[swamplander]

Their service with their existing delivery service (Amazon Logistics) has been TERRIBLE thus far. Lazy drivers leaving packages in clear sight in the middle of the driveway, unreliable delivery estimates, etc.

This last Christmas season, everything shipped from Amazon via UPS / FedEx arrived on time as expected. Everything Amazon shipped via their AMZN Logistics / USPS was late, 50% arrived after Christmas even when ordered on December 14.

We've stopped shopping at Amazon in favor of other vendors who let you pick your shipping service. Their customer service just keeps collecting information, but it's not getting any better.

> If SWA is cheaper than FedEx or UPS, you can bet that customers will opt for Amazon’s service instead.

You get what you pay for... I'll avoid Amazon until I can pick my own RELIABLE carrier. UPS & FedEx have shown they are reliable.

[dang]

Please don't use uppercase for emphasis in HN comments. This is in the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

[jclardy]

I've noticed that Amazon has been silently bumping shipping estimates for my prime account. Ordered something on Monday morning that said it would arrive Wednesday. I get to Wednesday and didn't notice a shipping notification - I look at my amazon account and my formerly "guaranteed" delivery date now just said expected by February 7-8. Wednesday "or" Thursday.

On the other hand, I ordered something from bestbuy with their normal free shipping and it showed up on my doorstep literally the day after.

[notyourwork]

I've started contacting customer service and requesting compensation when this happens. I tell them politely I pay for prime benefit and you are not granting me that benefit, therefore I receive a reduced prime fee.

I have had $10 and $5 credits given to me when this happens and I encourage everyone else to. Amazon needs to support the benefits they grant customers for prime.

[ryanianian]

Yes. More of this. Amazon is starting to slip. It takes literally 1 minute on support text-chat to do this and it always saves more $ with less hassle than you would have if you went with another site. I've done this 3-4 times and every time I say it's the Nth time I've had to do it and they keep offering more and more.

What's especially annoying is that you have to pro-actively reach out to them. This isn't customer-obsessed.

[vuln]

I think I found a weekend project. Code an Amazon late delivery chat bot. Doesn't seem too hard.

Login and grab orders that are shipped. Compare delivery date (x). See if it changes or matches the estimate at time of order(y). If I package is deemed late create a message containing x and y and order number. Open chat support paste message. Might have to throw some additional canned responses but it seems pretty easy.

[vageli]

Paribus.co does exactly this

[ryanianian]

Kinda cool - it does the first part based on what I see. It lets you know that they dropped the ball on delivery, but it's still on you to contact customer-service. Probably not a bad thing but I wish it went just a bit further - perhaps opening the chat for me and pre-populating a chat on the clipbooard or something....

[aviv]

Bonus points for using AWS AI services to power this over AWS Lambda.

[nishs]

Yes—and in the process—give Amazon more of your money.

[ryanianian]

I would happily run that.

[aantix]

Email me when it's ready. [e-mail]

I'll help test. :)

[stronglikedan]

> you have to pro-actively reach out to them

It's been a long while since they missed a prime delivery date for me, but the couple of times they did, they credited my account automatically without my involvement (other than reading their email notification). Maybe I just got lucky?

[Fins]

Before I just dropped Amazon altogether, something like 75% of my Prime orders were late. At some point it becomes tedious to go to them and ask for some compensation. And they only ever offered me extensions of Prime (and lied about it, too, but that's another story). And I don't even live in some remote area...

[toomuchtodo]

I dropped Amazon because of their business practices, but it did not help that I live 30 miles from a fulfillment center and my prime orders we’re consistently late. Walmart is a 5 minute drive, and quiet at night.

[Puer]

It used to be better when (presumably) they had more consistent delivery. They used to offer a month of free Prime membership when your package came late, but now they've been instructed to only offer the credits on additional orders.

[notyourwork]

I've also received a month extension on my prime. I indicated $10 which was approximate value for month extension.

[boosting6889]

I would do it but I do not have the patience to be on the phone for 30 min fighting over $10

[notyourwork]

Takes 5 minutes via chat, I do it while watching tv or checking email.

[rthomas6]

I think you can do it over chat.

[sungx105]

My success rate over chat is 0%. I just get told over and over that 'Prime guarantees shipping, not delivery. So your package will be shipped within 2 days [or 1 day for 1-day] to the nearest Amazon distribution center. Usually this matches with the delivery date, but not always. The updated delivery date for your order is when you will get it, so we are following our end.'

