All you can buy in b&m stores is the standard shit everyone else carries, nothing unique or different, just the same old stuff. If you want anything out of the ordinary you're forced to buy it online and you're at the mercy of the etailer's shipping methods. Most of the time my stuff comes undamaged, every once in awhile I need to bitch about it. Amazon has always made it right for me and I appreciate that.

They need to get their shit together with preorders. How the hell do they NOT have Banshee season 4 blu-ray to fucking ship me for release date delivery today? Every other store has it in stock, but it would cost me more and probably ship so fucking slow it won't get here this week.

Is Amazon in a pissing contest with the studio?

A few years ago they were pulling shit like that with movie studios and book publishers. Don't know if they still are.

I'm sure I don't know. They claim they had an issue with their supplier.

I'm also wondering why the hell Law and Order SVU season 17 has been out of stock for weeks. I had no trouble finding it at Best Buy this morning. I wasn't even looking for it there! I went in to get Banshee. lol

Haven't kept up on this. Amazon doens't offer annual Prime subs anymore? Only $10.99 monthly plan?

Does Amazon directly sell any TVs? Seems like it's all/mostly third-party sellers.

Still annual for me. I just got auto billed $106 last month for the next year.

Click "See more plans" for the annual option.

I clicked on a bunch of random Samsung TV's and they were all "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com"

Me too.

Yeah, looks like you're both right. $99 annual plan is still there.

Really enjoyed my free trial of Prime but it tempts me to buy too much so gotta take a break from it.

Maybe I'll do the $10 month plan another time. And then maybe the annual plan eventually for the pantry selection.

Our shipping has been really weird lately.

For a couple weeks, items weren't coming by UPS truck but by a guy in his private car. At first, I thought it was weird I didn't see the UPS truck after the doorbell rang (they usually leave it on the stoop or in the screen door, ring the doorbell, and leave), but after a couple times I noticed a car outside with packages. Still not quite connecting the dots, one time he rang the doorbell, stayed at the door, and told me I have a package. I thought it was some guy from the neighborhood until all the pieces added up for me.

This week, though, it's been weird UPS stuff. Beyond the release date issues they had with Battlefield 1 not being shipped until the day it's supposed to come out, I got a notice it would arrive Sunday and that came and went. Then it said it would be here Monday and I canceled the package.

Another package was to arrive yesterday on Wednesday but instead of leaving it on the stoop, the UPS driver left a note for me to pick it up at a UPS Access Point at a convenience store a few miles away. So I go there, it isn't there yet. I call UPS and they hold it for me at the main distribution center for pick up. It was weird. I was told it was my regular driver and maybe he didn't feel the package would be safe on the stoop, I don't know. I guess I can see that.

One of the items I ordered to arrive tomorrow will arrive Monday, one day past when I need it for an event on Sunday.

Oh, and not a shipping thing but a listing thing: I ordered a used audio book on CD and got the print copy. The picture, the title, the description said audio copy, but looking back it probably said something about it being in print. I don't know. And of course, they'll take the return but there aren't any audio copies at nearly the same price. Maybe this one is on me.

Maybe each of these are separate incidents but it just feels off to have so many at once.

First fail of the season for Prime. Package that was supposed to arrive today is "delayed". The thing that pisses me off is it shipped USPS. Really?? Getting here in two days via USPS is a crapshoot anytime but especially this time of year. Damn Amazon. I'm more and more convinced that Prime is not worth it to me.

Not defending Amazon by any means, but I also got "delayed" notices for stuff from Best Buy which is being sent two days via USPS. It may just be a USPS issue.

And Amazon has a special deal with USPS, I think everywhere, that their packages are handled separately from the regular mail, that's why you will see USPS making deliveries on Sunday.

I hate the way Amazon does Black Friday. Lightning Deals...bleh. Guess it wouldn't be so bad if I could stay by my computer all day. Unfortunately, I have to work...

If it's delayed. It's all on Amazon. They handle distribution all of the way to destination post office.

Thanks for joining this summer, pkgman, and thanks for making your first post a helpful post.

Exactly. I recently received a Sunday Amazon delivery when a neighbor was outside. He commented "I wish *I* could get packages on Sunday." so I told him "Just order from Amazon and you will."
100% of the delays I get are *post office* delays if a package is shipped USPS. Once a package destined for the USPS leaves a Amazon warehouse it's taken to the *closest* USPS "shipping partner" site. USPS "shipping partners" are private companies contracted by the USPS to move mail between cities. They started doing this a few years back when it became apparent they could contract out the city-city delivery cheaper than using/maintaining their own fleets. Usually a "delay" issue is with the area through which the delivery will come but most others are "Sent to wrong destination" delays. The packages are addressed correctly but somewhere along the line the "shipping partner" puts it on the wrong truck.
This year is the worst ever. The lack of a deals calendar makes it virtually impossible to find out what is going to be offered and the way they are putting the "deals" on the deals page further inhibits knowing what's available. I found earlier today that you have to look at two different sections to see all the LD offerings as filtering the LD section doesn't always return *all* of the available LDs. And if you want to try to keep up you have to almost constantly refresh the sections. It's just not worth the effort. At one point when I was trying to figure out how they were doing things I went away from Amazon for ~10 minutes. In that time *4* LDs on media started and sold out. None were listed on the "Upcoming deals" tab/link. Currently there are at least *four* deals on DVD/BR titles in the "Today's Hottest Deals" section that are *not* shown in the "Shop all Deals" section when filtered for DVD/BR and Lightning Deals. Maybe it works better on a phone/tablet. They've had the computer layouts/deal filter methods screwed up for over a year and don't seem to care.

Is it really surprising that Amazon is making it as hard as possible for you to find and take advantage of those deals? They don't want you to find them, they stagger them, and obfuscate them beneath pages and pages of drivel to make you give up the search. It's built in to their system.

Well, I covered all the bases this month. I ordered from Amazon Italy, France, Germany, UK, and Canada. You'll never guess which one had the highest shipping cost. I ordered X-files complete box set from France, Californication complete series from Germany, and 5 blu-rays from Italy, BUT the Canada charged me the most shipping for an order of 6 blu-ray movies. WTF?!!? It was 8,50 Euro to ship the complete fucking X-files from France that probably weights 10lbs, but $15 to ship a few movies from Canada to the US...and I live near lake Erie for fuck sake. Not even far to go once it gets into the county from Canada. Sad part of it is, even when you factor in that shipping cost, the movies were cheaper than Amazon US prices. Only one was Canadian exclusive. The other 5 were just a better deal.

I'm not knowledgeable about Canadian parcel charges, but that does seem quite odd.

So that's the secret to Amazon's success, obfuscating their products beneath pages and pages of drivel ...

Probably the worst thing they do.

It's just SOP for Amazon CA. IIRC it's ~$10 to ship a single DVD/set to the US. By contrast, Amazon U.K. charges ~$5. I rarely check Amazon CA because of the high shipping.

Air Pockets are Back! (at least for my last 3 orders)

I received 1 on Nov. 25th, with 3 books and a Blu-ray, and they were rather nicely nestled on 3 sides by air pockets. Like someone actually cared.

Then on Wednesday I had a box with 2 books, 2 dvd's, and a video game and there were several air pockets there too. Though the box was smaller, so there weren't as many, but still.

And then Thursday I had the Hogwarts Collection Blu-ray arrive, with air pockets on the top and (sort of) on one side.

I haven't seen any orders include these in so long, and it's sounded like others haven't either. I don't know how widespread it is, whether they're back for good, etc. But it's good to see.