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As I am sure all local users of Amazon are aware, frequently one receives a message to the effect that shipping to Hawaii is not possible. After a number of calls to Amazon Help I was told that if I choose from the 'Country' drop box the next item 'United States Minor Islands' then the item becomes shippable.
This did in fact solve the problem, but then I could no longer ship 'Prime' and a shipping charge appeared.
I plan to ask for a refund if/when I receive the item. Sort of 'quit while you're ahead'.
Yours in hope!
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shipping to Hawaii is not possible
Amazon is asking for a lawsuit; perhaps someone will beat me to it.
Not only do they refuse to ship things for no good reason, they are now refusing to ship things that they have shipped in the past -- I can see them in my order history, but I can't get more today.
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In the past few weeks I've noticed fewer and fewer things they are willing to ship USPS. More stuff only allowed via FedEx and UPS. Some Prime items they won't ship here at all via any method lately (like deodorant) simply confounds me.
ps thanks for the minor island trick. That one is new to me!
psp It didn't work
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Terracore quote: ps thanks for the minor island trick. That one is new to me!
psp It didn't work
I received confirmation of my order. Live in hope!
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" Some Prime items they won't ship here at all via any method lately (like deodorant) simply confounds me."
Flammable items and lithium batteries are not air shippable !
Deodorant is flammable.
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Non-aerosol deodorant isn't flammable (unless it's the gel type with alcohol, which is rare). But one of the annoying things they do is block whole categories of items because some of them aren't shippable, even if the one you want is perfectly fine. So it might have gotten caught up in that. OTOH, sometimes it goes the other way - it'll say random things can't be shipped, but the exact same thing under a different listing can be.
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It also depends on the supplier as they can setup their own shipping rules and I've talked to a few amazon suppliers and they sometimes confess confusion as to why their products wont ship to Hawaii.
You can email "Jeff Bezos" (really a support team) at jeff@amazon.com I've had several very long discussions with their team members concerning shipping to Hawaii of a variety of products including why ordered items (via Prime) often take over a week before they even ship. The end result was a lot of words, but don't let that stop you from trying.
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Eric1600, thanks for that email address. I basically had amazon support tell me to stop asking about all the random things that wouldn't ship!
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Many decisions made by companies today use algorithms. I don't know whether Amazon does this with their shipping, but they may if helps them calculate profit margins.
I had a friend who sold on Overstock. He wanted to raise his prices on the products he had listed, but first had to submit the proposed increase to them. He was told it would be tested by their algorithm which would determine if the higher cost would result in lower sales volume, and consequently lower overall sales totals. If it did, Overstock would collect less money and wouldn't approve the increase. He was told this was also to his advantage, because it would maximize his profit too.
Amazon could potentially use a system like this for shipping, or as others have pointed out help them determine which items are prohibited from air transport on passenger planes (not always accurate across en entire category.) This might explain why the prohibited items change from week to week, and why the customer service people can't explain why one thing ships or doesn't, because they didn't program the inscrutable algorithm.
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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Flammable items and lithium batteries are not air shippable !
In my case it was trash bags, which are not of themselves flammable.
I would completely understand "we have to charge a higher shipping rate to your location". Instead, the answer is "item cannot be shipped to your location".
In one case, Amazon "cannot" ship the $80 item for any price (including "free"), but also lists a seller charging $72 + $8 shipping for the exact same item, obviously the problem isn't that the item itself is "prohibited".
