I never thought I’d do it, but after today’s terrible service, I just can’t see paying a premium for sub-par service. So I’ve stopped my ‘auto-subscribe’ to Amazon Prime. And it hasn’t been just a one-off experience. Ever since the beginning of 2013, AmazonPrime has been far LESS than the Prime service it used to be, as I’ve mentioned before.
Today, I made four orders before 8AM (over $500 worth). From past experience, I know all of these items are being shipped from nearby hubs (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Reno, and Los Angeles area). However, only two items shipped by 7PM today – and one was from Reno – it -should- get here tomorrow, but it’s being sent via Ontrack, which means it may not get here until Monday. In fact, in the past I’ve had items from Reno arrive here in Las Vegas later the same day – when they used UPS.
The other item is coming from Phoenix, which would normally (from past experience with UPS) would also get here the next day. But now it’s being sent via ‘snail mail’ – masked as ‘FedEx SmartPost’ – which is about as dumb (and slow) as it gets. Again, I’ll consider myself lucky if it shows up by Monday. I’m not sure why they even use ‘SmartPost.’ My guess is they’re too embarrassed to just admit they’re using USPS for a ‘Prime’ delivery. As well they should be!
Who knows when the rest of the order will ship – from my past experiences this year, it tells me that when they’ve delayed shipping this long (a full day) it’s because the items are actually right here in their Las Vegas hub and they don’t want to ship ‘too early’ – they figure they’ve got two whole days to get it across town – why rush? Whereas last year those items would show up on my doorstep the very same day I ordered them, delivered via local courier.
Yes – Amazon Prime service has certainly taken a sever nose dive this year. So I cut the cord from the auto-renew on AmazonPrime, which is a shame since I’ve been using that service now for over ten years and I have never had so many issues in such a short period of time. I still have few months on my subscription, perhaps if things markedly improve I may consider renewal.