Is Amazon intentionally delaying the delivery so that buyers pay £50/year for Prime service?
My parcel sat on their warehouse for 3 days and then they delivered using their standard courier service. The actual delivery took just 1 day.
I thought one pays extra for the speedy delivery service and not as a ransom to "release" the product early from their warehouse early!
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>> Is Amazon intentionally delaying the delivery so that buyers pay £50/year for Prime service?
I don't know about intentionally delaying delivery, but there has to be some differentiation to justify the price difference, so they are intentionally prioritising the Prime orders, and would have to hire more staff to get your order as quickly as the Prime orders.
It could be that they never ship a standard order, sooner than three days after order, to enforce the price differentiation, or maybe it is just much less likely that a standard order will be picked quicker than that.
I tried a Prime trial but I found that, when Royal Mail is the courier, next day is certainly not guaranteed.
Last edited by: SteelSpark on Thu 15 Aug 13 at 12:55
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I would think the easiest and cheapest way to "Fix" the delivery times would be to have a standard warehouse processing time but delay the release of the order to the warehouse.
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I've long been of the opinion that the free delivery simply gets a three day delay stuck on the order before it's processed.
I buy most things from eBay now, the delivery is invariably next day as opposed to Amazon's five.
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>> I buy most things from eBay now, the delivery is invariably next day as opposed
>> to Amazon's five.
I've also started buying a lot more from eBay, and also Amazon Marketplace.
The sellers are very sensitive to bad feedback, so dispatch and delivery is usually very good.
Amazon seem to gradually be removing free delivery, country by country, so it will probably happen here eventually.
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I still have prime, though I'm not sure it's worth now that free delivery is pretty much standard anyway, even though it takes longer.
I seriously doubt that Amazon deliberately delays despatch for the reason suggested, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. More likely that it is delayed simply for reasons of efficiency/cost.
I don't know much about logistics, but it does cost more to do next day. It has to be picked, packed and ready for collection by that day's deadline, and the courier has to take it to a hub, overnight it to the delivery hub, and get it out for delivery that next day.
The item has to be held in stock. This is not always necessary for 2-3 day orders, if stock is available from a supplier on overnight delivery into the warehouse, or direct delivery to the purchaser.
More capacity is needed at every stage to deliver everything next day - hub and spoke capacity needs to be significantly higher to avoid peak overload, so couriers charge more for it. 2-3 day deliveries can be regulated to smooth the demand, and loads can also be aggregated more efficiently so final leg routes are shorter. They can also be picked more efficiently for the same reason.
Not my specialism, but the large retail business I worked for a few years ago moved from 2 day to 1 day delivery and it was a real challenge to achieve that, and quite costly.
I buy quite often from ebay and not much arrives next day - I'd say 3 or 4 is more usual.
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I had two deliveries from Amazon last week, one with free delivery and the other standard delivery. The free delivery was ordered on Sunday, and arrived Tuesday morning; the other arrived within two days of ordering.
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MoneySavingExpert 24th July:
Amazon scraps some free deliveries – but you can beat the charges
Online shoppers should watch out for delivery fees on Amazon, after the retailer scrapped its free "super saver" delivery on certain items. But there are ways to avoid the new charge, which was introduced yesterday.
tinyurl.com/mnsodao
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Two of those "beat the delivery charge" methods are fine, but I think adding a 70p CD to your basket with the intention of then returning it isn't playing the game. If we all do things like that then prices just go up more.
I shall now dismount from my vertiginous nag.
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>> Two of those "beat the delivery charge" methods are fine, but I think adding a
>> 70p CD to your basket with the intention of then returning it isn't playing the
>> game. If we all do things like that then prices just go up more.
>>
>> I shall now dismount from my vertiginous nag.
>>
Yeah, but since you're forcing Amazon to pay more VAT you're simply ensuring that they pay their fair share of tax.
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given the way Amazon manipulate the market, I don't see why we cant manipulate them a bit more.
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>> Yeah, but since you're forcing Amazon to pay more VAT you're simply ensuring that they
>> pay their fair share of tax.
It's the buyer who pays the VAT.
And it gets unpaid when he sends it back for a refund.
Amazon hasn't made a (n accounting) profit yet, which might explain why it hasn't paid much tax - they say. I reckon if you added back the non-deductibles they'd still owe quite a bit if they made it here.
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I've bought two things from Amazon recently, although both came from affiliates or whatever the word is.
Both were ordered of an evening, and both were standard delivery, ie 3 to 5 days. Both were actually sent the following morning, and arrived the following day. Which to my way of thinking, is pretty good and I'd not be complaining if I'd paid for express delivery.
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>> ... and I'd not be complaining if I'd paid for express delivery.
But if you had paid for express delivery, wouldn't you have wasted your money given that standard is so quick?
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Sort of my point... Although if I'd paid for express, I'd not know!
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Amazon Prime - SteelSpark
