Like, you order on, say, Wednesday, and it says the fastest available time is Saturday, then you pull up the page on Thursday, and it says theres a same-day option for later in the day, and even the free option is now Friday (instead of Saturday). And the funny thing is, you can’t even cancel the earlier order, that now has a later delivery time. Wtf is this? Bezos trolling?
(This isn’t a “lets trash amazon” post, I just can’t understand why companies do this weird shit, I always thought order earlier = arrive faster, this is just… weird)
Well logistics is a very complex arrangement. It’s possible that in your two scenarios, there are two sellers involved. The one who could get it to you fastest didn’t have any stock the first time you bought, so they weren’t an option. Then later they had some inventory come into stock, so they were an option the second time you bought. They can deliver to you so much faster than the other guy that they actually beat him despite his head start. Maybe they’re right around the corner from you, so to speak?
Amazing fulfills a minority of orders now. It’s all 3rd party sellers and your experience is contingent on them, their prices, their inventory, their seller rating, and many other variables in the system that we can’t even see. Fluctuations will happen and it’s probably not Bezos trolling just to get his jollies.
I just can’t understand why companies do this weird shit, I always thought order earlier = arrive faster, this is just… weird)
My guess is you’re seeing a tiny view of a global logistics company at work. There are warehouses all over the place and there is large overlap with the inventory in each. Lets say you’re ordering a hot pink Kindle ebook reader. If you were able to see from the Amazon side, you’d see this item represented in dozens of warehouses all over the world. There is possibly one sitting on the shelf in the warehouse right down the street from you, which would ship it to you the fastest. However, that warehouse also contains other inventory that is in high demand and that other inventory is NOT in other warehouses. So the Amazon algorithms don’t want to direct fulfillment of your order from this close warehouse to you because its getting crushed right now.
Instead it finds the hot pink Kindle in a slow warehouse much farther away from you and your order is fulfilled from there (your first order with the long shipping time). Later, the close warehouse runs out of the high-demand inventory that was keeping it busy. You make second order for the hot pink Kindle and the algorithm now optimizes for cheapest/fastest delivery, which is the warehouse down the street from you (your second order).
Welcome to global logistics.
Huh, interesting.
Edit: Oh yea it make so much sense now. Xmas is over and the demands for the nearest Amazon warehouse probably got much lower.
It can also be different seller stock. If the seller isn’t amazon, their inventory could have arrived at a different warehouse after your order.
If it’s amazon specific, it could also be the close warehouse had no stock at order time, so yours is coming from farther away, but then stock arrived at the local warehouse (I.E. just timing not demand).
I heard a while back that they also will try to move some inventory around warehouses based on algorithmic predictions of people’s upcoming orders/things left in carts so it can get there faster when they do order. Never fact checked it, but made plenty sense to me.
Bummer. I purchased something Dec 13th with a delivery window of the 24th through Jan 3rd. Meh, it’ll be late, but no biggie.
It sat somewhere for weeks and didn’t even enter the tracking system until it was picked up this morning and now supposed to arrive within 24 hours.
It definitely feels like shenanigans happened, but I couldn’t figure out why.
For me it randomly changes the delivery day after the purchase. Like:
- “You’ll receive it tomorrow”
- buy it
- “Nah fuck you, it’s Saturday”
Oh and wanted to cancel amazon prime because I’m tired of their bs and guess what: Both app and site sends you to a blank page when you try to cancel, you have to call support to do it. Fuck amazon
For me they quoted next day, but it took 5 since they had already shipped the one in the close delivery center by the time they had processed my order.
My country has very good consumer laws regarding this. If you in any officially way contact them, either to a company address through a letter, phone, email or chat, they have to legally process it. I’ve toyed around with the idea to contact some shitty companies in the worst manner possible but haven’t gotten around to it lol
The problem is: Calling should be the last thing to do if for some reasons the process went wrong or there are technical problems, not because Scamazon decides to give you white page because they dont want you to cancel
A Burton on a page should be legally mandated for web services imo. I was meaning in a very broad sense however, even with phone subscriptions or magazines, TV, anything really.
