No Wonder Amazon is Worth Untold Billions

I've had my first weird experience with Amazon and I swear I am not quite senile yet, so I didn't make a mistake in ordering. I ordered 2 small bottles of Nescafe Rich (Colombian) and two tins of Danish ham and received 3 bottles of coffee and FOUR tins of ham! I am going to keep them with the optimistic hope that I'll still be around for another year or so to enjoy the unexpected abundance!
 
Amazon will be pulling in extra staff due to Christmas.

I like Amazon, but I'm on the edge for Prime. I do have it now, but they've pushed it to £95 a year. They last increased it because of the streaming, and music services. I'm interested in neither of those. I wish they had a lower rate that just covered free shipping.

Most of my purchases are next day. I've noticed they are carrying mess and mess physical music. Some of it is clearly not shipping from their warehouse, they appear to have sub-contracted it out. It's all about "just-in-time" delivery now, where Amazon don't have to pay for warehouse space.
 
I don't have prime either because where I live it is almost impossible to get delivery to my door and if UPS switches it to the post office for delivery I do not get it at all. They do ship to my PO box for smaller stuff, so I am grateful for that. However, lately I have had a couple of orders just sit and sit. The most recent was an under the desk foot warmer mat. I ordered it on October 20 and it has finally shipped and should be here tomorrow.

I understand these things sometimes happen, but I was not able to cancel this order and get it somewhere else. A customer service contact did no good. That kind of left a bad feeling towards them.
 
Beezer said:
My daughter ordered me a DVD Player from Amazon at 8 o'clock at night. It came the next morning by 11am. That's insane!
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On several occasions I have had deliveries the same day I placed the order

I don't advocate that we all should shop online for everything, I really don't..., but when you factor in wear and tear on the car, cost of fuel.. cost of parking.. hunting down the exact item you need by going from store to store... and even when you think you've found a store who sells it, only to be told they don't have it in stock and you should go online and order it..

..then when you can get it at a click of a mouse without leaving your home, and the same day you order... it's hard not to feel that the future is online..
 
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I live in the sticks. All the stores are about 30-40 minutes away- that's a gallon of gas to a store, and a gallon of gas from the store. @ $3.60 a gallon, that's $7.20. If Amazon delivers my stuff for free on my door step, that's $7.20 I save. I don't use prime, because I don't order enough to justify it.
 
Old Salt said:
I've had my first weird experience with Amazon and I swear I am not quite senile yet, so I didn't make a mistake in ordering. I ordered 2 small bottles of Nescafe Rich (Colombian) and two tins of Danish ham and received 3 bottles of coffee and FOUR tins of ham! I am going to keep them with the optimistic hope that I'll still be around for another year or so to enjoy the unexpected abundance!
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My mom used to say "I'm so old I don't even buy green bananas"...lol. Know what you mean.
 
Long before the rise of amazon, as a serious photographer, I'd been buying camera gear via mail order, especially from B&H in NYC. So having products shipped was nothing new.

Funny thing is, many of us have been using Amazon since before 2005 when smartphones arose because we were accessing the Internet via desktops and laptops. However many people before 2005 only had those computers at their workplaces and each time their job changed they would disappear haha. Many of the rest of you late comers to online retail are of course from after that post smartphone rise era with many avoiding amazon simply due to primitive computer skills or negative tech attitudes of having to change old habits in this new day.

The first decade 1994 to 2005 Amazon was just books and some computer gear. It took a huge bite from brick and mortar Barnes & Noble. By time smartphones arose, even though other corps noticed what a huge advantage amazon had with books, only amazon through technical Internet experience had figured out how to make that work opening doors to a wide range of products. Older brick and mortar retailers were too full of themselves with short term profit myopia to see their demise was approaching. Huge was the ability to read product reviews, the vastly larger range of choices for each type of product from national and then global sources, and the fact that competition for each specific product type, naturally caused competitive price reductions.

Note, I don't have nor need a Prime account and almost always order when the total cost is above the free shipping threshold. So that tends to mean more expensive products that I just can't conveniently locally slap a $20 Andrew Jackson down on.
 
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My order record this evening 11/14/23 shows I've made 8 Amazon orders over the last 3 months containing 23 separate products. Largest was for $1.4k Sony A6700 body.

But like others, not everything I buy is from Amazon. Just this afternoon on the way home from 2-much fun about our region's most upscale outdoor mall, stopped on the way home at a Safeway supermarket for a couple just fried chicken tenders with extra salt that after mic'ing a few seconds at home, washed down nicely with cold mango juice... Now for a Swiss Miss hot chocolate package powder desert.
 
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DebraMae said:
I don't have prime either because where I live it is almost impossible to get delivery to my door and if UPS switches it to the post office for delivery I do not get it at all. They do ship to my PO box for smaller stuff, so I am grateful for that. However, lately I have had a couple of orders just sit and sit. The most recent was an under the desk foot warmer mat. I ordered it on October 20 and it has finally shipped and should be here tomorrow.

I understand these things sometimes happen, but I was not able to cancel this order and get it somewhere else. A customer service contact did no good. That kind of left a bad feeling towards them.
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Here's the inside scoop on avoiding the last mile USPS delivery failures. It works even for shippers that say they don't ship to PO boxes. Packages addressed like this are safe and secure. Our po has a number of locked bins and they put the key to the bin in your box and one can retrieve the package w/out assistance.

Use the street address to your local post office as the first line under your name. Sometimes a shipper won't include the Unit # so on both lines use your PO box number like this:

Mx Debra Mae
100 Main Street Unit 100
Unit 100
Your Town and state, 10000

I use this address for my credit cards and it streamlines the ordering process.

I find that AMAZ indicates accurate shipping dates and that some have 2-3 weeks delays before shipping, which prob indicates the product is enroute the warehouse from the supplier.
 
againstthegrain said:
Here's the inside scoop on avoiding the last mile USPS delivery failures. It works even for shippers that say they don't ship to PO boxes. Packages addressed like this are safe and secure. Our po has a number of locked bins and they put the key to the bin in your box and one can retrieve the package w/out assistance.

Use the street address to your local post office as the first line under your name. Sometimes a shipper won't include the Unit # so on both lines use your PO box number like this:

Mx Debra Mae
100 Main Street Unit 100
Unit 100
Your Town and state, 10000

I use this address for my credit cards and it streamlines the ordering process.

I find that AMAZ indicates accurate shipping dates and that some have 2-3 weeks delays before shipping, which prob indicates the product is enroute the warehouse from the supplier.
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Thank you so much for the info. I appreciate it.
 
I don't often order stuff from Amazon as most things I get locally and it gets me out of the house too which I enjoy.

I have ordered stuff around Christmas time from Amazon just because it's fast & convenient.
I have a question that perhaps people who order from Amazon regularly can answer. If I order say 3 or 4 different items within an hour or so of each order, does Amazon combine these items into one shipment or are they all packaged separately and shipped separately? Further to that question; they often say "free shipping on orders over $50.00" or whatever the amount may be. If I place separate orders within an hour or so of each other for say 3 different items which all cost $20.00, do I get free shipping because they combine the 3 items into one order and ship it together or do they look at each being a separate order that falls short of the "free shipping" amount and charge me 3 separate shipping fees?

I know if I get Prime I have a better chance of getting faster & free shipping (I think anyway) but as I rarely order from Amazon I don't want to pay the 9-10 bucks a month for Prime.
 
Talking of shopping for stuff you might be likely to buy online.... for those people who prefer to shop offline... how far do you have to travel to the stores to shop ?
 
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