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Is your goal to annoy people into paying you more money, Amazon?
#342258 - 07/08/15 08:34 AM
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Items ordered. In stock. Free 5-8 day shipping selected.
When do they ship? Seven (business) days after ordering, to arrive via UPS next day.
This costs extra. They are paying more money this way than if they just shipped it out the day after ordering using standard delivery. But no.
At 4:10PM Tuesday, July 7, about the time deliveries arrive here, I get an email:
Quote:
We wanted to let you know that we have shipped your items. We've combined "xxxxx" and 7 other items from your orders together in the same package.
Details
Order #
Order #
Order #
Order #
Estimated delivery date:
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
24 hours. They split my order into six parts, sent the least important, cheapest, smallest thing (that is advertised as having a 2-3 day delay) alone, and then sat on the rest of them for a week, put them back together, and sent them the fastest (or at least second fastest) way they could.
But they made sure to tell me about "Prime Day" coming next week, so I could sign up for $99 or whatever it is now.
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| mw |
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MAME Fan
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Re: Is your goal to annoy people into paying you more money, Amazon?
[Re: TriggerFin]
#342274 - 07/08/15 09:31 PM
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If you or I were shipping, you are correct, it costs more to wait a week and then ship next day.
But they have a deal with the shipping companies, and do not pay full price because they have such a large volume.
Plus, when we order something on Amazon, we are presented with the illusion that all the items are in stock at their warehouse location which is closest to us geographically.
Behind the scenes, when several items are ordered, those items may be at different warehouse locations. We are spared the gruesome details of logistics on how Amazon is going to transfer those items from warehouse to warehouse, via various shipping routes and services.
Amazon saves money by stocking it's various warehouses by guessing where in the country those items will sell - for the best aggregate shipping time. Amazon loses money when their stocking predictions are inaccurate.
Since they're still in business, and apparently thriving, I perceive that their predictions are accurate enough.
And yes, your point about paying extra for the convenience of quick shipping is well taken. But look at it this way, if they had flat rate shipping and could handle the extra volume, almost all local commercial retailers would find themselves out of business. The extra charge for quick ship is one of the few things keeping the brick and mortar operators still operating.
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Is your goal to annoy people into paying you more money, Amazon?
[Re: mw]
#342277 - 07/08/15 10:13 PM
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> And yes, your point about paying extra for the convenience of quick shipping is well
> taken. But look at it this way, if they had flat rate shipping and could handle the
> extra volume, almost all local commercial retailers would find themselves out of
> business. The extra charge for quick ship is one of the few things keeping the brick
> and mortar operators still operating.
That's not *entirely* true. I have Prime, I aggressively use it, and I still go to brick-and-mortar stores (and order from Newegg). Among other reasons, sometimes I need something immediately and it's full-on out-of-stock or only available from a 3rd party seller with no ship time guarantees. And also Amazon's pricing on groceries is pretty awful - it's much cheaper to hit a grocery store, or the SuperTarget.
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Re: Is your goal to annoy people into paying you more money, Amazon?
[Re: mw]
#342291 - 07/09/15 02:51 AM
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I'd believe that if I hadn't had Prime up until they started charging so much for it.
But I had it, so I know it doesn't take a week to get everything together. They can get it all in one place and then send it to me in a manner that gets that box of stuff to my door in two days. Sometimes things came in two shipments, but they still do now.
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| mw |
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Re: Is your goal to annoy people into paying you more money, Amazon?
[Re: TriggerFin]
#342293 - 07/09/15 05:34 AM
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> I'd believe that if I hadn't had Prime up until they started charging so much for it.
>
> But I had it, so I know it doesn't take a week to get everything together. They can
> get it all in one place and then send it to me in a manner that gets that box of
> stuff to my door in two days. Sometimes things came in two shipments, but they still
> do now.
We all know it doesn't take a week to get everything together. What we don't know is how much it costs Amazon to do it in two days.
When Prime was lower cost, they could afford to loose a little money on it while they were working out the bugs. Now that it's perfected, the bean-counters have mandated the new price.
If they over-estimated what the market will bear, they will loose some sales. Apparently they think that the economy is strong enough (that is, folks will pay for the convenience of quick shipping) to give them a cushy margin at this time.
Unless there is a threat from a competitor that offers quick shipping for lower cost, Amazon will get away with annoying people to pay them more money.
And the competitors can see that their margins will narrow too much if they try to compete in this area, due to the higher logistical costs of shipping quickly in mass quantities.
Unless, of course, somebody can find a psychic who has the knack of filling warehouses in such a way that no aggregate shipments occur!
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GatKong |
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Tetris Mason
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Re: Is your goal to annoy people into paying you more money, Amazon?
[Re: R. Belmont]
#342302 - 07/09/15 03:45 PM
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> it's much cheaper to hit a grocery store, or the SuperTarget.
I do all my grocery shopping at Sharper Image and Skymall.
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