They must really be pushing for shipping fees and their premier membership service. I ordered something that was in stock on Tuesday and it's still in the "packaging" stage. Are the days of three day delivery and awesome fast free shipping gone?
Just penalizing people for not using their premium shipping service. Straight out of the Amazon playbook. These mothers ordering paper towels and diapers through the mail are killing it for everyone. The entire online shopping thing was inevitably moving towards free 3-day shipping, until Prime. Now this will be the new reality.
Don't buy enough diapers to make Prime worth using? Screw you. You will wait because they don't want to undermine their premium shipping service that exists to deliver crap you can buy at the corner store.
I mean seriously - Do people really think that loading paper towels and diapers onto airplanes so they make it to your home in 2-days is a great use of resources? All it does is cuts the time until you toss more disposable crap in the garbage. What ever happened to using rags until they wear out and then using them as diapers? How are we going backwards in this area as to put plastic on babies asses while we somehow did just fine for thousands of years without disposable diapers and paper towels. Is there a rag allergy now?
It's really a two-stage bending over of the consumer that still uses Free Shipping that is already factored into the cost of the item. It is not like they are doing us a favor and losing money so we can have Free Shipping.
First you get bent over when they sit on your package for a few days to not undermine their premium service. If it is sourced in the Midwest I can count on Amazon or Newegg to sit on it for 3 days which inevitably means I will wait up to 10 days to receive what I bought.
Then, in sweetheart deals that will only plunge the USPS into further insolvency that will result in an eventual tax payer bailout (the USPS already does get $130 million in tax payer money every year, which is a drop in the bucket but, the precedent is there and the Congress critters are getting their ducks in a row for that eventuality), UPS, FedEx and DHL are picking up your package at their leisure and then hand it off to the USPS for end-point delivery, totally divorcing themselves from any liability for mis-delivered or stolen packages and leaving the consumer to deal with a quasi-government agency if their package goes missing.
The best part of that is once Postman scans your package they considered it delivered and could care less where it actually is. USPS insurance only covers the item while it is in the process of being delivered.
I actually like the USPS. As a long time eBayer I have had
way more good than bad experiences. It's cheap and fast and clearly the retailers that will step-up and help if the USPS screws up have weighed the cost of doing so through analytics and do not see it as an issue to their bottom line, because it simply doesn't happen that much. And for whatever reason, the UPS' of the world have these e-tailers by the nuts and will not let them simply use the USPS. You'd pay less for First Class or Priority and get it in 2-4 days for $2-8 instead of paying $10 or more to UPS for them to take 7-10 days driving the thing across country in a big brown trailer while they turn a finely made cardboard box into some kind of brown pulp.
I jumped on the 250GB 850 EVO deal for $120 and I immediately remembered why I came to conclusion that after last time, I really didn't want to deal with Newegg anymore. Used to be charged, packaged and shipped same day and would be to me in 3 days with free shipping. I bought it last Thursday and I'm still waiting for it. Didn't ship until this Monday and so I wont have it until Friday. Nothing should take this long in the 21st century. Penalizing me for using free shipping because the thing was sourced from their Kentucky warehouse and if they shipped it same day, or anytime last week, it might slightly undermine their premium shipping. So I sit and spin.
And of course there exists no decent reason, outside of corporate boardroom logic, as to why that changed. Clearly Newegg was not making as much as they could providing good service (while still making a killing, overall) so not they will charge us for the honor of having 21st century shipping speeds while alienating any consumer with his/her head attached correctly.
I'd much rather pay for something like Shoprunner to use at multiple stores instead of paying Newegg to ship my things in 21st century fashion. In reality, I'm not going to do either. I'm going to start paying sales tax at B&Ms before I do either.