[vageli]

Give them a link to the terms of service and say "please direct me to the language in your terms of service to that effect." Follow up with "as a paying prime member, I insist on compensation for Amazons failure to meet their guarantee". This has always worked for me. Some reps have pressed back when I insisted on two instances of compensation for one order with two late packages. I replied "I have no sympathy for a multi-million dollar company that fails to meet its obligations." Have gotten several months of prime and gift cards through chat in this way.

[FireBeyond]

They tried that on me today (I've had a bad run this month - I usually have about an order a day)...

Item bought on Monday, with expected -delivery- Wednesday. Late Monday status said "Package has left seller facility and is in transit to carrier".

It's Friday morning now, no package, and status is still "in transit to carrier".

I argued that "Shipped" means the carrier has it. Not that it may or may not be sitting in a corner of a truck for the last week forgotten or unnoticed.

[notyourwork]

I've only done this via chat, I don't have time to sit on hold or deal with phone.

[SkyPuncher]

5 of my last 6 orders from Amazon have been bumped.

We've been Prime customers for years, but we're getting incredibly frustrated that we're paying for an annual subscription and being promised two day shipping - but consistently missing.

At this point, I'm starting to look back to smaller sites that offer more traditional 4-7 day shipping. They might still be slower than Amazon (which is about a 3.5 day average for us), but at least they're never missing their delivery window.

[CodeMage]

I can't tell you how weird this sounds to me. When I moved to the US, I paid one year of Prime and then stopped, because that was the year they raised the price from $80 a year to $100. Since then, I have been using the free shipping option (5-8 business day) for the vast majority of my orders and I have consistently received my orders before their initial estimate. The only reason why I paid for Prime that one year was because of Amazon Instant Video, but I got disappointed by lack of Spanish subtitles and the lackluster content selection.

[cdubzzz]

I wonder if this experience is different depending on where you live? I have lived in the DC area for the past five years and I never thought about purchasing Prime because everything I (used to) order on Amazon would arrive within 2-3 days with the regular free shipping option.

[stanmancan]

I've had the same thing happen to me a couple of times on Amazon. I've actually started taking a screen shot of the original "Guaranteed Delivery Date" and complaining to customer service if it gets changed. The odd error is fine, but when it starts to become a regular thing, something needs changing.

[lostapathy]

Amen - once in a while is weather or whatever. Happening enough that we notice it's a trend is Amazon being shitty and hoping they don't get caught.

[MrMember]

I tried to order something today that's in stock and sold by Amazon and the delivery estimate was next Friday through the following Tuesday. I didn't bother and instead ordered it from Target for the same price and I'll have it Sunday or Monday. I'll probably stop paying for Prime if this sort of thing continues to happen.

[arkades]

I had this happen constantly. It was pissing me off, but not what made me boycott amazon altogether.

They started charging my items to other credit cards associated with my account (added in the past to make one-off purchases for relatives or friends.) To prevent this happening again, I deleted every card from my account except my one current personal card.

Despite that, a few weeks later they charged a random subset of my holiday shopping to my mothers credit card. Now, we have an excellent relationship, but you can imagine even the best of relationships has a wtf moment when a thousand dollars of spending randomly appears on their account without so much as a by-your-leave.

I called amazon to complain, and their response was just, “well, you got the items you ordered, didn’t you?”

They were contemptuously baffled as to why this was at all a problem.

I yelled at them until they refunded my prime membership and closed my account.

[CamelCaseName]

Here's how it looks like from my side as a seller.

1. Buyer places order, order goes into pending for anywhere from minutes to days

2. While order is pending, units of inventory are moved to another fulfillment center

3. Once the units arrive, are received and checked-in, the order goes live

4. The customer receives their order two days later

I suspect this happens 1. for items less often purchased which have little historical data to rely on, and 2. items which have been freshly received and haven't yet been distributed across the US.

I am a very small time Amazon 3p seller, so I might be able to answer some questions you have about Amazon or FBA.

[tcarn]

Pretty cool stuff. Do you as a seller only ship to one fulfillment center or is it up to you to manage the inventory at each fulfillment center?

[borkt]

You can typically get an extension of prime for a month in this situation if you chat with amazon. I end up paying every 18 months for 1 year of service, basically getting 6 months free. As a frequent user of prime, I have no idea how this isn't losing them money.

[bocklund]

People have told me this, but it seems fruitless for me to get free months for a service I am unhappy with. Instead I recently cancelled my subscription.

[ryanianian]

Your alternative is competitor sites which usually don't even offer 2-day shipping or will charge you expedited shipping costs if they do. And even then they usually defer responsibility for delays to the carriers.

