wbwood wrote:
Empty Nest, Soon wrote:
I’ve never paid for shipping from Amazon, since my orders are always over the threshold for free shipping, currently $35. We both use Nook from B&N for e-reader. We have no interest in streaming video from Amazon.
My Amazon orders were always shipped in 1 or 2 days until May of this year. I’ve placed 7 orders since then and the average time to ship has been over 5 days, the minimum 4 days. Recently, I’ve placed orders with other vendors on the same day I placed an Amazon order. I received the items from the other vendors before Amazon even shipped my order placed the same day.
I can only conclude that Amazon is deliberately degrading shipping service for me in an attempt to coerce me into subscribing to Amazon Prime. I am not kindly disposed to pay them $99 per year in hopes of once more getting the prompt service I was previously accustomed to. I’m not interested in negotiating the ransom to get them to stop holding my orders hostage.
I sent them an email earlier today. We’ll see what they answer. I will take my business elsewhere if they continue to treat me so shabbily about shipping my stuff, even if it means a little less convenience or a slightly higher price. (I often find better prices elsewhere, anyway.)
Wayne
Everything that is sold on Amazon is not always shipped from Amazon. So it may depend on the shipper. And then again you may be right. And everything sold on Amazon does not fall under Prime shipping. So people should know that before they sign up. To make it worthwhile, you need to order a good bit every year and/or take advantage of the other little perks like some of the streaming movies/tv shows they have. They recently started allowing you to download the movie/show to your device and you can watch it later. That's good.
No argument from me.
With Amazon, it is usually easy enough to tell whether it is coming directly from Amazon, or whether they are passing it along to another vendor. If it qualifies for “free shipping on orders over $35,” you can be sure if it is shipped by Amazon. Some items are sold by a different vendor, but “fulfilled by Amazon,” and Amazon ships those as well. All the orders of which I complain were shipped by Amazon. Actually, on one of those orders I included a used book from a third-party bookseller. Amazon passed the order through promptly and I had that book in hand before Amazon got around to putting the rest of my order in the mail.
The other services included with Prime are of no value to us. Besides having Nook e-readers, we live in a rural area where internet speed is marginal for streaming video. I can’t recall that I have ever paid for shipping from Amazon, except in a couple of instances when I ordered last-minutes gifts and paid to have them shipped expedited, so “free shipping” is not much of an enticement.
By not paying $99 per year, I can cover a lot of shipping or small price differences from other vendors who will ship my stuff without waiting for the moon to change phases. Besides, it is not often too hard to find as good or better price somewhere else.
We live in a remote area and buy a lot from Amazon, but I also buy a lot from Ebay and other on-line sources. The main thing Amazon offers so far as I’m concerned is the convenience of dealing with one vendor for a wide variety of items, but if that is going to come at the cost of waiting an extra week I may soon choose to shop elsewhere.
Wayne
