Amazon

Discussion in 'Online Retailers' started by Patsy Faye, Jul 4, 2016.

  1. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    @Ken Anderson

    I had that problem for a while, I believe it was back in May. They were quoting delivery times 30 days out. But for me here in the middle of Virginia, long order processing times have gone away. I just took a look. My past few orders have arrived 3-5 days after I placed them (and that includes weekends.)

    The only lingering "The Virus That Roared" issue is Walmart has still suspended their Ship-to-Store feature, where I could buy stuff and have it ship to the store for pickup...free freight and no minimum order.
     
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  2. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    @Ken Anderson

    I retract my prior statement regarding Amazon's lead times being back to normal.

    I placed an order July 5.
    Today is July 9.
    Nothing has shipped.
    ETA July 22.

    I had no idea they really meant it this time and weren't hedging their bets. There's nothing to indicate these are 3rd party suppliers.

    I found another source for the seminola flour I ordered (at half of Amazon's pre-shipped price), but their freight screws the deal. I'm not spending $69 for "free" freight. And Walmart does not carry it. Otherwise I'd cancel.
     
    #32
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2020
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  3. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    The delivery date on most orders that I place is from ten days to two weeks, and most of them are Amazon fulfilled items. I used to get stuff in a few days, and occasionally even within the promised two day time period. It's not uncommon for it not to even have been shipped five days later.
     
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  4. Hedi Mitchell

    Hedi Mitchell Supreme Member
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    I have had good luck with getting my n orders with in a few days. Have ordered
    a new set of hand braces .One is due any day the other next week. Same manufacturer... oddity.left side three dollars less than right side? Who knows.
     
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  5. Von Jones

    Von Jones Supreme Member
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    Interesting catch @Gloria Mitchell. My son is left-handed and spends more on items to accommodate him than I would being right-handed.
     
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  6. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    I think because so much of the things that Amazon sells, and shipping from China is not as much as it used to be, some things we can get right away, and some take longer when we have to wait for another shipment to come in.
    I have noticed that wide variance of delivery date, too, and sometimes , we have things that said they were being delivered and had still not shipped.
    I ordered some more Zinc tablets on July 4, and they were supposed to have arrived yesterday, and now are saying that they will arrive July 15-16, and still have not been shipped.
    Now that i know about the slow deliveries, I am trying to order enough ahead of time that I won’t run out of something , if it does arrive late.

    We are trying to use the Subscribe and Save for things that we get every month, but not everything that we would buy is available on that . When you have at least 5 items, then you save from 5% to 15%, depending on the item.
     
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  7. Lois Winters

    Lois Winters Veteran Member
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    I have found recently that Amazon will inform me that a shipment may take a couple of weeks and I turn around and there it is in a couple of days. Is there a communication problem at that business? Not that I am complaining at all.
     
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  8. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    I've had the same experience, which is why I go ahead and place my order even when a long lead time is quoted. But according to their website, my most recent July 5 order has yet to ship.
     
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  9. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    roast-beef-hash.png

    If you were looking to buy Hormel Mary Kitchen Roast Beef Hash Homestyle, you have a couple of choices.

    You could buy a pack of twelve 14-oz cans of roast beef hash for $28.32 or you might opt to buy only a pack of only six cans of the exact same product for $34.80.

    What a deal! If I don't really want twelve cans, for a mere $6.48 more, I can get half the amount.

    The same product, the same size, but one of the choices is $0.17/ounce while the other is $0.39/ounce.
     
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  10. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    There are so many products on Amazon priced like that.

    The only thing more odd than the [il]logic is how common it is.
    This issue has elevated the level of sarcasm in the Q&A section to an art form.
     
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    Last edited: Aug 10, 2020
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  11. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Over the past several months, I have been getting more and more frustrated with Amazon. While I used to love the fact that I could order something on Amazon and it would arrive within a couple of days, that is almost never the case anymore. Increasingly more often, they never arrive, and I have to go through the bother of requesting a refund.

