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It really is location dependent, since most of the problems are caused by the shipper. Amazon will use multiple shippers, and in some areas will use what ends u

It really is location dependent, since most of the problems are caused by the shipper. Amazon will use multiple shippers, and in some areas will use what ends up being people driving around in their personal cars to deliver packages. If you have unreliable shippers in your area, it’s hard to deal with Amazon when things go wrong. In one place I lived, Amazon would use the US Postal Service, UPS, and Fedex. I had no control over which. The local FedEx team was horrible, they never figured out how to deliver packages to my building. So they would pretend to deliver, say customer wasn’t home and no secure place to leave the package for 2-3 days, then stick a notice on the outside of the building somewhere that I could use to drive to the FedEx warehouse in the next town over to pick it up. Maybe it’s different now, but there was just no way to do anything about this. Another location and I’d get these local people delivering packages in their personal cars and that was really hit or miss. Seems like anytime they were busy they just report that they tried to deliver but no one was home. They could steal whatever they wanted, it’s a matter of trust. How does Amazon know who is lying? Maybe I’m scamming them, maybe the shippers, maybe someone else is stealing packages off my doorstep. There was just no way to choose a shipper or report problems with one. Don’t have any problems where I am now, so I don’t know if they’ve fixed that. They should be able to tell, statistically, if packages have more problems with one shipper over the other, but smart shippers who want to steal could probably game the system.

ghaff 5y ago
I don't get FedEx much but had a terrible experience with them on a few orders. One package left way out by my mailbox on a busy road. Another tossed to the side of my long driveway (????). Then things were fine again. Assume there was some driver who was, shall we say, not good at their job. Periodically I do have shipper issues (including USPS on occasion). I have a long gravel/dirt driveway and some shippers obviously don't like to come down it. (I also have a neighbor with a large dog that likes to bark and that sometimes scares off drivers too. Oh yeah, that was FedEx too. Saw their truck and they claimed online not to have been able to deliver due to local regulations.)
- dboreham 5y ago
  FedEx is bimodal: they have "real" FedEx like Tom Hanks in that movie, and then they have contract drivers who bid for delivery routes on a short term basis and are not FedEx employees.
felixfbecker 5y ago
I don't get why Amazon doesn't allow the customer to chose between multiple available shipping carriers. They do for returns, which is fantastic and one of the reasons I love buying on Amazon, because I can always chose to pick the carrier that has the office 1 minute walk away from my home that is never busy, instead of being forced to drive to some remote store and stand in line. If Amazon gave these choices to customers for shipping, it would apply pressure to shipping carriers to improve their service, as people would experiment and pick the best ones and stop picking bad ones. Eventually a bad carrier is forced to improve to not lose revenue. And Amazon would get way happier customers, who can pick what is best in their region, and they would have a massive advantage over smaller shops.
- macintux 5y ago
  > I don't get why Amazon doesn't allow the customer to chose between multiple available shipping carriers. They do for returns... I assume because the volume of returns is much lower than the volume of sales, plus Amazon isn't responsible for coordinating the return. In essence, my suspicion is that at Amazon's scale they literally can't afford to let customers pick their own shipper. That's one variable too many to manage for their massive logistics problem, and the expense of building out the support for that would never be recouped.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > In essence, my suspicion is that at Amazon's scale they literally can't afford to let customers pick their own shipper. That's one variable too many to manage for their massive logistics problem, and the expense of building out the support for that would never be recouped. I don't get it. All the alternative carriers are obviously in their system already, since deliveries obviously get routed via all of them, and (presumably) some algorithm selects which one that is in each case. All it takes is to put one more selection field on the order (and I guess in the customer profile, for a personal default value) and then use that if provided and the algorithm only if not provided. What's so hugely complicated about that?
    - 5y ago

ghaff 5y ago

I don't get FedEx much but had a terrible experience with them on a few orders. One package left way out by my mailbox on a busy road. Another tossed to the side of my long driveway (????). Then things were fine again. Assume there was some driver who was, shall we say, not good at their job. Periodically I do have shipper issues (including USPS on occasion). I have a long gravel/dirt driveway and some shippers obviously don't like to come down it. (I also have a neighbor with a large dog that likes to bark and that sometimes scares off drivers too. Oh yeah, that was FedEx too. Saw their truck and they claimed online not to have been able to deliver due to local regulations.)

dboreham 5y ago
FedEx is bimodal: they have "real" FedEx like Tom Hanks in that movie, and then they have contract drivers who bid for delivery routes on a short term basis and are not FedEx employees.

felixfbecker 5y ago

I don't get why Amazon doesn't allow the customer to chose between multiple available shipping carriers. They do for returns, which is fantastic and one of the reasons I love buying on Amazon, because I can always chose to pick the carrier that has the office 1 minute walk away from my home that is never busy, instead of being forced to drive to some remote store and stand in line. If Amazon gave these choices to customers for shipping, it would apply pressure to shipping carriers to improve their service, as people would experiment and pick the best ones and stop picking bad ones. Eventually a bad carrier is forced to improve to not lose revenue. And Amazon would get way happier customers, who can pick what is best in their region, and they would have a massive advantage over smaller shops.

macintux 5y ago
> I don't get why Amazon doesn't allow the customer to chose between multiple available shipping carriers. They do for returns... I assume because the volume of returns is much lower than the volume of sales, plus Amazon isn't responsible for coordinating the return. In essence, my suspicion is that at Amazon's scale they literally can't afford to let customers pick their own shipper. That's one variable too many to manage for their massive logistics problem, and the expense of building out the support for that would never be recouped.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > In essence, my suspicion is that at Amazon's scale they literally can't afford to let customers pick their own shipper. That's one variable too many to manage for their massive logistics problem, and the expense of building out the support for that would never be recouped. I don't get it. All the alternative carriers are obviously in their system already, since deliveries obviously get routed via all of them, and (presumably) some algorithm selects which one that is in each case. All it takes is to put one more selection field on the order (and I guess in the customer profile, for a personal default value) and then use that if provided and the algorithm only if not provided. What's so hugely complicated about that?
  - 5y ago