4 ms·

To me, the key feature of Amazon is the fast delivery with Prime. Do other merchants offer fast delivery often enough? Regarding credit cards, I started using

by nine_k 2y ago

To me, the key feature of Amazon is the fast delivery with Prime. Do other merchants offer fast delivery often enough? Regarding credit cards, I started using privacy dot com for virtual, merchant-locked cards. It protects against (rare) card details leaks, but, of course, does not give you any points or cashback.

jvanderbot 2y ago
The local Target and Home Depots all offer same day pickup and delivery. For our house, that's taken 90% of the business away from Amazon. What's ironic is we still make purchases on Amazon that don't require their fast shipping. We're just conditioned to expect it. I'm thinking TVs, books, project supplies, art, etc.
- the_snooze 2y ago
  >What's ironic is we still make purchases on Amazon that don't require their fast shipping. We're just conditioned to expect it. I'm thinking TVs, books, project supplies, art, etc. Realizing this was what made me quit Prime years ago, and eventually drive down my Amazon purchases to just a handful of times a year. For the most part, there's really not much of a difference if I get a book tomorrow vs. four days from now, or if I get it from Amazon or from the nearby Target. But there's a lot of infrastructure built up to satisfy this admittedly frivolous expectation of fast delivery. Are there cases when rapid delivery is necessary and valuable? Absolutely. Are those cases the norm? Not in my life, by an overwhelming margin.
  - n144q 2y ago
    Exactly. The $35 free shipping threshold actually helped me hold off a few impulse purchases. Thanks Amazon!
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > Realizing this was what made me quit Prime years ago I quit Prime after Amazon replaced "two-day shipping" with "it'll get there when it gets there".
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      I love that I can click "Get it tomorrow" filters, and see the search results visibly change... and not a single one is actually going to be here tomorrow. The same is true with two-day Prime. Even if you get to the item, all of a sudden, it's gone. I think their argument is that it's "Prime" shipping (not two-day), so if their eco-get-it-in-a-week-option is available, that's still a variant of Prime.
ants_everywhere 2y ago
For the most part these days, Amazon seems like a fast way to ship goods from Alibaba in the one to two day time frame. For a lot of other stuff, it feels like they've lost their edge on price and shipping. Often my main reason for using Amazon is that it reduces the friction associated with buying for more retailers. For example worrying about data breaches, being put on spam email lists, etc.
n144q 2y ago
Do you actually care that much about fast delivery? My Prime membership ended 3 years ago. These days I just put items in the cart, and place order whenever it reaches $35. If I need an item in a hurry -- which rarely happens -- I go to a store to buy it. This barely affected me, and I ended up with much fewer impulse purchases. What's funny though is that the "standard" delivery often takes 5 calendar days. But AliExpress shipments can take as few as 8 calendar days. I ended up spending even less -- well, if the items are manufactured in China, why not just order on AliExpress where you get the same/similar items and pay less.
- Yeul 2y ago
  This is true. DHL asked me to delay my shipping because of Black Friday chaos and it was a bunch of crap that I didn't really need immediately so I delayed it for a week.
- MoreMoore 2y ago
  Generally when I order something it's because I need it now and I live at the ass end of nowhere, so it's too inconvenient to find a decent store that sells what I need at a decent price (if that exists at all nearby). I think the biggest issue is just the uncertainty. I've been ordering at other places lately and it's just ... frustrating that I have no idea if it'll take them a day or three days to process before shipping.
- stronglikedan 2y ago
  > Do you actually care that much about fast delivery? Yes. Simple as. But a lot of people don't, so it's nice that there's options.
- ghaff 2y ago
  What Prime did for me, which didn't start with but was emphasized by COVID, was that if I needed/wanted many items I could just order them from Amazon with fairly prompt delivery rather than putting them on a shopping list. I'd probably get them quicker than I'd have gotten around to going to the store and probably save at least 30+ minutes into the bargain.
- nine_k 2y ago
joshstrange 2y ago
> To me, the key feature of Amazon is the fast delivery with Prime Most websites won't even give you a realistic shipping time (major brands might but the long-tail of online merchants don't). They might say "2-3 day shipping" but that's how long it takes after they ship it, sometimes it can take up a week before they actually ship it. It means than if I buy from anyone but a massive retailer I am rolling the dice on if I'll get something in 2 days or 2+ weeks. Some things can wait 2 weeks but when I'm moving between my house and my parent's house (I visit often) it's really hard to remember "2 weeks before I move locations I need to start directing packages at the other location". The two locations are 3hrs+ apart so I can't just pop over and pick up something sent to the other place.
- move-on-by 2y ago
  I was just looking at buying “The Great American Mail Race”, which is sold directly by USPS. They charge $16.45 for the shipping and don’t even provide the shipping speed! It could be anything from next day to next month- it’s not mentioned. And that’s from USPS’s own website! How does the USPS not think to consider sharing the shipment priority with the customer during checkout? Insanity.
MoreMoore 2y ago
It's really hard to beat Amazon just because of logistics. Amazon tells me if it'll arrive tomorrow or the day after if I order now and I can be 99% sure that it'll be processed today or tomorrow and it'll arrive as expected. Anybody else? I have no idea how long it'll take them to process my order, how long it takes for it to be processed by DHL/DPD/GLS and how long the actual delivery will take.
- asah 2y ago
