They quit trying to get me packages in 2 days sometime in the pandemic despite being just a few hours away from a fulfillment center where some relatives work.
Oddly around the same time shipping seemed to speed up from other retailers like Best Buy, Target, Adorama, etc. I buy things from Japan on Ebay and get them more quickly than packages from AMZN. Every other retailer sees shipping as a way to impress me, AMZN takes me for granted because I've been paying for Prime for 10 years.
There are accounts that people in the same ZIP codes as AMZN fulfillment centers aren't getting 2 day shipping. I guess these are rural areas with poor shopping options and AMZN doesn't need to be competitive. I'm pretty sure though that my congressman gets next day or same day shipping in Washington, DC.
I was kinda surprised when I dumped Prime. Most stuff still has free 2-3 day shipping on it. I think Amazon has shot themselves in the foot, and their own vendors are making Prime not worth paying for.
Yeah, it seems to be very regional. Here is my personal experience over the past year.
In downtown Seattle/SLU area (aka "Amazon rainforest", due to that whole area having a very heavy concentration of Amazon offices), most packages take around 2 days. In Atlanta area (midtown and closeby sorta-suburban areas like Little Five and Edgewood), most packages take between same-day to 1-2 days (usually a bit less time than in Seattle). In NYC (Manhattan specifically), it takes 3-4 days (am yet to find a single item on amazon that has a delivery estimate less than that for this area).
I bet it has something to do with distribution centers/warehouses/last-mile delivery infrastructure. But that difference in delivery times between those three regions seems to be pretty consistent, from what I've observed so far in 2022.
If you're in Seattle, you're probably getting packages from like Kent or Everett. I don't see how they could afford a warehouse anywhere near the city.
Just a guess - residential real estate pricing and commercial/industrial real estate pricing are not following the same trends.
The reason residential real estate keeps going up is partially due to zoning laws being out of wack on west coast. So just because the price of residential real estate in Kent keeps getting crazier, that doesn't mean the industrial one does as much.
They have become much more unpredictable for me, some Prime items will be delivered same-day, others might take 3-4 days, my impression is that they expect only a small subset of customers to bother complaining, in which case they'll be "very sorry" and offer an extra month of Prime or something else which doesn't really cost them anything...
Oddly around the same time shipping seemed to speed up from other retailers like Best Buy, Target, Adorama, etc. I buy things from Japan on Ebay and get them more quickly than packages from AMZN. Every other retailer sees shipping as a way to impress me, AMZN takes me for granted because I've been paying for Prime for 10 years.
There are accounts that people in the same ZIP codes as AMZN fulfillment centers aren't getting 2 day shipping. I guess these are rural areas with poor shopping options and AMZN doesn't need to be competitive. I'm pretty sure though that my congressman gets next day or same day shipping in Washington, DC.