I place an order yesterday (12/6) for two items. One item says it will ship in 24 hours and one item says it will ship in 2 to 3 days. So you would think that this thing would be sent out at latest on the 11th (3 days from Monday). I look at the estimated ship date, and it says the 16th! Five days past the logical ship date and conveinently puts the estimated date of arrival (using the free shipping) on the 24th. Is Amazon trying to screw me out of $5 so that I have these items shipped Priority?

I plan on giving them a call on Monday (what is that number again) and getting to the bottom of this, but is anyone else seeing this or is it just me?

In my experience, the estimated ship date has always been inaccurate. Your order will most likely ship before then, but it never hurts to call.

I was about to ask the same thing...I ordered 2 items the evening of the 4th [one item was 21xx, I ordered something else I wanted to bring it up to 25+ and get free shipping, and used a ten dollar gift cert I had waiting anyway.]
When I ordered, item 1 said 'Usually ships in 24 hours' [this was a brand new cd/dvd set.]
Item 2 said 'usually ships in 2-4 days [or maybe 3-5, it wasn't much.]'
I checked yesterday, the second item said 'Usually ships in 11-13 days [which gave the final ETA date of 12/25.]
Today it says 'usually ships in 12-14 days', and they say the final ETA is still 12/25.
The one item i ordered, the 2-4 day one, amazon actually had the lowest price [which has never, in my experience, happened before] before shipping. With free shipping and with the gift cert, what would cost 59+tax at Best Buy cost 40 bucks. But if it comes after Christmas, it doesn't do me any good [item 2 was a Christmas present, item 1 was a present for myself.]
If there's no activity by, say, next week, I'm going to cancel the order and just buy the one item from Deep Discount CD; their total is less than what Amazon's price + shipping would be.

This is actually the first time I have ordered from Amazon.com, and it may be the last. Not that I have a problem with items taking a while to get to me, but just be honest and upfront--I'd rather they said 12-14 days as I ordered, rather than having the 'ships in' date fluctuate so much. Give me a answer I can rely on, regardless of that answer. Underpromise and overdeliver, that way I'm pleasantly surprised rather than posting on here. The slow item is allegedly Sales Rank 401, but the other one is number 9, so I don't think that's an issue. Plus, as big as Amazon is, and as many sales as they have ['36,198,549 on the Delight-0-meter!'] you'd think they'd know how to guesstimate shipping times. They can track the last nineteen items I've looked at, and send me emails and gold box offers related to them; you'd think they could predict some sales/shipping patterns.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=108012

The free shipping does seem to be an excuse to ship slowly. Either they are trying to tempt you into using a faster method, or they ship a bunch of orders at once at some kind of group discount.

They've been doing that for as long as they have had free super-saver shipping. It has always said something along the lines of "by selecting this shipping option, you acknowlege that it may take up to 5 extra days for your item to ship."

In Amazon's defense, they're not the only online retailer to do this. I placed an order at Buy.com at the beginning of this week. When I got to the shipping options, they said that if you wanted the item to arrive before Christmas, you should not choose the free shipping option. These were items that were in stock, ship within 24 hours, and at the time, there were 23 DAYS until Christmas.

I don't necessarily have a problem with free shipping taking longer, but what bugs me is their constant fudging of the 'usually ships by' date. I can't imagine they've sold that many of this product that the 'usually ships by' date keeps getting pushed further and further back. Free shipping should NOT take 23 days, however; or if it does, if should do it very rarely. Perhaps they're estimating high due to the holidays, agani, that's fine, but why keep changing it?
I assume the 'free shipping' is media mail--I was shipped a DVD Monday afternoon Media Mail from Florida, and rec'd it yesterday [in NC]. My Deep Discount DVD purchases arrived no more than a week after they sent me the shipping notice, and usually 3-5 days after.

It looks like the hold up here is in *processing* the order, like they prioritize them and process the orders with paid shipping first. Which is ironic, because if they processed and sent a Media Mail order on Monday, and processed and sent a Priority Mail order on Tuesday, the Priority mail should still arrive earlier.
And while I don't mean to be a fickle consumer, if there's absolutely no change by tomorrow, or the 'usually ships by' date changes again, I will be 'using a faster method;' the go-down-to-Best-Buy-and-buy-it-live method.

