My new hobby seems to be not getting a prime delivery next day, calling Amazon, them apologising and giving me an extra month on my prime subscription for free - which is nice and everything but I'd rather get the service they promise.
A parcel arriving the day after it's ordered is pretty much the definition of a next day service.
The definition Amazon and every other company offering 'next day delivery' is that 'next day' means 'the next day'. As in the day after you buy the thing. It's a much more reasonable interpretation of the term because it's not open to colloquial misunderstandings (in your interpretation there could be day, evening, dusk, night, etc.). Is 5pm day? Is 6pm day?
They also always find a neighbor to accept the package. Royal mail always leaves a card which means I have to pick it up from a post office (which is only open when I work). The main reason I order nearly everything from Amazon is that most other sellers here use Royal Mail 2nd class, which for my address takes at least 4 days to arrive, before christmas often 2 weeks or more.
Sometimes they leave a card without a tracking number (last month.) That was fun. But at least I knew it was for me.
Because there was the time with the card that had a tracking number but no name or flat number. And then the card that had three digits of the tracking number and no name or flat number.
Royal Mail are pretty awful at being a courier.
Even when I lived in north Donegal (very rural) I could order parts from Overclockers UK (who use DPD) and guarantee delivery in two days and with a reasonably accurate drop off time window.
I'm less bothered about when a thing will arrive next day (and I don't mind evenings), but it's the not knowing when it'll arrive. Hell I'd settle for a four hour window rather than the current state of affairs with Amazon logistics in the UK.
What also ticks me off is how around this time of year, even in the last week in November, Amazon Prime's one day delivery magically becomes two days and yet is passed off as one day delivery.
We moved into a brand new unit, first tenant, new postcode. We basically had to train the delivery companies so they could learn where we are, understandable and fine. Amazon presented a whole extra problem, though.
They use geofencing(?) for their deliveries, so the driver has to be within the bounds of the fenced area to make the delivery. The first driver must have set our fenced area up at the entrance to the trading estate, this meant that for a month a driver (never the same one twice) would show up, ask for my name, scan the package, look confused, apologise, drive 300 m back to the entrance of the estate, scan the parcel and then come back and then ask me to sign!!!
But 1-hour for rush orders at low cost, or free if you order a meal, could be a good competitive advantage.
Especially if they could find a way for customers to order a lot of meals, like 3-4 times per week, or have a frequent order in some office in the same building you work.
For myself, I usually prefer to just go and pick up myself; that's almost always the fastest option.
> For myself, I usually prefer to just go and pick up myself; that's almost always the fastest option.
Most people don't care about getting the absolute fastest option, or if they do, they will still compromise for convenience.
[1] https://www.thestreet.com/story/13248764/1/amazons-got-its-s...
In your mind if Amazon was optimising for their convenience alone they'd just pocket your money and not bother to ever deliver anything? Because that would the most convenient option for them.
That's called fraud and isn't generally considered a business model so much as a criminal enterprise
Your assumption runs contrary to the core idea of Amazon. Customer experience is the absolute most important thing.
Can you give some examples of times when Amazon HASN'T put the desires of the vast majority of customers first?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/10/01/amazon_blocks...
For people with small kids, driving to pick up food can be a huge production, with car seats, diaper bags, strollers, etc. Curbside pickup helps, but delivery is so much easier, and sometimes just as fast.
When I cook it usually takes an hour or so. So getting food delivered frees up that hour.
Sometimes theres no dinner ready and in the hecticness of life, we forget to cook the night before so we get into an unfortunate situation of either going hungry until the game ends or cooking and miss the game.
Delivery solves this issue. Take out is definitely faster, but that usually means missing part of whatever game is on. My case obviously isn't universal but given the popularity of sports and how primetime games are only an hour or so after you get home from work, Id think there's a non negligible amount of people with similar situations.
It's not about being the fastest, though, it's about being more convenient.
And even fastest depends on the area. Where I live (near a city centre) I can chose among 300 restaurants from a centralized meta-ordering service, and have their food delivered in 20-40 minutes.
It will take me 20 minutes to even decide to get up, find my keys, drive around, order and wait for the food.