Amazon, what the heck have you done to Prime shipping?
16This is probably old news for those who order from Amazon on the reg, but it sure was a shock to me!
I just ordered some toner cartridges from Amazon. With an active Prime subscription I had two shipping options: Free shipping with a delivery date of April 30th, or 3 to 5 day shipping for $27. Slow shipping for digital credit wasn’t offered.
WTH is going on over there, Amazon? Many Prime subscribers pay for the shipping benefit and don’t even bother with anything else included with Prime. Without free expedited shipping, we’re basically paying to keep Uncle Jeff’s net worth from being affected by the same economic crisis the rest of us are dealing with.
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I, uh, I have no idea how to respond to that, @mediocrebot.
@mediocrebot lol
@mediocrebot @ruouttaurmind I guess that’s Dumb & Dumber, but my first thought was Rip Van Winkle.
It’s not exactly classified information, there’s a banner about it at the top of their site. And there have been countless stories about it on the net.
@blaineg @mediocrebot @ruouttaurmind Who reads that stuff?! I’ve been trying to max out my digital credits on shipping. For awhile the offer was $3./ shipment, and I ordered a lot of stuff. This week it was $1.50.
try ebay for cheap toner
ebay has a 45 policy , the toner either works well or you can return for a refund in 45 days
as for amazon 30 day shipping, its been going on for like 3 weeks now
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/3/22/21190372/amazon-prime-delivery-delays-april-21-coronavirus-covid-19
@communist It was surely a shock to me. I ordered some woodworking stuff from them on March 30th and my order was at my door on April 2nd.
@communist @ruouttaurmind It’s an extremely circumstantial “delay” policy–my girlfriend tried to convince me that EVERYTHING was delayed, so I looked up various products. I DON’T RECOMMEND THIS–especially if you’re sheltering-in-place.
You WILL be right but you WON’T be happy.
Stuff they think you need comes quickly. Stuff they think you don’t really need comes slowly. I ordered hand lotion today and it’s coming Saturday. Toys take a month. I’m getting random surprises in May since I’ll have forgotten what I ordered. Nothing that twerks though.
@sammydog01
that would classify as something you need
@sammydog01
@sammydog01 @yakkoTDI +1 Louis Rossman
@yakkoTDI Only one left in stock? I MUST BUY IT NOW!
@sammydog01 @yakkoTDI they’ll get more in stock very soon, don’t worry!
@sammydog01 @yakkoTDI either cheaper or more expensive used, depending on amazon’s profile of the buyer
Amazon instituted all sorts of shipping changes in response to COVID-19.
They also changed the content of their warehouses. They totally prioritize “essentials” over everything else for the time being.
Anything they define as “essential” comes quickly.
A few other items that are still available in the main warehouses also arrive quickly.
They must have moved a ton of stuff to more remote and less accessible storage. That stuff arrives slowly.
When I’ve ordered from amazon recently, if it’s something I want ASAP, I look at delivery dates specifically and choose that way.
Often you can do better by ordering merch that isn’t “Prime”. It’s in the seller’s warehouse, not amazon’s.
That stuff often ships free, and quickly.
@f00l yep, I have noticed that too. I also ordered some stuff from WM delivered to the house rather than the store since it was actually quicker.
@f00l Their month delivery dates appear to be placeholders, I’ve some of those show up in a few days.
But based on what I’ve seen, the only “essentials” with short delivery times that I’ve been able to find are kids toys like Spirograph and paints.
Forget hand sanitizer, tissues, disinfectants, and of course TP. That stuff does not actually exist.
@f00l Also, the last time I looked for hand sanitizer (a fool’s errand) I hit a huge splash page saying they were only selling it to hospitals and other medical providers.
I really don’t think they necessarily mean what they say. We ordered a lava lamp light bulb on Sunday the 5th and it said it would be delivered on the 9th (tomorrow).
It came in yesterday the 7th (Tuesday).
So it is probably just that if they get “essential” orders, then your “non-essential” order can be pushed back.
@jst1ofknd Lava lamp bulbs are essential, dammit! We have to have something interesting to look at during quarantine.
I really didn’t think I’d have to use the word “ignoramus” this decade, but apparently you’ve been in lock down to long.
Soooooooooo, please do me a favor. Tomorrow morning, call Amazon and get a refund on your remaining months of PRIME.
Then please stop buying from Amazon as your fucking inconsequential orders are fucking up the delivery time of my toilet paper. And yes, I do give a shit.