    Yesterday, I was anticipating several things that I ordered to set up another office in the library, where I can spend time with Ella and still get my work done. One of the items - an office chair - I ordered on February 5. Initially, it was supposed to arrive within a few days. I knew that wasn't going to happen when I could see that that it hadn't even been shipped yet. Then, they changed the date to yesterday. All-day yesterday, it indicated that it (along with a bunch of other stuff) would be arriving before 9:00 pm yesterday, although when I went into tracking, I could see that the shipment wasn't marked as being out for delivery. Now, on everything that was in that order, I am getting a delivery date range from February 13 to February 17. Too often, when this occurs, the order never arrives and Amazon won't allow me to even request a refund until a time period long after that, which means that I can't even reorder any of that stuff without fear of buying two of something that I need only one of.

    A couple of weeks ago, something I ordered was marked as having been delivered to an address in Ellsworth, Maine. Since I don't even know anyone in Ellsworth, that was more than a little bit strange, yet I had to spend about a half-hour trying to figure out how to get a refund. Contacting the company used to be easier too. Now, I get a run-around on their website.

    In all the years that Amazon was being reported as not having made a profit, its deliveries were great. Now that their service sucks, they are suddenly profitable.
     
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  12. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    I now we all hate to manage someone else's business for them so we can shove more money in their pockets, but...is there a way to contact Amazon management or customer service? That is not a business-wide problem. I don't know how centralized or disbursed their logistics are, but (I think I may have already said this) it really sounds like a regional thing.

    I have 4 items I ordered on Wednesday afternoon, standard free freight. 2 of them were out for delivery to my mailbox today, but the weather screwed it up. I believe these were vendor-direct shipments. The other 2 are from Amazon and I don't think they've shipped yet, but they have a Tuesday ETA. Absent a period last summer, their ETAs have been reasonably accurate here.
     
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  13. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    The biggest problem is on their end, though. A week after I order something, I can see that it still hasn't even shipped. My latest problem seems to be a combination of both. Amazon was very slow in shipping the stuff, and then it disappeared somewhere, which may have been the fault of Amazon or UPS; either way, Amazon is responsible for getting me the stuff I ordered. I don't blame them for items that are shipped by the vendor, and the problem is most often on the stuff that is handled by Amazon. Pretty much everything I order sits around for a few days to a week before they even ship it.
     
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  14. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    We have had things come really late, and the arrival time being pushed back, also. Sometimes, it looks like it is sitting at our post office for a couple of days, because the tracking shows that the package is in Huntsville and at the post office, but it doesn’t get delivered.
    When I have had to call customer service, they have always been very helpful, and sent me out a new order right away. Usually, when I call them, there is an option for them to call me back instead of staying on the line and waiting, so I always do that option.

    Here is the customer service number, in case anyone needs it.
    1 (888) 280-4331
     
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  15. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    For the past couple of months, I have been getting periodic refunds from Amazon. The notice doesn't tell me why the refund has been issued, or even which product it pertains to. Most of the time, I can't figure out what it's for, since I am (eventually) getting everything that I order, and the dollar amount doesn't match anything that I have ordered. Possibly, these refunds are for more than one item and that's way too much math for me. But sometimes, it's clear. For example, about a week ago, I ordered an air purifier for $149.54, and it still hasn't shipped. It was supposed to have been here tomorrow, but now the shipping date has been moved to Thursday. Today, I received a refund for $149.54, but it's still scheduled to be here on Thursday. The other ones that I have been able to match to a product were also things that had not shipped in a timely manner, and I did receive them eventually, so it seems that they are refunding my money for things that they don't ship on time. My orders are being shipped in a much more timely manner than they had been for the past couple of years, overall, but some things don't. If that's the case, I don't mind waiting a couple of weeks for an air purifier if I can get it for free.
     
    #45
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2022
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