IMHO prime is worth it even if I have to spend a few minutes on chat to get it extended by 50%. What is truly frustrating is their "guarantee" that isn't a guarantee.

This lack of transparency and continual missing of their promises erodes my trust in them. Most of the time it's fine - whatever - I don't need those AA batteries on a Sunday....

But the fact that they guaranteed that they would be there, didn't tell me they'd be late, and didn't proactively offer anything to back up their guarantee is super shady. Either don't guarantee a date, or proactively offer recourse when you don't meet your own self-imposed guarantees.

[majormajor]

> Your alternative is competitor sites which usually don't even offer 2-day shipping or will charge you expedited shipping costs if they do.

This is a lot less true than it used to be. I had to buy a few things from other sites recently (not carried on Amazon, or the sort of thing that attracts counterfeits or such shenanigans) and was surprised to discover how much other places have caught up in the shipping game.

Even a small-volume niche-market foreign company like B&W shipped me a pair of headphones with free two-day shipping recently.

[cdubzzz]

Over the past few years I have ordered largely from retailers like Walgreens, CVS, Target, Home Depot, B&H, Microcenter, etc. and in most cases shipping has been free or cheap and just as fast or faster than Amazon ever was (or I’ve purchased things in retail stores).

Avoiding Amazon has actually been easier than I expected and if anything I’ve found purchasing more convenient overall.

[suresk]

The last time I tried to do that, they wouldn't do it. They just said "sorry, sometimes we don't get stuff out in time".

It's getting to the point I'm about to cancel - they are late more often than not, and customer service responses are really poor.

[dawnerd]

Not always true. I’ve tried it every time and they go “it’s weather related” when it’s obviously not.

[stordoff]

One thing I noticed in the UK is that there are items which are "Prime Eligible" and items that are "Delivered at no extra cost for Prime members". The latter will also give a "guaranteed" next-day date, but seem far more prone to slipping and getting a "Now expected" date.

[leesalminen]

After fighting with chat/phone support for months, I finally emailed jeff@amazon with a lengthy message recounting my recent shipping experiences with USPS. They removed USPS as an option from my account. Everything now comes from UPS/FedEx.

It may be worth noting that I spend roughly one order of magnitude more than their average prime customer annually (work equipment).

[Slansitartop]

Amazon will let you "deprioritize" any delivery service for your address EXCEPT Amazon Logistics. Any requests to deprioritize Amazon will get forwarded to a committee that will likely deny your request (of course, without telling you). It's an entirely different business process which I'm sure was deliberately made more difficult.

I have great experiences with USPS, UPS, and Fedex. Amazon Logistics has been terrible, and I suspect it's because of its GPS-driven gig-economy implementation.

[bonestamp2]

> I suspect it's because of its GPS-driven gig-economy implementation

Agreed, and specifically it's the yield they expect from their drivers. AMZL expects nearly double the deliveries from its drivers than UPS does. UPS has been doing this for decades across the globe, I would bet they've squeezed just about every last bit of efficiency out of their routes and process... so AMZL's expectations are outrageous, which leads to packages thrown from cars, packages found in ditches, etc. The drivers can't possibly complete their deliveries. The drivers are unhappy, the customers are unhappy and soon Amazon will be unhappy if they don't figure this out.

[Slansitartop]

> the customers are unhappy and soon Amazon will be unhappy if they don't figure this out.

Yeah, AMZL's awfulness opened my eyes to how uncompetitive Amazon's prices have become. The one-two punch of that broke my Amazon-first shopping habit.

[bonestamp2]

For some reason, my packages are rarely delivered by AMZL (although it does happen). But, I too have stopped my amazon-first habit... I noticed a couple shipments that I bought on amazon were actually drop shipped from walmart.com and target.com by the third party seller. Sure enough, I looked up the products on those sites and they were 15-20% cheaper.

It takes a little more time now, but I do a quick google price search before buying anything on amazon. Sometimes, if it's only a small difference, then it's worth the frictionless experience of buying through amazon, but as I create accounts on more and more sites, the frictional difference is becoming marginal.

[otakucode]

Having read a bit about the amazing logistics involved in modern package delivery, I am stunned. You can't beat UPS/FedEx. Not because they're superheroes, but because they've simply taken things to their logical conclusion. Unless you have rockets, drones, or some radically different form of transportation getting involved or something, you're not delivering more packages.

