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> Almost everything is next-day delivery, Could it be that you live next to one of their warehouses? On the other hand, Amazon delays orders on purposes if yo

> Almost everything is next-day delivery, Could it be that you live next to one of their warehouses? On the other hand, Amazon delays orders on purposes if you aren't a Prime member.

calvinmorrison 4y ago
I'm ~12 miles from one, and they are as fast as amazon
- pGuitar 4y ago
  I would consider 12 miles to be right next to it from a shipping perspective... I.E., With USPS you can pretty much assume that you are going to get a letter next-day if it comes from your state
paulryanrogers 4y ago
> On the other hand, Amazon delays orders on purposes if you aren't a Prime member. Sounds like a conflict of interest if they literally start transit then delay at some point. Like maybe retailers shouldn't be able to own shipping
- lmm 4y ago
  Plenty of dedicated shipping companies do exactly the same thing (if you don't pay for next day then they'll deliberately delay it so it takes 5 days or whatever you paid for), it's got nothing to do with being owned by a retailer or not.
  - paulmd 4y ago
    this definitely used to be a thing until like... early 2010s. Back then I completely recall watching tracking for some items and they'd accept it and run it a couple hops and then... it'd just sit for 3 days or whatever. Fedex said it was gonna be 5 business days? Then don't expect to see it in less than 5 business days. I've seen both Fedex and UPS do it, but in some places it seemed like one or the other. I don't see it all that much anymore though. Definitely post-covid but tbh it's really been years since I've seen it. I can't tell how much of that is vs me moving away from a rural home (might be more likely to attempt "batching" deliveries in rural areas due to distance) vs an actual change in behavior here. It may also be the shift to JIT logistics too - you have to have a big warehouse or something to hold them. Even if it's sitting in a trailer somewhere, you still have to have a big lot to hold them. These are costs that are probably not justified for the return of "lol make customers more amicable to pay more for better shipping", the conversion there is ~0% for the most part. The 5-day window is nice for the courier if they need it of course, holiday is madness in the mail business (and payments, retail, etc) from what I know, but if your throughput is significantly lower than your mail volume then you've got problems, so you need to be able to ship it through in 2-3 days on average anyway, and if you can do that... why pay for someplace to hold onto it when we can JIT it right onto a truck? Today it seems like if your shipping drops off for a couple days it's usually lost. I had one package stop tracking and then bounce 100 miles in the wrong direction, another where it stopped tracking and then showed up with box damage, etc, but haven't seen it just hang out like the old days. Amazon, too, will play games with shipping windows... on a thunderbolt hub, they set a delivery date like two weeks out, sold and shipped by amazon. Like a week later I see a ship notice, cool it'll be here soon right? Lol nope, shipped UPS Surepost, so they got their week out of it.
    - mynameisvlad 4y ago
      FedEx still does this all the time, especially for their cheaper Ground and Home Delivery products. I’ve had countless packages “stuck” in Troutdale for days before suddenly continuing on to Seattle.
    - yourapostasy 4y ago
      > It may also be the shift to JIT logistics too... I wonder if they are applying ML to the distribution batching and coming up with probabilities to each route's batching efficiency. With enough detailed delivery transaction data, they could identify the probability of it being worth holding the package in the warehouse or trailer to batch it, versus sending it on its way.
  - salmo 4y ago
    I can’t imagine a company wasting money on this. Distro facility space is money. Especially these days with all networks stressed. They may delay to optimize a route with more stops, or prioritize guaranteed shipping dates. But being punitive doesn’t make financial sense. Unless it’s USPS. Then nothing makes sense.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  They don't delay the shipping, they stick the entire order at a chosen point in their queue. If you split the fulfillment off from the retailing, the fulfillment will still have a queue. Should the government mandate first in first out or something, no ability to pay for priority?
- somat 4y ago
  I am no logistics engineer but I always figured it was a batching operation. you delay for up to a week, this lets you build efficient shipping batches.
xadhominemx 4y ago
Compared to Amazon, MMC has a very small number of SKUs, inventory that never goes stale, and prices that are only affordable in the context of B2B transactions. It’s not a comparable service.
- hardolaf 4y ago
  DigiKey eliminated everything except next day air for small packages some years ago because it was too expensive to have two different SKUs for shipping small orders in their system. B2B is weird.
  - wildzzz 4y ago
    Next day delivery is so common for B2B that many times it's the only way to order. I won a free DMM from Keysight and while it took a month for it to be actually shipped, they shipped it next day from Malaysia to the US when it finally did. Like you guys made me wait weeks for it, I could have waited another week for snail mail.
  - repiret 4y ago
    I made a small order from Digi-Key last month and they offered UPS ground, FedEx ground and USPS. I don’t think I’ve ever not been offered budget shipping from them. But B2B is weird. If I need my employer to ship me something that I’ll use next month, I am hard pressed to get them to ship slower than 2nd day air.
    - lostapathy 4y ago
      Depending on the nature of the business, it’s not uncommon to have negotiated rates for 2nd day shipping that are really good, and essentially retail counter rates for ground. Sometimes that makes 2nd day service cheaper than ground for a lot of destinations. It’s weird.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    Huh? I order from Digikey all the time and usually I get my packages FedEx because it's the same price as USPS. When USPS is cheaper, I select that because I'm in the same state so it typically gets here the next day anyway.
iancmceachern 4y ago
No, they have next day shipping to the whole US.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pGuitar 4y ago
  In other words, standard shipping is always next day?
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    Exactly
gruez 4y ago
>On the other hand, Amazon delays orders on purposes if you aren't a Prime member. I'm not so sure about this. I'm not a prime member and I frequently get orders delivered before the estimated delivery date. On the other hand I also see instances where amazon takes suspiciously long to ship something. A charitable explanation might be that their logistics capacity (eg. planes or vans) is limited, so if you're not a prime member you get deprioritized.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  I’m absolutely sure that there is an amazon FIFO for orders that sometimes get delayed days in shipping in order not to build up an unnecessary queue that wouldn’t get emptied for pickup. Probably has a lot to do with them running their own logistics.
- wildzzz 4y ago
  At my college town around 2013, any prime delivery would always take a day longer than it was supposed to. Saturday delivery wasn't common there at the time so you had to get your order in by Wednesday morning at the latest otherwise you'd be waiting until Monday.
  - jeromegv 4y ago
    Whatever was going on in 2013 is likely not really relevant to how Amazon is operating in 2022. This stuff change drastically.
  - jbb_hn 4y ago
    2013? That’s almost a decade ago.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  Likewise, Amazon almost always delivers to me before their estimate and the estimate is very standard. No one else I order from is doing better. I avoid using Amazon, so as you can imagine, I don’t have a prime membership. It doesn’t seem to matter.
- 4y ago
lostapathy 4y ago
It’s nuts. I’ve had mcmaster packages come from far enough away overnight that there were hardly enough minutes for UPS to drive it this far. But definitely not flown judging by the terminals it went through.
loansindi 4y ago
Our office is near their head office/distribution facility. If we order before noon, most stuff shows up same day.

