'Amazon Prime is Getting Worse' (fastcompany.com)

Mark Wilson, writing for FastCompany magazine: That little Prime logo used to mean something. Now it feels like a ruse that lulls shoppers into a false sense of security, until they go to checkout and see a shipping arrival date far later than anticipated. This cuts through the greatest promise of Prime. It's not just the free, two-day shipping. It's that it's so reliable, you never have to think for more than a second about buying something. In this sense, Prime was constructed to be great for the consumer (so efficient) and great for businesses (mindless impulse shopping!). I've been a Prime member myself for over a decade, so I've come to expect that the rush of the holiday season will clog the arteries of Amazon's fulfillment centers and delivery services alike and make shipping less than reliable. But anecdotally, to me and many of the people I know and work with, this year, it feels worse than ever.

It doesn't help that we've seen a slow dilution of Prime itself over time, with the rise of Prime Pantry and Add-on Items. They force you to buy a minimum number of items to get the best deal, adding back the very psychic burden Prime had eliminated from the equation of online shopping in the first place. As a result, it can be hard to find true, two-day Prime items that aren't marked up to insane prices by third-party sellers. But Prime was still Prime. This holiday, I've noticed things that are in stock and labeled "Prime" have nonsensical shipping dates. I'm not alone in experiencing Shipping Shock. Complaints about slow Prime shipping abound across the internet. Quora literally has a thread asking, "Has Amazon slowed down their free shipping speed intentionally?" The "top answer" with 22,000 views is a customer rant about late shipments. Many others chime in to confirm the slowdowns, and offer conspiracy theories as to what could be going on.

Comments

Pantry

[mccalli]

Is there anyone on earth who understands their pantry thing? I mean, I can just go to Sainsbury's and order what I want, I don't have to start working out box sizes and filling them up or what have you.

Re:Pantry

[AmiMoJo]

Their offering in the UK makes even less sense than the one in the US, not least because the UK has fairly decent online ordering from all the major supermarkets.

Prime delivery is a rip off. Most of the items eligible for Prime just have the extra delivery cost added on to the sale price. Prime Video is okay but doesn't have enough content to justify more than a month or two of subscription. Maybe if you use the Twitch sub and listen to a lot of streaming music it might be worth the rather high cost.

I just keep waiting and every few months they give me a free trial, which I take up and then cancel. It's kinda nice but the 2 day delivery often turns into a week.

On the other hand the UK high street is dying and Amazon is sometimes the only way to get stuff you actually want/need.

Re: Pantry

[rmdingler]

In the U.S., our local grocers have also developed online ordering, local pickup outside the store, and even grocery delivery for an additional fee.

Amazon's foray into groceries was a natural business evolution from the book company that wants to sell you everything, but it's going to be less successful than some of their other endeavors. I've tried Prime Pantry several times, and it is not without its merits when restocking non-perishables. It's not necessarily a bad outcome, since it typically works to the disadvantage of consumers when too much of the market is in the hands of a single outfit.

Peak Amazon is going to continue to lose market share as other companies imitate their successful business model. This will not, however, speed up product delivery during peak shopping times, since the pipeline will clog with Newegg & Walmart boxes just as readily.

Re:Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

I kind of do. They charge you for it, but the idea is that you can order a big box of stuff and save people from sending a whole ton of boxes. They probably should reduce your prime fees for using it, but they do offer discounts on the items that they put in the box.

As for this article. I'd even put my name on this post, just too lazy to sign up. Prime offers more than shipping. It offers movies, free ebooks, complete tv series, catalogs of old tv series, music, and a small library of books that you can check out. People don't even know all of what they have.

They want a little discount on shipping. They are trying to reduce the number of boxes they send and lower their overhead. I know i'm standing up for a large corporation who could pay its people better. For example, the raise was nice, but for many above that level, it was a slap to them. I get that too, but he did move a bunch of people up to a certain level.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about them.

Re: Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just the holiday season that I've seen Amazon slow down with prime. Even around August and September, when there's literally nothing going on holiday wise, I've watched Amazon have my items sit in their warehouse for over 24 hours doing nothing, and the delivery date is more than 72 hours out, but Amazon's policy is that prime only pays for two day shipping, but offers no guarantees for when they'll actually ship.

Re:Pantry

[rmdingler]

MacKenzie:

"Get off the computer and get in here, Jeffrey, the kids are ready to open their presents."

Re: Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

Your not using it right :)

Re: Pantry

[orlanz]

It's not just during peak. I think Amazon scales down during non-peak times and performance is almost just as bad.

I been a Prime customer since the year after it launched. I probably returned an item a year; if that. Today, our ordering has only doubled but we return atleast one package a month; primarily due to delivery issues.

I think we are on some "bad customer" list because every once in a while the rep says "You return a lot..."; implying that we shouldn't do that. We always respond with, look the notes and figure out who is at fault.

If we order blue, we shouldn't get red. If we order something gift wrapped, we probably want it before TK... not two weeks after the dinner. No, we aren't going to go to the other neighborhood or even down the street and pick up the bad delivery. No, we are not going to accept a box with a forklift hole in it. No we don't want another brand automatically substituted and billed to us. You credited us because your tracking number became active. Don't recharge me because you didn't get the return in time!

And all this we find out if we inquire or after delivery. I think Amazon just doesn't care anymore. They are more focused on AWS, warehouse automation, and another HQ.

Re:Pantry

[omnichad]

If they want to lower their overhead, maybe they could stop using my shipping subscription dollars to make movies and TV shows. This is where they're bleeding money and they're really at a point where these could be separate services, but they'd rather reduce the quality of what most of us are actually paying for - a reliable delivery schedule.

Re: Pantry

[tysonedwards]

Even if you pay for shipping, they have no guarantees on when it will leave. I ordered a new motherboard on the 14th with overnight shipping - in stock from Amazon proper, not a third party - and despite multiple calls to check on the status, it remains shipping now. It has been charged, canâ(TM)t be cancelled, but is stuck somewhere in the system awaiting going on someones truck. It is Amazon, not just Prime where the quality is slipping.

Re: Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't you supporting their practices though - even now?

Re:Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tried it so many times. I can never fill a box and then give up.

Re: Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope Amazon becomes shittier and shittier until the retarded consumption zombies lose their mind.

Amazon is slowly becoming a monopoly and will bend you guys over backwards once you can't do anything about it.

Re: Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 insightful.

Amazon has gotten so big that it doesn't care any more; that's happened to other companies in the past (see: AT&T before the breakup and after recombination). Nobody else is in the same class for (theoretical) product availability. Practically, I've had instances of both failure to ship until it was too late to make the 2-day timing, and simply failure. On one occasion, the 2-day shipment took 2 weeks (admittedly, there were fires and the closest warehouse was closed for at least a week). But their failure to plan for and deal with congestion and point failures in the core retail business doesn't bode well for the long-term usability of the underlying systems (AWS, etc.).

Re: Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the first time in years I didn't bother re-subscribing to Prime.

I just don't really see what the point of it is anymore, at any time of year it's no longer next day delivery, it's 2 - 3 day delivery, but 2 - 3 day delivery is free anyway. Hell, last time I did get a next day delivery on something I got a message on my Kindle to tell me the driver was 5 stops away, so I had a look, waited, and waited, and waited, and the guy just drove past my house, didn't deliver for some reason (I guess he'd lost it, stolen it for himself, or something) and I got an arbitrary message saying it couldn't be delivered and it'd be 2 more days.

Prime Now seems to be dead in the water, what once only required a £10 order for 2 hour delivery jumped to £20, and now £40. But because it's Prime now the things available for 2 hour delivery seem limited, so it's nigh on impossible to find £40 of stuff you actually want in 2 hours.

There's never any new content on Prime Instant Video anymore beyond Man in the High Castle and Vikings, even Mr Robot seems to have disappeared. Two meaningful shows a year hardly makes it worthwhile. They now advertise top-up subscriptions on top of Prime to get actual content, but why the fuck would I do that when I get just have Netflix for a fraction of the combined price of prime + a number of addon subscriptions and still get 10x the content with 10x the quality? At first when they first released it in the UK there was lots of good content and they were competing well with Netflix, but as soon as they blew their entire annual budget on a shit repetitive version Top Gear that ended up being a flop that they just seemed to stop producing anymore content, whilst Netflix started producing more and more. It's like they basically just gave up.

Music you also now have to pay extra for to get any meaningful content, the same is true of the Kindle lending library.

So it just reached the point where I was paying £79 a year and it wasn't clear what I was actually paying it for. Everything you used to get became an additional addon that other companies do better (why pay for Instant Video addons when you can have Netflix? why pay for music addons when you can have Spotify?) and the core things it was sold on like next day delivery just no longer even exist for the vast majority of purchases through the vast majority of the year.

Don't get me wrong, Amazon have fucked up in my favour sometimes too. I ordered £80 of video games once, and they delivered it then later that night told me they'd received the return, I was like what? They refunded me and never charged me for the items they'd delivered. They're welcome to any time they want of course, but that was 3 years ago so I'm assuming they wont. Similarly I returned a faulty device once, and ordered a replacement to make sure it came next day, and they somehow refunded me both orders upon receiving the return. Again, they're more than welcome to charge me, but I'm not chasing them for their fuckup.

I don't feel conned therefore by Prime even though they broke their contract with me, because they've fucked up in my favour enough times to make up for breaking the law with false advertising by guaranteeing next day delivery and then cancelling that half way through my subscription when they lost their case with the ASA. I do however not see any point in resubscribing right now.

For a company that's otherwise incredibly sharp and shrewd when it comes to business they seem to have absolutely dropped the ball with Prime, a service that used to lock lots of people into buying stuff from them because it was more convenient seems entirely pointless now, and I've gone from buying about 90% of my non-grocery shopping from Amazon to now only buying about 5% - 10%. The combination of un-competitive pricing, lack of meaningful prime leaves me feeling that we've maybe now passed peak Amazon, and we'll now start to see them decline over the next few years.

Re: Pantry

[jittles]

It's not just during peak. I think Amazon scales down during non-peak times and performance is almost just as bad.

I been a Prime customer since the year after it launched. I probably returned an item a year; if that. Today, our ordering has only doubled but we return atleast one package a month; primarily due to delivery issues.

I think we are on some "bad customer" list because every once in a while the rep says "You return a lot..."; implying that we shouldn't do that. We always respond with, look the notes and figure out who is at fault.

If we order blue, we shouldn't get red. If we order something gift wrapped, we probably want it before TK... not two weeks after the dinner. No, we aren't going to go to the other neighborhood or even down the street and pick up the bad delivery. No, we are not going to accept a box with a forklift hole in it. No we don't want another brand automatically substituted and billed to us. You credited us because your tracking number became active. Don't recharge me because you didn't get the return in time!

And all this we find out if we inquire or after delivery. I think Amazon just doesn't care anymore. They are more focused on AWS, warehouse automation, and another HQ.

That's almost the exact opposite experience I have with Amazon. Sure, every once and a while things are late. But often times I order something and it comes before they originally indicated. I can get same day delivery on most common items. The times that I have had a problem Amazon refunds me while allowing me to keep the package and has even offered me a gift card in addition to the free item.

Re: Pantry

[Aighearach]

This is not only what you should expect before you sign up for a subscription to a store (that is open to the public), it is also what you deserve for encouraging them to treat you this way.

Re:Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe not everyone likes those. I do. Also, It is helping to employ a bunch of people. Producers, actors, directors, etc. Those are better jobs than the factory jobs.

They are working in other ways. For example, they are trying to get people to order larger quantities. It is pretty wasteful to order one can of soda at a time. So many people did that that they were losing money on prime. I think they are still losing money, just not as much.