It stinks a bit of modern employers desires to ignore the fact that their employees are human beings. I expect any day now to hear of a big company tearing out all the bathrooms in their offices and cancelling lunch hours because it will 'improve efficiency.' If you don't want to deal with the basic truths of human employees, then you don't belong in business, period.

[bradleyjg]

I thought they had a the equivalent of a Service Oriented Architecture internally, where Amazon departments had to sell their services to other departments on an equal footing with outside vendors. That's what allowed them to make AWS available so easily, they already treated internal customers as if they were external.

Has that changed in recent years?

[lev99]

How do you apply that principal to the last mile problem?

To be fair, Amazon is fair at handling Customer Service complaints. I ordered a package with a scheduled 2 hour delivery window ({Fresh, Now}) and it came 2 hours late. The package needed a signature so I was at the delivery site for a total of six hours. My $100-$150 package expense was credited to my account after a short call to customer service.

[bradleyjg]

> How do you apply that principal to the last mile problem?

Isn't the answer obvious? Make the Amazon Logistics team compete on an even footing with UPS, USPS, and FedEx. If the retail team has process for one of its customers to blackball UPS because it had a bad experience with it, then they should have the same process to blackball Amazon Logistics. (I'm 'should' here to mean that would comport with the SOA style business structure, not to make an ultimate judgment on whether it is a good model for a business overall.)

[dawnerd]

I was able to have them remove amazon logistics after repetive drivers called me first thing in the morning demanding I meet them at the street because they couldn’t find the entrance to an apartment building.

[jerrysievert]

odd. after several repeated issues with amazon logistics (the worst was a package marked "out for delivery", then "business closed" for a full week of attempted deliveries - this was to a private residence up on a hill), I've only had packages shipped usps - it took several conversations with support staff, and after a few rounds of "free prime extensions", they stopped the shipments via amazon.

[Slansitartop]

> it took several conversations with support staff, and after a few rounds of "free prime extensions", they stopped the shipments via amazon.

That's what it takes. IIRC, they'll only consider deprioritizing AMZL if you've had 3 misdeliveries (by their reckoning) in the last 6 months. I haven't had the time to basically go to war with them to get them to stop, I just shifted my shopping habits instead.

[graeme]

Really, how do you deprioritize?

I'm in Canada, so it may be US only. I do know you can force them to use Canada Post if you enter a PO Box.

Also, amazon's delivery service has been excellent here, chiefly because they don't require signatures. Using any other courier means it often goes to some depot in the suburbs, which is a terrible policy for urban Montreal.

[trevyn]

To be fair, Amazon is directly able to influence the details of how Amazon Logistics works for your address, and they likely want to improve it, using customer feedback to do so. They have less leverage and incentive for other carriers.

[Slansitartop]

> and they likely want to improve it, using customer feedback to do so

I know, but the other carriers are already good, and I'm not super interested in being the guinea pig to train Amazon's. They're just brain-dead in so many different ways:

1) I'm not a dispatcher, I don't want to give directions to a driver or talk him to my address. That's Amazon's job.

2) I'm not Amazon's cartographer either, and it was super annoying to have to talk a phone rep through dropping a map pin on my place.

3) Every other carrier seems to be able to read the sign with delivery instructions at my door, why not Amazon? They ignore it so often I got tired of calling and complaining about that.

4) They should leave door-notes when there's a problem like every other carrier.

A lot of the stuff they need to improve on is simple stuff they could have easily learned by looking at the customer experience of their competitors, so I'm not really willing to cut them much slack. Especially since they force their carrier on me rather than giving me options.

[tdewitt]

I love you right now. I had no idea that was a thing. I've repeatedly asked that USPS not be used because I like my packages to make it on time and to the right place. USPS has only been more reliable than the Amazon service which misses about 50% of the time and tramples all over my lawn about 30% of the time. I offered video proof but they apparently don't need it. I wish I could go FedEx or UPS only.

[phil21]

> and tramples all over my lawn about 30% of the time

The more I read the comments the more I realize the complaints about delivery services really hit "corner cases" insanely fast. Like I would be livid if a driver didn't just leave a package at my door/driveway. I got it delivered because I don't want to deal with the hassle - if it gets stolen that's simply a cost of doing business. But I have friends who would be just as livid in the opposite direction.

I never would have considered someone cares about a delivery person walking over their lawn to drop a package off.

I think we're going to see more and more of these pain points as we migrate from "dedicated delivery guy you become friends with who knows all the idiosyncrasies of his customers" to "random dude in a Prius who had a couple hours to spare". And I'm completely convinced the latter is coming to the major delivery companies if they want to stay competitive - Fedex Ground is only a hop skip and a jump away from that already.