> Almost everything is next-day delivery, Could it be that you live next to one of their warehouses? On the other hand, Amazon delays orders on purposes if you aren't a Prime member.

calvinmorrison 4y ago

I'm ~12 miles from one, and they are as fast as amazon

pGuitar 4y ago
I would consider 12 miles to be right next to it from a shipping perspective... I.E., With USPS you can pretty much assume that you are going to get a letter next-day if it comes from your state

paulryanrogers 4y ago

> On the other hand, Amazon delays orders on purposes if you aren't a Prime member. Sounds like a conflict of interest if they literally start transit then delay at some point. Like maybe retailers shouldn't be able to own shipping

lmm 4y ago
Plenty of dedicated shipping companies do exactly the same thing (if you don't pay for next day then they'll deliberately delay it so it takes 5 days or whatever you paid for), it's got nothing to do with being owned by a retailer or not.
- paulmd 4y ago
  this definitely used to be a thing until like... early 2010s. Back then I completely recall watching tracking for some items and they'd accept it and run it a couple hops and then... it'd just sit for 3 days or whatever. Fedex said it was gonna be 5 business days? Then don't expect to see it in less than 5 business days. I've seen both Fedex and UPS do it, but in some places it seemed like one or the other. I don't see it all that much anymore though. Definitely post-covid but tbh it's really been years since I've seen it. I can't tell how much of that is vs me moving away from a rural home (might be more likely to attempt "batching" deliveries in rural areas due to distance) vs an actual change in behavior here. It may also be the shift to JIT logistics too - you have to have a big warehouse or something to hold them. Even if it's sitting in a trailer somewhere, you still have to have a big lot to hold them. These are costs that are probably not justified for the return of "lol make customers more amicable to pay more for better shipping", the conversion there is ~0% for the most part. The 5-day window is nice for the courier if they need it of course, holiday is madness in the mail business (and payments, retail, etc) from what I know, but if your throughput is significantly lower than your mail volume then you've got problems, so you need to be able to ship it through in 2-3 days on average anyway, and if you can do that... why pay for someplace to hold onto it when we can JIT it right onto a truck? Today it seems like if your shipping drops off for a couple days it's usually lost. I had one package stop tracking and then bounce 100 miles in the wrong direction, another where it stopped tracking and then showed up with box damage, etc, but haven't seen it just hang out like the old days. Amazon, too, will play games with shipping windows... on a thunderbolt hub, they set a delivery date like two weeks out, sold and shipped by amazon. Like a week later I see a ship notice, cool it'll be here soon right? Lol nope, shipped UPS Surepost, so they got their week out of it.
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    FedEx still does this all the time, especially for their cheaper Ground and Home Delivery products. I’ve had countless packages “stuck” in Troutdale for days before suddenly continuing on to Seattle.
  - yourapostasy 4y ago
    > It may also be the shift to JIT logistics too... I wonder if they are applying ML to the distribution batching and coming up with probabilities to each route's batching efficiency. With enough detailed delivery transaction data, they could identify the probability of it being worth holding the package in the warehouse or trailer to batch it, versus sending it on its way.
- salmo 4y ago
  I can’t imagine a company wasting money on this. Distro facility space is money. Especially these days with all networks stressed. They may delay to optimize a route with more stops, or prioritize guaranteed shipping dates. But being punitive doesn’t make financial sense. Unless it’s USPS. Then nothing makes sense.
maxerickson 4y ago
They don't delay the shipping, they stick the entire order at a chosen point in their queue. If you split the fulfillment off from the retailing, the fulfillment will still have a queue. Should the government mandate first in first out or something, no ability to pay for priority?
somat 4y ago
I am no logistics engineer but I always figured it was a batching operation. you delay for up to a week, this lets you build efficient shipping batches.