I really like the free books too. If they started cutting into the tv and books I probably would drop prime altogether. That would hurt them more.

Re: Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you complain to slashdot instead of, you know, actual amazon support?

Re: Pantry

[Lord_Byron]

Why do you assume they haven't complained to Amazon support when the post says, "despite multiple calls to check on the status"?

Re: Pantry

[BronsCon]

Funny, I replied to this post earlier today, saw that reply in my post history not long ago, and now it is gone. Slashdot, really? I was willing to overlook the poor editorial abilities of your staff, but censorship? And what I said wasn't even worthy of being censored; I merely said the same thing Lord_Byron, whose post has been allowed to stay, said; with near-identical wording, at that.

And here I thought people were making shit up talking about their posts being removed.

SMFH

Re:Pantry

[ayesnymous]

It's a scam. You already paid for Prime, so why do you need to pay more for this Pantry thing?

Re: Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they have some decent shipping capacity open soon. I have a backlog of trinkets to ship

Re:Pantry

[Salgak1]

Instead of Pantry, we use the "Subscribe and Save" program for regular-use items. The problem we've found is that products drop out of "Subscribe and Save" all the time, and, increasingly, items that we subscribed to are inexplicably out-of-stock for the scheduled deliverer. Which kind of destroys the value of a subscription program, , , ,

Re:Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

Prime delivery is a rip off. Most of the items eligible for Prime just have the extra delivery cost added on to the sale price.

Are you trying to claim that people without Prime see a lower pre-shipping price than people with Prime? Because that is the only way your claim makes sense.

If $X is the base price of an item, $Y is the shipping cost of an item, and $Z is a secret amount added to the base price, and if someone without Prime pays $X + $Y + $Z while someone with Prime pays $X + $Z, I fail to see how it is a rip off as I am still paying less than the person without Prime (the flat $119 of getting Prime not withstanding).

Re: Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

Deleted for "plagiarism", perhaps?

SMFH with you.

Re: Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends where you live. The "smartpost" avenue adds 1-2 days.

My UPS guy used to loop back at 6pm on the end of his route to get packages with signatures on my block because most of us worked. They changed a major local intersection towards me, so we got put on someone else's route that doesn't bother to put them on the porch, leaving them uncovered next to the garage, and doesn't use a plastic bag.

Obviously if there are more hands that get the packages, those are all potential delays.

Re: Pantry

[StuartHankins]

I went back to look at some comments I made earlier today and although they're listed in the "comments" right-hand scrollbar, when I actually click on my comments list, they do not show. Twice also today when posting an anonymous comment and refreshing the page, it was no longer there. These weren't inflammatory, just things that revealed some personal info that I didn't want attributed to myself directly. Something is going on.

Re: Pantry

[Anonymous Coward]

I know what he's saying. A prime eligible product might cost $10, whereas an ineligible product might cost $5. The cost of prime eligibility is ostensibly priced in.

Re: Pantry

[BronsCon]

Considering that I had been the first to reply... yeah, sure, let's go with that. Fuckwit.

If I'm posting at 9:36PM, referencing a neighboring post made at 9:00PM, and stating that I had posted something else "earlier today", I probably am not referring to a post made after that.

Re: Pantry

[BronsCon]

Evidence.

It's the success

[nospam007]

UPS, USPS etc can't do the volume anymore.
Amazon has now 50! planes itself, because of it and still.

Re:It's the success

[Anonymous Coward]

It's weird, your name is NO spam.

Re:It's the success

[Anonymous Coward]

Our largest regional postal company (non-US) just recently upped its actual delivery dates by three days as it removed a traditional delivery day in the middle of the week. Customers who want to have their mail like they used to have can pay 5000EUR for the privilege. Something is in the air with the logistic and delivery companies, maybe even world-wide?

Re:It's the success

[Anonymous Coward]

It's greed.

Every company is trying to eliminate positions and increase the workload on fewer people in order to increase the profit margin on their revenue.

Unsurprisingly, the only place they aren't cutting costs is among the upper management who put these policies in place. Their salaries and bonuses have skyrocketed while the pay rates for the low level workers have remained stagnant (and have actually decreased significantly when you take inflation into account) for decades.

Re:It's the success

[kenai_alpenglow]

If they can't handle the volume, and it's making money for them, they will increase the volume. Or someone else will get in to handle the money.

Re: It's the success

[Anonymous Coward]

/. doesnâ(TM)t allow commas in usernames. Clearly it was meant to read âoeno, spamâ

Re:It's the success

[Dogtanian]

Amazon has now 50! planes itself

Amazon has 3 x 10^64 planes?! That's... rather a lot.

Re:It's the success

[Anonymous Coward]

Factorial jokes are the lowest form of humor, or something like that.

Re:It's the success

[EvilSS]

The biggest problem I've had (and what caused me to cancel my prime) wasn't with UPS/USPS/Fedex but it was their own delivery service. I was getting upwards of 50% of my orders delivered 1-2 days late when they were shipped with "Amazon Logistics".

Re:It's the success

[dgatwood]

I've been thinking about starting a small business reselling all the unexpected Amazon Logistics packages that they mistakenly drop on my porch instead of random neighbors. All attempts to get Amazon to pick up the packages and deliver them to the right address fail consistently, so I have an ever-growing pile of random crap.

I can't imagine that they could possibly be saving money, given what a complete disaster their in-house logistics seems to be.

Re:It's the success

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean fartctorial?

Re: It's the success

[Anonymous Coward]

/. doesnâ(TM)t like iPhones.

Re: It's the success

[Dayze!Confused]

Yet they allow exclamation points.

Re:It's the success

[Anonymous Coward]

Or it's the preparations for the eventual transition to a truly environmentally friendly postal services delivered with a horse and a carriage.

Re:It's the success

[Dogtanian]

Quite probably, but they're so damn tempting. :-)

Re:It's the success

[Aighearach]

Why is it usually a person who wants Virtue as a Math Person who doesn't understand what symbols mean next to numbers?

Oh, right, because that person only ever used math in school, and they never had to find out that the notation isn't actually standardized, it merely follows local convention, and actual use of math in the real world requires being very flexible about notation systems.

The joke would be a reasonable joke iff math notation was standardized. But it isn't.

Re: It's the success

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL and Prime would be dancing horses and a gilded carriage.

Re: It's the success

[Provocateur]

The sign for Amazon Logistics finally did arrive from the warehouse, but it was oddly enough duct taped over a narrow corridor...

Re:It's the success

[nwf]

Same here. Every time I seem my packaging going out AMZL, I cringe. They are incredibly inept. Although they did better for this holiday season that I was expecting, given all the errors leading up to it. It was a comedy of errors:

1. Delivered to a "mail room" at my business, when we don't have one, or to some other fictional destination.
2. Lost in transit. (Happens once a quarter to me, at least.) Sometimes they show up, which is funny. They typically say "just keep it" since they had already refunded my money.
3. Damaged, often times because they tossed a heavy item in with a fragile one and didn't put in any padding.
4. Sent the wrong item or wrong number of items, e.g. a movie set that came with the last movie in the series, but not the other 6.
5. Arrived several days late. One delivery person said, when asked, "it wouldn't fit in the truck." It was 7 days late "prime".
6. Trying to deliver a package to a business at 8pm. We are open 24/7 so they just lie and say we weren't open, but that's just poor planning.
7. I have their vans on camera driving by the building, seeing that they'd have to get out of the van, and keep going. They note that the "business was closed" since they'd have to use the intercom and they likely are already way behind.
8. Items that never technically shipped, but ended up being delivered. This one confuses me the most.

Never problems with UPS or USPS, at least.

Re:It's the success

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it works because the exclamation mark was placed in the middle of a sentence, when if it was used correctly should have been at the end of the sentence. Since the usage clearly wasn't following correct usage as punctuation, it introduces ambiguity on how it should be interpreted.

As the joke was modded funny, it clearly works for some people.

Re:It's the success

[Dogtanian]

Pretty sure that the vast majority of people contributing to Slashdot (a geek-oriented site) know what a factorial is, which is partly why the joke works here- not because I'm under the impression it shows me to be a maths genius(!!)

Now that I think of it, while it's something most people only learn later on, there's really nothing about the concept that couldn't be explained to an average primary school pupil that understood basic multiplication.

Regardless, as the other person noted, the use of a bare exclamation mark in the middle of a sentence like that isn't normal in English. Typically, it would be written in parentheses, like so:-

Amazon has now 50(!) planes itself, because of it and still.

Also,

The joke would be a reasonable joke iff math notation was standardized. But it isn't.

Technically, isn't "iff" a widely but not universally accepted non-standardism? Or perhaps that was meant to be the joke? :-)

News??

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this really news.. you don't like the service your getting? Then make a complaint or close your prime subscription if it's that bad. Christ almighty, what passes for news these days...

Re:News??

[infolation]

If slashdot is 'tech news', and the subject is Amazon Prime, then we should really be discussing UX design and Dark Patterns. EG

Amazon dark patterns force people to fill up their Amazon pantry

Then when they don't like this, Amazon dark patterns make it more difficult to leave low-rated rather than high-rated reviews

Then if the user wishes to leave Amazon, the user must navigate a complex, non-intuitive chain of commands that do not start with 'close my account'. This chain changes regularly, to ensure that current 'close your amazon account' instructions found on google do not work for more than a few days. I closed my account in March 2018. At that time, this was the process:

1. select 'let us help you'...
2. select 'help'...
3. select 'need more help'...
4. select 'contact us'...
5. choose 'prime or something else'...
6. dropdown, choose 'update account information'...
7. dropdown, choose 'close my account'...
8. user is put into 'chat'...
As soon as the phrase 'I need to close my amazon account' is typed into the chat input, the user is logged out of chat and must repeat the above (I found this 'bug' was repeatable)

At that time, I had to find a way to communicate that I wanted to close my account without using the phrase 'close my account' in chat.

Re:News??

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is this really news?"
Do you work for Amazon? Of course it's news. When prime came out, and when most people signed up for it, guaranteed two day shipping was the hook. Now you are lucky to get Prime orders in 3 days. Was this the bait and switch plan all along? Is Amazon doing anything about this? The public wants to know.

Re:News??

[Rob Lister]

You certainly went around your ass to get to your elbow.

To close your account, go to Your Account from the top drop down on the main page:
Select 'Prime'
Select 'End Membership and Benefits' from the list on the left.
Confirm

No chat, no hassle.

Re:News??

[bn-7bc]

Well personaly (due to 2 day/next day dilivery not beeing avalable in Norway) i sigmed up for preme doy to the grand toursnd now with the twitch perks I’m vary happy. I understand that people signing up to g n day dilivery get annoyed when ut is dripped but as somone else alkready pointed out, if you are unsatisfied with the current service provided py prime, just cancel and find a better competitor.

Re:News??

[Anonymous Coward]

the parent poster was talking about closing an amazon account, not ending prime membership. I just checked and the way you have to do it now is almost the same as the parent posters method. It is-
> select 'let us help you'...
> select 'help'...
> select 'need more help'...
> select 'contact us'...
> choose 'prime and more'...
> select section 'tell us more about your issue'
> choose dropdown 'select issue > update account information'
> choose dropdown 'select issue details > close my account'
> message: How would you like to contact us?
- options:
- 'email' button is greyed out and non-functional
- 'chat' button has text 'recommended' underneath

Re:News??

[Dogtanian]

Thanks for the links; haven't had time to do any more than skim them at present, but it does remind me of a comment I read recently that I felt just put its finger on Amazon's recent direction:-

" Amazon is not the same company they were 10 years ago. You can feel the skeeviness is creeping in."

