I signed up with Prime because of the next day delivery.
However in the last few weeks/months, standard Prime "next day" seems to be 2 days as the default.
You have to change the settings at the checkout to get delivery by 1 pm the next day.
Makes the "buy now" button a waste of time.
Grumble
Dave R
I also want to grumble about the tell us where to leave your package. About a year back I filled this in and if none of the set options applied, you were able to write it in, so I put inside my porch. Expecting this to still be the case, I was rather annoyed to find that it was pinged to me that it was delivered in my hands when the delivery person never even rang the bell. Being blind I then went on a hunt around outside and found a thick brown paper, well it felt like brown paper, bag in my flower bed to the right of the door. Having retrieved it I went to the tell us where to deliver it page to find that the option I had filled out had been deleted for no apparent reason. There was no come back, only an option to tell them you thought the delivery was less than optimum. I'm not doing Prime, because to be honest there is no part of it that I need. Brian
Weird. I've almost always found that I get delivery scheduled for the following day as long as I order by a certain cutoff time (which varies from one item to another). But then I have disabled "Buy Now" so I always accumulate items in my basket and then go through the checkout stage for the whole order. At that point, I think it defaults to "Prime - Next Day" because I am a Prime member.
I wonder if the normal Prime delivery time is two days for you because of your location. Are you in a town or are you in a remote rural area?
Apart from when I use free Prime trials, I take my chance on delivery but often have to select 'free delivery' instead of a default £4.95 for next day. Sometimes, though, stuff turns up the next day, which I guess depends on algorithms deciding there is spare capacity to justify expediting it.
It's £4 or so if it won't fit through the letterbox; £2 if it does. (Much more than Royal Mail [1].) Obviously this is to persuade you to go Prime. I prefer to buy through Marketplace as it is often post free. I know they increase the product price to make up but it isn't so obvious. Stuff from China is cheap as the postage is subsidised by the CCP.
[1] The postman knows were my flats are and how to get into them. If a regular they know where my flat is in the block. And I know roughly when they will call so I don't have to stay in.+1 Even when its a few days I get an email saying they have just dispatched it and it arrives the next day which suggests that all their stuff is actually next day delivery and any delay is in dispatching.
Don't you always have to pay for delivery if it's not Prime?
Prime never get to me before 3pm and sometimes 6pm so it makes no sense for next day delivery. At least royal mail was around 11:30am.
No, it's free in most cases but 3-5 days.
Royal Mail often seem to be about 3-5 p.m. these days.
I have a new router coming today, but it's down for 5-8 p.m.
Not these days, at least around my way. RM delays have been weeks for the past year or more and any post arrives at random times of day. This week I had yet another tracking email "your main will be delivered today" message for it to arrive the next day.
In the UK you get free delivery on items supplied by Amazon if you spend £20 or more. Amazon Marketplace sellers are different. They can be free or charge. The thing to watch out for is the delivery date. The time it takes will tell you whether the item will be sent from the UK or from elsewhere in the world.
That is probably governed by your location. You are not going to get an early delivery if you are furthest from the parcel collection point. The route being either pre-planned or driver choice. Royal Mail are a law unto themselves & deliver, or not, as their resources allow.
They are still quite annoying. Apart from trying to sign you up to Prime they don't automatically give you free postage if you spend more than £20 for an order, especially if you are buying more than one thing at a time. You have to deliberately combine the items and deliberately choose free delivery.
I agree that their website is designed to trap the unwary.
But the option to have notionally slower delivery and pay nothing is always there - you just have to navigate several awkward why not try Amazon Prime sales pitches. Default is *always* to pay extra.
Quelle surprise!
FWIW I never use Amazon Prime but I still get most things arriving within a day or two (unless it is clearly coming from half way around the world - and TBH I *don't* care if their price is less than Abe books).
My postman is still pretty consistent. If so big it comes by van, any time at all.
In my location I haven't had regular postman for around 2 years. Almost every time I see a postman it is someone different.
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