I hope the EU could hammer in such a legislation. Here I’ve had a prime trial once or twice, I barely ever order anything from Amazon and both times I could cancel it via their web page after digging through their menus a bit.
I could cancel it via their web page after digging through their menus a bit.
Checked the app and sent me to an empty page, their support center (or whatever) page sent me to my “manage subscription” yet I had another empty page. I looked all the pages possible and nothing
That sucks. Are you in a EU country or outside? Wouldn’t surprise me if they pull shit like this where the consumer laws are less strict.
EU. Fuck scamazon
Yep hate this. It never errs the other way. It’s always over optimistic at the time of sale. Sometimes it really creates a problem if speed is what you need and the whole reason you chose that product with those options.
This isn’t a “lets trash amazon” post
But it could be. :)
They’ve got you thinking they’re the only store you need. That’s how we got this monopoly.
You don’t need that thing delivered today.
Bezos is rich enough.
They’ve got you thinking they’re the only store you need. That’s how we got this monopoly.
Well, that and the fact I can occasionally order replacement gear and get it overnight. Given my local stores only stock consumer shit, that’s a huge win.
But yeah, service, and that monopoly thing. Because sometimes you DO need a 4tb wd red overnight when the spare shows as junk.
we will click on the thing to delay some items so they can all go out together and save energy and then they just ship them out as they go anyway.
Or you get four separate boxes Friday instead of two Wednesday, one Thursday, and one Friday, each containing 90% empty air
This usually comes from a couple things.
-
The Amazon site that could do faster delivery was out of stock, had too many orders already to deliver it same day on Wednesday
-
The time of day you looked at the order changed so you got in on Thursday early enough to hit that time limit
Or the Most likely:
- When you were placing the order it checked the available shipping methods (not days) and they couldn’t do same say that day, so they offered standard. The next day they check the methods again (probably taking into account the above reasons) and they could do same day so they offered it.
They don’t do the “what about same day, but tomorrow” stuff because it’s usually a problem that solves itself. Either you’re fine with Saturday, or you come back tomorrow trying to get it same day again.
The thing that is worth noting is that Amazon doesn’t do everything they sell as fast as humanly possible. They still have logistics to worry about and not every possible site can ship everything at maximum possible speed. They probably could if they forced it, but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze on that approach.
-
Almost any and all “tracking information” is fictitious. Many, many companies use estimates and present those as facts. Some are a lot more egregious about it than others. In my neck of the woods, I’ve noticed that PostNL’s tracking info is often made up whole cloth, telling you your package will be with you tomorrow while it hasn’t even entered the country yet, much less cleared customs.
You’re seeing how changes in circumstances cause changes in estimates. If the first time the next truck going out was tomorrow because today’s was full, but now they have a promised overnight delivery for a bunch of stuff going in the same direction, they might put your package on that plane instead. If you have Amazon Prime then your membership pays for the extra fees for the faster delivery that is now available, but otherwise you’re probably going to pay more if you select that faster option.
Or maybe there was a return or cancelation for that same product and it happened to go to a warehouse local to you, so now there’s a closer option.
Lots of things change and Amazon tracks that stuff in near realtime.
I had ordered something on the 23rd and took the free standard shipping for the 27th of December. They emailed me on the 24th that my delivery day was guaranteed to be the 24th. Any other day I would have been pretty happy but it ruined my plans since I needed a one time code to accept the package!
I had a similar thing, sans the OTP. I ordered a few things on the 23rd, all in the same order. All were estimated for delivery today (the 27th). One item arrived on the 24th fairly early, but the rest are still due to arrive today. They were all sold/shipped from Amazon directly (not a 3rd party seller), and are all coming from the same FC/warehouse. Oh well. I got that one thing early which was nice!
They emailed me on the 24th that my delivery day was guaranteed to be the 24th
Well that would’ve the better outcome for me. Instead, I get a “Nope, your order is still arriving at the later date, but people ordering now gets to get it faster than you do”. I feel so insulted, its like a “Lol fuck you in particular”.
If the product you’re ordering is eligible for free returns, I would place a second order, then return the second one once it arrives.