Re:News??

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother closing? Just cancel payment methods in the site (or wait for CC renewal and don't enter new one in Amazon) and just quit using. Send emails to spam and you're done.

Re:News??

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Jeff, some people don't want to have inactive accounts lying about all over the web. I understand that you will keep the data anyway and probably continue to track me and merge that with the closed account, but let's at least be clear that there will be no more external accesses to the account data, mkay?

Re:News??

[grumbel]

I don't really see how that "fill up the box" with Pantry is a dark pattern, that's just a result of how they handle shipping and you can save $5.99 by filling the box instead of ordering twice. It's not really much different than the "Spend X more to get free shipping" when you don't have Prime. I'd much rather have that shipping price information made explicitly visible than having it only shown at checkout like in some other shops. And yes, it does gamify things, but as long as shipping is paid by the box, that's hard to avoid.

The different units are annoying when comparing items, but that might not be a dark pattern, but a result of how they collect that data. I have never seen an online shop that made compare different items easy, it's always a lot of clicking and back and forth.

When it comes to dark pattern at Amazon I am more annoyed by how they don't allow you to filter Pantry items out of your search, when you don't even have Prime and can't make use of it. It just deliberately clutters up search with garbage. The way they handle discounts is also rather scummy, as the discount price is often the normal one and stays forever, the higher price is just there to make it look cheaper. Having "Promoted" items show up in search is also no fun.

Re:News??

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Because a hacker wouldn't just re-enable the account.

Re: News??

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon prime == wait for it

Re:News??

[dgatwood]

Do you work for Amazon? Of course it's news. When prime came out, and when most people signed up for it, guaranteed two day shipping was the hook. Now you are lucky to get Prime orders in 3 days. Was this the bait and switch plan all along? Is Amazon doing anything about this? The public wants to know.

Funny, anecdotally, this is the opposite of my experience. I almost always get things in two days, and lately, I've been getting a lot of free one-day deliveries, with some of them even arriving on a Sunday.

My suspicion is that the quality of service varies widely based on which distribution center is the primary center for your geographical area and on how far away you are from that distribution center.

Re:News??

[Anonymous Coward]

heh, reminds me of a story about asses and elbows.

I was out on the coast for a round of job interviews at a Bay area startup. My fluffy-sweater acquaintances in Cincinnati had scoped out the territory the previous summer and were full of dire warnings about South of Market in general and The Hothouse in particular, so of course that was the first place I headed. Now, fisting wasn't exactly a deep, dark mystery to me...somewhere along the line I had acquired the book from the movie classic "Erotic Hands" and I'd been jerking off to that for quite a while. You might say I was into the concept if not the reality.

Well, The Hothouse was everything I had been warned it was...humpy dudes wandering around in body harnesses leading their slaves on leashes, the whole trip. I nearly came when I walked into the shower room hunkered down on a plastic hose while he sucked his buddy's oversize cock. I checked out the sling rooms, but I spent most of the night doing conventional if rougher-than-usual sex.

I fell asleep with my door cracked. The next morning I woke up with this warm, wet feeling on my arm. I looked up and there was this hairy, muscular little dude impaled on my arm to the elbow!

Holy shit! He looked down at me and grinned "Good morning" "Good morning yourself fucker." " Can you dig it!" "For sure, but I've never done it before" Well, that turned his motor on, and soon became oblivious that he wasn't gonna dismount my arm until he had showed me all the right moves. We ended up with me punch-fucking him doggy--style with a cheering audience of six or seven leathermen. Well, my arm was busy most of the morning, but my asshole stayed virgin.

I sorta filed the experience away and chewed on it until my next trip to the coast. I only knew one dude in Cincinnati that was into handball, and we were friends, not fuck-buddies, so I didn't get a chance to practice again until another job interview took me to a startup in San Diego. The job panned out. and I moved to California.

Now, you have to understand where I was coming from. Cincinnati is one of the most tight-assed Republican cities in the Midwest.

There was one gay bar and no baths. If you wanted steam you had to drive to Cleveland, Toledo or Chicago. So the first couple of years in San Diego I was like a kid in a candy shop...baths, bars, and Balboa Park!

I fisted if I was asked, and if I was in a "top" mood I got off on it to a certain extent, but something was missing. What that "something" was I found out one night at the old Fourth Avenue Baths in Hillcrest. I was cruising the "open" rooms and came across this hot little blond surfer-type. We started getting it on, and our hands both started to go for the ass about the same time, so he called a halt to go fetch the Crisco and poppers. Now, fisting wasn't particularly on my mind...I figured we'd trade fucks and that would be that. How was I to know that gay surfers in San Diego get into handball?

Well. pretty soon we were pretty busy finger-fucking each other while we sixty-nined. Then he called a halt and sat up and looked at me. "Wanna go further?" "As in what?" "Fisting, man." "You or me?" "Whatever," he muttered. "Well, I've never had it, but I'm up for trying." Bingo! The idea of a virgin really pushed his button, so pretty soon I'm on my back with my ass propped up on a pillow and him sitting cross-legged below me.

"Your head's gonna get it done for you" he told me. "You gotta want me inside you. It's just like takin' a big cock. It'll hurt like hell goin' over the widest part of my knuckles, but then once it's inside you're gonna lose your mind!" Well, we had smoked a couple of joints and I was pretty mellowed out and the dude wasn't tryin' to hurry me. We rapped about all kinds of shit, but all the time there was this gentle but insistent pressure at my asshole.

"How much you got in?" I'd ask him from time to time but he wouldn't tell me. "Don't worry about it...just relax and enjoy."

I kept playin' with my cock and that made my ass tight

Re:News??

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon dark patterns make it more difficult to leave low-rated rather than high-rated reviews

You mean "Amazon dark patterns don't allow you to go on off-topic rants about Amazon prime, their customer service, and how you don't like packing boxes when you're filling in a review for neoprene dumbbells."

Re:News??

[ConceptJunkie]

Same here. My experience with Amazon's shipping in Northern Virginia is fine. I needed to get a last-minute present and Amazon Prime was promising to get it to me by December 24. When it didn't show up in the regular mail, I thought I was finally experiencing what people have been complaining about, but on a whim I checked my front porch later, and there it was.

I certainly believe the stories people are telling, but I haven't experienced the problems myself.

Re: News??

[Anonymous Coward]

Found Dirty Mike and the Boys! (check out The Other Guys)

Re:News??

[Anonymous Coward]

So now you have to barter (via chat) to finish closing your account? Wow...

Re:News??

[dgatwood]

The only problems I've had have involved the actual delivery people being borderline incompetent — getting other people's packages, getting packages delivered to a porch that is clearly under construction (no steps leading up to it) where it sat out in the elements for two weeks before I noticed it was there, etc.

Amazon needs better management in many areas.

[Futurepower(R)]

Examples of insufficient management at Amazon

The "Prime" labeling is what is getting diluted

[misnohmer]

It used to be be "Prime" meant delivered 2 days after ordering. There used to me "free shipping for Prime members" which was free shipping but arrival date longer than 2 days. Today they seem to group everything as "Prime" and hence the dilution of the label "Prime". I wish they had a search tick for "True Prime", or just a checkmark for "ETA 2 days from today".

Prime benefits as a whole haven't gotten worse, one could argue they expanded them over the tears with Prime video, music, or audible.

Re:The "Prime" labeling is what is getting diluted

[DivineKnight]

About that...Audible's interface for the PC is ancient...

Re:The "Prime" labeling is what is getting diluted

[Carewolf]

In Europe everything is delivered in 2 days no matter the shipping options. Amazon started waiting 2 days before even shipping to make sure non-prime goods only arrive after 3 days. Before then prime was entirely pointless except as a video service.

Re:The "Prime" labeling is what is getting diluted

[ArchieBunker]

I see things listed for Prime shipping with times of over a month!

It's not

[JustOK]

They don't mean two days in a row.

Re:It's not

[nwf]

They don't mean two days in a row.

That's likely true. I ordered a prime item on Thursday. Two day delivery was set for Wednesday.

Return late packages and complain by post

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're tired of talking to their useless teenaged chat and phone staff, you might write a proper letter of complaint. Apparently the address is:
Jeff Bezos
Amazon.com
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
I can't say that it'll do any more good, but I've just cancelled my Prime membership and won't renew after too many failures on their part.
There should be a class-action suit against them for all their false guarantees.

Prime is idiotic from an consumer economics pov

[sjwest]

Not a big amazon customer and i do not have prime but prime is bad for the consumer if they have it.

Two examples
usb keyboard - amazon showed me the deals for prime only deals so add $99 to the cost, that's an very expensive cheap spare keyboard which i bought elsewhere.

The book, marked up +$12 over a competitor store, also non amazon sale.

So prime is dumb for consumers. but i guess " i got free post but still spent $12 extra is value for money" or " my new keyboard cost $ 90 extra"

I recently had to get a new phone since one was stolen from a family member i opted for he cheapest delivery and it arrived sooner than i expected even if had taken a week or so to arrive there was no panic.

A couple of weeks later i got an invite to prime in the post, i declined that offer.

Re:Prime is idiotic from an consumer economics pov

[drinkypoo]

"prime is bad for the consumer if they have it."

What?

"usb keyboard - amazon showed me the deals for prime only deals so add $99 to the cost,"

Amazon does NOT stop showing you non-prime items if you have prime.

"The book, marked up +$12 over a competitor store, also non amazon sale."

So what? They are in business to make money and they've figured out that enough people will buy it at an elevated price point that it's more profitable for them to set that price.

Re:Prime is idiotic from an consumer economics pov

[Anonymous Coward]

I see this argument everywhere, but, for all the complaints I have with Prime, price isn't one of them. Maybe I just instinctively do a comparison before buying ANYTHING. When I buy something from Amazon with Prime (or when I did; I've canceled prime this year for the reasons I'm about to list), I usually get a good deal (either the free shipping makes the deal, or I am buying something I've been watching for a lower price). Shipping has become MUCH less reliable. 2-day shipping is really 3-day shipping, and I often find the last leg delivery service (it usually seems to be a homeless person in a van) is another day late about half the time. So, often, 2-day shipping is 4-day. Worse yet, they often don't meet the promise. Secondly, Amazon ships garbage. I don't know when this shit gets damaged (it can't all be in shipping), but I get a lot of damaged stuff, especially the more expensive items. The damaged item rate is MUCH higher from Amazon than any other respectable retailer, online or in person. I got really tired of either returning damaged items, haggling with C.S. for a partial refund or hauling heavy items back to UPS. The final straw was this: if you return too much, they will ban you. I understand that retail is full of scams, so this type of rule is basically necessary. With normal retail, I can see that I don't need to return very often. With Amazon, frequent returns because of their poor quality are commonplace. When I realized I was actually settling for less than I paid so I didn't get flagged for too many returns (honestly, there was a period last year where I think about 75% of what I ordered was coming in less than satisfactory condition), that is when I decided I was done with Amazon Prime.

I have one more complaint with Amazon, but it's not exactly Prime related. Amazon Warehouse Deals on the Amazon Marketplace is fraudulent. They publish very clear used item guidelines (for example, "Used - Like New" is supposed to be gift quality with all packaging and accessories). Yet, even Amazon Warehouse Deals is constantly listing items at better conditions than is correct. When a 3rd party seller does this, it may or may not be fraud. When Amazon does this, as the author of the guidelines, I simply don't see how this it's NOT criminal fraud. That's fraud plain and simple. And, actually Amazon doing this has lead to a parade of other sellers feeling entitled to do the same thing, basically trashing the marketplace. I actually have a marketplace seller account, and I've probably sold about 50 things over the last decade. But, marketplace being full of fraud has made it unattractive to me as both a seller and buy. This year was the year I canceled prime. I predict it won't be much longer before I decide I don't even need my Amazon account either (I only keep it because I have that seller account with a good feedback score).

