[imatworkyo]

Hmmm this is a human problem at the end of the day. You don't get the wrong mail because of USPS policy.

When the mailperson that delivers your mail currently gets fired by USPS and gets hired by Amazon - do you think much will change in that regard??

[jedberg]

Definitely. Amazon would fire them after about the second time. They have much better data and know exactly which one of their people makes a mistake.

When you give bad shipping feedback, if the same person gets bad feedback multiple times, they get retrained and then fired.

[umsm]

It comes down to a price.

These big shipping companies started out good, but with time things slid downhill. You don't start out with the goal of providing mediocre service.

The problem is if you want top employees, you have to pay top dollar. Amazon's shipping service company will probably start out good, but it may windup in a similar place once they start trying to "optimize" their shipping service.

They will cut cost, overwork existing employees, and try to extend the reach of their service. If they don't, you will be over-paying for "Amazon" services and many will look elsewhere when it comes down to paying an extra 5% or more for better service.

On the topic of feedback: You can provide feedback to shipping companies. I called FedEx and reported their driver for dropping 2 packages in a row (and damaging the contents). He came back 2 days later with the 3rd package, apologized, and read me back my report. You just have to be proactive and communicate with them.

[chrischen]

Not unless there's some strong union action going on.

[djsumdog]

Exactly. I mean everyone has a horror story from UPS/USPS/FedEx, but for each of those, millions of packages get delivered every year without a single hitch. Amazon running their own service just adds another one to the list.

Personally, I stopped shopping on Amazon after I returned to the US. I realized they had become the new Wal-Mart, and I haven't shopped there since 2009.

[Symbiote]

If that person is paid a better wage, or given better hours, or less-unreasonable targets/deadlines, then the service might change.

[robryan]

Or just has these delivery issues treated more seriously. Amazon knows exactly which orders they reship and the complaint that the customer makes, they could directly track that metric against delivery drivers.

[travanx]

Very much so. Early on in our Prime experience about 2 years ago one of the delivery men, after dropping off the package, went back to the van, whipped it out and started peeing in the street. All while our neighbors kids were playing in the front yard. I thought twitter would be a good place to contact Amazon's support, and they didn't seem to care. That guy never delivered again, but no real response to my concerns was a bit creepy to say the least.

Otherwise packages come from all makes and models of cars over the last 6 months. Still pretty cool to get most things same day delivery cheaper than me driving to Fry's for a piece of hardware. I don't see how they make money though and compete in the long run after VC runs out.

[jmelloy]

We are still talking about Amazon here.

[djsumdog]

Yea, they're not know for their wages or working conditions, unless you're in IT ... or a robot.

[scentedmeat]

USPS pays fairly well, I thought. Don't know much about working conditions though.

[achr2]

None of that will happen, what might happen is better technology, like having to take a photo of the delivery address that gets OCRed and compared before the package is confirmed as delivered.

[mattnewton]

More likely they will go from a union job with more security to being worried about their job all the time..

[microcolonel]

There are policy changes around labelling, IT, or whatever that I'm sure could reduce the error rate for this. Amazon has a direct incentive to, at least for Amazon packages, solve these problems. UPS has an incentive to ignore complaints.

[nowprovision]

I think Amazon will use the data. USPS operator probably fills in a paper form, it get stamps and then it get filled never to be used in any meaningful way again.