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> Now Amazon is nothing more than AliExpress with faster shipping. Shame. This. Once i realized what was taking place on amazon I simply moved to AliExpress.

• jrs235 4y ago
  But even their shipping (with Prime too!) is getting slower and slower. Prime's selling point used to be free 2 day shipping. Shipping is still "free" but many items take 4 days (or more now).
  • zip1234 4y ago
    Do you live in a city?
    • kennend3 4y ago
      There are times i still use amazon and i actually bought a few items on Tuesday. Amazon's delivery date is friday? Want to guess where amazon's distribution warehouse is? A few blocks away from me. The point you are attempting to make is unclear. If the distribution hub is within walking distance from me, why does it take days to ship?
      • deleted 4y ago
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      • PaulHoule 4y ago
        I am sure your congressman gets same day or next day shipping in DC, though.
      • mbreese 4y ago
        You’re assuming that the product you ordered is at that warehouse. It probably isn’t. They can’t store all products at all locations. Even if that distribution center ends up being the shipment origination site, the product still probably had to move within the Amazon network. Some of those things will move within the Amazon network, some with external (trackable) carriers (UPS/FedEx). And some things has restrictions on the method of transport. If there is a lithium battery anywhere in the device, it travels by ground. Also — if you’re in the US, today is a holiday and nothing will move. So today and yesterday had/has limited movement between distribution centers. And as we get closer to Christmas, the entire network will start to approach saturation. There are many reasons why things don’t always ship as fast as you’d like them to.
        • kennend3 4y ago
          Speaking of assumptions lets review yours for a moment. 1) I am not assuming the products are from different warehouses. I know this for a fact. Look at my other post and i stated one item is being shipped from a warehouse ~120 KM away. I will guess the rest is from the local warehouse? Once amazon updates the shipping details (probably friday AM) it will show me where it came from.. 2) I'm in Canada and it is not a holiday here so it is unclear why "today and yesterday had/has limited movement between distribution centers." 3) Amazon Canada rarely uses other carriers anymore. I cant tell you when the last time anyone i know received something that didnt use their own in-house shipping service so you cant really blame "UPS/Fedex"
        • 13of40 4y ago
          A few months ago I ordered a dongle from Amazon to attach a floppy drive to a modern computer via USB. For some reason this weird, niche little thing was eligible for Amazon Essentials same day delivery. Apparently every Amazon warehouse has a dusty box of these things in the corner that they're still trying to unload?
    • bombcar 4y ago
      Amazon quotes delivery times up to two weeks for me for prime now. And it doesn’t even ship (UPS) until a few days before the delivery date. And they still don’t do a good job combining orders.
  • ThunderSizzle 4y ago
    Delivery has never been faster for me. Most things arrive in less than a day now. But some things do take longer. I guess it depends on stock levels.
    • kennend3 4y ago
      The issue isnt just stock levels, it is stock levels at a specific distribution hub. As i posted i ordered a few items on tuesday and delivery will be friday. One of the items tracking details shows me that it is being shipped from a city ~ 120KM away yet there is a massive 1,000,000 square foot hub within waking distance from me?? Tracking hasn't updated to show me where the rest of the stuff is being shipped from so i can speak to the entire order. This gets to the CORE issue with amazon. Because i no longer have prime my stuff is almost intentionally held back to encourage me to get prime? It will not surprise me at all to see that when shipping is finally updated the other items on my list come from the local hub. Not all hubs hold all items and because of this your shipping times can fluctuate.
    • sweezyjeezy 4y ago
      Agreed - live in London, and often receive things within 12 hours of purchase.
  • chrisbaker98 4y ago
    Anecdotal, but I haven't noticed this in the UK. Pretty much everything I order from Amazon still arrives within 24 hours, and I live in the countryside (albeit in the southeast so still not far from London.) OTOH I still notice the problem that other people have mentioned - that practically everything on Amazon these days is the same repackaged Chinese dropshipped garbage. Which is one reason I shop on Amazon far less than I used to.
    • iso1631 4y ago
      I've never managed to connect with America tales of the length of shipping. Almost (99%) everything I order from amazon arrives when it says, most of which is next day. I live in the country, but like most UK citizens fairly close to a major trunk road (10 miles or so). Of course I'm sure things are different if you live on Mull or Fair Isle, but for the vast majority of us it seems reliable The quality of what you get from amazon is of course somewhat different.
      • 13of40 4y ago
        I live in the Seattle area, so Amazon shipping is pretty fast and accurate, but there have been a few times when things were shipped but they apparently just disappeared in transit. One time it was a car part and it got close enough that it was on a truck from the city 20 miles north of here, then it just dropped off the radar and they refunded my money. Then every once in a while you get something that takes a month to deliver, comes in a package covered with customs stamps, and is roughly the size and shape of what was ordered but wrong. I ordered a titanium tube one time - think the dimensions of a reusable drinking straw - and after a month got a solid titanium rod. "Mail it back and we'll give you a refund." There's a bit of unfair asymmetry there, friend, since you're mailing stuff to the US all day and I wouldn't have the faintest clue how to send something to China, and I'm guessing it's going to cost far more than the thing I'm returning. But I'm an addict and I don't see myself cancelling Prime any time soon.