CAPTCHA: compost

Re:Prime is idiotic from an consumer economics pov

[Oligonicella]

I often find the last leg delivery service (it usually seems to be a homeless person in a van)

So AC, where you live, FedEx and USPS deliver using homeless people? Right.

Re:Prime is idiotic from an consumer economics pov

[dryeo]

Lots of homeless people around here are couch surfing, living in their vehicles and such rather then living on the street. Rents are expensive and hard to find.

Re:Prime is idiotic from an consumer economics pov

[rtb61]

Just like Amazon monitors, controls and manipulates it employees, so it does the same to customers. So they launched prime and did all the thing they 'KNEW' customers wanted. Now that they have you signed up on prime and paying, they will start taking stuff away, until the cost of losing customers of prime exceeds the cost savings achieved by cutting back prime. They will not stop there but continue to push that boundary, how cheap and crappy can they make the service, whilst charging more and more for the service, infinite greed, infinite profits, seriously, that's all it is.

Many people will wake up and simply stop dealing with Amazon if they can buy the product elsewhere, they continual yoyo, of raising prices, reducing price, increasing services, reducing services, will piss people off and they will simply get of the bullshit ride. Amazon is truly an awful company, just really, really shitty management, pretty much becoming psychopath incorporated.

Re:Prime is idiotic from an consumer economics pov

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon does NOT stop showing you non-prime items if you have prime.

If you have Prime, they show you they Prime version even if it is more expensive. I think they have some text in a small font that tells you it is cheaper from other sellers, but it is easy to miss if you aren't careful.

Re:Prime is idiotic from an consumer economics pov

[drinkypoo]

If you have Prime, they show you they Prime version even if it is more expensive. I think they have some text in a small font that tells you it is cheaper from other sellers, but it is easy to miss if you aren't careful.

So be careful. I'm not only careful about that, but I have the camelcamelcamel addon that puts Amazon's own price history for the item into every Amazon page. If the price takes a hike for the holidays, I know about it and I can look somewhere else.

In general, once I identify an item for sale on pretty much any site, I google for the product by name, part number, etc. and see if I can find it cheaper somewhere else. Often I look for a cheaper alternative. For example I needed a 1" heater hose splice connector, they don't carry that kind of size in your local hardware store. So I tracked down the Gates catalog for hoses and hose-related fittings, and found the Gates PN. But I wound up finding an Aluminum part on eBay for less money than the FRP part. All to save four bucks. But hey, four bucks is four bucks. If it were in a more convenient location, I probably would have looked around for a flow sensor, I probably could have got a whole one of those for about the same kind of money. But what if my cheapass flow sensor leaks?

Anyway, I know, cool story bro. But the fact is that if you've got internet access, there's no good excuse for not doing this kind of research. It is tedious to do on a handheld, but very easy on a real computer, and possible in either case.

Amazon is shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting rid of Prime tomorrow.
Merry Fuckmas, Amazon.

Prime is pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

The only advantage is that they will ship smaller items for free too when ordered separately. In my experience, shipping with Prime takes the exact same amount of time as without Prime, whether from Amazon.de or Amazon.co.uk. I only have Prime so I can watch The Grand Tour legally.

Re:Prime is pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped Prime for three months. I ordered two things from Amazon during this time. Here in the US, each order was not shipped out for a week. Here, non-Prime orders are deliberately slowed down. Frankly I've switch all ordering that I can from Amazon to Walmart, believe it or not, as Walmart is actually fighting for online customers, and really does ship for arrival in two days if your order is large enough.

I reinstated Prime this week, also so that I could watch the next season of The Grand Tour next month.

Other Benefits, but Accusations

[crvtec]

Well, screw /. because I just lost my entire post by switching the format to plain text, so here's a summary:

Prime has other benefits, but they keep lowering them.

10+ year Prime member. Been buying since 98 when they sold books. Past 2 months I had packages 'lost' or 'damaged' in transit. Upon the 3rd complaint (I don't regularly complain at all, even when packages are late), they escalated me to a supervisor, at which point I had to explain that all the items that were lost/damaged in transit were the only items in the past few years that I've actually requested 2 day delivery for, and they were supposed to be delivered by *THEIR OWN DELIVERY COMPANY*.

So, I was close to being banned from Amazon for mistakes they made. They couldn't even replace the product (their own 4k Fire TV Box) because when it wasn't delivered, it was $50 than when I ordered it.

Mind you, I do roughly 400-700 orders per year with them (business and personal, and only when they are cheaper), as well as send them referrals through my site.

At my day career, we were (repeatedly) assured by one of their AWS reps that we wouldn't be charged for X services. 2 weeks later, we were billed several K.

They are really doing a great job of shooting themselves in the foot lately.

Re:Other Benefits, but Accusations

[drinkypoo]

"Well, screw /. because I just lost my entire post by switching the format to plain text,"

If you are using anything but the classic view, shame on you, you should know better. If your browser doesn't restore form contents on back navigation, shame on you, you picked a crap browser.

Re: Other Benefits, but Accusations

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is your summary so long?

Re:Other Benefits, but Accusations

[Anonymous Coward]

This sums up you and Amazon.

Re:Other Benefits, but Accusations

[mea2214]

My last Amazon purchase was a $100 IP Camera. I judicially kept track of that package so I would meet it at arrival. All of a sudden the tracking site said delivered but I heard no knock on the door. Looked outside, nothing. Now what? Couldn't find an Amazon link to click when something like this happens, which it must considering all the packages they aimlessly throw around on people's porches and front lawns. Panic sets in that I'm out $100 and/or many hours on the phone. Later that night I look around and found the package hidden in some bushes. Never again will I order anything from Amazon.

Re:Other Benefits, but Accusations

[Megol]

If you blame the user and not the heap of crap shame on you. Now go away and continue your drinking habits instead of interrupting adults.

Re:Other Benefits, but Accusations

[antdude]

Why should we be forced to crap browsers like Chrome that invades privacy?

Re:Other Benefits, but Accusations

[drinkypoo]

If you blame the user and not the heap of crap shame on you.

The user chose the heap of crap in both cases. You're shaming me for their choices? I don't think you get how this works.

Are we really this spoiled?

[Kwirl]

I mean, anyone who gets mad that a package takes 3 days instead of 2 during the busiest shopping period in the western world needs to step back and acknowledge their own role in waiting until the last minute trying to get a 35 cent discount on a 400 dollar talking toy or something. Also, there isn't any company trying to 'compete' with Amazon so where are complaining subscribers going to take their business?

Re:Are we really this spoiled?

[Anonymous Coward]

We order cat food through Amazon Prime and had been relying on the estimated arrival date being somewhat right. The last order took about a week longer than they said it would, so we had to buy cat food at the local grocery store in the meantime at a higher price.
Now we'll adjust our ordering to compensate for an assumed late delivery. But point is, sometimes arrival date does actually matter and based on this and a number of other estimates being off I've lost faith that Prime can deliver on their delivery date promise.
Not that I'm surprised, though. They ship a mind boggling number of packages. And I'm surprised they make money at all, given many times I receive a cardboard box with air bubble packaging for something the size of a book.

Re:Are we really this spoiled?

[Dusanyu]

We order cat food through Amazon Prime and had been relying on the estimated arrival date being somewhat right. The last order took about a week longer than they said it would, so we had to buy cat food at the local grocery store in the meantime at a higher price. Now we'll adjust our ordering to compensate for an assumed late delivery. But point is, sometimes arrival date does actually matter and based on this and a number of other estimates being off I've lost faith that Prime can deliver on their delivery date promise. Not that I'm surprised, though. They ship a mind boggling number of packages. And I'm surprised they make money at all, given many times I receive a cardboard box with air bubble packaging for something the size of a book.

oh no you had to pay a tiny bit more to help keep a business in your city.

Re:Are we really this spoiled?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I take it you never use self-serve checkouts?
Where do you think the money goes when you buy from a grocery chain?

Re: Are we really this spoiled?

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't HAVE to buy local at a slightly higher price,

You DECIDED to feed your goddamn cat!

Cat could survive a few days without getting fed. Proof, put it outside and close the door.

Anyways I hope you calculate the extra pennies spent as a good investment in your mental health.

Re:Are we really this spoiled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you rely on 'just in time' cat food delivery?

Are you incapable of planning more then a few weeks ahead or are you just terrible pet owners who don't want to be out the price of a few weeks worth of cat food in case mittens snuffs it?

Re: Are we really this spoiled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that pets should be fed before their owners you sound like a terrible person.

Re:Are we really this spoiled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uncle Toms like you are why this society is going down the fucking drain. Grow some fucking balls (you may remember those; you grandfather had them) and demand what has been promised to you. Better yet, do what Amazon is doing, and demand more. Demand more than you deserve and don't settle for less than you deserve. If we all did this, our society could be getting better rather than worse.

Re: Are we really this spoiled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pets do not necessarily eat before their owners. That's more of a rule of thumb to stress the importance of caring for your charges to the dumb human. And GP is quite right: Cats are hunters, they better be able to survive for a few days on no food. Barn cats generally don't get fed at all. They're there as mousers, and get to survive on what they catch.

Me, I don't have pets but I do run a pantry. Meaning I buy new when the old hasn't run out yet, but when there's less left than the minimum I want to have available. To me, people who depend on third parties like amazon prime in a way that endangers their pet when the delivery service is a bit slow for once, are much worse persons than people that point out cats are made to survive for a few days should a hunt fail.

In other words: Stuff it with the judgement, for you haven't a clue.

Re:Are we really this spoiled?

[omnichad]

Real estate is more extensive than remote warehouse storage. My guess is that they don't have room for more bulk storage at home.

Re:Are we really this spoiled?

[Hognoxious]

A week's supply of cat food is hardly bulk storage.

Unless it's a goddam lion.

Re: Are we really this spoiled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment sounds very much like "you're holding it wrong" from Steve Jobs years ago. You're blaming the buyer for expecting predictable behavior they are paying for.

If you depend on a business, it needs to come through on what it promised (with acknowledgement that processes do fail).

Re: Are we really this spoiled?

[edris90]

What you have describe is a race to the bottom, as it's easier to profit by sabotage and dirty tricks then it is to profit honestly. And with everybody after more then they desearve, quality doesn't stand a chance, the competition continues until we're fighting over scraps of scraps.

Re:Are we really this spoiled?

[omnichad]

Who said they buy it in weekly sized packaging? To save money you might buy the largest package available, but then you don't have done for 2.

Re: Are we really this spoiled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon used to be my first stop when I needed something. Itâ(TM)s now my last choice because of their crappy shipping. If it says guaranteed delivery by, then you know it wonâ(TM)t arrive on that day.

I shop locally now for just about everything. I get it the same day and I keep local shops in business a day longer.

Re:Are we really this spoiled?

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't seen my cat poop

Re:Are we really this spoiled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said they buy it in weekly sized packaging? To save money you might buy the largest package available, but then you don't have done for 2.

No, but then you have three months of catfood that goes stale in a month. If your cat is starving, sure it will still eat it, but it's not cost effective if you actually pay a vet for your cat's health when it goes south... instead of getting a new cat.

Honestly, if you just want "a" cat instead of "your cat" a new cat is cheaper and makes sense. It's a fairly shitty way of relating to an animal that is a companion, but perfectly legal though.

