Increasingly it feels like as a Prime subscriber I pay for shipping twice: once with my prime subscription, and a second time with the shipping cost built in to the price compared to other retailers. I ended up getting an equivalent item from Target, which ended up being cheaper even without "free" shipping.

I bought hangers, HANGERS, from Amazon, shipped and made by AmazonBasics, and they're "Arriving Aug 15 - Sep 21". Uhh? Well now I'm gonna have to go to the store anyway because I need hangers NOW not 5 damn years from now. Also how is it possible to have a whole MONTH for the expected delivery date?

The refunded me the pro-rated balance of my subscription when I cancelled a year or two ago.

You should pop by again and see if it's still the same. The last Best Buy I went to has massive aisle spacing and was highly organized. That doesn't mean I was easily able to find what I was looking for (headphones are scattered around different departments), but what you describe is not what I've seen lately.

Like other people have said, the only reason I go to Best Buy is because I need something right now. (Replace a failed hard drive, for example.) I don't expect to get the best buy; I'm paying for the convenience.

I rarely ever buy anything from Amazon now unless I don't mind when the product comes in, the price is competitive, and the product is not the sort of thing which is often counterfeited. Their Amazon Basics brand frequently satisfies these rules.

To be fair to them, I might have had one package stolen, perhaps by an employee of a carrier. I don't know what happened other than that delivery was claimed to occur but no package appeared. Amazon was kind enough to to resend that one.

I can recall one time where UPS told me to drive to their facility in north Austin to pick up a package. I told them that they were paid to deliver and I won't be doing that. I can recall another time where I got a door tag from USPS that told me to go to a particular post office to pick it up, and it wasn't there when I arrived.

The most annoying part is that I think no attempt was made to deliver a fraction of these packages. I often would not receive door tags, and I can recall one time where UPS claimed they attempted delivery but refused because I apparently was not there where I believe I likely was there. No door tag that time either. The UPS driver seemed irritated at me when they finally did deliver the package.

I can also vaguely recall at a previous apartment (also in Austin) having some problems where delivery was claimed to occur but did not actually occur. That problem stopped at some point.

Even before then, when I lived in the Washington DC area, I can recall having major problems with LaserShip, who would do last-mile delivery in the area. Amazon seemed dedicated to using LaserShip. I recall canceling Prime back then specifically because LaserShip was so bad, and then starting again when I moved and LaserShip was no longer an option. You can read horror stories online about LaserShip. I vaguely recall one instance where they left a package in the rain that made me look them up and not trust them any longer.

None of this is necessarily Amazon's fault. The vast majority of packages that I received were from Amazon, and I haven't had problems with others, however. Might be that the carriers figure Amazon packages are more valuable than other ones.

In contrast, I've had no problems receiving packages at work from Amazon, but my work doesn't want me to receive personal packages there and I don't have a car, so I can't take large packages from work.