  +1 - when I order on Amazon, it mostly gets here. Others, I suffer stress & distraction.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    Hm, I have an active order right now. I ordered three things simultaneously on December 15 with a stated delivery date of December 20, also called out by the website as "arrives before Christmas". One of those things shipped the next day and is currently reported to be arriving tomorrow, which happens to match the stated delivery date. The other two have yet to ship, but their delivery date has slipped to "December 21 - 24". Realistically, they look unlikely to arrive before Christmas, and Amazon seems to feel no need to honor their contract.
    - hirako2000 2y ago
      Big day in 4 days. Amazon is currently dealing with hundreds of millions packages. Those not using fulfilment have less but even worse on them.
      - thaumasiotes 2y ago
        Update: between my comment above and now, Amazon has marked the other two items shipped, and un-slipped the expected delivery date back to the 20th. Interestingly, the "shipped" status is matched to a tracking update that says "package left the shipper facility" with no time or location information. All further updates have a location and a timestamp. (Everything is shipped by Amazon.)
AndyMcConachie 2y ago
It's interesting to me that some people really see fast-delivery as an important feature of e-commerce. In the 20+ years I've been buying stuff online I think maybe less than 5% of the time I have cared about how fast I get something delivered. Then again I don't have a business that relies on things getting to me fast. I'm just a guy who buys crap online for myself and my family. If I'm getting a book or some electronic doodad it rarely matters to me if I get it tomorrow or in 10 days. For most Amazon non-business shoppers is getting stuff delivered quickly really an important consideration? I've always assumed that fast shipping, and the importance that Amazon places on it, was at least partly because of their desire for rapid cash flow. That fast shipping was more instituted because of Amazon's accounting needs than because most customers actually needed it. Maybe I'm wrong. It would be nice to hear people's informed opinions on this.
- ndileas 2y ago
  Fast delivery not a daily need for most people, but the dopamine hit is huge, and it makes people buy more stuff. I think an underappreciated factor of amazon's success is how it makes normal people feel like they're the boss, who can slam their fist and get immediate action. Personally, I feel similarly to you, that most of the time the difference between one day and 1-3 weeks shipping is negligible. However, I think that relies on certain assumptions; I buy most consumable items (food, sponges, soap, etc) in person and almost always have enough to last another month or without buying more. Not everyone does that, some are JITing their daily needs and/or don't have enough free time and energy to make sure everything is always set well in advance (think working single mom, kid needs dress shirt tomorrow for whatever).
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Another factor is that, while I travel less than I used to, I do like the schedule deliveries around being at home. Although package theft is not really a factor where I live, I also don't want my mailbox getting overstuffed or a package potentially sitting out in the elements for a week. As a result, I don't lke to order things with an indeterminate delivery if I might have travel coming up. (Which used to be a LOT.)
- 2y ago
bombcar 2y ago
Prime delivery is rarely 2 day anymore, and Walmart/HD/Target often match or beat it. And you still get free shipping over $35 which covers most anything else. Prime is too heavily tied to video now, which is a $0 value for me.
- kube-system 2y ago
  Depends on where you're at. The vast majority of stuff I buy on Amazon is same or next day.
- maccard 2y ago
  Prime is almost always next day, occasionally same day delivery for me, FWIW. B&Q (home depot equivalent in the UK) can occasionally be the same as ordering off of aliexpress. In the UK, the only place that I've found beats Amazon for delivery is Argos. For some utterly insane reason, they do their own delivery logistics from my nearest store and it can only be a fleet of vans sitting waiting for an online order to come in. I've _regularly_ had orders delivered in about 15 minutes from them (which is about how long it takes to drive to the nearest store).
kube-system 2y ago
I don't dislike typing in my credit card numbers because I'm worried about the number leaking (This is the US, I hand my card to strangers a half dozen times per week), I dislike it because I have to go find my wallet and fill out a long form. Apple Pay is nice because I can slap one button on the top right of my keyboard.
- Bishonen88 2y ago
  A password manager can fill out CC details automatically as well.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    Except basically none of them store the CVV and so even if I use them, I still have to go get my wallet. And many cannot fill out the varying expiration date fields correctly.
    - ianburrell 2y ago
      1Password fills out CVV. I sometimes have problems with zip code and state drop downs, or with weird validation that prevents filling. I just copy and paste CVV from 1Password. Better than typing out the number. There is on browser thought. It doesn’t work on mobile so I usually wait until at computer which is better anyway.
Izkata 2y ago
The speed is nice, but for me it's more about the reliability. For example, a few years ago when my router broke I decided to try something else (Newegg I think) and after several weeks it just never arrived and I got a refund. Found the exact same model on Amazon and it arrived two or three days later, without Prime and without issues. I just don't ever have the problems with Amazon that people complain about online.
awkward 2y ago
For me, the fast shipping is at a point where more reliability would be better than the current speed of delivery. If it's on time, I'd prefer to get a package in two days than have it delivered at 10pm in one. If it's behind the deadline, I'd prefer a more realistic deadline than emails about slipping on the schedule.