I imagine what's old will become new again as we re-invent the wheel for a solved problem of 100's of years. The mailbox. We'll simply see a standardized set of shipping lockers be available for both home install and shared use. I imagine within 15 years delivery services will refuse to deliver to anything but such a device. Much like how we saw the evolution of mail service in the US - went from "bob's farm in Springville, MA" to basic numbers, to streets, to zip codes, to requiring standardized mailboxes if you are to get delivery.

[freehunter]

It really is very context dependent, and can change rapidly. When I lived in one apartment, I would always prefer UPS as that driver would leave my packages at the leasing office across the parking lot, where FedEx would try once then make me drive to their location to pick it up, and USPS would try for several days in a row (so if I went to the post office to pick it up at lunch, it was always out on a truck) which meant my packages would come 3 days later than I expected.

Then I moved to another apartment in another town and I preferred USPS because they had keys to leave the package in basically a PO box in the entryway that was meant for packages. UPS left it at the leasing office which meant I had to walk a few blocks to get it and a few blocks back. FedEx would somehow get into the building and leave it sitting in front of my door, which is super not cool with an iPhone-sized package that says "T-Mobile" on the side.

Now that I have a house and I work from home, I prefer USPS because they come at 9am, whereas FedEx comes around noon and UPS isn't here until after 5pm. Even though USPS "tramples" my lawn, they're going to do that anyway to deliver mail, and I'd rather get my package earlier. Plus UPS and FedEx knock on the door which makes my dogs bark when I might be on a call with a client.

But even then, my postman would sometimes walk through my gate into my backyard and leave packages at the back door (I guess to keep them from being stolen?), which stopped pretty quick when he walked through the closed gate and came face to face with my very surprised and scared dogs. Don't ignore a "beware of dog" sign just because you didn't see the dog before you opened the gate. Luckily he just got cornered and not bitten.

Delivering packages with high customer satisfaction is not as easy as it sounds.

[losteverything]

I try hard to please all customers. Your phone number is on amazon labels. Often i text when there are issues. Communication is necessary for excellent customer service.

[dragonwriter]

> I never would have considered someone cares about a delivery person walking over their lawn to drop a package off.

I never would have considered that anyone in the US would fail to recognize the social conventions about the difference between landscaping and walkways and the acceptable uses of each. In places where people have lawns in the first place, they tend to prefer that people not noticeably walk on them (many don't care about the walking so much as any visible sign after the fact.)

[8note]

I'm very confused about the point of having a lawn is. if you're going to have something you cany walk on, why put in grass, one of the plants thats well adapted to be walked on

[dragonwriter]

To the extent that grass is well adapted to beig walked on, that just makes it easier to avoid leaving visible signs of walking on it.

But lawns are largely decorative, which is why people with lawns also tend to have more durable (e.g., concrete) walkways connecting the front entrance of the home to the sidewalk (if present) or curb.

[Retric]

Guy in a Prius actually costs more than a dedicated delivery truck for once a day delivery's. However, if you want same day delivery you are more or less forced to use the Prius model as you are stuck doing small batches of delivery's anyway.

Remember, the last mile cost for you is basically the cost from their last hop to you + the carrying your package to all the other stops. If the delivery guy is going to visit several houses on your street that's basically a few hundred feet on average.

[woolvalley]

If you give everyone same day although, wouldn't the order flow increase to truck sizes?

[extrapickles]

Maybe. That would make it harder to spread the truck to door cost over several orders.

[Slansitartop]

> I think we're going to see more and more of these pain points as we migrate from "dedicated delivery guy you become friends with who knows all the idiosyncrasies of his customers" to "random dude in a Prius who had a couple hours to spare". And I'm completely convinced the latter is coming to the major delivery companies if they want to stay competitive - Fedex Ground is only a hop skip and a jump away from that already.

That will be a sad day.

[leesalminen]

FedEx Home Delivery (Ground for residential) is on a route-franchise system as far as I can tell. The owner of the last route I was on was terrible- had to cancel Blue Apron because of it. Nothing would show up until 10-11 at night. My new route is awesome. Lady always has a smile and always shows up by 4 PM.

[maxerickson]

Living in a small town the delivery guys have been randos for a long time already.

[dllthomas]

An interesting approach might be a service where you could post your preferences, accessible to drivers of any service automatically when they're out to give you your package. Security implications would be nontrivial, though.

[reaperducer]

> I never would have considered someone cares about a delivery person walking over their lawn to drop a package off.

