Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#161

Post by theg2 » Thu, May 28, 2015, 6:55 PM UTC

netfire wrote: post #66

sleepychu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.amazon.com/sameday

Interesting that they have a pretty url already generated for the page and then redirect to something that's completely unreadable. It seems like you'd want to have a single, readable url to have people sharing with others, if they copy and paste the url from their browser.

Why do that when they can create a unique URL And data mine who you share the link with or where you post it? People call it "dark social" where there are no referrers such as IM, Text, or chat services like Slack, Hipchat, etc.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#162

Post by theg2 » Thu, May 28, 2015, 6:56 PM UTC

netfire wrote: post #46

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=br_imp_ara-1?_encoding=UTF8&node... That's a horrible url. Why not use something like http://amazon.com/news/free-prime-same-day-delivery ? Is there some significant advantage to identifying the page with non-human readable identifiers in the query string that I'm not aware of? Otherwise, very cool. I just wish it was in more areas.

Posted this below: Why do that when they can create a unique URL and data mine who you share the link with or where you post it? Publishers call it "dark social" where there are no referrers such as IM, Text, or chat services like Slack, Hipchat, etc.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#163

Post by kolev » Thu, May 28, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

Igglyboo wrote: post #78

kolev wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's http://www.amazon.com/sameday

Which immediately gets redirected to: http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=8729023011

True. Amazon's CMS is pretty old-school, but let's not blame Java like one of the commenters did earlier.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#164

Post by jedberg » Thu, May 28, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #156

ceejayoz wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not enough people to make it worth hiring the fleet of delivery people.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#165

Post by simcop2387 » Thu, May 28, 2015, 7:16 PM UTC

pawn wrote: post #158

netfire wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, a…

Most of the other teams involved that I've seen at places are usually other development teams who are consulted not because they have any specific reason but because as you go up the chain they want to make sure that nobody is already planning to use that same name/pretty url for something to avoid conflicts where one team all the sudden has two days notice to change their branding/url.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#166

Post by bbarn » Thu, May 28, 2015, 7:17 PM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #112

xbryanx wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis, and Kansas City. Upper Midwest is conspicuously absent.

Fair point. Seems to be Amazon strategy though, after looking at their distribution center map: https://scmmsublogs.wordpress.com/scm-strategies/amazon-com-... Wouldn't be surprised to see Chicago added to the list of supported cities soon, but Houston, Minneapolis, and Kansas City are all pretty far from current/planned distribution centers.

Chicago might have a bit of a unique problem with traffic to and from warehouses as well. Real estate is very expensive in city limits and the infrastructure here doesn't support the model all that well. I bet they could manage, but it's got to be a significantly higher start cost here vs. other metros. This would be a city to invest in AFTER vetting out the model in cheaper cities.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#167

Post by gsharma » Thu, May 28, 2015, 7:27 PM UTC

clarky07 wrote: post #114

gmac wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

So many places have great return policies, so it doesn't really matter anymore. There are places that specifically encourage you to buy like 2-3 pairs of shoes for example and ship back the ones that don't fit. If you are normally a size 10.5 shoe you can happily order 10/10.5/11 and then send the 2 that don't fit back for free. http://www.zappos.com/ is a good example. free shipping both ways.

Zappos is a great example, a lot of retailers have good return policies too. However, usually the brands themselves don't have great return policies. Unlike Amazon/Zappos the return policies for each brand are different and the shopper has to keep track of them/figure out individually which is a big pain.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#168

Post by ChickeNES » Thu, May 28, 2015, 7:28 PM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #112

xbryanx wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis, and Kansas City. Upper Midwest is conspicuously absent.

Fair point. Seems to be Amazon strategy though, after looking at their distribution center map: https://scmmsublogs.wordpress.com/scm-strategies/amazon-com-... Wouldn't be surprised to see Chicago added to the list of supported cities soon, but Houston, Minneapolis, and Kansas City are all pretty far from current/planned distribution centers.

Amazon is opening warehouses on Goose Island in Chicago and in Joliet in the near future: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-amazon-goose-islan...

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#169

Post by thomnottom » Thu, May 28, 2015, 7:30 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #56

daenz wrote: 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…

I experienced the opposite last year. after cancelling Prime my shipments became extremely slow.

Same here. And it's not a matter of the actual shipping taking longer. I noticed that once I stopped subscribing to Prime, my orders would wait a few days to a week before shipping and then get to me the next day.

It feels like, since I'm so close to a distribution center they can only make Prime worth my while by sitting on the packages longer unless I pay them. And probably the only time I paid extra to have something next day they botched it.

Re: Amazon launches same day delivery for Prime customers

#170

Post by iak8god » Thu, May 28, 2015, 7:33 PM UTC

georgemcbay wrote: post #149

iak8god wrote: post #144

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.

Despite being a Prime member for years the only thing I've used it for is the two-day shipping but I don't mind the existence of the other perks because just in real dollar terms Prime still saves me a boatload of money versus shipping costs I'd have to pay for similar quick (and in a way more importantly: consistently arriving on the correct day) shipping when buying on other sites. In the interest of full disclosur…

> in real dollar terms Prime still saves me a boatload of money

Me too, which is why I keep it. But I do wish they'd offer a Prime Lite with just the shipping.