08-05-2015, 12:46 PM
I've been watching the amazon shipping trend for some time and have used the online chat feature to glean some information from their representatives. Amazon's shipping model has shifted from getting products out the door as quickly as possible to only meeting the delivery schedule and there is a very good reason for it. Instead of saying a product will ship in X days, they now say it will arrive in X days. That allows their algorithms to guestimate the cheapest possible shipping cost for them in hopes it can be bundled with a future order. For example, if you order something with a 7 day delivery schedule and they know from your purchase history that you order frequently, they may decide to delay shipping your order so that they can possibly ship two or more orders at once and save a lot in shipping costs. A lot of this depends on your order history and if the type of items you are projected to purchase can leave from the same warehouse. If all goes well, your order is delayed a few days, goes out by parcel pool, and finger crossed it meets the delivery timeframe. Now if four days have passed and you haven't made another order, they take a loss that time because now to meet the delivery schedule they can't use parcel pool, they have to use FedEx 2-day. Many frequent customers have amazon subscriptions. I've noticed more and more items are getting bundled with my subscription shipment and my subscription shipment date gets moved around slightly to accommodate their shipping roulette.
There is no such thing as "free" shipping, its a marketing gimmick. Amazon has found a way to minimize their shipping cost losses by changing their shipping strategy from shipping quickly to merely meeting a delivery schedule. (there is no guaranteed delivery schedule with prime to Alaska/Hawaii, we get it when we get it). Prime members on the mainland are now offered a discount on the product price option at ordering time if they agree to get their prime shipment by an alternate arrival date rather than the standard 2-day prime.
ETA: clarity
There is no such thing as "free" shipping, its a marketing gimmick. Amazon has found a way to minimize their shipping cost losses by changing their shipping strategy from shipping quickly to merely meeting a delivery schedule. (there is no guaranteed delivery schedule with prime to Alaska/Hawaii, we get it when we get it). Prime members on the mainland are now offered a discount on the product price option at ordering time if they agree to get their prime shipment by an alternate arrival date rather than the standard 2-day prime.
ETA: clarity