      • cratermoon 4y ago
        The difference between the US and the UK is size and the sheer remoteness of some places, even small cities. Unless you've been there, it's hard to grasp. I've driven around large parts of the western US and there's a LOT of empty space. I don't know how many shipping centers Amazon has in the UK, but I am about 99.999% sure that there's areas of the US larger than all of the British Isle that are served by a single warehouse and shipping center. So the variability in the US is going to be very high. Some places that happen to be near a shipping center, or two, will have consistent on-time delivery. Other places that are distant from one, and may have a high mountain pass that's dicey in winter or closed because of wildfires in the summer between them and that single center, are going to have problems.
  • DebtDeflation 4y ago
    >even their shipping (with Prime too!) is getting slower Not only that. Try searching while in Incognito Mode and you'll see the same products, sold by Amazon.com, without Prime, for a few bucks cheaper than when you're logged in and seeing them with "free" Prime shipping.
    • piva00 4y ago
      Thanks for validating my assumption, I encountered this twice and thought I was taking crazy pills. I don't even shop on Amazon much, like once or twice a year...
    • takoid 4y ago
      Does this only happen with an active Prime membership? I tested a few search queries and didn’t see the inconsistencies you’re describing.
      • DebtDeflation 4y ago
        I assume so, since I have a Prime membership and it knows this when I'm logged in.
  • thefourthchime 4y ago
    That might depend on where you live. I nearly always get next-day or 2-day shipping. There are exceptions, but for central Austin, it's pretty good.
  • manicennui 4y ago
    This is heavily dependent on location. I receive almost everything in two days or less. It is extremely common to get things the next day or even the same day. I'm in the Chicago suburbs.
  • anifru 4y ago
    > Shipping is still "free" but many items take 4 days (or more now). I've had the opposite experience. Everything comes within 1 day. Some items even come within 12 hours (overnight shipping delivering at 7am)
  • MikePlacid 4y ago
    Where I live (a summerhouse in a small county seat in mountains) - Walmart, Bestbuy, Homedepot and others ship faster and usually for free even for small orders. Walmart also provides all-paper packaging (they seem to have worked hard on developing it) - so you can burn / recycle packaging without say peeling off stuck plastic tape first.
  • deleted 4y ago
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• lm28469 4y ago
  The only pro of amazon is that you can contact them months after the purchase and still get a free replacement/refund. With aliexpress I doubt they'd refund you even if you received a bag of dirt instead of your product
  • russelg 4y ago
    AliExpress also has strong buyer protections, which you would have seen had you ever ordered from there. You have to confirm delivery for every order else the seller doesn't get the money.
    • Firmwarrior 4y ago
      Half the time I order something from AliExpress, it's worthless junk that isn't what I wanted or way out of spec, and the confirmation thing you're talking about was a lot more limited than you're implying To be fair, though, said worthless junk was like 1/5th the price it'd be in the USA, so it was still worth the gamble the only major issue I have with AliExpress is how hard they make it to log in
  • fvold 4y ago
    In my experience, Ali Express is absolutely 100% a buyers market, in every single way. I've bought random junk with a somewhat long fulfillment time, and contacted the seller just to politely ask about a time frame without in any way indicating dissatisfaction, and received groveling responses begging me to not open a dispute with Ali.
• aceazzameen 4y ago
  AliExpress hasn't fully replaced Amazon for me yet. But I definitely shop at AliExpress more often now. I don't care if shipping takes longer. It's pennies compared to Amazon, which makes a difference when the quality of the items are a mystery. And for name brand items, I just use Costco, Target, and Best Buy unless Amazon has a better sale.
• agumonkey 4y ago
  And even that is not guaranteed. Lost of secondary sellers on their 'marketplace'. I order lipton tea a week ago and it's still not shipped. I don't remember how this is called, something like a honeymoon period. Most of the web love bombed us with unsustainable (loss leaders like) offers until they got everybody hooked and now they rely on habit, laziness and reduced competition. It's somehow quite a shame.
  • marcosdumay 4y ago
    > I don't remember how this is called, something like a honeymoon period. I think you mean "blatant worldwide market manipulation"? Dumping products until the competition is bankrupt and then using your monopoly to crush the consumers is a practice as old as commerce.
• Animats 4y ago
  > Now Amazon is nothing more than AliExpress with faster shipping. Shame. On Alibaba, you get business background info, whether it's a manufacturer or a reseller, a picture of the factory, info about whether someone checked out the factory, what certifications the product has, and how long it takes them to respond to inquiries. Amazon doesn't have any of that. On Alibaba, search for "outlet strip". You can check "Verified supplier", "trade assurance" and "UL certified" to filter out the junk. Some good low-priced outlet strips show up. Amazon doesn't have any of that. Alibaba is supposed to be B2B, but many items have a minimum order size of 1 or 2. If Alibaba had a "who retails this" link for products sold only in large quantities, they'd be more useful than Amazon. Often you can look on Aliexpress for the matching item.
  • burntwater 4y ago
    I’m curious, do you actually trust those certifications? I’m wary of the validity of them, but don’t know how to verify if they’re authentic. Thinking mostly of UL certification.
    • Animats 4y ago
      You can check the UL number on a product and get the certification info and company info. This is harder than it used to be on the UL site. You have to register for a free account.
  • otikik 4y ago
    Unless there’s some kind of third-party checking process, that only means that their seller forms have those extra fields.
  • marcosdumay 4y ago
    And you can get a long-term relationship with a seller, because you know that the product you got was actually delivered by them.
• boppo1 4y ago
  If you shop at Whole Foods Prime pays for itself.