Yesterday, Sunday morning, I was startled by the bell. Who would be buzzing us as 9:30 in the morning? I headed down the stairs and was greeted by the mailwoman holding a package for me.
A package, on a Sunday?
It was the Pelican 1550 case I had ordered on Friday. The delivery estimate was for Tuesday 11/12, which made sense to me, but I am glad to have it two full days earlier.
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A quick search this morning turned up confirmation that Amazon and the USPS have teamed up to offer Sunday delivery to NY and LA metropolitan areas at no extra charge. Sweet.
Even though Amazon now charges sales tax in NY and NJ, this is one more reason to keep shopping there. A minor reason, but I like the idea of not having to wait until Tuesday for certain items ordered on a Friday.
Update: I received an email today (11/13) that suggests Sunday delivery is only for Prime members.
Dear Stuart,
Your Amazon Prime membership just got even better. We’ve added Sunday Delivery to the unlimited free two-day shipping benefit you’ve been receiving. Now every day is an Amazon Prime delivery day.
Sunday delivery is available on millions of Prime eligible items when shipping to the Los Angeles and New York metropolitan areas. Now when you order those products on Friday, they will be delivered on Sunday. Just look for a Sunday delivery date with Free Two-Day Shipping when you place your order.
Thanks for being a Prime member and we hope you continue to enjoy all the benefits Prime has to offer.
Daniel Gronert says
I have extremely disappointed in Amazon lately. They are a multi-billion dollar company. They have more money than they know what to do with and yet they increased the dollar amount you are required to spend before you get free shipping. What is a mere $10.00 dollars more to them? They have disgraced me and I have taken my business elsewhere. You obviously support Amazon so my interest in your letters has decreased. I’m sorry to see this happen but Amazon is just getting greedy in my book.
Stuart says
I pay for an Amazon Prime subscription every year, and so the increase in free shipping threshold from $25 to $35 doesn’t really affect me.
Even so, I don’t think the change would bother me one bit. Before I had Amazon Prime, I either padded my order above $25, or I paid a few bucks for shipping on orders under $25.
If I didn’t have Prime, I would do the same thing but with the $35 minimum. You don’t have to spend $35 or more with every order. If you want say a $10 item and just that, pay a few bucks for shipping fee.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that Amazon loses money. They make plenty of sales, but they lose a lot of money. One article I just read estimates Amazon’s shipping losses to be $3 billion. That’s three BILLION dollars.
Requiring an extra $10 per order for non-Prime members to earn free shipping will be a big deal to them. It means the potential for couple of bucks of extra profit, or consumer-paid shipping costs for orders under $35. Or possibly even an increased number of Prime subscribers.
Now that Sears, Home Depot, Lowes, and some other supplies have ~$50 thresholds for free shipping, I get annoyed when some vendors require $100, $199, or even higher order amounts for free shipping.
As a consumer, I spend a lot of money with Amazon each year. I placed 149 orders with them in 2013 year-to-date.
Yes, the new $35 free shipping for non-Prime members is going to aggravate a lot of people, but most are going to get over it. In this day and age, people (including myself) have grown to feel entitled to free shipping whenever and wherever possible, but many don’t realize that it’s not free for everyone – someone pays for it.
RKA says
They are playing a delicate balancing act. For years they have put profits in the back seat in order to grow. Now they are taking a closer look at their biggest expense (shipping) in a move toward profitability (or smaller losses). They are putting distribution centers in your back yard, so they can get you things quicker (and cheaper). But still, those small orders may cost as much as a much larger order to ship, so yes, for the first time in forever (?) they raised their minimums. And if you notice, they also excluded certain smaller items from their free Prime shipping. You need to meet a minimum order before it will ship for free.
