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Their return policy is really great during the holidays, which might contribute to it. As a (late) holiday shopper and Prime member, their shipping guarantees

Their return policy is really great during the holidays, which might contribute to it. As a (late) holiday shopper and Prime member, their shipping guarantees are top notch though. No praying that it arrives in time. (Whereas Amazon says, order within x hours for delivery tomorrow, a lot of other shops here just feel like "Usually shipped within 1-2 days, if your hair is green, Tom is working in the office and your order number ends with 4")

jacobolus 11y ago
Unfortunately I had several things in my Amazon cart which said “order within 8 hours and it arrives December 24” (or whatever), that when I looked back at 3 hours later had lost the guarantee, and now could only promise to arrive by the 26th/27th. Didn’t turn out to be a big deal, but folks shouldn’t take those guarantees for granted.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  I have seen that as well, and believe it to be genuine/OK. I take it to mean that the warehouse nearest you has it in stock and if you add to your cart and order it, you'll get it by that promised deadline. If a few hours pass and in the meantime that warehouse sells out, you might be past the cutoff for the next warehouse that has it in stock. (Not an Amazon employee, just an extremely frequent customer...) Except for the USPS last-mile shipments, I've rarely (< 5%) had Amazon miss a guaranteed delivery date. On USPS last-mile shipments, they only seem to make about 2 in 3 on-time, which means I get a free month of Prime everytime they miss. I'm almost to the point of trying to figure out the pattern that gets last mile USPS to pickup free months instead of doing the "no rush" which only nets me $1 or $2 towards e-books and video rentals.
  - shasta 11y ago
    They should still add "(while supplies last)" as a clue.
- xirdstl 11y ago
  I suppose for me it just matters the guarantee at the time of checkout. Many conditions can change between the time I put it in my cart and when I checkout, especially around Christmas. The precision with which they can tell me when to expect a package at checkout is definitely an advantage over shopping elsewhere.
- nodamage 11y ago
  In this situation it's likely that the item was being sold by multiple suppliers, and the original supplier you were looking at sold out so it switched to another, presumably at a warehouse further away from your house.

jacobolus 11y ago

Unfortunately I had several things in my Amazon cart which said “order within 8 hours and it arrives December 24” (or whatever), that when I looked back at 3 hours later had lost the guarantee, and now could only promise to arrive by the 26th/27th. Didn’t turn out to be a big deal, but folks shouldn’t take those guarantees for granted.

sokoloff 11y ago
I have seen that as well, and believe it to be genuine/OK. I take it to mean that the warehouse nearest you has it in stock and if you add to your cart and order it, you'll get it by that promised deadline. If a few hours pass and in the meantime that warehouse sells out, you might be past the cutoff for the next warehouse that has it in stock. (Not an Amazon employee, just an extremely frequent customer...) Except for the USPS last-mile shipments, I've rarely (< 5%) had Amazon miss a guaranteed delivery date. On USPS last-mile shipments, they only seem to make about 2 in 3 on-time, which means I get a free month of Prime everytime they miss. I'm almost to the point of trying to figure out the pattern that gets last mile USPS to pickup free months instead of doing the "no rush" which only nets me $1 or $2 towards e-books and video rentals.
- shasta 11y ago
  They should still add "(while supplies last)" as a clue.
xirdstl 11y ago
I suppose for me it just matters the guarantee at the time of checkout. Many conditions can change between the time I put it in my cart and when I checkout, especially around Christmas. The precision with which they can tell me when to expect a package at checkout is definitely an advantage over shopping elsewhere.
nodamage 11y ago
In this situation it's likely that the item was being sold by multiple suppliers, and the original supplier you were looking at sold out so it switched to another, presumably at a warehouse further away from your house.