Re:Are we really this spoiled?

[gmiller123456]

I mean, anyone who gets mad that a package takes 3 days instead of 2 during the busiest shopping period in the western world...

With all do respect, you're an idiot. People are not complaining that shipping takes longer in general. They are complaining that a company is lieing about their delivery times. I dropped Prime a few years ago when 10 out of my last 10 orders arrived late. So I'm a bit surprised that more people are now just catching on.

First World Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

First world solution: Don't stop paying for it - just complain about it on the internet!

It's the deep state

[Anonymous Coward]

That can be the only explaination. And yes, I'm mocking the author. What a whiner.

Seriously?

[dromgodis]

Someone crying that they can't spend their hard-earned money fast enough?

Hope of humanity: Low and declining.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think the privileged spoiled douche worked hard or earned that money?

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Willfully missing the point, you should be down modded to oblivion. It's that Amazon is charging more and more for a promise they don't keep.

Re:Seriously?

[dinfinity]

First world problem if ever I've seen one.

Don't get me wrong, fuck Amazon, but a story about how a huge company slowly degrades the quality of some product/service of theirs? I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

Re:Seriously?

[dromgodis]

So perhaps it would be more effective to downmod Amazon by not giving them your money'?

"Prime"

[DrXym]

Amazon's "Prime" is like an express lane in a theme park to skip the queue. Except that so many people have paid for it that it has become its own queue. The sane thing to do would be to stop paying Amazon this money - if you're going to get a shitty service it may as well be for free. Better yet, shop somewhere else where they value the customer experience a little bit more.

Re:"Prime"

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon had standard two day shipping until they started Prime. They did it to ensure they had the infrastructure to be able to handle it. Once they started Prime, they delayed all non-Prime shipments to make Prime look useful. There was some griping about this when the service first started. It shouldn't be possible to fill the Prime queue since 2 days was supposed to be their baseline.

And remember, it's two days to your local post office, not two days to your door. Read your ToS.

Re:"Prime"

[The-Ixian]

I did Prime for a few years but, really, the shipping of Amazon has gotten so fast that it really isn't needed anymore.

I find that the items I purchase on Amazon, for the most part, still have a free two day shipping method even without Prime.

In the cases where two day shipping isn't available, the items still arrive within a week. Which still beats the pants off of any place else that I order things from.

Re:"Prime"

[NJRoadfan]

Call it the "Prime" effect. All my neighbors have Prime, so the beat up "Amazon Logistics" van is at the complex everyday anyway. Their supply chain has gotten so good that all my "free shipping" orders (I don't have Prime) show up in 2 days instead of the 5-7 day estimate. Intentionally slowing down orders to my area likely costs them money at this point.

Re:"Prime"

[Anonymous Coward]

That’s a laugh. I went to a retail park in Chester on 23rd, they’ve demolished the kids playground and built some junk food shops.

So rather than staying for hours while SWMBO did clothes shopping and then I went to impulse buy in the tech shops, we left pretty quickly and bought a stuff from amazon on the way home. It arrived on 24th, and net year we won’t be going to Cheshire Oaks.

Amazon's website sucks

[Bruinwar]

For the most part, Prime seems to be OK, but Amazon's website sucks. The user interface hasn't changed much in 15 years & it was never good. It's impossible to drill down to locate something. The search & filters fail to actually filter. No search within a search. Plus all the non-Amazon sellers that come & go. All that & I still find myself buying crap from them.

If they ever updated it so that the search filters worked & one could actually locate what they want, most of their customers would lose their minds & complain.

Re:Amazon's website sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

absolutely agree. the amazon web site is horrible. it's the reason i try to steer clear of it completely (i still get sucked in occasionally, but at least it can be for 1 month, which thoroughly gets abused).

the pollution in listings caused by third-party merchants and scammers adds to that, and the icing on the cake is that amazon refuses to let you completely hide that shit.

and now for a second helping of bullshit, yes, they are slowing down shipping, fewer items quality for '2 day' prime shipping, more shit gets tossed in the regular mail (back in 'the day', prime shipping meant two fucking day air, and they guaranteed it), and they no longer compensate (in a meaningful way) for late deliveries... AND you get to pay for other 'benefits' that you probably don't give a shit about and would rather not be paying for.

Re:Amazon's website sucks

[kenai_alpenglow]

It's good enough, I can usually find what I need; Wal-mart, who could be a big competitor, has an abysmal search. Duckduckgo/google will find things easier on the walmart site than walmart's own search engine. I really want wal-mart (or someone else) to get decent to give Amazon some competition.

Re:Amazon's website sucks

[drinkypoo]

You have to use both native and Google search to find stuff on most sites, including Amazon. Let's face it, even eBay has this problem, and they have more filterable metadata on products than almost anyone else. I regularly find eBay items with Google instead of the native search. If it happens there, you know if happens everywhere

Re:Amazon's website sucks

[nwf]

Their search does suck, They include random crap in any search list. I'd believe a lot of that is the fault of their "merchants" but it makes for a poor experience. That leads to the biggest thing I'd like to see, and that is a setting to exclude non-Amazon sellers in all searches. Most merchants that I encounter are selling counterfeit or garbage.

Bait and Switch

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing to see here; amazonâ(TM)s whole model is based on good old=fashioned bait and switch. How and why else build and grow one of the worldâ(TM)s largest retailer with making any profit? (On retail).

First they came for your bookstore, then the came for you specialist retailers, then the convenience store, then they came for YOUR wallet.

Tries to be all things to all shoppers

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoppers want everything now, not tomorrow so they choose two day for everything and many times can't combine orders either. Its a mentality that Amazon has tried to discourage with incentives to choose a slower cheaper option. But obviously I don't think its working, so I expect it will drive up Prime costs again to help cover a ever increasing cost to ship.

Consum(er)ism

[vikingpower]

This is bitching and griping at a high level. You're a member of an affluent, Western society, with an income you can spend online; you can actually spend it on worthless gadgets like IoT ovens with a videocamera inside and an app, or dildos - or on valuable items like books. You'll get those items, worthless or valuable, delivered to your doorstep. Within days. What the fuck are you complaining about ?

The world is on fire and immersed in ignorance, but hey - dildo delivery delay must be two days, not an hour more.

Re: Consum(er)ism

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely right this is complaining. That's what normal people do when they pay extra for a service but it is not delivered, repeatedly. Or did you forget that Prime is not free?

Re:Consum(er)ism

[110010001000]

Exactly. The next economic recession/depression will start sorting people out.

Re: Consum(er)ism

[110010001000]

No, normal people just cancel the service and get their money back.

Re:Consum(er)ism

[Rob Lister]

Well said. From a historical perspective, we live in fucking utopia. I suppose there's nothing so perfect it can't still be bitched about.

Re: Consum(er)ism

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon is not a mom and pop shop that occasionally gets an order wrong. Amazon is also not your local delivery guy who is overwhelmed this time of year.
  Amazon is a highly distributed, highly automated order fulfillment service. Some people pay extra for speedy order fulfillment. That's the promise.

When Amazon doesn't deliver on the promised level of service, customers have a right to complain. That's how it is supposed to work, and all business owners know to expect complaints if they can't live up to their promises.

Where do you people live that bad service should be smiled at in silence? Soviet Russia?

Re:Consum(er)ism

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine. If I'm so rich, I want to trade some of those riches for more time, rather than junk that simply makes me more efficient when working my ass off for the rich. Then I won't be so privileged in your worldview (I don't want privilege or more money; I want more fucking free time). Oh, what's that? Can't do it? Gotta work 40+ hours a week with 7.5+ hours of commuting with 15 days off a year, if that (the Japanese get 29 holidays, not counting their vacation)? Fuck you, you Uncle Tom piece of shit. If I can't just show up to work 2 hours late with the same attitude, I expect what I have elected to buy (for whatever reason I have made, you judgemental lap dog) to be there on my fucking porch when promised. You, vikingpower, are human garbage. You and your ilk are most of what is wrong with this world: you don't demand what you have been promised. You are a coward and a lapdog. You could not have chosen a more ironic user handle.

Re:Consum(er)ism

[AmiMoJo]

Why can't anyone make useful IoT stuff? I don't need a camera in the oven, what I need is a microwave with NFC that I can tap my phone against to automatically transfer the timer to my phone's screen.

Yes I'm that lazy/impatient.

Even if someone made it they would ruin it by making the app proprietary and privacy-invading. Honestly what is the point of living in the first world if it can't fix your first world problems!??

Re: Consum(er)ism

[edris90]

You know as a publicly traded company, you aren't their customer. You are their product and they are selling you to the stockholders. That's why Mom and Pop shops care because then you are their customer. Always remember when it comes to publicly traded corporations, you are the blood cow to be tappoed and the stockholders and capital investors are the customers

Re:Consum(er)ism

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Is the complaint that the service being paid for isn't as advertised somehow more or less valid because of the overall affluence of the situation?

If the complaint were that degradations in prime service were a human rights violation or something the fact that the situation is vastly better than most of history would be relevant. In this case it's merely that Amazon either can't hack their attempts at further scaling out or is in the 'switch' phase of 'bait and switch', which a complaint purely relative to what prime service used to be; not some grand historical arc.

Re: Consum(er)ism

[jemmyw]

I lived in the US for a short while, and I've lived in other affluent countries. In all those places people have way too much stuff, but Americans have more shit they don't use than anyone else. Who knows why. And it's imperative that it turns up as quickly as humanly possible so they can use it once and then consign it to live forever in a kitchen cupboard.

Re:Consum(er)ism

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

everyones luxuries are individual. I don't know anyone who has no vice or luxury spending.

Live in the moment. Sure consumerism is disgusting, but it will be far worse in future! And the world isn't on fire, its just america. We can turn our heads away from them and let them learn their lesson in time.

Re: Consum(er)ism

[Megol]

God damn you are stupid. Can you function in society with such a severe disconnect?

Re: Consum(er)ism

[nwf]

No, normal people just cancel the service and get their money back.

Maybe, but check around. Most people like to express their outrage and virtue signal their way to a brighter tomorrow.

Re:Consum(er)ism

[Anonymous Coward]

It's bitztream the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating, Qualcomm-hating, Firefox tabs-hating, Slashdot editors-hating Slashdot troll!

Re: Consum(er)ism

[Anonymous Coward]

No, normal people just cancel the service and get their money back.

Not if you actually want the service and there aren't good alternatives. "Voting with your money" is completely worthless on a company of Amazon's size. Beyond worthless as it's a waste of time. It's FAR more effective to cause customer support and publicity problems. For better or worse that's how to affect change now.

Re: Consum(er)ism

[mapkinase]

Exacto Mundo. Nothing to add here. /thread

Re: Consum(er)ism

[edris90]

Can you function outside Society with such a severe crippling dependence? I'm not stupid you. I'm just of an alternative order of operations in life. I have what I want. And I'm generally happy even when other people don't do like I think they should do. There's more than one way to successfully be satisfied in life.

Do complain by paper mail more, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Complaining by paper mail we all should do more often. email is too easy to ignore and trying to talk sense into phone drones is a losing proposition. That wait-on-hold time is better spent writing a letter and mailing it, putting the problem out of your mind until you get an answer back. Just mark your calender when you expect an answer back at the latest, so you can complain about non-answering if need be.

It's useful to have a decent workflow set up to just sit down and write, and have a letter roll out to pop right in the mail. In my case, groff macros for my letterhead and putting the address and folding marks right for the windowed envelopes I use. I now end up writing a letter every other week or so, to answer idiot government nagging with some complaining and nagging of my own.