@Woody1
Yeah, we thought we were set as our normal sub & save order of tp was scheduled for a week after the crazies bought out the stores.
Well, amazon didn’t save us any and cancelled it. The bidet experienced unprecedented usage for a week as our supply dwindled.
Finally was able to snag some from an early morning walmart trip while the hoarders were sleeping off their ramen hangover.
@Woody1
@blaineg @Woody1
Across the land, there’s none I swear
Woah, livin’ on a square
@Woody1 As of today, the walmart I do a job in actually had gone back to stocking TP on the shelves. They had been making people line up for it, along with paper towels, bottled water, wipes, etc at one of the doors to the stockroom. You do have to wait in line outside the store though to get in, as they are limiting the number of people inside at a time, even if it’s raining.
In my experience; children’s clothing is a priority item and arrives in 3 days. Adult sneakers and socks are less of a priority, mine came in 11 days. Baseball mitts and Magic the Gathering cards are lowest priority and arrive whenever they feel like sending them. I ordered the mitt and cards to help occupy the kids, so far it’s been 19 days and my delivery estimate is April 23. 34 days sure doesn’t feel very primey to me, but extraordinary circumstances and all that. My priorities are exactly opposite Amazon’s. I’m not angry, just disappointed.
/giphy I’m not angry just disappointed
@Nate311 how much for the subsequent hugs?
@chienfou @Nate311 The first one is free kid, the first one is free.
@blaineg @Nate311
yeah I saw the sign…
If anyone’s interested, or even if they’re not, my baseball mitt came today! The shipping notification email and the delivery notification email both came with the same timestamp, about 2 minutes After the parcel arrived. Pleased to get my Prime delivery 8 days earlier than estimated. Confused about the shipping notification.
The times seem to bounce all around. Some things will say the 28th one day, then be back to a few days. So if it’s nonessential, may as well order it and just hope for the best
@spitfire6006006
Agreed. Ordered a router and got it 7 days earlier than projected. I was pleased. If it hadn’t been early I would have understood. There are a lot of folks who shouldn’t be going out that are ordering food and supplies. They come first.
So far I am pretty happy with my delivery rate times. But, that being said, I haven’t ordered anything in the past few days. I did choose a different source for some things due to shipping times, and have made a few orders that netted me some “free money” by picking slow shipping.
It seems haphazard, but probably because they’re prioritizing critical delivery items, and fill in the extra orders. I had 3 separate orders (a couple DVDs, a set of cloth filter masks for our work crew, and a box of Clif Bars) all with delivery dates at the end of April or early May. Today I got an email saying the lot of them will be delivered Friday. So,
They may be prioritizing by warehouse. Who knows?
But they can certainly afford to refund Prime membership during this. And they should.
luckily, I saw all of this coming and stocked up on essential olive brine from Amazon.
@carl669 can’t imagine getting through a pandemic without it …
I think it’s partially random. I ordered the parts to rebuild my dryer and some grill starter cubes last week, and they came in 2 days. One was expected in 3.
I have seen stuff pushed way out to the future though. Bought some stuff on eBay just for the faster delivery time.
I’ve been ordering from other suppliers and have been geting free two day shipping in most cases,
@jewelshound A lot of suppliers have been bumped from Amazon’s warehouses, so they are hungry for business.
all this means is that they’re going to ship more frequently ordered items faster in addition to obvious medical supplies; this is a godsend for Amazon–don’t let anyone suggest any different.
A company doesn’t hire 100,000 additional employees overnight unless they feel like they’re missing out on a massive opportunity.
Besides delivery times, some prices have seen increases that are pure extortion. And we’re talking essentials here like model glue! (Do you know how many kits I’ve got piled up around here?) A $2-3 tube or bottle of glue is 2-4 times what it should be.
But that’s ok, it pushed me to check out other suppliers, and I found https://www.hobbylinc.com/
Got my glue, a couple of cool tools I didn’t even know existed, and a model kit I’ve been coveting for a while. Shipping cost was reasonable, and delivery was a week or so, from 3/4 of the way across the country.
The big one (not my picture):
@blaineg your model makes me hear this gif:
@Nate311 By your command.
@blaineg @Nate311
The way I figure it, for the “non essentials” they are relying on the seller to ship things to you vs. the amz warehouse. The extra time is just a buffer/setting expectations for the seller. I’ve ordered vitamins D and Zinc (nearly impossible to get because some jack rabbit said they cure Covid) and both of them had stupidly high wait times and both came within a reasonable (but not 2 day) shipping time.
