Bought some things I wanted by the weekend from Amazon. Against my better judgement, I stuck with the Free 2 Day. As I suspected, half shipped UPS which I'll get Friday. The other half USPS, which I might see sometime next week....
We ordered 7 items last night and used Prime 1 day delivery to make sure they would be delivered on Saturday. Seeing as we both work on weekdays we tend to order later Thursday evening to make sure the items have no chance of being delivered on Friday. 1 day delivery is kind of dependant on the time you ordered, it is delivery the day after it leaves the warehouse. I think the latest I have ordered and had something appear the next day was around 3:30. Saturday delivery is really handy and not sure about the US but some items will even come Sunday here if you are given the option at checkout.
Royal mail don't work Sundays but courier companies do. Internet shopping is so popular here now that you can get deliveries 7 days a week up until 9pm. I have to admit that the ones that don't give you slots like Yodel who deliver up until 9 are a pain as you have to wait in for around 11-12 hours. DPD are my current favourite as they text you a one hour window on the day as well as your drivers name.
Prime has used Royal Mail the last 2 times. One was over a week late then disappeared. The other took 3 days for next day delivery. Quality stuff. RM use to be good.
You should complain to Amazon and say that you don't pay £80/year to get such shit service. To be fair Amazon CS is always pretty good, I can never stay angry after dealing with them as they always sort stuff out.
Amazon shipping used to be a lot better over here. Back in the day shipment were always on time and sometimes even early. Now it seems like my 2 day shipping is turning into 3 to 4 days. Many items wont deliver on Saturday and stuff just comes late. I notice that Amazon is now bundling the Fire Phone, Fire HDX 7", and 1 year of prime for $50 with a 2 year AT&T contract.
It's not Amazon... they always ship on time. When they use UPS/Fedex (private companies) service they will get here in 2 days. When they cheapen out and use USPS 2Day (govt mail), I've gotten lost packages & delays. My latest order arrived correctly from both carriers. Maybe my complaints to the postmaster general worked.
USPS is a semi-independent federal agency. They're not funded by taxes, but they're still controlled by Congress. I think Amazon probably throttles the turnaround time on Prime orders depending on how often you're placing them and what you're ordering. Prime is a big money loser for Amazon, so they probably try to place some limits on the losses.
I think you are right... I actually order an obnoxious amount of stuff and was checking some of the boxes. They all have ambiguous shipping labels now, probably coded based on contracts with the carriers. Previously, UPS and FedEx boxes would clearly have 2 Day written on the shipping label. Punching in some of the tracking numbers show the boxes are actually going out Ground. Amazon is just gambling that it will get here in 2 days since they are shipping from close by. The USPS trackers are even weirder. It looks like a 3rd party service delivers the package to the post office who then completes the "last mile" delivery. This could easily explain delays with USPS and them incorrectly getting blamed. Pretty sure anything brought to the post office after 3:45pm wouldn't ship until next day making it 3 day delivery at a minimum....
Yeah it seems anything I get by mail is 3rd day. Larger items like 30# dog food bags are on prime but go out 3 to 4 days. If you actually want to get in 2 days you have to pay extra. Then of course there are all the add-on items which are no longer covered by prime. I'm really hoping some competition will show up that can offer the service that Amazon used to.
That would break the terms of service that you paid for, if they didn't ship something for one day delivery here I would be straight onto CS for a refund otherwise I would report them to whichever regulator they fall under. We seem to have more protection in the UK than you do in the US, we have so many industry regulators.
it's probably in the tos somewhere. amazon even has a notification on the item page that says "order by something something o'clock to get this by x date" anyhow, i ordered some windshield wipers the other day from amazon prime and got it in 2 days.
Amazon fudges on the fulfillment end as well. The shipping will be 2 Day, but you won't receive the item the 2nd day after ordering due to a delay in actually packing the item. They do this a lot with book preorders...not actually shipping when the item starts to list as "in stock" on the web site. I notice that due to the fact that they're so accurate with video game preorders. That's an example of an item that Amazon knows that they'll get a lot of complaints about if it doesn't arrive on time.