kefrank

Fulfillment by Amazon just means Amazon packs and ships the items that the third-party seller paid to store at the Amazon fulfillment center.

Personally, I never buy media from third party sellers unless they're a storefront I'm familiar with. But I also wouldn't blame Amazon for the quality of a product that is sold by a third-party seller.

For what it's worth, I have Prime and I've had none of the issues that have been described in this thread.

E Unit

Because they rarely exist. That's why I've kept Prime. I use Prime Video sometimes, and to a lesser extent the music, but I've kept it because of their shipping times and policies. I've known for years when I buy from 3rd party, to be prepared to wait sometimes for weeks. Or the short answer - if you don't like it, shop somewhere else.

AaronSch

"Fulfilled by Amazon"

AaronSch

A-hem, "colorful language" and imogees aside, of course it's personal experience. I am also not alone in my assessment of Amazon. It HAS NOT always been this way. So in that assessment alone I said you were incorrect. I'm not talking a day or two here. They are sitting on items marked "in stock" for extended periods of time in order to make "prime" look more attractive. It is a business practice designed to move customers towards purchasing "prime." If you doubt that is their strategy, you give a whole new meaning to "naive." I consider it unethical. If you don't see it that way, it is your prerogative. When a company offers "free shipping" with the caveat that you must spend at least $50, then there is no reason it should be held back from immediate processing when in stock. Does Best Buy do this? Absolutely not. Does Deep Discount Do this? NOPE!

You can defend them all you wish but it's shoddy customer service. If they want to be like Costco, fine. Simply charge $100 to those who order enough to make it worthwhile and do away with the "free shipping with lousy service" option. Because ultimately Amazon DOES NOT really have a "free shipping" option—you either pay or wait till they feel like sending it out to you. In my view, I would rather give my business to a company that values all of its customers. And for those who are apologists for Amazon when the fulfill orders for third party sellers, that's also ridiculous. If they are going to sell product through their site they are ultimately responsible for the quality of that product—especially when they are fulfilling those orders. Period. Sometimes you get so big that you develop a take it or leave it attitude towards your customers.

For those who like being treated that way, fine, keep giving them your money.

Mikael79

Many of us are not mentally insane.

Why So Blu?

I think the latter posts here should be moved over to that "bitching about Amazon" thread since this one is for deals only.

As far as Amazon goes - I definitely get my $100 a year PRIME fee money's worth. I don't have a Costco membership either - I just go there for the pizza, hot dogs, and churros. One does not need a membership to eat there.

AaronSch

I don't understand the desire for people in these forums to take a discussion away from the salient point being made. The original post was a legitimate concern over Amazon's shipping practices—period. It had nothing to do with those who see a value in purchasing "prime" for the other services offered. What does pizza, hot dogs and churros at Costco have to do with the criticism of Amazon's shipping practices? Costco was used as an example of being a MEMBERSHIP CLUB in which only those who pay a fee can purchase items they sell—obviously other than the fast food vendors. The desire to engage in the conversation, criticize it and then take it even further off course is puzzling.

Reading is fundamental.

Why So Blu?

You made a comparison to Costco/Amazon. I also made a comparison and explained further as to my position with the Costco and not minding Amazon's current business shipping model. That's all that was.

I don't know what to tell you about their free shipping process other than if you don't pay the PRIME premium you may or may not get your items in a timely matter. You WILL get them shipped for free ($50 minimum is it?) but the delivery window is a little bit more abstract now. Also, if you're ordering 3rd market seller material then those timeframes are sure to shift around.

My point was that the majority of this page now does not have Amazon deals just complaints about Amazon.

AaronSch

Yes, I understand your point about the discussion straying from "deals." But sometimes a response is necessary. Everything you stated is absolutely correct and it is the point of my comments. It was never a criticism of "prime" or those who value it. Amazon currently treats those who do not purchase "prime" like "bastard step children" and that was not always the case. That is why I have been taking my business elsewhere for the majority of purchases. That's it in a nutshell.

fumanstan

A response is necessary... in the store forum.

Mikael79

Zazzle spends all day clicking refresh on that thread - give him some company!

AaronSch

Sorry to offend Amazon's stockholders and insane clown posse. I've got work to do and money to make. Ciao.

ctyankee

Your "prime" example of why you should spread your money around is delusional. How is Best Buy or Amazon supposed to be aware of the fact that you're spreading your money around (versus simply buying less or more)? Heck, the collective purchases of this whole forum is not even a rounding error at Amazon. That Best Buy appreciates business is a given. If you think that they appreciate, study, analyze YOUR specific business is laughable. Your business is like a grain of sand on a long beach.

Let me break this down for you. The folks in this forum are looking for serious deals. Serious deals come from one key strategy ... postponement. That's based on the historical trend/pattern that physical media becomes cheaper over time. Thus, we wait and wait and wait (sometimes for multiple years) before we pull the trigger. Now, you're griping about waiting a few more days for something to arrive ... That's hysterical. Like we don't have content in our collections we haven't watched yet. Or titles we bought because we were were sure we were going to watch it multiple times and haven't. Please.