If they're wearing boots, or you have xeriscape, they can damage the irrigation system just an inch or two under the surface.

[Feniks]

I always let packages ship to the local supermarket.

Actually feel bad for delivery guys who have to go to every single adress when its much more efficient to collect stuff at a central point. And how many people are not at home during delivery hours?

[icebraining]

You feel bad for delivery workers, because they have work to do? I'm not sure they feel the same way.

[Feniks]

Actually I'm sure they do. You think its fun running around and climbing stairs for 8 hours a day? Oh and if you're not home they have to come back. For free.

[leesalminen]

Just make a good case and email that Jeff address. My letter was well composed and not accusatory. Tried to be as friendly as possible. Even offered my cell # if they wanted to follow up.

[ryanlol]

You can do this almost immediately via live chat by just asking the CS rep to make a ticket requesting that $carrier be deprioritized for future deliveries to your address.

Emailing jeff@ tends to get you directly to the best and brightest of Amazons support team, so it's a good option too (albeit a bit slower).

[Slansitartop]

> You can do this almost immediately via live chat by just asking the CS rep to make a ticket requesting that $carrier be deprioritized for future deliveries to your address.

Doesn't work for Amazon Logistics. I tried a couple times a few months ago, and my ticket kept getting denied. Deprioitizing AMZL_US appears to be an entirely different business process than other carriers, as the rep I spoke to didn't know how to do it at first.

They might not deny your request if you claim your home is a prison, but didn't try that route.

[ghostbrainalpha]

>> They might not deny your request if you claim your home is a prison, but didn't try that route.

Pure genius. I think I could believable get away with saying my house is a 1/2 way house for people getting out of prison. And there are stresses on the delivery driver that should only fall on a full time professional.

[Slansitartop]

> And there are stresses on the delivery driver that should only fall on a full time professional.

IIRC, the three deprioritization justifications the rep had were:

1. Prison, 2. Military Base, 3. Three failed deliveries over the last 6 months.

I assume it's just a prison policy thing. I know no one besides USPS can deliver to AFO/FPO address (which are military I think), so maybe the same's true for prisons.

[extrapickles]

Places other than USPS can deliver to places on military bases provided you have a “physical” address vs a AFO/FPO. However, the delivery company and driver needs to be registered to deliver on that particular base. AFO/FPO addresses are USPS only as they are more of a CNAME/pointer for the persons physical address and can involve going to combat zones or ships at sea.

[jsoc815]

At times, emailing Jeff is the only option. Recently did so after a chat rep 'gave me incorrect info' that didn't work and then literally told me to "ask a friend."

[leconteur]

What is that Jeff address thing?

[adventured]

Jeff Bezos's personal email address.

[leesalminen]

It used to be, anyway. These days it’s a shortcut to the top tier support team. I believe I spoke with Austin on the “Executive Support Team”.

[fnbr]

He claims in interviews [1] that he reads everything that goes through there (but obviously doesn't reply).

[1]: https://www.recode.net/2016/6/1/11826718/jeff-bezos-amazon-f...

[phyller]

+1 I really wish we could choose our carrier, and reward those that do a good job. I used to have a way better experience with UPS then Fedex, the difference was huge because I would have to go to the Fedex warehouse to pick up my package (long story, Fedex was pretty bad in my area). But I have no control over who delivers it.

The Amazon delivery guys are way worse. I never know when something is coming, even if it says out for delivery I might not get it for days. Every time I need something for a trip that I buy 3 business days early, with 2 day prime shipping, I don't get it before I have to leave.

I gave up trying to complain, you could review the seller, but not the delivery service. Hopefully they have changed that. I used to only shop on Amazon for pretty much everything. Now I decide if I should get it from a local store instead. When I need something that is time sensitive, I definitely get it from a brick and mortar store.

The worst is that while UPS will leave the packages on my doorstep (and knock on the door), the off-brand Amazon delivery guys tend to leave the package in front of my garage door because it is closer. One of these days I'm going to drive over something expensive by accident.

[BlackjackCF]

Yeah, this has totally been my experience too.

FedEx, USPS, UPS - they all manage to get into my building and deliver my packages. Sometimes they even go all the way up to my door.

I've asked Amazon to stop trying to send packages via their couriers, because they don't even seem to bother trying to get in before giving up and leaving.

I don't know if it's a laziness thing or if they're under some sort of horrible time crunch to deliver every single one of these packages (not sure if they get a bonus for more packages delivered or something), but Amazon couriers REALLY suck.