by nine_k 2y ago

jvanderbot 2y ago

The local Target and Home Depots all offer same day pickup and delivery. For our house, that's taken 90% of the business away from Amazon. What's ironic is we still make purchases on Amazon that don't require their fast shipping. We're just conditioned to expect it. I'm thinking TVs, books, project supplies, art, etc.

the_snooze 2y ago
>What's ironic is we still make purchases on Amazon that don't require their fast shipping. We're just conditioned to expect it. I'm thinking TVs, books, project supplies, art, etc. Realizing this was what made me quit Prime years ago, and eventually drive down my Amazon purchases to just a handful of times a year. For the most part, there's really not much of a difference if I get a book tomorrow vs. four days from now, or if I get it from Amazon or from the nearby Target. But there's a lot of infrastructure built up to satisfy this admittedly frivolous expectation of fast delivery. Are there cases when rapid delivery is necessary and valuable? Absolutely. Are those cases the norm? Not in my life, by an overwhelming margin.
- n144q 2y ago
  Exactly. The $35 free shipping threshold actually helped me hold off a few impulse purchases. Thanks Amazon!
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Realizing this was what made me quit Prime years ago I quit Prime after Amazon replaced "two-day shipping" with "it'll get there when it gets there".
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    I love that I can click "Get it tomorrow" filters, and see the search results visibly change... and not a single one is actually going to be here tomorrow. The same is true with two-day Prime. Even if you get to the item, all of a sudden, it's gone. I think their argument is that it's "Prime" shipping (not two-day), so if their eco-get-it-in-a-week-option is available, that's still a variant of Prime.

ants_everywhere 2y ago

For the most part these days, Amazon seems like a fast way to ship goods from Alibaba in the one to two day time frame. For a lot of other stuff, it feels like they've lost their edge on price and shipping. Often my main reason for using Amazon is that it reduces the friction associated with buying for more retailers. For example worrying about data breaches, being put on spam email lists, etc.

