- Feb 7, 2010
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OK, I've been an Amazon Prime user for about a year and sometimes the free 2-day shipping actually works out to 2 days but a lot of time it's more like 3 days or more. I placed a large order yesterday (1/21) just about noon time and all but one of the ten items was listed as Prime and in stock, but late that night only a couple of the items shows up as having been shipped with Monday (2 days) as the expected arrival date. Now, more than a day later, half of the items still do not show as having shipped and continue to say "Preparing Shipment".
A couple of the items indicate Tuesday delivery making them 3-days not 2, and another item indicates Wednesday delivery making that 4-days not 2.
Now the thing is, Amazon has many independent merchants that sell through Amazon and I have to wonder how the annual Prime membership fees cover the free 2-day shipping. That is, Amazon receives about $100/year from each member that subscribes to Prime but how does that cover the shipping charges? Do the independent merchants eat the cost for the 2-day shipping and Amazon pockets the whole deal or does Amazon reimburse the merchant some portion of the cost delta?
Whatever the breakdown is for dolling out the Prime fees for 2-day shipping it's pretty clear the merchants are gaming the system. I suspect that they are using 3-day shipping and then covering that up by being deliberately late at reporting an item has shipped. I think that most of the items I ordered yesterday have already shipped but by pretending that some are still "preparing to ship" they can get away with 3-day shipping. Having ordered early enough on the 21st to expect 2-day shipments to arrive on Monday, 1/25 and by reporting the item as actually shipping on 1/22 they can pretend they used 2-day even though I don't see the items until Tuesday, 1/26.
I've been noticing this a lot but this particular order with 10 items has made this pattern all to obvious. I think I'm going to give Amazon a call on this.
Brian
A couple of the items indicate Tuesday delivery making them 3-days not 2, and another item indicates Wednesday delivery making that 4-days not 2.
Now the thing is, Amazon has many independent merchants that sell through Amazon and I have to wonder how the annual Prime membership fees cover the free 2-day shipping. That is, Amazon receives about $100/year from each member that subscribes to Prime but how does that cover the shipping charges? Do the independent merchants eat the cost for the 2-day shipping and Amazon pockets the whole deal or does Amazon reimburse the merchant some portion of the cost delta?
Whatever the breakdown is for dolling out the Prime fees for 2-day shipping it's pretty clear the merchants are gaming the system. I suspect that they are using 3-day shipping and then covering that up by being deliberately late at reporting an item has shipped. I think that most of the items I ordered yesterday have already shipped but by pretending that some are still "preparing to ship" they can get away with 3-day shipping. Having ordered early enough on the 21st to expect 2-day shipments to arrive on Monday, 1/25 and by reporting the item as actually shipping on 1/22 they can pretend they used 2-day even though I don't see the items until Tuesday, 1/26.
I've been noticing this a lot but this particular order with 10 items has made this pattern all to obvious. I think I'm going to give Amazon a call on this.
Brian