[toomuchtodo]

> I don't know if it's a laziness thing or if they're under some sort of horrible time crunch to deliver every single one of these packages (not sure if they get a bonus for more packages delivered or something), but Amazon couriers REALLY suck.

Contract workers with unreasonable expectations dictated by management.

[markkanof]

I've had similar experience with regard to sloppy deliveries from Amazon Logistics. However, recently we had one delivery person that made a real effort to ensure the package would not be stolen. I live in a city, so it's not uncommon for package thieves to stroll around and steal packages that are in plain view. This delivery guy went around the side of our house and tucked the bubble envelope up against a basement window well. If I didn't have surveillance cameras we wouldn't have found this package for weeks. I like his sentiment, but his implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

[Notorious_BLT]

I've had a similar experience. Living in the city, I'm livid whenever I find that they left a package on the doorstep of my building, which very clearly has no lock on the garden gate. I've not had a package stolen yet, but how do you just leave it in plain sight and walk away, as a delivery person?

But one time, I got a "delivered" notification but couldn't find it, and none of my neighbors brought it in. I finally found it after digging into the "delivered" order information and finding a picture they sent of my package behind a bush, up against the wall of my building, completely hidden. I thought it might just be a one-off thing, but I honestly wish they would always do this, so long as they tell me where it is. I'd rather have to play hide-and-seek than have to be home all day to get a delivery.

[mathgeek]

We also canceled a few hundred dollars worth of monthly deliveries once Amazon started using USPS to deliver them. Having to go to the post office to pick up larger boxes because they were too big to be delivered to our home meant it was easier to just go buy the stuff ourselves.

[driverdan]

> too big to be delivered to our home

That's a thing? I've had tons of large packages delivered via USPS and have never had them hold something for being too big. Are you in an apt complex that doesn't have a package pickup area?

[mathgeek]

It's a smaller post office.

[dougmany]

Our whole block had delivery confirmations and no packages. Next day, the package showed up. Amazon Logistics is terrible. Last week I had an LCD monitor thrown over our 6' fence behind our house.

[ghostbrainalpha]

Was the box marked fragile from the outside?

[kevin_b_er]

Would it matter? It was the amazon warehouses' responsibility to mark the package fragile to avoid reckless behavior by amazon delivery. Both are Amazon's duty when they're both the seller and the shipper.

[ghostbrainalpha]

Totally agree with you. I was just wondering, as I have never seen an Amazon box actually have the "fragile" warning label on it, and didn't know if they even did that.

You would assume the weight of the customers monitor would tell any reasonable delivery driver not to drop the package 6 feet, regardless of what the box says.

[stordoff]

Even for items that explicitly _aren't_ fragile, I wouldn't exactly be thrilled by that handling (it's just asking for, e.g., the box to partially come open and something go missing).

On the subject of delivery notifications, I had a parcel "delivered to a receptionist" last week, despite it being a residential house (because my sister opened the door).

[gautamdivgi]

Totally agree. With UPS and FedEx I always got my packages. With the amazon delivery I seemed to miss them all the time. Until one day I got a call from this lady in my subdivision and said she had all my packages. Apparently she has he same house number as mine but a totally different street. She tried to reach amazon but they told her that since the packages aren’t hers there isn’t much they can do. So I called them. The dude at the call center said he’ll ship them again at no charge. After many mental wtf’s and facepalms I finally managed to get thru to him that his delivery person is going to the wrong house. He said “he’ll make a note”. The note seems to have worked for now.

[jeremydavid]

I've had the complete opposite experience in Berlin. In Berlin, most of the "houses" here are 5 story walk ups - and DHL drivers (the main delivery service here) are so lazy they don't even bother ringing the door bell. Instead, if you are lucky, they leave your package at a neighbours house and tell you where it is. Usually they drop it off at some terrible centre where you have to go pick it up (defeating the purpose of getting something delivered), or even worse dropping it off somewhere and not telling you where!

Amazon so far actually delivers the package... when they don't contract it out to DHL.

[dazc]

In the UK I have had the exact opposite experience. Amazon Logistics was a bit patchy to begin with but they have improved a lot over the past 18 months.

My only bugbear is that the I seem to always be one of the last stops for the guy who does our area so deliveries are always around 7 pm.

[stordoff]

They are still very variable for me (UK). With Royal Mail etc., I can be all but certain that by about 2pm I'll have the package. Most of the time, Amazon can match that, but I definitely get more issues with them than with other carriers (deliveries as late as 10pm, missed deliveries, items arriving damaged, items left in weird places [e.g. wheelie bin shortly before it was due to be emptied] even when people are in the house, items left in "safe" places without leaving any notification, misleading email notifications etc.). They've definitely improved, but are still a lesser service in my experience.

