I've always had great experiences with Amazon.com. I order items with free shipping and I receive my shipments like clockwork 4 days later. But, I have never pre-ordered something from Amazon and I want to know, Does Amazon ship pre-ordered items before the release date? What is everyone's experience with Amazon on this?

In the past, they generally seemed to ship it out several days before release. However, my most recent pre-order wasn't shipped until several days afterward. This was for "Rome S2", which had a 8/7 release date but I have not yet received.

I think it will vary depending on the item, though.

yeah, i think it depends on when they get their stock on certain items.
one place i love for shipping pre-orders early is DVD Planet. My "Serenity" (CE) and "Robocop" (Steelbook) is already enroute!!!

See, I ordered the Robocop steelbook and Amazon said that the estimate arrival time won't start until Sept. 5th! I hope it is a mistake on their part.

If I order something from Amazon.com with free shipping it takes them about a week before they ship my order even if everything is in stock. They just sit on it for a week. When I pay the shipping it ships within a day or so.

Dirk

The above seems more typical experience.

Never taken a week here. Of course the delivery estimate is always about two weeks out, but they usually ship the next day of the day after. Depends when i order, time of day and day itself in relation to the weekend.

I've ordered from Amazon pretty regularly for years. It seems like in the last 6 months especially they are slowing down in their shipping. In the past I would often receive DVD pre-orders on the release date. Lately I've noticed that they sometimes don't even ship them until the release date.

Another thing that bothered me was I noticed in a recent order that when I changed the shipping to Super Saver on a double pre-order, the shipping date got bumped 6 days. I changed it back to check, and sure enough, the date jumped back. I was under the impression that Super Saver meant they had the option to ship by a cheaper, slower method, and in past years I've had almost all Super Saver items ship a day or two after placing the order (for in-stock items).

I got a notification by Amazon this past Saturday, stating that my order was shipped. So, I will receive this on release date. Pretty cool.

Whoo HOO! I just got it today (before release date). Thank you Amazon.

Glad you had good luck with your order. I just cancelled my pre-order from 8/17. It was projected to ship on 8/27 (which was already a horrible delay in my opinion given that the release date for the items was 8/22), but I got an email that they pushed shipping by another week. That was the last straw. I cancelled and placed the same order with DeepDiscount.com (saving $0.20 in the bargain). Even if it had been a little more at DDD, I still would have done the same rather than reward terrible performance.

It will be a good long while before I order anything from Amazon that I care about getting in a timely fashion. I always use SuperSaver, and it used to be relatively quick, but lately it just stinks.

Prime members don't have to deal with such silliness. They've sent out all my pre-orders early and end up getting the item on Wednesday of the release date.

Yeah, well non-prime members have more money to spend. :P

Seriously, if you order a lot from them I can see how it is beneficial to pay for the prime advantage.

Or you get it for free or close enough around the "mad" Christmas sales they had.

I ordered Serenity and Robocop from Amazon (w/ free shipping) and got it only 2 days after the release date. Not bad at all...

Just an update:

To recap, I pre-ordered from Amazon 4 days before the release date, used SuperSaver, and had an estimated ship date for 10 days later. They missed that ship date, so I cancelled in disgust. I placed the same order with DeepDiscount that same day.

The next day, DD emailed me to say my order had shipped.

So DD with free shipping all the time turned my order around in 1 day while Amazon with SuperSaver free shipping couldn't manage to ship within 11 days. Granted, when I placed my order with DD, the DVD's had been in release for a week, but Amazon was still telling me it would be another week before I might see them.

Over the past several years, I've used Amazon SuperSaver dozens of times, and also placed about a dozen orders with DeepDiscount. Until recently, I generally gave Amazon the nod if they were close in price (they seem to often differ by $0.10 on new releases, in DD's favor) since Amazon seemed to ship a little quicker. Now that seems to have completely reversed, like Amazon lowered their standards for SuperSaver a notch or two in hopes of pushing people to Prime. Sure, business is business, but I don't like getting slapped as motivation; I'd rather they boost Prime and let it's own merits sell it. And of course this could be some anomaly where those two (or one of those two) DVD sets faced shortages in Amazon's particular distribution channels or they got hammered with orders that week. Still, I'm determined to give DD the nod for the near future since they seem to have the kind of performance I'd rather reward.

Didn't want to start a new thread.

For the first time in awhile I pre-ordered some Blu-rays from Amazon with Free Shipping. Took advantage of the National Treasures at $19.99 and I am Legend at $18.95.
Really didn't look at the shipping date and checked things out on Tuesday when I am Legend was released. We are at Friday now and it is "Shipping Soon-seen that since Tuesday" and with an estimated ship date of 3/24.
The National Treasures street May 20 and they are expected to ship on May 27.
From past experience, I can't remember Amazon taking so long to actually ship something. I wrote them asking about this and received the following answer:
"Hello from Amazon.com.

I see you selected our free Super Saver Shipping option for your order.


As stated on our website, when you choose Super Saver Shipping, "your
order may take an additional 3 to 5 business days to ship out from our
fulfillment centers." This extra time allows us to process and ship your
order in the most cost-efficient way possible, so we can pass the
savings on to you in the form of free shipping.

I'm sorry if this time frame seemed unclear when you placed your order.
We do display an estimated shipment date for Super Saver Shipping just
before you submit your order.

I've included some additional information below, in case you need to
make changes to your order or want additional information.

We'll send you an e-mail when your order ships. If you don't receive a
shipment confirmation by March 25, 2008, please write back to us by
visiting this page:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contac...-my-stuff.html

Thanks for shopping at Amazon.com."

BS response but with 3-5 business days clearly stated, there's nothing I can do but take my business elsewhere.
I have been selling a lot of discs on Amazon Marketplace and using that for gift certificates. I'll now be using the cash option and just buy where the best price is.