartment's main office during their business hours (they close at 6pm), to retrieve my package.

pcarmichael 11y ago
North Austin here - we routinely get packages from USPS intended for other houses. Once they mixed up mailbox keys so we got someone else's packages, and then had to track down whose key they got, then followed the chain to get to our package. UPS and Fedex here have been much much better in comparison.
- Shank 11y ago
  It's telling that USPS customers regularly experience these kinds of issues. Packages that come via UPS are at least handed off with some care. In my neighborhood, USPS is a lottery if your mail ends up in your box or someone else's.

nkw 11y ago

Now that Amazon is shipping more and more with USPS with their pitiful tracking and erratic delivery, I really don't know why I have prime. It certainly isn't for videos, music, or whatever else they have piled on to it lately. Now that I'm paying sales tax on Amazon orders, if Amazon can figure out same day delivery they will stay my go to place to buy everything. If not they are now the choice that costs more and takes longer.

JustSomeNobody 11y ago
Depending on where you are located, you may have needed to pay taxes all along.
- douche 11y ago
  Generally the situation is that you're supposed to pay sales taxes, even for out-of-state purchases, but absolutely nobody does. Aside from huge-ticket items like automobiles, where the taxes have to be paid to register with the DMV. A lot of people in New England shop in New Hampshire, to duck the sales taxes in their states.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    Oh, I'm sure there's a few goobers out there who actually do dutifully send in their use tax. Maybe even more than 5! This would make a great Onion article. "Man keeps track of all his online purchases and pays use taxes to his state" I wonder what kind of picture they'd pick for the guy in the article.
jschwartzi 11y ago
I would for sure pay about $50.00 more a year to only receive packages via UPS. USPS has made some really inconvenient mistakes, and OnTrac has repeatedly left packages in strange locations. Frankly the only saving grace is that I can have packages delivered to an Amazon locker in most cases. Otherwise Prime has become significantly less convenient than it was when it was UPS/Fedex only.

foobarian 11y ago

Funny coincidence, just today an Amazon van delivered some packages to me in Natick, MA. I wonder where the warehouse is; there were a number of blurbs over the last year on different potential warehouse locations. Nothing against UPS but at Amazon's volume it does make sense to integrate the operations. You can imagine all sorts of automation opportunities opening up in the warehouse.

tempestn 11y ago

Like USPS, that probably means more Canada Post for us up here as well. Which is unfortunate, because it's definitely an inferior experience. I've even paid extra for two day shipping before, been told it's guaranteed to arrive on a Friday, and had it not show up. Called Amazon and been told it would arrive the next day, because the carrier unexpectedly had a short day on Friday. (WTF) No package on Saturday, so I call again, and find out it's being shipped by Canada post - which doesn't operate on the weekend, but apparently Amazon didn't know that.

AYBABTME 11y ago
Same here, I've been using Amazon heavily for all my purchases and recently they started using less and less UPS to my great displeasure. Canada Post is awful to deal with, I've been considering if my Prime membership is worth it at all. Getting delivery is supposed to be a smoother experience than physically shopping. With Canada Post, or Fedex or Purolator or others, it's not. It's just a major PITA when I have to drive to their distribution center to get a package of soap that I wish they would just have dropped at the damn door. It's weird to me, because Amazon has "Customer Experience" at the core of their values. The customer experience is definitely degrading with the use of non-UPS delivery.
- tjl 11y ago
  Canada Post is far more reliable for me than UPS. In my building, I've had UPS say that they "missed me", when I know for a fact I was home all day. This has happened on multiple occasions.

larrik 11y ago

I was wondering the other day if Amazon should have just outright bought UPS. I doubt it would be in the public's best interest, but it seems like it would make sense for Amazon. Of course, they seem to be on track to compete directly with them instead. I told my friend a few years ago that Amazon was my best guess for an existing company to become "the company" from the Alien movies (or other corporate future scifi), and it seems more and more likely every year.