I ordered grill parts late last Thursday night and received them via Amazon Prime on Saturday. That kind of service comes because my orders are prioritized over non-Prime orders. That should be a common sense business approach. If you think there is a conspiracy to purposely sit on orders even if the warehouse staff is sitting around doing nothing, cite a credible source. Because, I would agree, that would be outrageous.

If you're going to ask "well, why did I used to get things quicker in the past, if that's the case?" My answer is ... simple, Amazon Prime has become more and more the driver of Amazon's business model and that's a trend that is not going away. Combine that with Amazon looking more for profit than market share (compared to the past) and there is your answer.

Meanwhile, if you bought only one share of Amazon stock a few months ago when I last mentioned that I was a stockholder (with a stockholder's bias on its business model) you would have the money for 2 years of Amazon prime ...

fumanstan

Oh good, the zyzzle method of insulting everyone else because you're unhappy with a service.

jjcool

That is always the way I understood it to be. The paid shipping options took precedence over the free shipping. I looked at it as there was a hard cutoff time for a package to go out today. The ones that needed to go out that day (IE paid shipping) were prepped first. If there was still time before the cutoff then some free shipping orders were prepped. Obviously, if that scenario is even remotely close to correct, it is a gross over simplification of the process.

On getting questionable product from third party sellers, does Amazon check the stuff that people send to them for fulfillment? I know that a third party seller is not Amazon but when that third party sends stuff to Amazon for fulfillment, do they check that what the seller says it is is actually what it is or do they just slap a bar code label on it and put it on the shelf?

bsmith

As someone that is not a PRIME member and that became frustrated with changes in Amazon's policies I agree there is only so much one can do to get Amazon's attention. In my case, I complained to CSR and explained my frustrations. The last few years I spent over $6K per year at Amazon, but now spreading my purchases around Amazon is only going to get around $300 of my business this year. They may trend on purchasing changes like that. In the end, if Amazon decides to make policy changes that are more friendly to non-PRIME members I may be back. However, I realize it would take many-many frustrated non-PRIME members taking their business elsewhere to get that type of attention.

The majority of my purchases are physical media, and having purchased several $1000's worth over the last few years I can see trends and don't need another source to validate that something is going on to delay shipping for non-PRIME members. However, I don't think it is as deliberate as just sitting on orders to delay them or purposely having warehouse staff sitting around doing nothing. Personally, I think there are a variety of things based on my observations.

First, any new releases I received were consistently shipped no earlier than the Friday after the Tuesday release date and were generally received the following Tuesday or Wednesday. My experience with other vendors is that they generally ship new releases the Saturday before the Tuesday regardless of whether it is based on free-shipping or not. The only difference being that those that paid for shipping got it by Tuesday and those based on free-shipping arrived between Wednesday and Friday due to media mail. BB and DD have no conflicting interests to purposely delay, but Amazon does to promote PRIME. As a result, I've tended to go elsewhere for new releases that I want delivered more timely.

Second, I constantly have items on order. In Amazon's attempt to save costs on shipping and to consolidate items across warehouses I have orders constantly shifting from "preparing for shipment" to "shipping today" and back to "not yet shipped". It seems like every time I make a new order the system is told to "recalculate" like a GPS. Many times after multiple recalculates they send it out next day or two day PRIME shipping just so I receive it before the estimated three-week window expires (some times even a few days after).

Conspiracy? Maybe to some degree to promote PRIME, but for the most part I think it is all a byproduct of the convoluted shipping algorithm in their system that overly tries to consolidate items across warehouses in an attempt to minimize free shipping costs. Interestingly, I think in some cases it actually costs them more due to last minute upgraded shipping. As a result, most items I was receiving just made the three-week delivery window. I don't believe this is as simple as a basic prioritization scheme between PRIME and non-PRIME members.

In the end, PRIME has limited to no value for me. Shopping at Amazon had become a one-stop convenience with excellent customer service. Especially, given that their pricing is no longer anything special. Now...shopping around I am generally getting better deals and quicker shipping. I guess I should thank Amazon for the changes because I had become to complacent on my purchases through them.

kefrank

When Amazon is fulfilling the orders, they ultimately do take responsibility, so I'm not sure what your complaint is here. Amazon customer service directly handles returns and refunds when a seller uses Fulfillment by Amazon. None of that changes the fact the the third-party seller is the source of the product itself. Amazon accepts the risk that its customer service may have to handle returns for a relatively few "Fulfillment by Amazon" products that a third-party seller mishandles or misrepresents, rather than incurring the cost of inspecting each and every item provided by the seller up front. Seems like a balanced approach to me.

Furthermore, they guarantee to resolve any issue with an order from a third-party seller, whether the seller uses "Fulfillment by Amazon" or not. What more do you want?

ctyankee

Are others here experiencing the same thing as a rule of thumb? Because ... IF the non-prime order was received in plenty of time to meet that weekend staging of new release orders and they have enough initial product to meet all orders and IF it's not a manpower shortage issue, I would completely agree that (at least some of the time) non-Prime orders should be included in that first wave release. If New Releases are always shipped the Friday following New Release Tuesday ... I would completely agree that that's a problem and unacceptable.

