Amazon Prime Shipping

In general, my experience with Amazon Prime shipping has been pretty good. I was an early Prime member; I think I signed up as soon as it was offered. I know I was one of the first Amazon Echo buyers. I got the original model for $99 back in January of 2015.

Anyway, back to shipping. Our house front door is kind of at an angle so it is hidden from the street. Amazon, and other delivery services like UPS and FedEx, would usually drop off packages at the door, and in the 11 years I’ve lived here, I have never had a package stolen. Since the neighborhood is full of single family houses, there is always an Amazon truck making deliveries each day.

The only problem I have had is with Amazon’s one-day shipping. I do not think I have ever needed something delivered the next day. There is an Albertsons about a mile away so I can always go there if it is something urgent. However, if Amazon offers free one-day shipping on an item, of course I am going to select it. In fact, Amazon’s website usually selects the one-day shipping by default if available. I just said I had no issues with two-day shipping, but have had multiple failures with one-day shipping. Just yesterday, I ordered some grape flavored mints and glucose tablets. One-day shipping was offered so I selected the option, with a delivery deadline by 10:00 pm today. Welly, it is ~11:30 pm now, and no package. When I checked the Amazon app at 11:00 pm, it said that there was a problem, and I should wait until the 23rd before doing anything. So instead of one-day shipping, it is now two-to-four-day shipping.

This actually happens quite often. I do not get stuff shipped next-day normally, and this is the third time in the past few months that the package has not arrived. The frustrating part is that even at 8:00 pm, the tracking page still said package was arriving by 10:00 pm. The logistics of one-day shipping for thousands of products is hard. Likely, my insignificant items did not even make it on the truck, if to the distribution center at all. The computer knows this, but Amazon still let’s me believe I am getting my mints until after the delivery deadline. Why? I am perfectly fine with two-day shipping, which has been very reliable for me. Instead, Amazon inflated my expectations just to fail. What if it was something important, like toilet paper during a pandemic?

Oh well, I was expecting some grape mint tonight, but I will have to wait another 1-3 days.

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Speaking of the Amazon Echo, I have four of these devices; only two are currently activated however. I have the OG Echo in my bedroom, and a 5″ Echo Show on my office desk. I also bought two Echo Flex, mainly as gifts, but I still have them on my bookshelf.

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Today and tomorrow is Amazon Prime Day. I got a coupon for my last order for $10 off during Prime Day. I saw the 4th generation Echo Dot for $25 and almost bought it. After adding a few low carb/low sugar snacks, I deleted the Echo Dot since I have too many Echos already. I was able to order $35 of snacks so the items are coming today since it is 1:30 am already. I am not confident that all the products will get here. Even if they are delivered tomorrow, the products will likely be all melty from sitting in the delivery truck all day. I will post about the snacks after I get them.