n144q 2y ago

Do you actually care that much about fast delivery? My Prime membership ended 3 years ago. These days I just put items in the cart, and place order whenever it reaches $35. If I need an item in a hurry -- which rarely happens -- I go to a store to buy it. This barely affected me, and I ended up with much fewer impulse purchases. What's funny though is that the "standard" delivery often takes 5 calendar days. But AliExpress shipments can take as few as 8 calendar days. I ended up spending even less -- well, if the items are manufactured in China, why not just order on AliExpress where you get the same/similar items and pay less.

Yeul 2y ago
This is true. DHL asked me to delay my shipping because of Black Friday chaos and it was a bunch of crap that I didn't really need immediately so I delayed it for a week.
MoreMoore 2y ago
Generally when I order something it's because I need it now and I live at the ass end of nowhere, so it's too inconvenient to find a decent store that sells what I need at a decent price (if that exists at all nearby). I think the biggest issue is just the uncertainty. I've been ordering at other places lately and it's just ... frustrating that I have no idea if it'll take them a day or three days to process before shipping.
stronglikedan 2y ago
> Do you actually care that much about fast delivery? Yes. Simple as. But a lot of people don't, so it's nice that there's options.
ghaff 2y ago
What Prime did for me, which didn't start with but was emphasized by COVID, was that if I needed/wanted many items I could just order them from Amazon with fairly prompt delivery rather than putting them on a shopping list. I'd probably get them quicker than I'd have gotten around to going to the store and probably save at least 30+ minutes into the bargain.
nine_k 2y ago

joshstrange 2y ago

> To me, the key feature of Amazon is the fast delivery with Prime Most websites won't even give you a realistic shipping time (major brands might but the long-tail of online merchants don't). They might say "2-3 day shipping" but that's how long it takes after they ship it, sometimes it can take up a week before they actually ship it. It means than if I buy from anyone but a massive retailer I am rolling the dice on if I'll get something in 2 days or 2+ weeks. Some things can wait 2 weeks but when I'm moving between my house and my parent's house (I visit often) it's really hard to remember "2 weeks before I move locations I need to start directing packages at the other location". The two locations are 3hrs+ apart so I can't just pop over and pick up something sent to the other place.

move-on-by 2y ago
I was just looking at buying “The Great American Mail Race”, which is sold directly by USPS. They charge $16.45 for the shipping and don’t even provide the shipping speed! It could be anything from next day to next month- it’s not mentioned. And that’s from USPS’s own website! How does the USPS not think to consider sharing the shipment priority with the customer during checkout? Insanity.

MoreMoore 2y ago

It's really hard to beat Amazon just because of logistics. Amazon tells me if it'll arrive tomorrow or the day after if I order now and I can be 99% sure that it'll be processed today or tomorrow and it'll arrive as expected. Anybody else? I have no idea how long it'll take them to process my order, how long it takes for it to be processed by DHL/DPD/GLS and how long the actual delivery will take.

asah 2y ago
+1 - when I order on Amazon, it mostly gets here. Others, I suffer stress & distraction.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  Hm, I have an active order right now. I ordered three things simultaneously on December 15 with a stated delivery date of December 20, also called out by the website as "arrives before Christmas". One of those things shipped the next day and is currently reported to be arriving tomorrow, which happens to match the stated delivery date. The other two have yet to ship, but their delivery date has slipped to "December 21 - 24". Realistically, they look unlikely to arrive before Christmas, and Amazon seems to feel no need to honor their contract.
  - hirako2000 2y ago
    Big day in 4 days. Amazon is currently dealing with hundreds of millions packages. Those not using fulfilment have less but even worse on them.
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      Update: between my comment above and now, Amazon has marked the other two items shipped, and un-slipped the expected delivery date back to the 20th. Interestingly, the "shipped" status is matched to a tracking update that says "package left the shipper facility" with no time or location information. All further updates have a location and a timestamp. (Everything is shipped by Amazon.)

