It would appear that Amazon have suspended One Day Delivery for Prime members indefinitely as they now can’t cope with the number of orders they’ve had this weekend.
Amazon Prime members paying an annual free for unlimited next day delivery on certain items are unable to select this as an option. The situation has likely arisen due to bumper Black Friday weekend sales and is unlikely to get better any time soon as Amazon launch their Cyber Monday deals today.
Trying to order a DVD with Express Delivery reveals Amazon offering “FREE One-Day Delivery with a free trial of Amazon Prime” but with a delivery date of Thursday this week, not Tuesday which is what you would normally expect from Express Delivery. There doesn’t seem much point for signing up for Amazon Prime at this time of year.
This has a serious knock on effect for sellers using Amazon FBA to fulfil their orders. Tamebay readers tell us that you cannot now select Express Delivery – it’s greyed out and not available as an option. If you select first class delivery Amazon shows the earliest available delivery date as Friday of this week… and it’s still only Monday.
If you’re using Amazon FBA to fulfil your eBay orders you need to keep an eye on their shipping times and watch your feedback, especially your detailed seller ratings for despatch time.
Amazon have invested heavily this year in their own courier network, supposedly to ensure that they have capacity for the peak selling season, so much so that it’s impacting Royal Mail results. However it appears that even this isn’t enough and Amazon is at 100% of their shipping capacity, at least so far as the UK is concerned.
Let us know if Amazon’s slowdown is affecting your eBay or website orders out of FBA. You’ll also need to verify your 3rd party software doesn’t through up errors when you try to book Express Delivery.
Thanks to Tamebay readers Mark and Andy for the first heads up on this story
20 Responses
I stray a little into philosophy but bear with me on this one…
Most contracts contain a clause on Force Majeure, no liability for situations caused by extraordinary events, such as Acts of God.
Was Christmas unforeseen and unforeseeable?
While Christmas itself may reasonably be called an Act of God, the commercialism that caused Amazon to declare on Monday that Thursday was “next day” must surely be an Act of Mammon.
At one time I thought what little profit Amazon was making came from Amazon Prime. Yet more and more items do not qualify for Prime. And now it appears to have been suspended. Renewing anyone?
Amazon can use Royal Mail Special Delivery to guarantee next day. To suspend the service is not an option.
I suspect they got caught out this weekend with Black Friday etc and will catch up within days so not that much of a drama really although no doubt they will get hammered for it in some quarters
eBay has ‘promised’ my customers from the weekend that their packets will be delivered tomorrow (1st class).
It is most probable that RM will have some indigestion too.
It’s all very well making these promises if you can’t keep them, everyone knows it’s busy now!
Oddly enough on saturday I had a card in the post from Amazon with a free one month trial of Prime…perhaps not the best time of year to be promoting sign ups if they can’t deliver on promises?
Bloomberg have reported an 11% sales decline for Black Friday so Amazon may well have had record sales by number but lower sales by value. Seems like Amazon are just being busy fools then. The old adage “Sales are vanity, profits are sanity” very much applies here I suspect.
I’ve just ordered a pair of boots (Mon @ 1pm)and it gave me the option of next day Prime and I could even upgrade it to a timed Prime delivery for £3.99 but I just choose the Prime. 🙂
It has been clear for weeks that their in house courier Amazon Logistics has been struggling to cope. Over the last few weeks we have had several deliveries marked as attempted but failed despite being business premises staffed from 8 am to 9pm. The drivers just don’t bother attempting, contacting Amazon results in Prime membership being extended by a month. It time is Amazon went back to Royal Mail and DPD, as Amazon Logistics make even Yodel look good.
Black Friday followed by Meltdown Monday
I ordered some DVD’s and Blu Ray’s last night (these Christmas titles not avialable in the shops I looked in, but that’s another story) and was given Thursday delivery date for Prime delivery.
Not that it matters too much at the moment as I’m not ready to watch them yet, but I’ve paid (through the nose really) for next day service. Shouldn’t Amazon be PRIORITISING these Prime purchases?
As another poster pointed out, Christmas is a yearly event and so is this black Friday and Cyber Monday mumbo-jumbo.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
>Christmas is a yearly event and so is this black Friday and Cyber Monday mumbo-jumbo
Black Friday is only an event in the UK due to Amazon introducing and promoting it.
The standard line from Amazon is the distinction between dispatch and delivery.
Prime customers are still getting one day delivery, but dispatch has been impacted resulting in the delay.
Amazon seems to be offline, that’s not good for SME’s!!!!