[CraigRood]

I avoid all the 'carriers' and use the Local Collect to my local Post Office. Only disadvantage I guess is the Sunday deliveries, but It's a worth while trade-off.

[newhere420]

Same experience here in the UK. Started out poor, but now just as good as Royal Mail.

[CommieBobDole]

Sometimes they shoot themselves in the foot with delivery estimates, too. A month or two back, I ordered an item on Wednesday that said it wouldn't be delivered until the next Tuesday. I was OK with that, so I ordered it. Checked on the order the next day and it now had an expected delivery by Saturday at 8PM. Saturday at 8:01PM it changes to "There's been a delay, now expected Monday by 8PM". Monday 8PM rolls around, no package, and it changes to "Tuesday by 8PM".

So it arrives on the day it was originally expected. Difference is, now I'm irritated because I've had to change my plans several times.

[majormajor]

I think I first started seeing Amazon doing their own deliveries in 2013 or 2014 in LA, and they were awful at first. Got a lot better by 2016 or so, though.

I've noticed now, though, it's spread to much more suburban areas where they're way worse. Delivering to an apartment complex in LA with a slightly-hidden package area seems much easier for them than delivering to a bunch of individual suburban houses - packages tossed out the car, photographed laying their on the sidewalk - and I wasn't surprised based on the delivery photos they took when the packages to my parents got stolen. :|

Now I just don't order things from them for my parents. Works for me, ordering to large buildings for work or home, but not to send to addresses I'm not familiar with. So there goes all my gift-buying business.

They're still fast, for me, at least, though. If that goes away...

Another part of my personal mitigation has been that I order less from regular Amazon though, now, and more from Prime Now. Same day in a two hour window for $5 ("suggested tip"), and seems like it's not prone to the same stock intermingling stuff because they don't have third party sellers on Prime Now and they don't have the same inventory.

[plandis]

I think the thing here is that Amazon is trying to fill a lack of capacity. There have been times where Amazon has effectively exceed delivery bandwidth in some places.

I’d imagine they are thinking that bad shipping is better than no shipping and try to improve from there.

[stcredzero]

Their service with their existing delivery service (Amazon Logistics) has been TERRIBLE thus far. Lazy drivers leaving packages in clear sight in the middle of the driveway, unreliable delivery estimates, etc.

Bad delivery people are like some kind of spatial plague. Your neighborhood might be so afflicted, or it might have good people, with the occasional hiccup due to a substitute delivery worker.

Sometimes, it's the USPS that has the bozos, but UPS is good. Sometimes, it's also UPS.

[legohead]

I had a package delivered to my work and the Amazon guy gave it to some random person in the building. Didn't even bother to come to the Suite #

[stagger87]

I really think it is going to depend on your location and a bit of luck unfortunately. The local couriers in my area who work with Amazon at first were horrible but have gotten much better to the point I prefer them because they will deliver usually early in the morning and on any day of the week. I've been getting reliable Sunday morning deliveries for a few months now.

[zaidf]

Amazon as a company is all about efficiency. The one area they have been slow to apply this (till now) is with user acquisition and retention.

This is now changing. Right now amazon has hundreds of MBA Product Managers crunching data to determine how much they can screw up in certain areas with little to no impact on customer happiness or churn (on a macro level.)

[pr77]

not US but india. Amazon delivery allows me to either leave the package with a neighbour or to deliver to a shop(they have some tie up with local shops) from where I can pick up.

This was quite helpful couple of times when the package arrived ahead of time and i was not available to sign the package. and this can be set even after the package is shipped.

[dawnerd]

This combined this other problems such as comingeling and how bad their listings have become convinced me to let my subscription expire. Really wish they’d stop trying to expand into everything and use that effort to clean up what they already have. I don’t think they’ve built anything that’s polished.

[s0rce]

You forgot to mention deliveries arriving late Sunday evening from unmarked white rental vans.

[sjg007]

I've noticed that 2 day prime has become 4-5 day with some rare exceptions.

[dangerboysteve]

Another way to look at this. Due to less parcels from Amazon to USP and FedEx, both companies had the capacity to reach their delivery timeframes.

[aaronbrethorst]

> Lazy drivers

I'm sure some of them are, but—for the most part—I think Amazon and their subcontractors have absurd expectations about their drivers' performance, as described in this lawsuit:

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/12/21/25647480/deliver...