xadhominemx 4y ago

Compared to Amazon, MMC has a very small number of SKUs, inventory that never goes stale, and prices that are only affordable in the context of B2B transactions. It’s not a comparable service.

hardolaf 4y ago
DigiKey eliminated everything except next day air for small packages some years ago because it was too expensive to have two different SKUs for shipping small orders in their system. B2B is weird.
- wildzzz 4y ago
  Next day delivery is so common for B2B that many times it's the only way to order. I won a free DMM from Keysight and while it took a month for it to be actually shipped, they shipped it next day from Malaysia to the US when it finally did. Like you guys made me wait weeks for it, I could have waited another week for snail mail.
- repiret 4y ago
  I made a small order from Digi-Key last month and they offered UPS ground, FedEx ground and USPS. I don’t think I’ve ever not been offered budget shipping from them. But B2B is weird. If I need my employer to ship me something that I’ll use next month, I am hard pressed to get them to ship slower than 2nd day air.
  - lostapathy 4y ago
    Depending on the nature of the business, it’s not uncommon to have negotiated rates for 2nd day shipping that are really good, and essentially retail counter rates for ground. Sometimes that makes 2nd day service cheaper than ground for a lot of destinations. It’s weird.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  Huh? I order from Digikey all the time and usually I get my packages FedEx because it's the same price as USPS. When USPS is cheaper, I select that because I'm in the same state so it typically gets here the next day anyway.

iancmceachern 4y ago

No, they have next day shipping to the whole US.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pGuitar 4y ago
In other words, standard shipping is always next day?
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  Exactly

gruez 4y ago

>On the other hand, Amazon delays orders on purposes if you aren't a Prime member. I'm not so sure about this. I'm not a prime member and I frequently get orders delivered before the estimated delivery date. On the other hand I also see instances where amazon takes suspiciously long to ship something. A charitable explanation might be that their logistics capacity (eg. planes or vans) is limited, so if you're not a prime member you get deprioritized.

colechristensen 4y ago
I’m absolutely sure that there is an amazon FIFO for orders that sometimes get delayed days in shipping in order not to build up an unnecessary queue that wouldn’t get emptied for pickup. Probably has a lot to do with them running their own logistics.
wildzzz 4y ago
At my college town around 2013, any prime delivery would always take a day longer than it was supposed to. Saturday delivery wasn't common there at the time so you had to get your order in by Wednesday morning at the latest otherwise you'd be waiting until Monday.
- jeromegv 4y ago
  Whatever was going on in 2013 is likely not really relevant to how Amazon is operating in 2022. This stuff change drastically.
- jbb_hn 4y ago
  2013? That’s almost a decade ago.
steve_adams_86 4y ago
Likewise, Amazon almost always delivers to me before their estimate and the estimate is very standard. No one else I order from is doing better. I avoid using Amazon, so as you can imagine, I don’t have a prime membership. It doesn’t seem to matter.
4y ago

lostapathy 4y ago

It’s nuts. I’ve had mcmaster packages come from far enough away overnight that there were hardly enough minutes for UPS to drive it this far. But definitely not flown judging by the terminals it went through.

loansindi 4y ago

Our office is near their head office/distribution facility. If we order before noon, most stuff shows up same day.