If they say 'your order may take longer to ARRIVE with free shipping', that's fine [again, when I get 'free', I would expect a lower level of mail class [Media Mail].' But when it says 'We won't even process your order till later, when you get the free shipping,' that definitely sounds like a strongarm tactic.

It's really screwed up now. I have 7 items, all ship either in 24 hours or 3 days. If I choose free shipping, they won't even be shipped for a week, which is how their free shipping has always worked, it's basically designed to encourage you to pay for shipping yet they can still say they offer free shipping. So I changed to standard shipping, willing to pay for it to ensure arrival by Christmas. And now it won't even ship for 3 weeks. Insane. I'm cancelling my $150 order.

I have to give amazon a big thumbs up on my xmas order from them. I only ordered one thing, so maybe that's why mine was shipped so fast. I ordered on Dec 4th and used the free super saving shipping, and it was shipped on Dec 5th. The estimated delivery when I ordered was Dec 14th to 16th, but I received it on Dec 7th. The box set I bought was also packed well and arrived in perfect condition, so no complaints from me.

I also got a decent price using the $5 off $35 coupon. I bought the Mary Tyler Moore set for $32.49 shipped. It would be even cheaper with the "share the love" program, but I don't shop at amazon that much, so I've never bothered to sign up for it. The only place that had it cheaper was DVDsoon for $31.33 and there was no way in hell that I was going to order from them on the off chance that I might get my order before xmas because I've seen too many complaints on here about delayed orders from DVDsoon.

I have always had good luck with the Super Saver Shipping. My orders are always processed and shipped within 3 days, and usually arrive within 2. With the delivery confirmation it is easy to track. I think Amazon over estimates the time frames to protect themselves from complaints if things don't ship and arrive by earlier ship times. I would rather have them tell me the later times and have it arrive early, then to have them lie like many online retailers do about ship times.

People..do some research. The way Amazon has cut shipping costs - if they have products in 2 warehouses they use their own shipping methods to get one product to the other warehouse for shipping. that is why orders with multiple items tend to take longer because they are transporting the stuff on their own internal trucks, which don't probably leave until they are full. Best bet..try ordering 2 of the same things - DVDs or one thing that will put you over 25 bucks.

Not really , I ordered 2 dvds ( no free shipping here and the discs are even from the same set ) with 24 shipping and got a delay notice after a few days with a much later shipping estimate ..

Maybe because I pay with already paid GC Amazon is in no hurry to ship them ?

Ok, I just got off the phone with Amazon, and they did have a reasonable answer. Basically, they said that because they are paying for the shipping (which is true if you chose to use the free shipping option), they get to chose what type of priority to put on it. The CSR I spoke to said that they process these orders between surges in business. Being that this is the holiday season, I can't imagine they have many times where business isn't surging, so I can see how the shipping process might get delayed. I just switched to standard shipping and now my estimated ship date is the 14th - 16th. So it might be shipped before or exactly the same time as before, but atleast I know I will get it way before Christmas.

I had ordered a bunch of gifts that were all "usually ships withing 24 hours" 2 weeks ago. Most of it has been shipped & received, but one item was backordered, and I just got a new notice with a "updated delivery estimate: December 19 - January 1". So it may or may not get here for Christmas, and it's something that I've never seen anywhere else so it's not like I can go to the store & pick one up.

I hate this about Amazon and other e-tailers too but at least they don't use Drop Ship Express like BN.com does.

I've put about 4 or 5 orders in since thanksgiving - all have shipped within 24 hours and have arrived super fast - with the free shipping. Maybe I was lucky, but service does seem to be much improved.

I ordered 3 books and 1 cd last wednesday all marked as within 24 hours availability. They shipped today for arrival next week. Amazon is really bad about shipping timely over christmas unless you pay more for shipping. Unfortunately the paying more for shipping not only gets it to you faster but it seems to speed them up in preparing your order. It shouldn't be that way but it is. No other online retailer has been as slow as amazon during the holidays.