I just checked: USPS postage is half a dollar for a normal business letter. Here in a much much smaller country, I get to pay 87 eurocents for a standard business letter, and post cards aren't even cheaper to send. (Unless freepost.) How much does it cost you hanging on hold for an hour? That letter is probably cheaper, including the time needed to write it.

Re: Do complain by paper mail more, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering how terrible the USPS is I find ignoring paper mail easy. Most of the time a letter you sent me ends up in someone elseâ(TM)s box. You should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting the Century Link of government services. The USPS sucks and giving them your money just perpetuates their problem. Forget Sears, they people should be losing their jobs.

Re: Do complain by paper mail more, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd paid attention you'd know that GP wouldn't know about USPS quality of service. It's a federal service, so complain to your senate- and congress critters. It's what you're supposed to do anyway, it's how your political system is set up.

Oh, and there's still fax. Governments typically have rules that forbid ignoring mail or fax. Phone calls require logging so they're easily "forgotten" and emails, well, computers crash all the time, everyone knows that. But faxes come with a delivery receipt as a free extra, which typically stands up in court. Very hard to ignore for organisations.

Write letter. Write "faxed and mailed" on it. Fax it, then mail it. Even harder to ignore for organisations. This despite people pretending that email is a better replacement. For this sort of letter, email is completely stupid, and fax and mail are not.

But the costing idea is interesting. How much would you pay for the ability to send an effective complaint?

Obligatory NGOML

[Hognoxious]

Everything is getting worse. Take Shelbyville. Did I tell you about that time I went there...

Bezos laughs on his trilliion dollar money pile

[xack]

Merry Christmas to me suckers.

if you want it fast, Try Main street

[Dusanyu]

All this worry about fast delivery confuses me. how many of thees items can be bought at a Physical location in your city. Mail order is something that takes time if your in a rush go to a store. even better go to a Store that is locally owned. Granted you may pay a bit more but you in the long run are helping your community.

Re:if you want it fast, Try Main street

[Anonymous Coward]

"confuses you"? Really? Prime customers PAID FOR fast delivery and then they did no receive what they PAID FOR. Do you not get this simple concept?

Re:if you want it fast, Try Main street

[Rob Lister]

how many of thees items can be bought at a Physical location in your city.

For me, some of them but not many. Just finding a store that sells a particular brand item can be more trouble than it's worth. At the same price? Almost never. Brick and Mortars have to cover the cost of Brick and Mortar.

Granted you may pay a bit more but you in the long run are helping your community.

Best Buy and Walmart are only marginally 'my community'. And no more than Amazon, really. The odds of a Mom and Pop having what I'm looking for is pretty low. And at less than twice the price? Absolute zero.

Re:if you want it fast, Try Main street

[kenai_alpenglow]

How many things can you buy locally? Well, we have a Dollar General, and that's about all. No, that IS all. (There is a Wal-Mart, but it's still a drive, and the stuff I buy on Amazon is not available at that city locally owned or not.) So it would actually take more time (arrange for day-off, plan route, drive 200+ miles, etc) to get the stuff that you can't get at that Wal-mart at a "real" store. And you'll pay a LOT more than $99/year shipping! Not everybody is in a large city.

Re:if you want it fast, Try Main street

[The Evil Atheist]

Then ask, do you really need to buy that thing, and that particular brand? Just stop buying so much pointless shit in the first place. If you have so much stuff you want to buy that you can't get within walking/driving/bus/train distance, then that says to me you probably don't need two thirds of that crap.

Re:if you want it fast, Try Main street

[Megol]

To a first approximation: nothing. Some things could be bought with higher prices and worse quality, most things offered online can't be bought locally at all. That includes the dildos and IoT ovens some idiot drooled about above.

Not all Amazon customers live in large cities.

Re:if you want it fast, Try Main street

[Rob Lister]

Then ask, do you really need to buy that thing, and that particular brand?

Yes.

prime

[Anonymous Coward]

If they delivery date is over 2 days then the prime logo should be ripped off the ad. understand sundays and holidays being exceptions but prime should be free 2 day shipping.....

Prime isn't so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

First - I am allowed to use Prime only when I am in the US.
Usually I have couple weeks to do research, select what I want to order and then place many of orders for me & "friends & neighbors". Mostly stuff sellers do not want to ship abroad or sell to foreigners :-)

At this moment, promotional 30 days Prime trial is great. Outside of the US it is useless.

Who is ordering food online? Perhaps it is stupid 3rd world question. I understand bulk items like bottled water, canned or dried goods ... (preper's basics) but for daily/weekly shopping? I prefer to pickup them fresh at local bakery or local farmer's market (yes, we still have them , even with pushing retail chains).

And i noticed that Amazon will reevaluate such bulk cheap goods because it is net loss to them.

Re:Prime isn't so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who is ordering food online?"

People who are homebound, due to disability or medical issues, for one.

I have a couple of food items on monthly delivery (tea in bulk, 10x cheaper than boxes in the store) but mostly order specialty food online. For example, European candy and cookies that can't be found where I live. And don't say I should be learning to make them myself - costs more in materials and I do not have time for another hobby.

Re: Prime isn't so bad

[edris90]

It sounds like you don't deserve to have your cookies. You just want it. But taking a shortcut. That's the difference between needs and wants .it doesn't matter if you don't get what you want. With A good attitude you can be just as happy. you literally die if you don't get what you need.

Re: Prime isn't so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Moron

Re: Prime isn't so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

How about getting what you paid for?

Besides isn't this John drappers account? The guy who Lored dudes into his hotel room so he could "wrestle" with them.

Go choke on a dick faggot.

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

My family and a few neighbors have experienced the same since early November. Customer service passes it off as problems with a local warehouse and two-day shipping starts after packages leave the warehouse. The author is nowhere near us. Good to have confirmation of Amazon's shenanigans.

And search is so gamified it's useless.

[Myself]

Prime has become worse than useless, and it's impossible to find what I want in the search anymore. It's dominated by endless clones of the same item with scarcely-distinguishable gibberish all-caps "names" that all white-label the same FBA and import products.

I've taken to shopping at eBay, which oddly enough, seems to have a more reliable experience and better dispute resolution. I've never had eBay threaten me when I open several disputes within a short time span, because they can look at my transaction history.

eBay has their own issues (shopping cart keeps getting slower, and slower, and slower...) but at least the rest of their offering is improving. They actually added a "group similar items" feature to combat the clones that're clogging Amazon.

Thanks for the reminder. I need to cancel Prime.

Re:And search is so gamified it's useless.

[Solandri]

I really think this is Amazon's biggest weakness. If some competing online shopping site comes around with a more effective search, I'd switch. It's why I still buy most of my computer components from Newegg instead of Amazon. Newegg's search works, and helps you easily eliminate products you're not looking for. (You just have to make sure to set Newegg as the seller to filter out all the crap reseller offerings.)

Re:And search is so gamified it's useless.

[The-Ixian]

(You just have to make sure to set Newegg as the seller to filter out all the crap reseller offerings.)

Ain't that the truth!

I recently ordered some OTA equipment and one of the items was a nice looking outdoor rated coax cable with rubber boots on the ends. Unfortunately, I didn't pay close enough attention to the seller of this particular piece and realized, too late, that it was being shipped from China!

No big deal, I ended up not needing the cable anyway and completed the project.

Weeks later, I get the package with the cable and..... it turned out to not even be what I ordered!

Whatever, it was a $10 cable.... how that makes sense to ship from China... I will never know...

Don't shop their

[prefec2]

Amazon behaves like the world is the USA ignoring local laws, they do not pay their workers properly, fight unions, works council and other worker representation in their company, they pressure delivery services and personnel, they pressure cities to commit to their needs and pay subsidies. Really, do not shop there. Shop somewhere else.

Re:Don't shop their

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for their research division for almost 2 years and was paid extremely well. What are you on about them not paying well?

Re: Don't shop there

[prefec2]

s/their/there

I hate auto correct. Its inventor should go to hello. Also why is there no edit button /.?

Anecdotally

[Dan East]

Anecdotally, it has been the same for me as it has been for years. Shipping was timely right up through Christmas. The fact that Prime has been "diluted" to offer even more things to its members is, anecdotally speaking, a good thing. Using your terminology, a "concentration" of Prime that removes features, like music streaming or unlimited picture storage, would be a good thing then to you? Anecdotally of course.

Maybe you're using and relying on Prime more, and thus you are more sensitive to any and every hiccup you see and that gets you all worked up?

Western problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel pretty bad for you, they have you have suffered needlessly in your two-three date wait for your online purchaced goods.

Just a thought, but you could try supporting your local ecomomy by purchacing that item in an actual store which employs people in your area. As an added benefit, you don't need to wait 3 days.. just pick it up.
Lot's of stores will let you buy something online and collect it in the shop.
Maybe it would be better to get out of the house once in a while?

Re:Western problems

[pablo_max]

I normally try to buy local. When the price is reasonably close, I will, but when the net is 30% less, then I do buy online. Very often I find the Amazon price to be much higher than in other online shops or even my local stores.

Re:Western problems

[Anonymous Coward]

You have completely missed the point. Amazon Prime is not "free shipping as a courtesy" that you find on eBay and other online stores. Amazon offers a "free 2-day shipping I paid for" service that costs $119/year. If Amazon cannot support free 2-day shipping on these items, then they need to remove the Prime logo. That way, customers can better decide whether guaranteed 2-day free shipping for those products is worth $119/year.

I would argue most people using Prime are out of the house *more* than the typical person. Who has 2-3 hours a day to wander around empty shopping malls, only to find out the few stores left do not stock those items. It would be a colossal waste of time - cost at least 10-15% more - and in some cases, take 2-3 *weeks* to arrive. Are you a glutton for punishment?

2 days in the 90s, now a week

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Nevada. Back in the 90s I'd get Amazon in 2 days. Now it takes a week despite the fact that they have a fulfillment center right here in Vegas now.

Their reviews have also gotten shockingly worthless now. Obvious fraud is rampant.

As for the prices? They haven't been the best in a decade.

Prime REQUIRED to buy items...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've run into this far too many times. Need a lawnmower in Summer? Only sold to Prime customers... That toy your kid really wants at Christmas? Same thing... Sure adds a lot of cost to that one item!

Thankfully Walmart is perfectly happy to sell the same thing to me, with 2-day free shipping & no subscriptions! (Just a crummy UI on their website. Well worth the tradeoff!)

Prime is unsustainable

[kurkosdr]

Amazon Prime is unsustainable. If you think your Prime subscription (which also includes content services) or the little extra you pay at checkout to have Prime next-day shipping (or even two-day shipping) covers the cost of that shipping, you are deluding yourself. This was a case of Amazon "dumping" the service to grab market share. Up until now we knew about product dumping, Prime was the first case of shipping service dumping.

Re:Prime is unsustainable

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon Prime is unsustainable. If you think your Prime subscription (which also includes content services) or the little extra you pay at checkout to have Prime next-day shipping (or even two-day shipping) covers the cost of that shipping, you are deluding yourself. This was a case of Amazon "dumping" the service to grab market share. Up until now we knew about product dumping, Prime was the first case of shipping service dumping.

I worked for a logistics company years ago. Large repeat customer accounts negotiated shipping rates for pennies on the pound of weight. How could the shipping company make money charging only 15 cents to send a 15 lbs. carton of nails? Volume apparently although on an individual basis the shipping company was loosing money.

So cancel. I did.

