[lancebeet]

I think this touches on an important point that my personal experience on both the customer side and the retail side rhymes well with. When it comes to third party services such as payment and delivery, customers rarely see a distinction between the service provider and the retailer. This makes sense, since the identity of the service provider is often not even known to the customer. But to the retailer there is of course a clear distinction, and because of this they may greatly overestimate how well the customer can distinguish between the retailer and service providers.

[techdmn]

I would also argue that if the retailer chooses the third party provider, there is no functional difference. If I, as a customer, can choose the carrier, I can make a decision that weighs price, experience, etc. If the retailer chooses, I assume they are choosing based on cost and bear full responsibility for resulting poor experience.