Ask HN: What's going on with Amazon Prime shipping times?

> As of the last month or so,

What other major event also occurred over "the last month or so"?

That "event" historically results in a significant up-tick in total numbers of sales (and resulting numbers of packages shipped).

Would it not seem reasonable for times to extend when a significant increase in total packages shipped also occurred "as of the last month or so"?

Amazon cut inventory sending limits for merchants which means many skus are out of stock. Why did they do this? A combination of fewer employees, fewer warehouses and less space, etc.

Overall trend is going in the wrong direction. They should be helping merchants and providing more space and opening more warehouses.

Wait till you're based in a non-UK, non-US, non-German country and watch with astonishment as your parcel changes hands with several different sorting depots over the course of WEEKS just to get a tacky little USB charging adapter. Then you learn patience with Amazon.

I’ve not experienced that. Many items I’ve ordered in Massachusetts have arrived the next day or even same day. Smaller items have taken the usual 2 days and even import stuff has been within a week.

Yo; I'm in raleigh. Sort of similar? Some items get there in 2 days; some take up to a week, and you generally know when you order. Maybe it has to do with the distro center?

As a Prime user in the UK I am definitely not experiencing this - I get reliable 24-hour delivery on just about all small to medium-sized things.

In my bit of upstate NY Prime hasn’t been two day since 2001. It does make a difference compared to going out to the store. Every other online retailer, however, is trying to impress with shipping.

Also in Raleigh. The holidays have a lot to do with it imo.

With shipping times going out into the weeks range, IMO it is time to just cut out the middleman and order directly from wish or aliexress.

It is very likely a combination of it being the holiday season and incredibly bad weather. Anecdotally, there have been a lot more semi truck crashes than usual in my area due to insanely bad road conditions.

Where I moved, the normal shipping time is 4 to 5 days, USPS.

Since December, it's been 2 weeks.

Usually, it'll arrive a little sooner than they say, though.

Luckily for me, I was getting annoyed with AMZ fake reviews, scammy sellers, and cheap Chinese stuff anyways.

I've been ordering more from manufacturers directly, and getting better stuff delivered faster. I've also been using eBay a lot recently, it's not the wild west it was 15 years ago. Fast shipping, real storefronts. Much better than AMZ for most things.

For stuff I want really quick, I just use Walmart+. They'll usually bring it same day, at worst 2 day shipping.

As an aside, all this has kinda made me wish for a new type of portal. Something similar to ebay, but for legitimate, verified businesses only. Or perhaps even just a portal where I can search, it'll show me prices, but clicking directs me to the store/mfg site to finish?

I don’t know but. “Canceled”

Although the weather or holidays may exacerbate long delivery times a bit, I've noticed delivery times increasing for at least a year here in the St. Louis area, especially during the last four months. The weather was fine and holidays were far away, so poor logistics and a lack of competitive pressure seem more likely to me.

It's particularly frustrating because delivery for things I need quickly (for example, a PoE switch to replace one that failed) almost always takes nearly a week now, while they offer to deliver non-urgent things (such as Post-It Notes) the next day, if not overnight.

I cut Amazon some slack during Covid, but once that was over and things were returning to normal, I was still seeing 4-5 day Prime shipping whereas I used to always get 2 days or less.

I saw a post recommending to complain to Amazon, so I did, via their online chat to a CS rep. They amended the shipment I complained about and I got it the next day, and since then, most of my shipments have been within 2 days again.

My advice: complain to Amazon. If everyone did this, it would make a huge difference. If you don't complain, you are basically telling them you're fine with whatever delivery times they want to give you.

Amazon stock is down and you can't have that. I bet they are cutting corners with labor or elsewhere.

My dad has been complaining about this exact same thing, while I'm staying with him during the holidays I've ordered some stuff to his house as well.

Every single thing he's ordered has been 1-2 days late, every single thing I've ordered has been on time w/ 1 and 2 day shipping. All shipped to the same address, both of us on separate amazon prime accounts. (sample size ~5-10)

Does amazon keep an internal tier-list of customers and prioritize based on this?

This is a multi-level problem where I live in Ontario. One of the problems is their preferred courier, something called Intelcom, a virtually unreachable capriciously unreliable company. They often seem to decide not to deliver it on the appointed day. The rest of the problem is Amazon itself. I canceled Prime and just have other vendors ship to the US of the border. I make occasional runs across to pick up parcels.

I’m in a rural area in New England. There are multiple Amazon warehouses within 20 miles (25 minutes driving) and more than a dozen sighing 40 miles - including a major Amazon air freight hub in Hartford. Shipping times for most items are 7-9 days. It’s worse at the university next town over where it’s 8-10 days plus an extra day for the university. We’ve found that we can ship to an Amazon drop point at a gas station a town over and get 5-7 days.

In contrast, shipping stuff to family in major metro areas has been usually 3-5 days, but with breakage cases of 2+ weeks.

We ordered a bunch of stuff from Target and got it next day. Neither Amazon nor Target regularly run their own delivery vans to my town (technically part of my town gets Amazon vans one day a week).

Also, McMaster Carr still gets me stuff in 2-3 days. Gotta prioritize.

Counter Anecdote - In Vegas, I've ordered things in the evening, to have them delivered by 6am next day.

I noticed this happening pre-Covid and gave up on Prime. I didn’t use it enough to justify the price anyway. But I was experiencing 3-4 day shipping instead of 2 days. Not a big deal, but it broke the promise of “free 2 day shipping” in my mind which was the whole point of paying for Prime.

I cancelled Prime a couple years ago and never looked back. The only thing that changed is that when I do order from Amazon, my package sits around in the warehouse for a week before making it to my door in two days. I also started getting things sent from warehouses clear across the country far more often than when I was subscribed. My mother still has Prime and she doesn't get her orders any faster than I get mine.

I'm convinced that Prime isn't faster shipping and instead is simply paying Amazon to cut out artificial delays.

Rising fuel prices led to greater consolidation of shipped goods requiring larger loads before they are sent out for delivery. You may have seen the rollout of the larger Amazon vehicles which are practically indistinguishable except for the branding from UPS vehicles. Amazon had said they were going to start doing this even before Covid-19. Now they are in the final stages of becoming another UPS with an online storefront.

Best thing to do is cancel prime, it's a low key scam.

It's a joke. It's number one reason for existing is to ship products to you next day, it's a next day delivery service but now they take a week and they have increased the price not lowered it, because Amazon knows people are sheep and they are used to it now, they don't need to win new customers, they can simply lower the service and increase prices which equals more profits.

All the other services Amazon give you with prime are complete junk, they attach a bunch of extremely low quality services onto prime that have nothing to do with online shopping and are much worse than any alternative in order to make it feel like it's worth it.

Seeing some fluctuations too but nothing dramatic

[dead]