[Anonymous Coward]

A month or so ago I saw the prime renewal cost was now more than $131. I did the math and figured that even with the 5% cash-back option and free two day shipping there was no possible way that was worth it to me. So I canceled. And now I buy even less from Amazon. Maybe once a month I'll buy a specific kind of LED lightbulb that Home Depot doesn't have or something like that.

Works fine for me

[JBMcB]

My wife bought a few of the kid's Christmas presents and they showed up on time. Last-minute I bought a heating pad for my mom that showed up right on time, and that was on Saturday. Beyond that my wife likes the shows on Prime Video, and I've been watching Mr Robot and Endeavor.

Last year I ordered a set of knives (that apparently you can ONLY find on Amazon for some weird reason) for Christmas but used the cheapo shipping to get a few Amazon gift cards. They all showed up well before Christmas.

I'm sure there have been problems but I haven't seen any.

Re: Works fine for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Anecdotes are like assholes.

Also, you must live in a white community. Amazon has no problem shipping items in 2 days to my 97% white suburban estate. Meanwhile, my grand mom who lives in the ghetto, it takes them 3-5 days to ship her packages.

Re:Works fine for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool anecdote bro.
I did a Prime trial (1 month). 2 out of 15 items I ordered were late.

Maybe you don’t understand what to look for? You can only find the original delivery dates in the confirmation email they send when you order. After that, if item is late, they will silently update orders webpage with new dates. Likely, you are not noticing that they are screwing you.

Re: Works fine for me

[J-1000]

How are the horror stories any less anecdotal?

its a scam

[FudRucker]

amazon prime is a "pig in a poke" and there is no shortage of suckers to buy in to it

it is sort of a racket, its like a long line at the grocery store but the store manager is accepting payola to get cuts in line at the cashier, i only use amazon as a last resort if i cant find what i want elsewhere, and since walmart has a much bigger brick & mortar presence and their own fleet of 18 wheelers it just makes walmart better at shipping in terms of both faster & free shipping, and walmart made their website better for shopping too

Post Office

[Anonymous Coward]

For me it has been the mysteries of which deliveries get handed over to the US Postal Service. In most cases those packages are late. I have repeatedly received failed delivery notifications when I've been home all day. The first time I reacted because it indicates it will be returned to sender. Now I just know they didn't want to deliver a package that day and to wait a day or two.

The other thing I've noticed is never select the "no hurry" shipping option. The packages never arrive or arrive damaged. I would prefer to shop from other retailers but so many have the "will get it to you when we get it to you" shipping method with no option to upgrade, that it isn't worth it.

Re:Post Office

[Anonymous Coward]

USPS service varies a lot depending on location. A lot of places have so many packages to be delivered each day that they simply won't fit in those little Jeep-like trucks the delivery people use, so they don't even try to stuff the packages in -- instead they just leave everyone the "missed delivery" slip and you either have to pick it up at the post office yourself, or schedule a specific delivery day. Then they only put the rescheduled deliveries into the little Jeep for that day.

no

[Anonymous Coward]

Its because they use their own Amazon delivery service instead of UPS/FedEx, since both of these companies have their own fleet of airplanes.

It's called Reasonable Reliance

[Anonymous Coward]

If an entity makes a promise of two day delivery, and you enter into a contract with that entity because you reasonably rely on that promise, and they fail to deliver, that's a violation of your contract. It isn't being spoiled to meet the minimum that you have been promised, and don't give me the "first world problem" speech either because you feel that this isn't a problem. In fact, systematic contract fraud of this type is often a subject of government regulatory intervention.

See: http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1732

Also don't buy batteries there! They all suck!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't find a LR41 supplier anywhere!

Just another name for sleaze

[Anonymous Coward]

Dark patterns sounds like a very hip phrase, but this is not new. The big difference is that it's more brazen online. I saw that the very first time I saw the Internet, via a friend's AOL account. A popup credit card offer refused to move until I clicked either "Yes" or "Ask me later".

Luckily for me, I rarely see these things because I rarely enable script. I'm amazed by the cacaphony of intrusion when I look at someone else's screen. Amazon? I've never bought from them and don't intend to. As the author said in the source article, he could have bought his gasket locally in a few minutes. That also would have supported local business and reduced his production of waste by one box, some bubble wrap, and a half gallon of gas.

Poor shopper, but

[Anonymous Coward]

They (Prime) aren't "forcing" him to buy anything.He's an addict, and can't bring himself to admit it. It's the only way Capitalism works; you vote with your dollars.

Re: Poor shopper, but

[Anonymous Coward]

So paying for a service and not receiving it is the consumers fault somehow?

You people are fucking delusional faggots.

why Prime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunno if it's just me or not, but getting items with free two day shipping is pretty pointless. If I buy an item online, it's probably something that I don't necessarily need in a timely fashion, so I don't care how fast it gets here. Amazon is becoming too large and expansive to properly do anything particularly well.

The cads....

[Biogoly]

It's almost like Amazon used a loss leader program like Prime to lure you in only to slowly and incrementally turn the tables on you! Those bastards!

Re: The cads....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a TRAP!!

You poor baby

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like it, get off your ass and drive to a store.

Re:You poor baby

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, 'cause Walmart totally has that oscilloscope that I need.

Re: You poor baby

[Anonymous Coward]

I never find good prices in electronics tools on amazon, and I'm too skeptical of their counterfeit problem to really trust them on something so vital. I bought my Rigol on Tequipment.net and was very happy with the price an shipping. They do discount codes on eevblog forum too (or used to).

Utter bullshit, AC, utter bullshit.

[Oligonicella]

"Most of the time a letter you sent me ends up in someone elseâ(TM)s box."

Re: Utter bullshit, AC, utter bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

This. I'm 35 and the number of times someone else or my neighbor has gotten my mail is ~10 tops.

Headline not at all consistent with our experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything that we have ordered in last month and that was available via Prime has come in advertised two days. A couple of dozen orders. Heck, I ordered an AVR Sat night (22nd) at 10pm and had it Monday (24th) at 2pm. NO problems at all, despite Black Friday and Christmas. Oh yeah, we live in a small town too, so not a big city Amazon is focusing on.

"Uncle Tom"?

[Oligonicella]

What a racist remark.

Re:"Uncle Tom"?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're talking about cat food, so he probably thinks "Uncle Tom" has something to do with cats. Cartoon cats, probably.

Re: "Uncle Tom"?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you just shout "RAAAACIST!" And win the argument? I don't think it's that racist, and I won't be tone policed. Fuck you.

Glad

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad someone else noticed that as well!
The "2 days" free shipping can become 5 or 6 easily many times.
They also need to get the fake reviews and scams under control, with sellers bribing for good reviews in exchange of cheap Chinese junk!

The "top answer" is a customer rant

[Anonymous Coward]

So is this submission. Totally nonsensical. If you're unsatisfied with Amazon's service, cancel Prime.

Re: The "top answer" is a customer rant

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea cancel a service you already paid for, in advanced, for a whole year.

That'll work out real well.
Fucking idiots blaming consumers. Must be a repubtard.

Also touch to criticize poor performance

[Anonymous Coward]

Try to leave a product review that mentions bad shipping? Nope, rejected. Try to find a link to criticize long delivery times? Nope, they say that since they set the delivery time, you can't criticize that either. I'm going out of my way to shop outside of Amazon too, and at this stage ill even pay a little bit more.

Estimated delivery day

[SylviaCaras]

My experience also is that 2 day becomes a week. I thought it was UPS/USPS. I've once complained/commented, using Chat. Lengthy, but satisfactory. I've several times returned defective products without hassle. I've lowered my expectations! Prices/recommendations also range widely. I now spend more time 'shopping' online, checking prices + shipping costs at several sites. Amazon usually gets the sale.

"But I want it now."

[Fly Swatter]

Oh, grow up.

Re: "But I want it now."

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? He paid to have it now. Why is he in the wrong? He paid for a service that was not delivered in time. He has a right to bitch.

Next time a resteraunt fucks up your order or it takes 45 minutes to get your steak, and when you do get it, it's cold...remember those wise words you wrote.

"Grow up"

Another repubtard blaming the consumer because businesses are never wrong and should never be obligated to fulfill their contracts.

Re: "But I want it now."

[Anonymous Coward]

You're exactly the kind of fraud enabler that bozos like bezos love!

Re:"But I want it now."

[Red_Chaos1]

I love how the other two comments are right, but voted to negative to be hidden, while chucklenuts here has a 2.

Sorry "Fly Swatter" people pay for Prime. They pay to have their stuff sooner. They don't have to "grow up" because they have. Paying to expedite things is part of that being an adult. Not getting what you paid for gives you the right to complain, and it doesn't make you immature.

Re:"But I want it now."

[Kevin108]

Prime customers are grown up. "I want it now, and I'm willing to pay extra for it."

So . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't satisfying your millenialism anymore, cry us a river. You aren't going to die if your package takes another day or two to arrive, and no one is forcing you to subscribe to Prime. This is not what 'real' problems look like, but it is what pathetic and entitled look like. Also, millenialism is not restricted to people in their 20s, it's a western disease that can afflict anyone.

Re: So . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

More repubtard doublespeak to let big business off the hook. They aren't obligated to give you a service you PAID for. What are you some type of consumer? LUL.

Businesses are never wrong, it's always the consumers fault. The funniest part is, most of the people posting this anti consumer bullshit, are one of the first people to bitch about Apple telling people they were holding it wrong. Fucking hypocrites.

Re: Don't shop there

[drinkypoo]

Also why is there no edit button /.?

Because there is a preview button, which is better for everyone else, if not for you.

It's like fishing.

[hey!]

And you're the fish. First they hook you, then they play you.

If you keep preferring Prime even as they back off on the initial promise of convenience, then they still have wiggle room to play you.

Prime member for years

[tannhaus]

I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing this happening. Not only do my packages arrive late at times, but I thought I was crazy: I look at "free 2 day shipping" and see a date that's often 4 days away. Free 2 day shipping rarely means 2 day shipping anymore.

Prime is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I signed up for the 30 day trial once because I NEEDED a huge item shipped the next day (and shipping was free). But otherwise as a non-Prime member I typically receive my orders with free shipping within one week so why the fuck would I pay to become a Prime member?

Re: Don't shop there

[Anonymous Coward]

This correction makes no sense at all!

When Everybody is special...

[drewsup]

NOBODY is special.
The amount prime members is so great now , its become the low bar.

One factor: tornado damage in Baltimore

[boustrophedon]

A tornado knocked down an Amazon warehouse wall on November 2, killing two contractors. There was no tornado warning from the weather service.

Two weeks later, the Washington Post reported on Amazon Prime delays in the region. Limited Prime Now service resumed about a week before Christmas.

Re: One factor: tornado damage in Baltimore

[Anonymous Coward]

It was barely a tornado. The building was a piece of shit old factory building. You get what you pay for. Nobody bothered to renovate or update the building. Besides it was standing for 30 years before the "wind storm"

It also wasn't an amazon warehouse. It was owned by amazon contractors.

Re: One factor: tornado damage in Baltimore

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a bunch of excuses. The building wasn't an amazon warehouse. And the building is fine. Only a wall fell.

How does a wall falling in a contractors warehouse that has no ties to amazon, cause delays? Please explain.

Do they not have backup warehouses to reroute to? Or was this amazon doing the amazon thing and being as cheap as possible with their fortunes.

Slashdot is getting worse

[Anonymous Coward]

After 18 years of reading Slashot, I am posting my first "not news" post. This is about the quality of a mail order shopping service, and more appropriate for Reddit than real "nerds."

getting worse from some time now

[Espectr0]

turns out that according to amazon they have never promised two day shipping when you order something. what they do is promise free two business days shipping counting from the time the item ships. an amazon rep in twitter said that to me and it actually made be think of cancelling the service.

price hikes and the actual lose of benefits such as 20% off game preorders are going to make me think twice.

what i would like is just a prime shipping ONLY plan for something like 50 bucks a year.