protomyth 11y ago
I would imagine UPS's union would give Amazon pause.
- busterarm 11y ago
  The UPS's union is the Teamsters, who Amazon definitely does not want to deal with. The Teamsters have already picked their side in this battle anyway. https://teamster.org/news/2015/06/sinister-motives-lurking-beneath-amazoncoms-minnesota-debut https://teamster.org/news/2015/06/sinister-motives-lurking-b...
- goldenkey 11y ago
  That union wouldn't allow Amazon to cry workers at their desks over the OLR performance purging process.
  - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
    The UPS Teamsters union represents drivers, not desk workers. There are quite a few non-union employees at UPS.

mabbo 11y ago

If you're interested in being part of developing Amazon's own delivery system (Amazon Flex, https://flex.amazon.com https://flex.amazon.com), the software team is hiring in Seattle, Toronto and I think Phoenix. I just transferred internally to it, looks like it's going to be a fun project. Lots of really great people involved. My username @Amazon.com.

justicezyx 11y ago
Despite being a relatively shitty working place, Amazon indeed have so many great opportunities for engineers to explore their interests and skills.

delinka 11y ago

I guess I've just been relying on Prime too much for the last year, but I wonder: is Amazon relying on USPS more often or are other sellers on Amazon's site relying on USPS? I ask because, as an infrequent seller, Amazon's shipping credit barely covers USPS First Class for the Standard Shipping option that most customers choose. I certainly can't afford to lose money shipping on UPS's slowest/cheapest offering instead.

protomyth 11y ago

Its funny how different the delivery companies are to different parts of the country. In my particular area of NoDak, UPS is really good and can find people with fairly vague local directions. USPS is pretty ok, but has absolutely no home delivery. FedEx and FedEx Ground[1] have earned my total hatred. FedEx overnight is often FedEx 3 day and they are the only delivery company that has made me drive 90 miles to get a package because they weren't going to deliver it for a week. Never mind the condition of some of the packages we get. 1) I thought they were the same company but was told differently in a pretty rude tone by one of their drivers this was not the case.

jcrawfordor 11y ago
My experience is that UPS works a lot better in rural areas. When I lived in a small town off the freeway but otherwise in the middle of nowhere, UPS had a very small service center in town (open an hour a day because it was staffed by the driver) and kept 2-day deliveries on schedule. When the whole town was snowed in, they couldn't get the trucks out, but still showed up at the service center so you could pick things up. FedEx didn't have a service center within an hour, always missed their delivery estimates, and a couple of times declared addresses undeliverable for no clear reason. When the town was snowed in, they just lost a package forever.

op00to 11y ago

Amazons own delivery folk - In my area they are mostly Amazon Fresh or whatever the grocery service is - are excellent for me. It's the strange 3rd party couriers like A1 and OnTrac that do stupid stuff like mark packages as delivered at 7:59 PM (there's an 8PM cutoff) with the package actually appearing the next morning if ever.

busterarm 11y ago
Amazon just cares about the lowest bid. They still use LaserShip, for example, who has a long-standing and well-earned reputation for being the worst shipping service ever. I got something sent next-day via Amazon recently and LaserShip made an extremely half-assed first attempt. I had to spend an hour on the phone with a LaserShip rep and pass my phone number along to the driver (who is an independent contractor) to get a second attempt that same day, after they tried to punt it to the next day with no guarantee that a better delivery attempt would be made (I live in a no-doorman apartment building). The interesting thing is that I wouldn't have even have been able to complain to Amazon until LaserShip noted that they completed delivery -- so I could have spent days or weeks in limbo. If there were checkboxes on Amazon where I could choose which carriers they couldn't use, I would...even if I had to pay the difference in shipping.
- stinky613 11y ago
  That sounds awful. LaserShip was very prompt for me. They promptly lost my package. "Thank you for your tracking inquiry. Unfortunately, Lasership is unable to confirm control of your package at this time. So that you may be promptly assisted we are deeming this package as Lost by LaserShip. Please contact your Seller for further assistance."
  - tamana 11y ago
    This is the premise of the classic Jiffy Express SNL skit.
- macNchz 11y ago
  Oh LaserShip–after lots of pain with them a few years ago that actually made me wary of using Amazon at all and risking they'd use LaserShip, I just last week had a great reunion with their services: they left a package on the sidewalk outside the front door of my apartment building on a bustling shopping street in Brooklyn in the middle of the day. It's a very safe neighborhood, but c'mon... if I had actually been at my office rather than out for a coffee while working from home, it 100% would have been stolen by the time I got back.