Your comment reminds me of those Ally Bank commercials. Nobody likes it when someone steals your lollipop, but put things in perspective and maybe you’ll see it’s not the great greedy evil empire trying to fleece your wallet. Maybe they no longer feel the need to give away lollipops! Speaking for myself, they are partially right. I’ve shopped around a little more now that I’m paying sales tax, but looking over my order history, the number of orders hasn’t gone down. The total amount has. So, I still find them uber convenient in ways nobody else can really match. For smaller purchases, it remains my preferred place to shop. But they have lost some of my business. It is indeed a tricky balancing act.
Javier says
Nice. I like amazon and continue buying on there. I too have amazon prime and haven’t noticed the Sunday shipping yet I’m in the greater LA metro area but not sure if my area qualifies. I do live in a same day delivery zone. I have noticed that a bunch of my amazon prime orders with 2 day shipping arrive a day sooner at no additional charge which is always a nice surprise.
mike says
Yeah amazon doesnt make as much cash as people think,like Stu mentioned. there was an article on CNN.com about it recently.
Paying $79 a year or whatever it is now for Prime is well worth it. and you are pretty much guaranteed two day delivery on prime eligible items.
The last couple years ive done all my xmas shopping for my kids on amazon. I save a boatload with Prime. it more than pays for itself over the course of a year.
rob says
This makes sense as Amazon has expanded their warehouses throughout most major metro areas. I know in Nor Cal they have opened up 2 large warehouses in the market. This has been rumored for a long while as they looked to get into “same day delivery” for some customers.
mike says
Id love some same day delivery action in Sacramento area.
Hang Fire says
Amazon has reached the Holy Grail of large shippers- I recently ordered a bunch of stuff in the morning, and later that day ordered “one more thing”- and they combined that order with one of the packages from earlier that day.
While that may seem like a “no brainer”, usually only very small companies can do this. The software and processes required to do this are very error-prone and usually end up delaying the entire shipment. Yet I got everything the second day after I ordered. And yes, I have Amazon Prime.
I can understand Amazon being a lot less appealing if you don’t have Prime. As they add more and more video and other services, Prime becomes a more appealing option across the board. Eventually the little bookseller from Web 1.0 days will become the entity that “owns all media” (or at least delivery thereof). Might as well choose now, accept it, or fight it and be a luddite.
rob says
@Mike I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Sacramento and the Bay Area soon with same day delivery. Amazon has opened warehouses in Tracy and Patterson in the last year or so. I would imagine those spots were picked because of their 580/I5 locations for quick delivery.
Phil says
I’ve noticed that Amazon has teamed up with an outfit called Lasership to handle some of the smaller item shipping in my area (suburban Washington-Baltimore) that once was handled by the USPS or UPS. I will sometimes get two separate deliveries in one day from them, they show up either in small vans or what appear to be personally owned vehicles. The Baltimore area is getting a huge distribution center/warehouse in the coming months, this will speed shipping even more (but sadly necessitate paying taxes). I also notice that many areas in VA have Amazon “Pick Up Lockers” scattered about where you can place an order and go pick it up locally once you’ve gotten a notice the items have arrived. Not sure how it works, I’m sure it is an automated system tied in with the order numbers and whatnot. This is ideal for those people who live in an area where having packages delivered is sketchy, like apartment complexes, or when the recipient might not be home for a while.
I’ve also noticed in recent years many small items that are only available as an “Add On” to a larger order, regardless of one has Prime or not. This has tripped me up a couple times, but I “forced myself” to pad the order with other goodies to qualify. The Prime membership had paid for itself in the first month I signed up, and the streaming movies and shows are just a nice bonus for me.
fred says
I buy a lot from Amazon – have had Prime for several years now – and find the overall shopping (with returns if needed) experience very good> They are not always the cheapest source – and you can sometimes shop around for a better deal – but overall they seem hard to beat for the average consumer. I have noticed that they may have rolled shipping costs into the price of some items – pricing them near what you can get the item from others with shipping. If you’re buying only 1 item this may still make Amazon a good deal – but if you are buying in bulk – you might find its cheaper to go elsewhere. As others have commented – their list prices are also sometimes a bit wacky.