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Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

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Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use their own vans. edit: They basically leverage their amazon fresh / amazon now deliveries.

Not always. My same day stuff came with OnTrac.

That's a story I'd love to read about. OnTrac seems to use basically junker cheaply painted white mid-90s minivans whenever I see them about. They simply slap a magnet with OnTrac on it and it becomes a fleet vehicle.

While FedEx/UPS have their own custom designed fleet, OnTrac seems to scour auto auctions for theirs.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some this may be a concern. I'd make more money working for 2 hours than the money I'd save from driving to Costco. Substantially more. It's worth it to me.

Have you factored in all the free samples and the $1.50 hot dog and soda combo? That might change your calculus. :)

For real, though. I can easily turn the free samples into my lunch whenever I'm there.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#154
post #60
post #42

This is anecdotal and not 100% related, but I had Prime for awhile for the fast shipments. When I signed up, Prime was substantially faster than the average standard ship times. When the cost of Prime went up, I cancelled because it wasn't worth it to me anymore. However, I noticed my stuff was still arriving fast. It wasn't marked as "Prime", and it wasn't guaranteed 2-day delivery, but it was much faster than I rem…

Prime really doesn't have anything to do with 2-day delivery. They wouldn't be able to afford to ship everything by air for free. The advantage of Prime is really that you can have everything shipped for free without worrying about minimums. Well that and all the other perks, like streaming video, photos, etc. They now have warehouses located within 1 day ground shipping distance of everywhere in the continental US.…

I see the opposite from Amazon - some stuff ends up being shipped to me across the entire country in giant boxes, clearly at a loss, just to make the 2-day deadline.

Only couple of times, I think, the packages got held up for weather or errors, and I just sent them back without a hitch (they were too late to be useful).

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#156

As longtime Prime member and a resident of a metro area that doesn't make the cut (and is almost certainly not in the next round), I can't help feeling like I'm subsidizing this service for those who live in the right place. In fact, every time Amazon adds a new benefit for Prime members that I can't use or don't want, it reminds me that I must be overpaying for Prime if I'm only using the two day shipping.

Meh, that seems a bit like complaining the guy who lives next to the post office gets his mail earlier. Amazon already had to build distribution centers near major markets - might as well deliver faster if it's possible anyways.

One of those distribution centers is on the outskirts of Reno/Sparks, yet Reno is not included in this for whatever reason.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#157
post #86

I've noticed that Amazon has totally changed my shopping habits from 3-5 years ago. Clothes and household expendable items are almost entirely purchased on Amazon (even if I just want to try on a pair of boots). Prime Subscription or Pantry takes care of most of the rest. I don't need to drive to Costco anymore or spend time walking around Wal-Mart. I look forward to the day when my Whole Foods order can be delivered…

In the UK supermarket deliveries are well established. My family gets 2 or 3 Ocado deliveries a week (they have a Prime equivalent where you pay £11 a month to get free deliveries on orders over £40, within a one-hour time slot, usually available at about 24 hours' notice). Add that to Amazon, and I basically now only shop in shops when size/fit or feel are crucial — clothes, shoes, etc. And I really resent this — I'…

To add to this, Tesco does unlimited Tues-Thurs deliveries for £3/month or £6/month for any day. Minimum order size £25 for hour slots.

I hardly ever go to the grocery store now, because with such a low minimum order I can order very frequently. The prices are generally better than Ocado too.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#158
post #57
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there some significant advantage to identifying the page with non-human readable identifiers in the query string that I'm not aware of? Sure. When your organization uses a custom CMS and creating pretty URLs requires approval from multiple departments and takes days (or weeks) and you want to throw up a page all quick-like.

Not sure why you would need approval for a pretty URL and wouldn't need approval for the design and content in general. Couldn't those be lumped together for approval at the same time? It just seems subpar for a company of Amazon's size, especially when most CMS platforms have support for pretty urls. Not sure that the design for this page went through any sort of approval process though :)

At a big company, you're getting multiple approvals from multiple people in different areas of the company. If it was as simple as "Get the approval from the President" that'd be one thing, but there's most like a team in charge of just URLs and another team designing the app who would need to go to the URL team for approvals. Another team will most likely be the gatekeeper for whether it goes to production or not, and there's probably at least a half dozen other infrastructure teams I haven't mentioned also involved in the process. I haven't worked for Amazon, but I've worked for another large company, so I know what it's like.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've noticed that Amazon has totally changed my shopping habits from 3-5 years ago. Same here, especially with Amazon Fresh. In the 9 months since getting a Prime account, I spent 36% more overall than I did on Amazon from 2003-2013 combined.

Are you paying the $299 fee a year?

Fresh in Seattle was originally included in regular Prime (when purchasing >$50), so the habits of Seattle-ites may change after the price goes up to $299.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#160

As longtime Prime member and a resident of a metro area that doesn't make the cut (and is almost certainly not in the next round), I can't help feeling like I'm subsidizing this service for those who live in the right place. In fact, every time Amazon adds a new benefit for Prime members that I can't use or don't want, it reminds me that I must be overpaying for Prime if I'm only using the two day shipping.

I'm no accountant, but I imagine they can classify various Prime customers into buckets based on what services they use and see that the average usage of any one bucket of customers matches up with the cost of Amazon Prime. If a customer were to use ALL the features then Amazon loses, but if that became the new average then they'd raise the price.

The cleverness of this idea is that each Amazon Prime customer perceives the overall value of the service as higher for the potential to use those extra features, even if s/he doesn't use them much if at all.

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