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I get this, but do they not give courtesy credits for late items? I ordered something Friday and it showed arrival Saturday. On Saturday, it showed ‘delayed’ an

I get this, but do they not give courtesy credits for late items? I ordered something Friday and it showed arrival Saturday. On Saturday, it showed ‘delayed’ and that it would be delivered Tuesday. I called Amazon and they gave me a $5 credit. Surprisingly, it ended up being delivered on Sunday, which was actually within the 2-day guarantee. I get that it would be annoying to keep having to call/chat Amazon for every order. But if they pay up consistently it would amount to 5-25% off your Amazon purchases (based on my experience, it’s usually around 10-15%). That’s not a terrible tradeoff for slower shipping. In most cases, I’d take the trade!

PaulHoule 3y ago
I subscribed to Prime as soon as it became available and it was always fast, but trouble started during the pandemic they would say I would get it in 2 days but it might be 2 weeks. In that case I could ask for a credit but not long after that they started claiming it would take 5 days. I got numerous long winded emails about the "benefits" of Prime after I canceled and they hardly said anything about shipping as a benefit. It makes a big difference when compared with alternatives because of this: if I absolutely have to get something right away I can drop what I am doing and drive to the store and get it sooner than AMZN. That's a hassle though. If it takes 5 days then it is not hard to get to the store because I am probably going somewhere close. 2 days is roughly the crossover where shopping online is more convenient to going to the store. Since AMZN doesn't care if I have a smile on my face I'm going to shop at a store that invests in my community whenever I can. In principle AMZN has the advantage of having a bigger catalog but in practice that bigger catalog is mostly spam product listings that I don't want to waste my time looking at. My biggest behavior change since ditching Prime is that I am much less likely to order used books on AMZN but I am more likely to buy e-Books from platforms other than Amazon like Kobo (e.g. they had a Humble Bundle last week where you could get almost all of the Discworld books for $25) or get books through the fast interlibrary loan service at my uni.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  > not long after that they started claiming it would take 5 days. So when you are going to order something it shows 5 days, even though it’s designated as Prime? I had that happen a couple times and was still able to get credits when I tried, based on the fact that anything that is Prime should have 2-day shipping. I understand it is a hassle though, and it’s good to frequent brick-and-mortar shops to keep them strong.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    See https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/9/7/23333406/amazon-prime-2-day-shipping-delays-taking-long https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/9/7/23333406/amazon-prime-2-... if you actually read their marketing material for prime they don't promise it is two day anymore.
    - gnicholas 3y ago
      Wow, interesting (and pretty lousy that they charge people the same amount for Prime, even if the level of service is vastly different).

PaulHoule 3y ago

I subscribed to Prime as soon as it became available and it was always fast, but trouble started during the pandemic they would say I would get it in 2 days but it might be 2 weeks. In that case I could ask for a credit but not long after that they started claiming it would take 5 days. I got numerous long winded emails about the "benefits" of Prime after I canceled and they hardly said anything about shipping as a benefit. It makes a big difference when compared with alternatives because of this: if I absolutely have to get something right away I can drop what I am doing and drive to the store and get it sooner than AMZN. That's a hassle though. If it takes 5 days then it is not hard to get to the store because I am probably going somewhere close. 2 days is roughly the crossover where shopping online is more convenient to going to the store. Since AMZN doesn't care if I have a smile on my face I'm going to shop at a store that invests in my community whenever I can. In principle AMZN has the advantage of having a bigger catalog but in practice that bigger catalog is mostly spam product listings that I don't want to waste my time looking at. My biggest behavior change since ditching Prime is that I am much less likely to order used books on AMZN but I am more likely to buy e-Books from platforms other than Amazon like Kobo (e.g. they had a Humble Bundle last week where you could get almost all of the Discworld books for $25) or get books through the fast interlibrary loan service at my uni.

gnicholas 3y ago
> not long after that they started claiming it would take 5 days. So when you are going to order something it shows 5 days, even though it’s designated as Prime? I had that happen a couple times and was still able to get credits when I tried, based on the fact that anything that is Prime should have 2-day shipping. I understand it is a hassle though, and it’s good to frequent brick-and-mortar shops to keep them strong.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  See https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/9/7/23333406/amazon-prime-2-day-shipping-delays-taking-long https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/9/7/23333406/amazon-prime-2-... if you actually read their marketing material for prime they don't promise it is two day anymore.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    Wow, interesting (and pretty lousy that they charge people the same amount for Prime, even if the level of service is vastly different).