I’ve also bought things off eBay and Walmart.com trying to get faster ship times. (And Wish… because if I’m gonna wait a month for stuff, I might as well get it super cheap.)
Amazon’s simultaneously under an obligation to try not to kill their warehouse workers, and facing increased demand. Obviously something’s gotta give. You can always cancel Prime for a while. (I bet they’d refund the remainder of this year if you asked.)
This comes down to something that’s always bugged the hell out of me: Batman’s implicit super power. Batman is free from scarcity and economics of any kind. He doesn’t just have a lot of money. He has infinite money. He doesn’t just have infinite money, he has infinite foresight and no constraints on how quickly anything can be researched and no constraints on his supply chain and no constraints on hours in a day and no constraints on the number of things he can attend to.
Even a company like Amazon, by contrast, would go broke pretty quickly if it started ignoring reality.
Back to Batman: I’m not a monster. I just wish he got called out a bit. Superman, say, has a similar issue, but it’s right there in front of you. “He’s real … Super, because of solar sun… shut up.” Batman though… I get the feeling people sort of believe that’s how money works.
@InnocuousFarmer
Um, that is how money works. Otherwise, how do you explain Ironman?
@InnocuousFarmer Also James West. Not necessarily money as much as he ALWAYS had the right gadget up his sleeve, or hidden in his heel. Never a lock pick when he needed acid, or vice versa.
@blaineg @InnocuousFarmer
As a child I idolized both Mr West and Mr Gordon. Mebbe still do.
@blaineg @f00l I remember that show. It wouldn’t have been contemporaneous with my childhood, but my dad watched it with me. It was great. That video should have had a bunch of cuts of Arty’s disguises in it too. 'course, that might be harder for the viewer to follow… wait, did it have that?
@ruouttaurmind Iron Man’s more of a boy genius + defense contractor. Completely plausible. He only built like one thing. And he had a magic AI helping him–and it still took a lot of trial and error.
@f00l @InnocuousFarmer My brother and I built as many of Mr. West and Mr. Gordon’s gadgets as we could, even hollowing out the heel of a boot.
@InnocuousFarmer Batman is best buds with the Fed chairman, that’s why he has infinite $
I’ve been trying to order as many staple/shelf-stable things as I can online in order to minimize the trips to the grocery store, which may not have some of the stuff anyway. I’ve had the best luck ordering directly from small businesses and they tend to ship fast. Dealing with Amazon/Walmart/Jet is a matter of finding things in stock and waiting whatever time it takes to ship. I did order some things from Amazon yesterday with no idea when they would ship. This morning I got a message that one of my items had already shipped: coffee. Apparently, Amazon thinks coffee is a necessity. I can’t disagree with that.
WTF is wrong with you?
There’s a pandemic going on and you think your damn toner cartridge is worthy of two day shipping? It says in multiple places on their site that they are prioritizing critical items (food, medicine, supplies). The reality is that everything I’ve ordered with a long shipping time ends up getting here sooner than the estimate anyway. You’d have to be a true a-hole to cancel your Prime membership over this.
@KENSAI
@KENSAI I believe his issue was more that Amazon is still calling it Prime Shipping. Also he has a business so toner is kinda essential for all the paperwork that is generated.
@KENSAI
Essential? Only if you think keeping my staff of about two dozen people employed is essential, then yes, I suppose it is essential. Further, we are trying to operate an essential business and I need essential toner cartridges to essentially keep the doors open and the essential staff employed. So essentially, fuck off along with your inessential self. K? K.
@ruouttaurmind You’re someone who failed to plan ahead more than two days. You thought during a pandemic everything would be normal and you’d get whatever you ordered in two days? Sounds like you’re a non-essential manager to me.
Just admit you screwed up and move on. But don’t whine about your lack of foresight and expect others to not call you out on it.
Well before the pandemic, I recall being frustrated with the “Prime” label while shopping. I was visiting people in mid January, so I naturally had put off buying Christmas presents for them until after the holidays. With plans to leave on the following Friday, I was shopping Amazon on a Sunday and multiple times I found items that were listed with Prime shipping, added them to my cart, and then would find during check-out that despite being “in stock” my delivery date would be past my departure date (which again, was 5 days away.)
I pay the money to procrastinate, Amazon!
I’m getting crafting supplies quicker than stated. How are those essential?
