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Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

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Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#61
post #45

I worked for Fedex ground for a while and I can't blame Amazon for this decision. Fedex contracts their ground delivery out and the quality of service is greatly affected by that. Some areas are great and some are awful. My experience was working under an awful contractor who was near abusive in his work requirements. If anyone has any questions I'm open to answer.

Tbh I'm not sure Amazon is better wrt work requirements.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#62

If Amazon made it possible for a customer to pick (and pay for the presumed incremental cost of) alternative carriers, they'd have a gold mine of data on customer WTP and carrier quality at the local level.

I suspect that Amazon does not want to put additional cognitive load on the purchaser right at the most critical point of the conversion funnel. As a customer, I want a delivery time/date and let Amazon figure out how to do it. They're presumably way better at it than I am. If Amazon fails at that, I want to be able to complain without feeling like "oh, it was my fault because I picked Rickshaw Bob as the carrier". W…

Rickshaw Bob is the worst.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (my employer, Refund Retriever) has caught them just outright lying about deliveries before. https://www.refundretriever.com/blog/FedEx-Tracking-Error

I've had plenty of flat-out lies from Amazon delivery before (e.g. they claim delivery attempted at HH:MM PM, while I was in the living room five feet from the door, and yet somehow I must have "missed" their knock), FedEx and UPS alike, although I've never been able to prove it. With the proliferation of people with Ring video doorbells, however, I am surprised that someone does not send footage. "Oh, you tried to d…

I don't think any of this has anything to do with Amazon, or at least it isn't limited to packages from Amazon. I've had several categories of what are almost certainly flat-out lies from various carriers throughout the years:

- Packages marked as being delivered, but they don't actually show up for another day or two. (I assume this is a driver who can't be bothered to make it to my building that day but doesn't want to get penalized.)

- Entire carriers who systematically fail to deliver. My current apartment building has a near zero delivery rate for packages from USPS that cannot fit in mail slots. UPS and FedEx generally deliver to our package room without issues, but USPS will just claim to have attempted delivery two days in a row then leave the package at their sorting facility for me to pick up (which I won't do). This is clearly a building-wide problem, because I see hand-written notes on our outside door begging USPS to deliver packages. I think the USPS package delivery person simply cannot be bothered to try, and is apparently not incentivized to do so. Thankfully this rarely affects me, because the only time I get larger USPS packages are from rare Amazon deliveries that for some reason use USPS.

- Packages that claim that the delivery was attempted on a Saturday, but are redelivered on Monday. This has bitten me a few times where I took care to rush a package to me when the shipper claimed it could be delivered on a Saturday. I suspect the weekend delivery person cannot be bothered to make it to my building. I can't really blame them. Saturday delivery is fairly new and I can live without it, I just wish the carriers wouldn't promise it then "attempt to deliver" unsuccessfully.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon should be pushing FedEx (and their other shippers) to be more accountable for late, damaged, and lost packages. sounds like, they are - by taking a LOT of business from them.

Fedex mentions this is not a material amount of business. How Amazon operates it's last mile logistical network is unsustainable. These people will eventually churn out of the open air sweatshop that is delivering last mile for Amazon (Fedex's requirements are much less onerous on the ground/home delivery side, based on my conversations with both Amazon delivery drivers and Fedex ground and home delivery drivers). Ve…

The difference with Amazon running that way and Fedex/UPS is that Amazon has AWS to prop up other services that run at a loss. They can run their shipping service at very low or negative profit and use AWS to make up for it.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#65
post #9
post #6

It’s to the point where I can’t blame Amazon for actions like these. The consumer has come to expect guaranteed overnight or 2 day shipping. When they don’t get that, they get really upset. Amazon doesn’t want its customers to get upset, and it can’t trust its shipping partners because they don’t have the burden of the consumer sentiment. No one blames FedEx for their late package these days, they blame Amazon. Heck,…

>>I can’t blame Amazon for actions like these. >>The consumer has come to expect guaranteed overnight or 2 day shipping Amazon created that expectation.

