Feels like artificial, because they give a week time range and they ship it around the end of that range. The actual shipping then takes about 1-2 days. If they use their own shipping, which they do on Sundays then the product is delivered on the same day they shipped.
Right, but I'm saying the processing (picking and packing process that occurs at the warehouse) before shipping is not first-ordered, first-picked. They've developed a prioritization process for picking which take items ordered _later_ via prime and picks them first. I suppose you could call that "artificial" delays but that's what I think is happening.
I have trouble understanding what you're saying here:
> They've developed a prioritization process for picking which take items ordered _later_ via prime and picks them first.
What I meant to say is that with prime the order is shipped within hours, when without it takes days and it seems to be calculated toward the end of of the time range, but still so it will arrive before the deadline.
Actually any items that are not fulfilled by Amazon are delivered much faster when you don't have prime. When you do it is the reverse, which feels suspicious.
Yes, there's no way for me to completely prove, but statistically without prime items arrive at the later date of the spectrum given, but they also never late than the date given. This could be explained that when deadline approaches they start treating my order as if it was higher priority, but then that would still prove my point.
UPS does weird things with their ground orders. I went to Purdue (West Lafayette, IN). Many packages would ship from Louisville, and for UPS those would go through Indianapolis (about 90 minute drive from West Lafayette). If I shipped UPS ground, my packages would consistently sit in Indianapolis for 2-3 days. While it's possible that their truck was just always full, it was so consistent it felt to me like they were intentionally delaying it.