I wish it wasn’t so cold in the garage (This is southern California, damn it. It’s almost the middle of April), I refuse to put on shoes and a jacket over my sweatpants and sweatshirt, just so I can craft. (The garage is where I store everything, I work in the house.)
@lisaviolet It’s super cold and what’s with all this rain??
@Fuzzalini we’ve had over 3 inches this week.
This is at our house.
Weather.lisaviolet.com
@Fuzzalini @lisaviolet Sunday we are supposed to get a full day of heavy rain, big hail (they said could be soft ball size - I do wonder how they know that), high winds, tornadoes that could be on the ground for a while… I guess that crap is in TX right now. I’m hiding my car in the hospital parking garage to keep it out of the hail if we get that.
@Fuzzalini @Kidsandliz Probably this storm heading your way.
@Fuzzalini @lisaviolet So did you get hail and tornadoes. Does CA even get tornadoes?
@Kidsandliz @lisaviolet Very rarely do we get tornadoes. But I swear, when they do land here, they hit a trailer park.
@Fuzzalini @Kidsandliz we got snow in the mountains. No hail (which we do get). Just lots of rain.
https://babylonbee.com/news/america-descends-into-third-world-hellscape-where-amazon-delivers-in-three-days-instead-of-two
@Weboh Funny. I just think they should change the verbage on the website. I supposedly ordered something with Next Day delivery that also says it will be delivered in 7 days. Call it something else.
@Fuzzalini @Weboh
@blaineg @Fuzzalini Heh. Reminds me of the “Save up to 100%!*” ads. *(because we give away pencils for free, you can theoretically save that much. But 99% of the stuff is full price. But please check out our sale anyway and feel like you’re saving.)
Though I can see why they break it up like that. “Same day” is someone does the shopping for you, which allows stuff like produce to be delivered to you and justifies the higher price. Theoretically, it still could be same-day, if they don’t get as much volume as they have been, or if they get extra help from Insta-cart. So they still keep the same kind of “up to” marketing that they’re used to. Can’t see how they justify calling the 2-day shipping that though, since it’s not even “up to,” just straight-up 5-6 days. I’m sure they found some way to rationalize it though…
Part of the problem is, what is essential?
The stuff that essential workers need, like gloves, masks, etc are prioritized for hospitals. Workers may be told to buy and be reimbursed, but the local stores are either doing the same, or donated all stock to hospitals, or eternally sold out, despite limiting to one package per customer. It just seems like the stuff you’d be expecting to be a priority are either restricted from purchase or sold out and expected back in stock in a month, so I’m wondering just what the priority items are that are still on 2 day or even close to that shipping
@kevinrs This afternoon at about 2PM I ordered some bifocal shop safety glasses. They were waiting for me at my doorstep when I got home from the office at about 7PM. Essential seems to have a very random definition.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@kevinrs @ruouttaurmind
Where did you order from?
@f00l Sold and fulfilled by Amz.
@kevinrs @ruouttaurmind Bifocals - essential so you can read your screen to buy more crap from
mehwoot. Explained it. You are welcome.@mediocrebot WTF? woot?
@mediocrebot Got it. Now fuck off and quit.
I have Prime for the streaming.
What’s all this noise about shipping?
/image first world problems
Try compandsave.com , they have ink and toner carts at good prices. I had to order ink last week, it came very quickly, and they will probably save you money. Their ink is legit, no laser printer for me though.
@robson I get 20% off HP Instant Ink prepaid cards at Costco, and never looked back. Printing is 5¢/page. Color or picture or b/w, it doesn’t matter. (I’m on the $10/mo plan) They send ink before I run out. Never looked back and I don’t think about ink. They even include a prepaid envelope to send the old cartridge back for recycling. I love it.
All I know is this, I have hated Amazon before they ruined woot. I swore I would never buy from them and I honestly did not by anything from them for almost 10 years. I hated everything about them, yup I was the guy yelling at the kids to get off my lawn. But since Covid, they are by best friends, stuff shows up a day early sometimes and nothing I have ordered has been too late. Plus I don’t see any real price gouging. So there, I’m loving Amazon till all this shit is over in a few years…
Yes, I am also very angry that Amazon prioritizes the owner’s earnings, despite the fact that ordinary people suffer heavy losses due to the pandemic.
Got astroturf?
/giphy political astroturfing
Thanks for joining just to necropost to a year old thread, just as Amazon is in the news again for a worker’s union trying to form in Staten Island, NY.