moondev 11y ago

Any other prime members notice that packages take longer then 2 business days to deliver recently?

mcarrano 11y ago

I am starting to question whether my Prime subscription is worth it or not. I only have it for the 2 day shipping as I don't watch Prime Videos, listen to Prime Music, etc. Recently, I attempted to purchase a TV from Amazon. They used a third party courier, XPO, to do a scheduled delivery. The day before delivery, I get an email from Amazon saying things are on track. Delivery day comes and I wait, wait, wait... Lo and behold the scheduled time comes and goes. I give Amazon a call and they tell me that XPO has had issues all week and that the earliest they can get the TV to me in next week. No thanks, cancelled the order and went to BestBuy to get the same TV. I ended up spending more time on the phone with Amazon CS than it took to buy the TV from BestBuy. I dislike when Amazon uses USPS to deliver my packages. Usually the package will arrive in the 2 days like expected but it goes to my local USPS office which will deliver the package the next day.

tolmasky 11y ago
Best Buy will also match Amazon prices. Also they have a really nice buy online, pick up at store system. I actually do like Amazon Prime TV though.
- xiaoma 11y ago
  I do too. Netflix is going to have a very, very hard time remaining #1 in the market. http://relentless.com http://relentless.com
  - mahyarm 11y ago
    Not until they have the same work on everything attitude netflix has.
    - tjl 11y ago
      Plus, Amazon Video is only in the US (and I think the UK). Amazon is pretty bad at rolling out services internationally. Here in Canada, we still can't buy MP3s from Amazon, despite the fact that we were told "soon" years ago.

slumberlust 11y ago

I Love it when Prime is late. Open a chat and let them know you expected it on time and they always give money back or extend Prime. Either is OK by me for the day or two it is late. I even let them off the hook for any tardiness around the holidays.

t0mas88 11y ago

As a Dutch guy who recently moved abroad I have to admit we're extremely spoiled in the Netherlands. There is no Amazon here (neighbouring countries do have Amazon). But our main Amazon competitors (bol.com and coolblue.com) can both deliver almost anything ordered before 10pm by the next day anywhere in the (arguably quite small) country. And delivery costs would be between 0 and 5 euro depending on the size. Mostly free or 2 euros for both major sites. Living abroad for a few months has really opened my eyes to how bad this is in the US. And why people pay for Prime.

striking 11y ago
Considering the US has 231x the area of the Netherlands (and the infrastructure is far worse), we rely on hacks, kludges, and private industry for stuff to get from one place to another. Y'know, if you really think about it, the US is just one big growth hack. Makes me all the more eager to move back to Poland.
- sandstrom 11y ago
  Sweden has 30% lower population density than the US, but still a comparatively great postal system. I don't think the large area is the only explanation.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - erikpukinskis 11y ago
    I don't think population density is really the right metric: http://popdensitymap.ucoz.ru/76.Population_density-administrative_boundaries-ma.png http://popdensitymap.ucoz.ru/76.Population_density-administr... http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/89/71789-004-88879E35.jpg http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/89/71789-004-8887... Russia is almost a third as dense as Sweden. To some extent it really is just the huge distances that makes the problem hard.