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> Their immense investment into logistics means that many things will make it to me next-day. This is what really turned me off from Amazon. They say it'll get

> Their immense investment into logistics means that many things will make it to me next-day. This is what really turned me off from Amazon. They say it'll get to you next day... and then it shows up several days later (or it gets marked delivered or never shows up, and you have to take the time to call them up and complain to get another sent). And worse yet, there's always the knowledge in the back of your mind that if you complain too often, they'll simply ban you from purchasing from them [https://www.wsj.com/articles/banned-from-amazon-the-shoppers-who-make-too-many-returns-1526981401 https://www.wsj.com/articles/banned-from-amazon-the-shoppers... etc]

paulmd 4y ago
it feels like they realized during covid that people will tolerate it because "everything is a mess right now", and will now take advantage of it forever. Honestly the problems also coincided with the change to in-house amazon logistics... it seems like the delay rate with UPS/Fedex logistics is far lower than with amazon shipping. Especially pre-covid, UPS/Fedex were just absolutely completely reliable, if they said 2-day it would be there in 2 days, nowadays the most I've seen is an extra day here or there occasionally. It seems like Amazon looked at the logistics problem and said "we can solve that 95% as well as UPS and if anyone complains too often we'll just ban their account, so there is no need to outperform it since we're not the ones who bear the cost if we don't". After all - the way Amazon gets that 2-day guarantee is, if it doesn't make it through their logistics in time for delivery on UPS 2-day shipping, they have to pay more to UPS for overnight shipping/etc. That's money they can now retain in-house because lol fuck the customer. And I'm sure on-time delivery was a KPI for UPS/Fedex if they wanted to get paid, they had an incentive to get it there on time or else... and amazon logistics doesn't. Having those two entities be separate led to big improvements in quality-of-service as they each tried to minimize the faults in their own behavior, now it's one entity and it's fine if it sucks. (not talking about busting the balls of some delivery driver here either, these are problems with amazon's logistics and shipments, not the drivers.)
- fauigerzigerk 4y ago
  >it feels like they realized during covid that people will tolerate it because "everything is a mess right now", and will now take advantage of it forever. I don't think that's fair. Amazon was among the very very few things that actually worked during the pandemic (in London). And they still have the best logistics operation by far. What's not working is search. It feels like they're not even trying to show you what you're looking for. They're just trying to sell you something ... anything, regardless of how unsuitable or useless it may be. It's so frustrating that I'm even resorting to Google search sometimes, which says a lot. Product search is universally broken everywhere.
  - funcDropShadow 4y ago
    Well, in Germany, Amazon logistics is so bad, that I am actively looking for other online shops that deliver through DHL. Most of the time, I don't care whether an electronic gadget arrives in one or two days. But I like reliability. And Amazon's own drivers usually arrive very late in evening, drop the packet wherever they want without even ringing the bell. Recently, I found an Amazon packages in my garden that was delivered before christmas. And I agree totally with your point about search.
technothrasher 4y ago
> They say it'll get to you next day... and then it shows up several days later Yep, it's running about 25% 'on time' these days for me with Amazon. I've also noticed they'll continue to say 'arriving today by 9pm' even when UPS or Fedex tracking of the package says it is still halfway across the country and it is due to arrive in a couple days.
- paulmd 4y ago
  something is fucked up with their order-tracking platform in general. Returns aren't tracking... refund status isn't updating... it is not just delivery dates that aren't getting updated. things still seem to be happening on the back-end of course, but the UI to display to customers must be in a database/service of its own and it is often getting stale and never getting refreshed.
  - Mountain_Skies 4y ago
    Perhaps Amazon's high turnover is impacting their ability to keep an increasingly large and aging codebase stable. The turnover in their warehouses gets most of the attention but it's pretty bad across the board.

paulmd 4y ago

it feels like they realized during covid that people will tolerate it because "everything is a mess right now", and will now take advantage of it forever. Honestly the problems also coincided with the change to in-house amazon logistics... it seems like the delay rate with UPS/Fedex logistics is far lower than with amazon shipping. Especially pre-covid, UPS/Fedex were just absolutely completely reliable, if they said 2-day it would be there in 2 days, nowadays the most I've seen is an extra day here or there occasionally. It seems like Amazon looked at the logistics problem and said "we can solve that 95% as well as UPS and if anyone complains too often we'll just ban their account, so there is no need to outperform it since we're not the ones who bear the cost if we don't". After all - the way Amazon gets that 2-day guarantee is, if it doesn't make it through their logistics in time for delivery on UPS 2-day shipping, they have to pay more to UPS for overnight shipping/etc. That's money they can now retain in-house because lol fuck the customer. And I'm sure on-time delivery was a KPI for UPS/Fedex if they wanted to get paid, they had an incentive to get it there on time or else... and amazon logistics doesn't. Having those two entities be separate led to big improvements in quality-of-service as they each tried to minimize the faults in their own behavior, now it's one entity and it's fine if it sucks. (not talking about busting the balls of some delivery driver here either, these are problems with amazon's logistics and shipments, not the drivers.)

fauigerzigerk 4y ago
>it feels like they realized during covid that people will tolerate it because "everything is a mess right now", and will now take advantage of it forever. I don't think that's fair. Amazon was among the very very few things that actually worked during the pandemic (in London). And they still have the best logistics operation by far. What's not working is search. It feels like they're not even trying to show you what you're looking for. They're just trying to sell you something ... anything, regardless of how unsuitable or useless it may be. It's so frustrating that I'm even resorting to Google search sometimes, which says a lot. Product search is universally broken everywhere.
- funcDropShadow 4y ago
  Well, in Germany, Amazon logistics is so bad, that I am actively looking for other online shops that deliver through DHL. Most of the time, I don't care whether an electronic gadget arrives in one or two days. But I like reliability. And Amazon's own drivers usually arrive very late in evening, drop the packet wherever they want without even ringing the bell. Recently, I found an Amazon packages in my garden that was delivered before christmas. And I agree totally with your point about search.

technothrasher 4y ago

> They say it'll get to you next day... and then it shows up several days later Yep, it's running about 25% 'on time' these days for me with Amazon. I've also noticed they'll continue to say 'arriving today by 9pm' even when UPS or Fedex tracking of the package says it is still halfway across the country and it is due to arrive in a couple days.

paulmd 4y ago
something is fucked up with their order-tracking platform in general. Returns aren't tracking... refund status isn't updating... it is not just delivery dates that aren't getting updated. things still seem to be happening on the back-end of course, but the UI to display to customers must be in a database/service of its own and it is often getting stale and never getting refreshed.
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
  Perhaps Amazon's high turnover is impacting their ability to keep an increasingly large and aging codebase stable. The turnover in their warehouses gets most of the attention but it's pretty bad across the board.