IIRC, UPS’ drivers’ union is nigh-unbustable, and getting one of their guys fired takes an act of Congress. . . or a viral video of said driver throwing $1000 electronics over an 8ft fence five feet from the gate in. And I’m not even sure the latter guy was actually fired.
Not against unionization or anything; just noting that the drivers–however hard their job may be–have little to fear if they do it poorly.
I have never had a problem with ordering with Amazon Prime.
But I tried for the first time ever to watch a movie tonight with their free streaming, and all I get is a perpetually circling loading icon but the movie never starts…
Anybody have any thoughts?
It’s working for me. Something blocked in your browser?
Just tried Chrome rather than Safari, and at least it starts, but the audio sucks.
Two of my Black Friday orders with “guaranteed” Prime delivery today didn’t show up and will be here tomorrow, 4 business days after order. I understand that the holidays make shipping tricky, but they shouldn’t throw around words like guarantee if they can’t be absolutely certain an item will arrive on time. Not very good timing on their part since my Prime subscription is up for renewal this month.
This doesn’t solve your problem, but I’ve had great luck chatting with customer service after similar delays and getting Amazon credit or some such as an apology. If you have a few minutes to spare, I’d recommend giving it a shot.
Yeah, I had my first Prime issue ever with a Black Friday order. They told me I could have it Saturday if I selected next day shipping but I went with the standard two day. When it didn’t arrive Monday, I checked the tracking and saw it hadn’t shipped yet. It was in “pre-shipping” with an estimated deliver of Thursday, six days after I placed my order. I hit them up on chat to find out what pre-shipping was and I was told, "Oh, some items need pre-shipping before they ship. Which really explained nothing but, whatever. Thursday rolled around, no delivery. Estimated delivery of 8:00 PM Thursday. Friday rolls around, no delivery. It arrived at the local UPS facility at 5:30 AM – Plenty of time to get it on a truck. Today’s status shows that it’s out for delivery so, ten days on a two day shipping item. Granted, half of that delay was on UPS’s end but, still.
This is literally the first delivery delay I’ve had in 2 years of being a Prime member and I order a ton.
The common thread seems to be Black Friday. I recently ordered several computer items after BF and Amazon Prime worked like a charm. All I can think is that the volume of orders exceeded the ability to package and ship. My .2.
Amazon today said it’s “considering” raising the price of its $79 a year Prime service to customers in the US by another $20 to $40. The possible increase, which has not been finalized, was announced during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call with analysts.
Get’em cheap, then raise the price.
Better than than reducing quality/quantity (which they’ve already done with this add-on item bullshit and increasingly skeevy last-mile delivery company practices).
It’s been $79 since the beginning, and that was in 2005. With the increases in shipping costs and all the extra stuff (video, lending library, etc), I’ve been wondering how long they could hold the price.
Prime is a substantial money-maker for amazon. People with prime spend a great deal more on the site. They just see the opportunity to make more, I suppose.
While it’s true that Prime members spend a lot more than non-Prime, Amazon’s still got razor thin margins on everything. And the problem is that they’re selling more, which means they’re shipping more to those customers, which is where I imagine a lot of pressure is coming from. The average price of gas was around $2 in early 2005.
One of the problems with Amazon Prime is that there is absolutely no incentive to group purchases together or request slower shipping if it isn’t a rush item. A couple holidays back they had a thing where you could get something like $1 for digital music if you went 3-4 or whatever shipping which I loved because I got most of it in 2 days anyways. Also, before Prime we would bulk up our purchases and now we are more likely to spread a few things over a few days as different orders. Prime has definitely made UPS money because our shipping cost per item has definitely gone up.
@Lantz I suppose that’s what the whole add-on items thing is trying to address, but the annoying thing is that there seems to be little predictability as to what would fall in that category. Last year I ordered a dinky $7 keycap puller that qualified for prime, but other thing that cost that much are add-on only. Also ridiculous is that they won’t send add-on items with any Prime-eligible purchase unless it comes to 25 bucks. I mean, they’re coughing up for the shipping in any case, why not ship the add-on item in the same box?
Because they’re trying to get you to buy more. The add-on items are probably very low profit (or perhaps no profit). Where it makes Amazon money is if you buy a bit more to cross the line. It’s the same mechanic they use to drive super-saver shipping. Just because a user is Prime doesn’t make them immune from the same mechanics and incentives. They’re not just looking at a shipping cost issue-- they’re looking at the overall margin.
Precisely. I’ve been a Prime member since near the beginning, and my habit is, “Oh, my pen ran dry. I’ll just buy a new box from Amazon.” So I end up buying something that costs around $10 from Amazon and, more often than not, it has to be put on a plane in order to satisfy 2-day delivery. That’s a lot of gas and shipping expense for a relatively inexpensive purchase. And I do that kind of thing a lot on Amazon because I’m a Prime member. I can only imagine that’s what other Prime members do, too.
So how in the world has Prime paid for itself? Simply by virtue of the greater tendency of Prime customers to turn to Amazon vs another e-tailer when buying stuff online?
Prime members buy everything at Amazon. I know I do.
And yeah, sometimes I’ll buy something that they’ve got to lose money on, like toilet paper. Shipping toilet paper is insanity. But overall, they make tons of money on me, because a great deal of my disposable income goes to Amazon.
Prime members do spend a lot more on Amazon than non-Prime members.
Amazon probably comes out ahead if they can ship the item via ground only, which is a big reason they’ve been building distribution centers like crazy (but that adds its own expense; Bezos has had to defend the strategy in recent calls). It’s when the thing you buy isn’t at the closest distribution center that they have to ship by air, and that’s where they probably end up amortizing the cost.
Amazon is also hoping that Prime turns into the gateway for turning customers into digital customers. It’s why they’ve been adding more and more digital services at no cost. Stuff like the Netflix-style streaming library and the Kindle lending library. But they’re also doing original programming now, like Netflix. Amazon’s already the biggest cloud provider, and the cost of delivering digital goods is essentially zero, especially compared to paying for 2-day shipping on, say, a barbecue grill.
They need to do a better job emulating Netflix, though. They’re trying, but I find that their library isn’t as accessible to navigate and discover like Netflix. Mainly because it’s a subset of the Amazon.com page. It needs its own domain with its own design.