Amazon is changing for the worse.

[timeshifter]

Amazon will deliver a 250GB WD SSD to me on Monday May 31st for $40.99. Best Buy will deliver a 240GB WD SSD to me tomorrow Thursday May 26th for $34.99.

 

[Porthos]

Search Amazon for "iced tea maker". None of them will arrive before May 31.

 

[timeshifter]

Yep, that Takeya iced tea maker is the one I want to buy, but it's May 31st.

I plugged in different shipping addresses. If I try any around me it's the same. But if I send them to different states it will be two day or next day for that same item - same as what I'm accustomed to.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Im seeing a slowdown but only if it is shipped via USPS. Trump gutted an already bad service.

 

[HCHTech]

We have both a personal and a business account with Amazon. We got the personal account mostly for video, but use it for household purchases and business purchases not intended for clients (because I pay tax when ordering with this account). We use the business account when we're buying something to resell to clients, because we don't pay tax on that one. I don't prefer using Amazon, but when our normal distributors don't have something and we still need it, Amazon usually has it, so....

I've not noticed a slowdown (probably because I'm in a metro area), but I have noticed an increase in how beat up the boxes look when they get here. No surprise considering how impossible it must be for the packers & various drivers to meet their quotas. I've only had a couple of returns because of damaged goods over the past year, and they were pretty painless. I'll admit to a twinge of guilt every time I order something.

 

[Metanis]

Im seeing a slowdown but only if it is shipped via USPS. Trump gutted an already bad service.

Do you charge him rent for living in your head?

 

[nlinecomputers]

Do you charge him rent for living in your head?

I’m just stating facts. The USPS took big cuts during his administration and since early 2020 I‘ve noticed a considerable slow down in mail delivery that corresponds exactly when they occurred. This is financial not political. If you don’t pay for the service you don’t get it. It doesn’t matter who is in office. Budget cuts mean less service. So please take your political innuendo someplace else.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Oh and don’t bother replying. Welcome to my bit bucket. *plonk*

 

[britechguy]

If you don’t pay for the service you don’t get it.

Yep. And taxes are what we pay for public services, a fact that seems to have gotten entirely lost over the decades.

There is no such thing as free. There is such a thing as "without direct fee at time of service for consumer of service." But it's still being paid for.

 

[Diggs]

I remember the early days of Prime where I'd order today and get it tomorrow. Now it's 4-5 days? WTF?

 

[britechguy]

Now it's 4-5 days? WTF?

I really did cover this back at #14. And there's plenty of reporting about this, not only for Amazon, but particularly for Amazon since it is "the big boy" in the online selling world right now.

Things will likely eventually go back to normal. But until then, plan accordingly, because most of this is entirely outside Amazon's control.

 

[pcservices]

I do not miss this since closing my shop.
I can specify business hours. With business prime.

Even though we didn't upgrade to Business prime, they have us listed as a business and we have our hours specified as well. The drivers around here don't give a crap about it. Of course talking to customer service does nothing, only thing they say they can do is update delivery instructions.

 

[britechguy]

The drivers around here don't give a crap about it.

And even if they do, on a personal level, they can and do get punished if their delivery numbers, as in actual boxes dropped, is not up to some metric set by the delivery service.

This, of course, puts the drivers in an untenable position that drives bad behavior. If they could "just not drop" when someone is not there, and document that, and not be punished for underperforming then there'd be no problem. But that's not how it actually works.

It's insane that they can (and will) lose their jobs if they are actually doing the very best job they can based on what the customer wants. It shouldn't be that difficult to differentiate actual slackers from those abiding by the practice of not leaving packages unattended.

 

[nlinecomputers]

But hey…Amazon is buying MGM so everything’s going be so much better!

 

[Porthos]

Now it more about location and where the item you want is located in regards to shipping times. The fast shipping is if the item you want is in your local warehouse if you have one in your city.

 

[Metanis]

I’m just stating facts. The USPS took big cuts during his administration...

From the USPS web site...

A decade of facts and figures | Postal Facts - U.S. Postal Service (usps.com)

tl:dr? USPS revenue went up significantly during the last 4 years while their work product went down even faster. But sure, blame Trump anyway because it's always fair to blame the guy in charge.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@Metanis You need to do some more math...

$71.1B in 2019 to $72.1B in 2020 looks like an increase right? Until you account for inflation... $71.1B in 2019 is $71.98B in 2020. That leaves only .12B to actually make improvements to a system that was already VERY behind. Toss in the insanity caused by the pandemic and the final nail clicks into place.

Reduction of service and slower delivery is what's predicted by the money. And all the evidence you need comes from your own link.

So yes, Orange Man was a poor leader in regards to USPS. The proof is right there. Was Obama or now Biden better? Objectively I'd have to say no on this specific issue. But Trump's very vocal and obvious attempts to destabilize mail in voting nationally are not a net positive, nor will they ever be so. At a time when all resources should have been going to dealing with pandemic related problems to ensure consistent delivery, it was a catastrophic distraction. We needed mail sorting machines, so fewer people could do more work. At a time when more automation was required, Trump reduced automation...

That's Trump's email server in the closet... BAD idea, especially for the time, and utterly unacceptable.

 

[Metanis]

@Metanis You need to do some more math...$71.1B in 2019 to $72.1B in 2020 looks like an increase right?

C'mon man! I know math is hard but 72.1B IS AN INCREASE from 71.1B!

And this was during a time when many private businesses were seeing deadly reductions in income and massive layoffs!

Oh woe is me! The poor Postal Service had to make do with just barely keeping up with inflation?

 

[britechguy]

The poor Postal Service had to make do with just barely keeping up with inflation?

For one year, woo hoo! Let's not get into how perverse the funding of the retirement funds for the USPS, which are nothing like is typical and at higher percentages. (Mind you, none of that is, in any way, the fault of this president, the immediately previous one, or even at least one, possibly two, before that. But it is a major factor with regard to the solvency of operating funds of the USPS).

 

[Sky-Knight]

C'mon man! I know math is hard but 72.1B IS AN INCREASE from 71.1B!

And this was during a time when many private businesses were seeing deadly reductions in income and massive layoffs!

Oh woe is me! The poor Postal Service had to make do with just barely keeping up with inflation?

It's a utility, so problems with the USPS means issues for the rest of us getting stuff. Amazon slow downs in shipping directly relate to USPS's financial troubles. Which are certainly not Trump's fault, but he also didn't HELP.

So yeah, the numbers you posted do not indicate profitability at all, just against inflation they look to me like barely contained losses. And companies operating in such conditions aren't expanding, they're contracting.

So the USPS is behaving exactly as any organization in its situation would. Besides, it's not like the thing is tax funded. Trump did loan it some money last year, but that's just making the problem worse over time... even if I do prefer a loan to a grant the Dems wanted in this case.