Amazon offered overnight or 2-day shipping, and it turns out that customers apparently love it. I suppose we can quibble over who "creates" the expectation, but note that other things Amazon have offered or tested did not lead to intense customer demand.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#66
post #7
post #6

It’s to the point where I can’t blame Amazon for actions like these. The consumer has come to expect guaranteed overnight or 2 day shipping. When they don’t get that, they get really upset. Amazon doesn’t want its customers to get upset, and it can’t trust its shipping partners because they don’t have the burden of the consumer sentiment. No one blames FedEx for their late package these days, they blame Amazon. Heck,…

> No one blames FedEx for their late package these days, they blame Amazon. As they should. FedEx's customer in this instance is Amazon, not the receiver of the package (who is a customer of Amazon, and Amazon alone). If anyone has the clout these days to hurt FedEx economically if they don't improve, it's Amazon. Amazon should be pushing FedEx (and their other shippers) to be more accountable for late, damaged, and…

Amazon doesn't seem much better. Last week, they 'delivered' an item, marked it delivered. The problem with that is that I didn't get it, and the picture proof was not my house. I have no idea whose house it was. When I called to ask for a refund, they first told me to wait as sometimes they mark things delivered before they are. I told him about the picture. Then he asked me to go door to door in my neighborhood because maybe someone else has it. I told him in a not so nice way that was their job, not mine. In the end I -did- get a refund, but seriously, I can't imagine UPS or Fedex saying things like this.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#67
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I can’t blame Amazon for actions like these. >>The consumer has come to expect guaranteed overnight or 2 day shipping Amazon created that expectation.

Yes Amazon has upped the game and everyone has to match them. You seem to think it's a bad thing?

The bad thing is their market position and ability to negotiate rates makes it much harder for independent business operators who must charge more for shipping or else lose money. The situation isn’t sustainable. Eventually, unless something drastic happens, we’ll be faced with asking whether they should be permitted to provide their own delivery services or not due to concerns about competition.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#68
post #3

This is so strange. - FedEx is slated to report its latest quarterly results on Tuesday (17 December 2019). http://investors.fedex.com/news-and-events/upcoming-events/d... - FedEx ended two big contracts with Amazon earlier this year. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/06/amazon-blames-holiday-delive... Edit: I see many unhappy comments regarding FedEx here. In the UK we have Parcelfarce, which has achieved meme status.

Fedex is the absolute worst. They're never on time and I can't even go to a Fedex location to pick up my own fedex packages. They more or less simply get returned to sender if they require any kind of signature. I'm glad Amazon is finally putting a stop to it.

I once ordered a Battery-backed UPS, that arrived via FedEx. It wouldn't work on small loads, so I arranged to return it. I put it in the original box it came in, and took it to the FedEx store.

The worker was very rude, and refused to let me send it, unless I double-boxed it. Company policy? He offered sell me a box and packing material.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#69
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one blames FedEx for their late package these days, they blame Amazon. As they should. FedEx's customer in this instance is Amazon, not the receiver of the package (who is a customer of Amazon, and Amazon alone). If anyone has the clout these days to hurt FedEx economically if they don't improve, it's Amazon. Amazon should be pushing FedEx (and their other shippers) to be more accountable for late, damaged, and…

We (my employer, Refund Retriever) has caught them just outright lying about deliveries before. https://www.refundretriever.com/blog/FedEx-Tracking-Error

This is probably due to an overworked worker pushed to meet some metric saying something is delivered when it isn't. I'm sure amazon will do everything they can with software using gps, pictures etc to make it harder to do that.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#70
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fedex is the absolute worst. Here in Canada we have Purolator - the gov't (Canada Post) subsidiary that is a FedEx competitor. Their systems are ancient, their entire operation is pathetically slow and inefficient. E.g. a recent undelivered shipment that was to arrive last Friday still had the 'expected delivery date' unchanged two days later. When it finally changed it also noted that the package hadn't even left…

Purolator? Wow - even the name is unbelievably bad - what imagery were they trying to invoke?

The delivery company by that name was, at one point, owned by the Purolator oil filter company. (The shipping company used to be named Trans-Canada Couriers.)

Purolator comes from the phrase "pure oil later," as in long-lasting oil filters for combustion engines.

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