Goat3001

I'm not so sure about that. I think Amazon wants non-Prime users to kick rocks. That's really the only explanation as to why they change policies that more or less make the Amazon experience shitty for non-Prime people. They raised the minimum cost for free shipping to $50, not because they can't afford to ship it to you for free, but because they think that will get more people to give in and get Prime and they're ok with the people that don't switch to take their business somewhere else.

Amazon isn't the service it used to be. They've moved beyond being the Wal-Mart of the internet. Without Prime, you won't get all the benefits of their gadgets or access to their own TV programming.

I think the Non-Prime user has become such a small part of their business that they're completely ok with losing those customers.

jjcool

Some people are only happy when they are complaining.
I never understood the complaints about the free shipping from Amazon. Peopel have been whining about free shipping for years, well before the advent of prime. People always whine about how the free shipping takes so long. Well, duh. It's free shipping. Only an idiot would expect free shipping to be quick. Inevitably these people that bitch about the slow free shipping, receive their parcels within the delivery window that Amazon provides as well. So they knew how long it was going to take and still ordered, and then they complain that it took as long as Amazon said it would before they ordered.

bsmith

Not exactly...at least not in my case. Most of the vendors that offer free shipping provide a very conservative estimate window of how long it will take to cover any delays. So while Amazon generally meets the deadline, in my experience, they have been moving further and further to the end of that window. Whether this be to further promote PRIME or just to cut down on shipping costs by trying to consolidate orders across warehouses I do not know.

What i do know is that when customers are used to dealing with a particular vendor and they start to see certain services decline in comparison to other vendors (e.g., higher free shipping minimum, longer shipping times, higher shipping costs) they tend to want to complain. Sounds pretty natural to me. However, in the end they generally just make a decision to either accept the changes, convert to another approach (i.e., PRIME), or go with another vendor instead. I've chosen the later for most of my purchases.

Threads like this are just an outlet that rarely end because someone always revives it. Whether it be a complainer or a complainer of the complainers.

jjcool

It just seems silly to me to bitch and moan about a company's service, when they let you know before you even place the order what service you are going to get. They don't hide the fact that the free shipping threshold is $50, and that free shipping will take x amount of days. People agree to these stipulations before they order, and then complain when their package arrives on time as promised.

bsmith

You seem to be missing a few basic points. The $50 threshold is new and people started complaining about it when it was first announced. The shipping date range for free shipping is around three weeks. If you typically received packages on the early half of that and then later started receiving items on the later half, that is a change from past experience and in what has become an expectation. While the window provided may not have changed, the behavior one has come to expect has. When both of these are no longer competitive to what other vendors are doing then one starts questioning these changes in practice. Not to forget that Amazon also raised the price for standard shipping. A single DVD/Blu-ray is closer to $5 now to ship, and while USPS prices have gone up not everyone has increased theirs by that much.

My moving on to other vendors has more to do with the $50 threshold then anything else because it makes it more difficult for me to balance finding items at my preferred price and meeting the threshold. But I have moved on, moaning isn't going to change that. My one gripe with the shipping isn't related to the receipt window but to the status provided. When the status changes to "preparing for shipment" or "shipping today" I admit I start to get a bit anxious that I may be receiving it soon. But when it stays that way for several days and bounces back to "not shipped yet" for another week it is a bit of an annoyance. But even that I have come to accept for the few items i still pickup from Amazon.

It is obviously Amazon's right to change policy and practice as they see fit, as it is for a consumer to complain about the changes. I agree, moaning about these years later makes no sense, but in this case, the instances mentioned are still relatively new events. However, Amazon practices related to free shipping are probably continuously being adjusted, so maybe the appearance is a never ending complaint fest.

davidh777

As far as whether Amazon employees are sitting on their hands looking at free-shipping packages stack up, I ordered three items the other day, two with two-day shipping because I wanted them quickly and one with slow shipping because I wanted the digital credit. They just threw them all in the same box.

bsmith

I agree, Amazon will do what is cheapest and most efficient, which can work to the consumers advantage from time to time. I had a larger order of around eight blu-rays that waited until two days before the three-week window expired, and another order for a few blu-rays made just a few days earlier. Amazon threw them all in a box, shipped it two-day PRIME, and it arrived that Sunday. So one order ended up delivered at the end of the date range but the other right at the beginning.

I don't think it has anything to do with delays by the staff preparing the orders but instead is how the computer delivery program tries to determine the best approach. I don't have PRIME, but yet I receive plenty of PRIME labeled packages due to the fact many of my orders fall to the final days and need to be sent next day of two-day to get here by the estimated delivery date. I just received notice today of a free shipping order going out today for delivery tomorrow due to the three-week window expiring tomorrow.

My complaints earlier on were based on not liking the changes related to free-shipping because I had become accustomed to just ordering from Amazon and that was becoming more difficult to justify. Now when I do make an order with Amazon it is knowing full well what to expect.