AndyMcConachie 2y ago

It's interesting to me that some people really see fast-delivery as an important feature of e-commerce. In the 20+ years I've been buying stuff online I think maybe less than 5% of the time I have cared about how fast I get something delivered. Then again I don't have a business that relies on things getting to me fast. I'm just a guy who buys crap online for myself and my family. If I'm getting a book or some electronic doodad it rarely matters to me if I get it tomorrow or in 10 days. For most Amazon non-business shoppers is getting stuff delivered quickly really an important consideration? I've always assumed that fast shipping, and the importance that Amazon places on it, was at least partly because of their desire for rapid cash flow. That fast shipping was more instituted because of Amazon's accounting needs than because most customers actually needed it. Maybe I'm wrong. It would be nice to hear people's informed opinions on this.

ndileas 2y ago
Fast delivery not a daily need for most people, but the dopamine hit is huge, and it makes people buy more stuff. I think an underappreciated factor of amazon's success is how it makes normal people feel like they're the boss, who can slam their fist and get immediate action. Personally, I feel similarly to you, that most of the time the difference between one day and 1-3 weeks shipping is negligible. However, I think that relies on certain assumptions; I buy most consumable items (food, sponges, soap, etc) in person and almost always have enough to last another month or without buying more. Not everyone does that, some are JITing their daily needs and/or don't have enough free time and energy to make sure everything is always set well in advance (think working single mom, kid needs dress shirt tomorrow for whatever).
- ghaff 2y ago
  Another factor is that, while I travel less than I used to, I do like the schedule deliveries around being at home. Although package theft is not really a factor where I live, I also don't want my mailbox getting overstuffed or a package potentially sitting out in the elements for a week. As a result, I don't lke to order things with an indeterminate delivery if I might have travel coming up. (Which used to be a LOT.)
2y ago

bombcar 2y ago

Prime delivery is rarely 2 day anymore, and Walmart/HD/Target often match or beat it. And you still get free shipping over $35 which covers most anything else. Prime is too heavily tied to video now, which is a $0 value for me.

kube-system 2y ago
Depends on where you're at. The vast majority of stuff I buy on Amazon is same or next day.
maccard 2y ago
Prime is almost always next day, occasionally same day delivery for me, FWIW. B&Q (home depot equivalent in the UK) can occasionally be the same as ordering off of aliexpress. In the UK, the only place that I've found beats Amazon for delivery is Argos. For some utterly insane reason, they do their own delivery logistics from my nearest store and it can only be a fleet of vans sitting waiting for an online order to come in. I've _regularly_ had orders delivered in about 15 minutes from them (which is about how long it takes to drive to the nearest store).

kube-system 2y ago

I don't dislike typing in my credit card numbers because I'm worried about the number leaking (This is the US, I hand my card to strangers a half dozen times per week), I dislike it because I have to go find my wallet and fill out a long form. Apple Pay is nice because I can slap one button on the top right of my keyboard.

Bishonen88 2y ago
A password manager can fill out CC details automatically as well.
- kube-system 2y ago
  Except basically none of them store the CVV and so even if I use them, I still have to go get my wallet. And many cannot fill out the varying expiration date fields correctly.
  - ianburrell 2y ago
    1Password fills out CVV. I sometimes have problems with zip code and state drop downs, or with weird validation that prevents filling. I just copy and paste CVV from 1Password. Better than typing out the number. There is on browser thought. It doesn’t work on mobile so I usually wait until at computer which is better anyway.

Izkata 2y ago

The speed is nice, but for me it's more about the reliability. For example, a few years ago when my router broke I decided to try something else (Newegg I think) and after several weeks it just never arrived and I got a refund. Found the exact same model on Amazon and it arrived two or three days later, without Prime and without issues. I just don't ever have the problems with Amazon that people complain about online.

awkward 2y ago

For me, the fast shipping is at a point where more reliability would be better than the current speed of delivery. If it's on time, I'd prefer to get a package in two days than have it delivered at 10pm in one. If it's behind the deadline, I'd prefer a more realistic deadline than emails about slipping on the schedule.