Prime has always been a scam

[Anonymous Coward]

Prime has always been a scam to make suckers pay extra for little return. I have been buying from Amazon at least once a week for a decade. I do NOT have Prime. I have only paid a shipping charge once. Every other time I get the free shipping with the minimum order. I have the patience to wait 2 -3 extra days for my products to arrive.

I have saved over $1000 dollars compared the people who buy Prime. If you pay money for something that give you no value, why complain. Just stop doing it.

let them eat cake

[Anonymous Coward]

I was defrauded.

This is bitching and griping at a high level. You're a member of an affluent, Western society, with an income you can spend online; you can actually spend it on worthless gadgets like IoT ovens with a videocamera inside and an app, or dildos - or on valuable items like books. You'll get those items, worthless or valuable, delivered to your doorstep. Within days. What the fuck are you complaining about ?

My health is suffering because healthcare is unaffordable.

This is bitching and griping at a high level. You're a member of an affluent, Western society, with an income you can spend online; you can actually spend it on worthless gadgets like IoT ovens with a videocamera inside and an app, or dildos - or on valuable items like books. You'll get those items, worthless or valuable, delivered to your doorstep. Within days. What the fuck are you complaining about ?

I was raped.

This is bitching and griping at a high level. You're a member of an affluent, Western society, with an income you can spend online; you can actually spend it on worthless gadgets like IoT ovens with a videocamera inside and an app, or dildos - or on valuable items like books. You'll get those items, worthless or valuable, delivered to your doorstep. Within days. What the fuck are you complaining about ?

Never thought I would be rooting for Walmart

[Anonymous Coward]

Walmart gives the same 2-day shipping deal without prime membership scams and associated annoyances: Random refusal to sell common/popular items without membership and intentionally delaying shipping to uncompetitive levels.

FFS Amazon is not even price competitive anymore.

My experience

[mapkinase]

My motto is: never subscribe to anything if there is an alternative way, so I always pick the Free Shipping option (usually arrives in 1-2 weeks).

Half of the time a very expected thing happens: it arrives significantly earlier.

The reason for that is that the delivery times for Free Shipping are artificially exaggerated to cover potential delays further than required by business.

Nobody is going to store your items longer than necessary because as Quentin Tarantino said: "This ain't storage for Amazon items"

Ditch Prime. Use free shipping when offered, use cheapest shipping always.

Re:My experience

[houghi]

From what I understood earlier, I would not get thing much faster with Prime (I am in Europe) and would not get it cheaper.
There is a minimal delivery fee of around 30 EUR. After that delivery is free for many things.

What Prime is for is that you will start order more, because you have Prime already. Instead of waiting that I have 30 EUR to buy, people will start ordering things that are cheaper, more often and that will entice them to use it for other things they never would have bought,

In no way will the customer make money when a company offers some sort of discount. It is their calculation and you can bet they will make more from it, no matter how you say "But look at my calculations", because all you see is the prices on their website, not what their profits are. So a real comparison is not possible.

I just do not use Prime. At this moment I have sevreal items worth 28 EUR in my basket. When I need something else I will ordewr it. If it is something I absolutely need, I will look elsewhere.

Re:My experience

[radarskiy]

'no matter how you say "But look at my calculations", because all you see is the prices on their website, not what their profits are. So a real comparison is not possible.'

Their profit is economically irrelevant to me. What matter is the value I derive from what I purchase with respect to the prices I paid.

It is completely plausible that both the seller and the buyer are benefiting from the transaction. That's how capitalism works.

Re:My experience

[radarskiy]

"Ditch Prime. Use free shipping when offered, use cheapest shipping always."

I have Prime. I take the delayed shipping option if I'm not in a big hurry and they offer $1 credit for digital purchases that I was going to buy anyway.

I can claw back over 1/2 of the cost of Prime that way, and I still get all of the non-shipping benefits and I can still have the two-day shipping when I want it.

Re: Prime is idiotic from an consumer economics po

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, but they don't all arrive in FedEx or UPS trucks. Most come in a decrepit mini van built in the 90s handled by people in equally derelict attire.

Prime Shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

2 days, more like 2.75 to 3 days.

Re: Prime is idiotic from an consumer economics p

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL this. I always feel like I'm going to get kidnapped when one of their vans shows up.

Re: Headline not at all consistent with our experi

[Anonymous Coward]

Again, anecdotes are like assholes.....

As stated above, you probably live in a majority white neighborhood. Where amazon will happily ship packages to. But if you live in the ghetto or a pro dominatly Black neighbored, you are shit out of luck.

Seeing you live away from the city in a small town, im guessing 90% of your neighbors are white and amazon has no problem dropping off packages.

I found the bundling with video worse...

[Anonymous Coward]

I joined Prime shortly after it became available in my market (Germany) for the free shipping, it being faster was a bonus that kept me (impulse buy thing), even when the price rose. Then they started bundling crap I don't care about, mostly their video streaming (Hey, I buy mostly books and only very few DVDs, why would I want a video streaming product bundled??), continuously raising the price... Late last year I was finally fed up enough to cancel Prime. I became a bit more careful spending money because of shipping cost and much less impusive, so, good for my wallet, bad for amazon. But their attempts to intercept my checkout and peddle Prime, with really dark patterns no less, have made the experience more and more annoying, so I'm now firmly in the "Fuck Amazon" camp, having spent the time to find smaller shops (both online and offline) that do not deliberately try to piss me off. Good riddance.

don't forget the counterfeits

[slashmydots]

There are enormous amounts of counterfeit items being sold as Prime items. It's supposed to stop that. They're supposed to be checking them out. It's just a low/no effort lie. I can't wait until the FTC drops the hammer on them for their many monopoly violations involving Prime's integration at other sites.

Re:don't forget the counterfeits

[bongey]

Amazon isn't doing crap about counterfeits. I contacted them two times and talked to at least 6-8 reps about fake footmaster leveling casters.These are fake and they are still there https://www.amazon.com/Happybu... .

Re:don't forget the counterfeits

[Kevin108]

lol @ relying on government to solve your problems. There's no money for politicians in cracking down on Amazon. Letting the market sort this out is the only realistic option. Vote with your wallet.

As someone who doesn't have Prime...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or even an Amazon account (I beg/borrow from family/friends. Also helps avoid Amazon tracking my purchases.) I can tell you that non-prime shipping is only 7-10 days max, and I have gotten items in as little as 3 days before.

If there is something I need TODAY or tomorrow then I am buying it at a retail store if it an available stocked item, and otherwise I have patience myself, or notify a customer and ask if they want the delay or change the item to something I can get that day if it is a rush project. Most people are not in a hurry or they would simply buy off the shelf themselves.

Re:Don't shop there

[Kevin108]

Amazon behaves like the world is the USA ignoring local laws, they do not pay their workers properly, fight unions, works council and other worker representation in their company, they pressure delivery services and personnel, they pressure cities to commit to their needs and pay subsidies. Really, do not shop there. Shop somewhere else.

Keeping prices low by keeping overhead low through cheap labor and telling useless unions to fuck off sounds like good business.

For a person with no marketable skill, some money is better than no money. We're at a point where unskilled workers can either work for cheap or replaced by automation.

Leveraging demands on the USPS, which is an incredible failure for an organization that functions as a national monopoly, sounds like the average taxpayer getting more for their money than they might otherwise.

My books always arrive damaged

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon got their start selling books. These days they just toss them in a box or large envelope with no protective wrapping or air bubbles. I cannot tell you how many I have had to send back because they arrive dented, creased, or damaged in other ways.

Amazon is now a mature company

[mattmarlowe]

Bezo's created Amazon and did a good job for the first 20 years of creating a customer first culture, but he always had to fight investors and a general business climate that said he should avoid pushing profits into new infrastructure and and return them to shareholders.

It's obvious that he was wounded with the failure of the fire phone, and Amazon's retreat from everything android.

Alexa and buying Whole Foods are the only real advancements of the last few years.

Everywhere else, you can see that Amazon is becoming a normal business. They sort of have to. When they had fewer richer customers, they could justify great customer service. Now, they serve everyone in every country and their rate of future growth isn't assured. The financial people have been put in charge.

You can see this with the destruction of Amazon Fresh. That service used to partner with many local fresh produce/fish/meat vendors, including restaurants. Now, it is restricted to almost exclusively Whole Foods. Prime Now has somewhat taken its place, but the fees there are higher and the selection is still limited. I'm not sure it makes sense to get groceries from Amazon anymore.

\o/

[easyTree]

"They force you to buy a minimum number of items to get the best deal, adding back the very psychic burden Prime had eliminated from the equation of online shopping in the first place"

Not to worry, Prime+ will be along soon to open a new stratum of convenience and price efficiency.

Articles written by people angry about christmas

[Anonymous Coward]

These articles always come out around christmas, because they didn't get their Christmas presents in time.

News flash - There is so much demand on logistics over Christmas that its going to always happen. Either buy earlier or buy local. 1st world problems.

They should just rename it...

[Anonymous Coward]

... Amazon Subprime.
Like the mortgages, once upon a time it worked, but turned out to be an illusion.
Here (Spain), one of my nieces ordered an in stock item through Amazon Prime, took about 3 weeks to arrive.

Re: Don't shop there

[Anonymous Coward]

s/their/there

I hate auto correct. Its inventor should go to hello. Also why is there no edit button /.?

Auto-correct is not compulsory. You can turn it off. Very easily. It less time then it took to bitch about it. In a thread already bitching about first world problems.

"Oh, my device tried to help me out and messed up in way that in no way degraded my point or inhibited anyone from understanding. Die auto-correct inventor!"

Just in time

[Anonymous Coward]

Southpark did itÂ

Amazon wins

[Tony Isaac]

Most of us wouldn't pay for two-day shipping if we had to add extra money to each order. But as a subscription, we pay about the same amount of money over the course of a year.

If you had paid for two day shipping on a specific order, and it didn't arrive in two days, you get your upcharge fee back. But since it's a subscription, all you get is a note saying "we're sorry."

Amazon wins.

So

[BitztreamNotARealNam]

How's life in the hypocrite lane?

Spoiled? You Mean Ripped Off!

[Anonymous Coward]

We pay for the benefits/features/services of Prime. We pay quite a hefty fee.

As described in this article Amazon is failing to provide the service for which we are paying. Instead, Amazon is using the branding and reputation of the service to further their sales while not providing the service that is advertised.

We're not spoiled and petulantly demanding two day delivery. We are paying fro a service that is not being provided. We are being ripped off!

Called it

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! I said this would happen so I'm going to collect on the shit I got from you lot at the time and say TOLD YOU SO!

You're basically giving Amazon free money, and so many of you are doing it now that they don't need to care. You should have figured this out when they started degrading the service - removing/reducing benefits and slowly eroding the next-day delivery.

I rarely even use Amazon now - because of you assholes it's now a PITA to use as a non-Prime user, with the site CONSTANTLY trying to pester and even trick you into signing up to Prime, to the point I have to de-select it several times and avoid clicking a sudden pop-under that tries to sneak under my cursor when clicking on Buy.

And when I do use Amazon, I find I have to use market sellers - They offer free next day deliver and don't force me to buy a load of things in addition to the thing I want to qualify for free delivery!

I find myself increasingly favouring eBay over Amazon for this and other reasons.

Why you lot continue to pay for your Prime subscriptions when you get treated like this defies reason...