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A free shipping mystery
21–30 of 202 posts
Re: A free shipping mystery
#22It's a combination of subsidies in China [2] and really low Universal Postal Union rates for terminal delivery from China to the US.[1] Terminal delivery in the US is about $1/Kg. Market rate from Shentzen to Long Beach to ship a container is about $1200 right now. [1] http://fortune.com/2015/03/11/united-nations-subsidy-chinese... [2] http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cp396.pdf
The author is from France. Is terminal delivery as cheap in Europe?
Re: A free shipping mystery
#23As an aside, I've been screwed several times by Prime's "guaranteed two-day" shipping. I had package which was very late December last year. When I went to the USPS tracking page to check the location, it turns out Amazon had requested the 8 day shipping option. After several angry calls I finally had the item cancelled and a new one on the way with Saturday shipping (the lower-tier rep said that it wasn't possible,…
For us they seem to delay the shipping the item yet still claim two day shipping. For example ordering around midday (Pacific timezone) on a Thursday often results in the item not shipping until later on Monday, which then arrives Wednesday but more often Thursday morning. Every step on the way can be contrived as "two day", but it really took a week and that is the number we care about. We likely won't be renewing Prime.
Amusingly there are also those orders of things you don't care about getting immediately. Those seem to come fast, often less than 24 hours from ordering. Amazon doesn't know which items fall in which category (their media $1 credit is not worth it). Nor do they seem to notice breaking their own promises and proactively doing something about.
Re: A free shipping mystery
#24As an aside, I've been screwed several times by Prime's "guaranteed two-day" shipping. I had package which was very late December last year. When I went to the USPS tracking page to check the location, it turns out Amazon had requested the 8 day shipping option. After several angry calls I finally had the item cancelled and a new one on the way with Saturday shipping (the lower-tier rep said that it wasn't possible,…
The problem might be Amazon here in this specific case, but I'd hazard a guess that this is just a subset of the massive drop-off in service that Amazon is experiencing due to a major transition to using USPS instead of UPS. Here in NYC Amazon delivery has gone from being amazing and magical to nearly worthless seemingly overnight with this change. UPS (and Fedex) didn't seem to have any trouble delivering even to ch…
Twice in the last few months I've had a package change status to "delivered" -- while I was home, and suspiciously just a few minutes before 5pm. One of them was never delivered. The other one showed up 2 or 3 days later...
I'm losing faith in those 2-day guarantees, and the number of items available for Prime has been slowly dwindling. That, and their minimum spend for certain items went from $25 to $35. Starting to wonder whether renewing my Prime membership is actually a good idea.
Re: A free shipping mystery
#25As an aside, I've been screwed several times by Prime's "guaranteed two-day" shipping. I had package which was very late December last year. When I went to the USPS tracking page to check the location, it turns out Amazon had requested the 8 day shipping option. After several angry calls I finally had the item cancelled and a new one on the way with Saturday shipping (the lower-tier rep said that it wasn't possible,…
The problem might be Amazon here in this specific case, but I'd hazard a guess that this is just a subset of the massive drop-off in service that Amazon is experiencing due to a major transition to using USPS instead of UPS. Here in NYC Amazon delivery has gone from being amazing and magical to nearly worthless seemingly overnight with this change. UPS (and Fedex) didn't seem to have any trouble delivering even to ch…
My solution to this problem (and yes I've noticed the same) is to generally pay the price to change to one-day shipping which never (so far at least) goes USPS. Of course we are in one of the areas with Prime Now service, and I am willing to consider that this may be to make me think "Do I pay a driver a $5 tip if the item(s) are available or pay $5/item for one day delivery".
Re: A free shipping mystery
#26The postal service is a networked delivery service, just like the Internet. The difference is that the data packets are physical envelopes.
Now, the cost of running the postal service is the cost of supporting the whole network of delivery vans, sorting offices, collections and so on, including all the staff.
The cost of supporting the network is the same whether it carries a very large number of packets or zero packets (up to the point where you have to add infrastructure to cope with extra traffic. Yes, like the Internet).
This economic structure means you can carry traffic at a marginal cost if you know the cost of supporting the whole network is covered.
All of which was worked out before Sir Rowland Hill launched the Uniform Penny Post in the UK in 1840. This disrupted the whole messenger business (where you paid for distance traveled) and was widely copied everywhere else. After that, nations formed a Universal Postal Union on the basis that "we'll deliver your letters if you deliver ours" (like the Internet).
In the early days of the public Internet (early 1980s), I used to explain how it worked by comparing it to the penny post. It's nice to be able to do the reverse ;-)
Re: A free shipping mystery
#27I'd bet the short obvious answer is that it doesn't cost them anything to ship small, lightweight products like this. The plane was already flying from China to wherever, filled with AliExpress merchandise. They may have paid for the whole plane instead of just by weight. So adding this product didn't add any tangible extra weight or cost. Then the mail carrier or whoever is already going on that route. I doubt he ge…
That works, until the plane really is full and you need a new one, or your letter carrier really is fully occupied and you need a second person.
It makes little sense to give nearly everyone free shipping, but charge every 100,000th person $50,000 because their item was the one that needed a new plane. So instead, they divide the cost across all the stuff that gets shipped so everyone pays a share. That per-item cost is typically more than what these sellers are charging, thus the questioning.
Re: A free shipping mystery
#28Couldn't this just be a variation on the classic loss leader sales strategy? It also reminds me of what Amazon originally* did, get someone to sign up for an account, buy a widget at or around cost, ship for free, and then make the money back on the more expensive larger items as you become the "go to" for whatever someone needs. *I say originally, as my experience with Amazon has been on a downward trend for at leas…
Exactly. Loss leader, plus the fact that they now have a list of customers that are not only active and recurring but quite literally pay Amazon to buy from them. The avg yearly purchases of an Amazon Prime member is more than double the site avg.
I also think there's a sense of membership that if you are paying you might as well enjoy the benefits.
I personally enjoy Amazons packaging. I know my items will be well packaged, whereas there's always a surprise on Ebay or other store. I have chosen ship with Prime (Fulfilled by Amazon) on items that other Amazon sellers have cheaper.
It's just more consistent and efficient. And that's sort of a benefit.
Re: A free shipping mystery
#29The postal service is a networked delivery service, just like the Internet. The difference is that the data packets are physical envelopes. Now, the cost of running the postal service is the cost of supporting the whole network of delivery vans, sorting offices, collections and so on, including all the staff. The cost of supporting the network is the same whether it carries a very large number of packets or zero pack…
Ships, airplanes, trucks, and postal workers have substantial ongoing costs. The marginal cost of additional traffic is still pretty high, and indications are that these sellers are getting away with paying less than that actual marginal cost.
Re: A free shipping mystery
#30As an aside, I've been screwed several times by Prime's "guaranteed two-day" shipping. I had package which was very late December last year. When I went to the USPS tracking page to check the location, it turns out Amazon had requested the 8 day shipping option. After several angry calls I finally had the item cancelled and a new one on the way with Saturday shipping (the lower-tier rep said that it wasn't possible,…
For us they seem to delay the shipping the item yet still claim two day shipping. For example ordering around midday (Pacific timezone) on a Thursday often results in the item not shipping until later on Monday, which then arrives Wednesday but more often Thursday morning. Every step on the way can be contrived as "two day", but it really took a week and that is the number we care about. We likely won't be renewing P…
To counter this anecdote with my own, I often get "2 day" shipping items delivered the day before they were supposed to arrive. Likewise, there's been multiple times where I've walked out the front door on the way to work at ~8AM and my package is already sitting there. Maybe it has something to do with location?