wvtechs

I periodicaly place orders with Amazon.com for 20-40 DVD's and will sometimes place a later order for an additional 2-3 DVD's that I forgot when placing the larger order. What I have noticed is that the larger orders take forever to process and ship but the smaller orders seem to always go out much faster. I thought it would have been the other way around so...

From now on, I am only placing a series of smaller orders that just meet the threshold for free shipping.

fumanstan

Isn't there an option to ship items as the become available, versus shipping them all together? Do you know which one you're choosing?

I always pick to receive items as soon as possible, so even when I have multiple items I usually get one or two items separately from each other.

wvtechs

Yes, but for an additional cost which defeats selecting free shipping.

BuddhaWake

i think you answered your own question. just do small orders that meet the $25 minimum for free shipping. otherwise you'll wait for everything to get together.

wvtechs

It wasn't a question per-se but more of a tip for others who were having the same problem.

Has anyone else noticed the same thing?

meglet

The BBC had an interesting article about Amazon's shipping process a while back. Basically, all items are pulled by hand and put into a bin, which then moves along to be boxed, labelled, etc. So it seems very possible that the more items they have to go around finding to put in the bin, the longer it will take to get them all together and shipped.

fumanstan

Ah, makes sense. I've had prime for awhile now so I never paid attention.

wvtechs

I believe Prime is the reason why Amazon is so slow with free shipping. It is not in their best interest (profitable) to pay for shipping so they "encourage" people to "pay" for Prime.

hindolio

imho, amazon could use a "mediocre" shipping option that costs maybe $25 a year. something like guaranteed to ship within 1 day and shipped via ups 3-day select or usps priority. something like that yesh? because $79 or whatever prime costs doesnt make sense to a lot of people imho.

DiggityDawg

I'm going thru this right now w/my "Watchmen" DVD order. The freakin' thing came out a WEEK ago, & I still haven't gotten mine.

Annoying your customers isn't a great way to encourage them into bumping up to Prime, IMO.

Pointyskull

I just signed up for Prime, and so far I'm loving it.
I battled with the whole "$79 concept" for a while and finally decided to take the plunge and check it out, considering that I order from Amazon often.

I'm digging the fast shipping and having the ability to make spontaneous purchases on $10-$20 items without trying to top $25 to qualify for the free-but-slow shipping.

jjcool

I too was a little leary about paying for prime. I was able to split a membership with a family member, and at $40 it is a no brainer. The convienence of seeing a post on the bargains forum for a cheap dvd and not having to worry about finding filler items. Looking at Amazon's standard shippin grates for DVDs and it looks like it is ~$3 to ship one dvd, ~$4 to ship two dvds in one package, etc. This is for 3 to 5 business day delivery. So that would take approsimately 13 orders to equal the $40 outlay, or a little over 1 order a month. Bump that up to two day shipping, which Prime is, and you are looking at ~$8 for 1 dvd, ~$10 for 2, ~$12 for 3 etc. So that is 5 orders to equal the $40 outlay.

If you havent tried Prime yet, and order a good amount of stuff from Amazon, I would urge anyoen to try it. the only downside is you will be spending alot more money on merchandise from Amazon.

moonraker

I just placed an order this morning for two items, order total was ~ $30. I went with the free super saver shipping option. Lo and behold, to my great surprise, I received an email the same evening that my order (both items) has shipped. Wow! Same day shipping with their free super saver shipping -- that is impressive. Big thumbs up to Amazon from me!

JckRbbitSlim

Amazon Prime has all but eliminated my need for purchasing Dvds at a store. Occasionally I'll pick up the odd title but on the whole, most of my media purchasing goes to Amazon. I'd strongly encourage it; I've had it for a few years now and I've never experienced a problem, always two days and if you order something before it comes out, you will most likely receive it release day.

moonraker

Update: placed my order for two dvds ($30 total) on Thursday morning. Got the shipping notice Thursday evening (the same day). Package was sitting in my mailbox (in Texas) on Saturday. And this was with free super saver shipping!! That is amazing... no need to waste money on Amazon Prime, IMO, at least based on this experience.

greymatter

good to know, thanks

Living Deadpan

I don't know if this means anything, but I've always observed that my fastest free shipping has been when I've ordered items where they state there's only 1 or 2 copies remaining in stock. Especially with the 4-for-3 books. I wonder if they have a separate section for items low in stock.

kahuna

I ordered two 1GB memory Modules from Amazon.com on 08/12/09 and picked free shipping. It said estimated shipping date would be 08/19/09. It shipped out the next day (08/13/09) and arrived here at the Main PO on 08/16/09. I thought it would of arrived at my place yesterday but maybe today. I should of order 4 of them but will see what happens after I install those 2.