How do I love thee Amazon, let me count...

[pluckyduck]

... the ways.

I heart Amazon.

I completely procrastinated buying supplier gifts this year. We like to get something nice for our best customer service contacts at key vendors, and, gosh, gee wilikers, look at the date.

1) Get corporate credit card (1 minute)
2) Assemble email addresses of reps (5 minutes)
3) Pick card at Amazon (2 minutes if you don't go on to more screens)
4) Write card and type in list of email addy's separated by commas (5 minutes)
5) Checkout (1 minute)



Okay, so I did take about 30 minutes calling everybody and leaving VM that someting was coming, just so they didn't delete it as spam.

I heart Amazon. Friend of procrastinators everywhere.

Andrea

[arianej]

I usually love Amazon.com this time of year, too. After Thanksgiving, I don't set foot in a store if I can help it (aside from groceries), so I usually put in an order with them late November/early December. It's always gone well, until this year...

Nov. 28th, I put in my order for a bunch of miscellaneous stuff...books, CDs, DVDs, some toys. Most of the items are eligible for Super Saver Shipping. I wait. I get an e-mail that the order is delayed. I wait some more. I get another e-mail that says the order is delayed. I wait...

Finally it gets shipped to me several weeks later, but minus a CD that they said cannot be shipped until after the New Year's at the very soonest. ETA is January 23rd, or something like that.

I wrote to ask if there was any possibility I could substitute another CD off my recipient's wishlist instead, because it's meant for a Christmas present. Seeing as how I ordered in November, I didn't think that expecting it here before Christmas was unreasonable. No answer to my query, just an apology and $5 off my next order. *sigh*

They mean well, I suppose. I do appreciate the effort in making that apology, but.. arrrggghhhhh!!! I think I'm just going to give up, cancel that CD and get my MIL something else. And I did so love this tidy system of quick ordering online and timely arrival at my front door.

Ariane

[pluckyduck]

You can get gift certificates really fast.

Sorry. I've never had serious problems with availability on even larger orders, but I've never had much confidence in their customer service. No real problems, but I don't think their CS is empowered to really help much...solve individual problems individually.

I can't imagine setting up fulfillment operations to deal with all of their SKUs (business speak for individual items) efficiently. Boggles my mind. All of the stuff I've ordered, all of these years, I've never had an order picked wrong, arrive damaged anything. How do that do that?? I think my only issues have been super saver orders shipping later than I thought they would because they took awhile to gather the stuff together.

Hearing from other people, I'd say that once an order does fall through the cracks in some way, you're not getting a whole lot of flexible thinking out of customer service. Sorry for your frustration.

Did I mention you can get gift cerficiates really fast?

Andrea
whose butt was saved by Amazon yesterday because she kinda sorta left everything to the last minute

[frazzledspice]

My son sent me a cyber wish-list from Amazon and DiscountDVD.com

There were about 30 items on the list (to give us some choices about which ones to purchase.)

I bought 4 DVD's from DiscountDVD, which guarantees the best price (and offered the best price on those four DVD's.) Amazon, however, wasn't offering the best price on any of the book and music selections.

I bought the rest of his wish list from Overstock, saving about 20% over Amazon's prices. The items arrived in 5 days via media mail.

When I pulled up each item on Overstock, they showed a price comparison with Amazon--"_____% lower than Amazon.com

It was on Amazon.com where I first made a cyber-purchase, about 5 years ago. I think I even joined Epinions after seeing a banner ad on Amazon (but I'm not exactly sure about that.)

When Amazon first started out, they really offered good values, but now the good values are elsewhere.

They should take a hint from Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is the behemoth of bricks and mortar stores, as Amazon is the behemoth of cyber stores, but Wal-Mart still offers the best values.

[arianej]

pluckyduck said

Did I mention you can get gift cerficiates really fast?

I'm tempted every year. Usually I don't go the gift certificate route because it gets more expensive than buying individual presents when we shop. I shop year 'round and manage to find lots of bargains that help save a couple bucks here and there... it really adds up. In this case, I already had a book and a funky celestial picture frame (goes with her bedroom decor) for her all for under $10. I thought I'd just get her another item, because I tend to buy people several small gifts. She's also one of those people who finds gift certificates a little impersonal. (Not me, I love 'em!)

Instead, I picked up this somewhat kitschy-cute tea tin shaped like an English red phone booth with English breakfast tea in it (got a slit in the lid so you can use it to collect your spare change afterward) from Trader Joe's, one of my favorite local sources for small gift items. She's a major Anglophile, she'll like it, I'm sure.

Ah, well. It's only the first time Amazon.com has really let me down, previous orders have gone pretty smoothly.

Ariane

[pluckyduck]

Well, Amazon better pull me out of my latest little jam.

So, shortest-possible-duck-version-of-the-story:

I didn't really start shopping for Christmas until about 2 hours ago. Now you all know me, I'm usually online 24/7, shopping shopping shopping, from the week before Thanksgiving, straight through.

I sat down to shop a couple of days before Thanksgiving. I looked at my credit card balances and said, you know, I really don't want to put more on my cards. Asked hubby to cough up one of his cards. He said, you know, I really don't want to put more on my cards. (We've been working hard at paying these suckers down, moving things around for 0% offers, stuff like that.)

One thing and another, it's decided that DH will take cash out of the bank, go to real world stores, hand green money over and buy the kids presents.

Fast forward to this afternoon. He pulls out the pile of presents. The very small pile of very small presents. I felt like yelling, You have got to be kidding me! I coughed and said well, maybe we have to fill in a little bit here and there. (He did get everything on their lists, which is important, but my kids make very small lists, and choose very small presents - like video games.)

He stands back and looks at the itsy pile (they get way more for a birthday, FCOL) and says, hmmm, you have a point there.



Anyway, I'll be real world storing it, me thinks, for some cheap bulky things...but I did hit Amazon up tonight for some rush shipping books and such. (The man is in Borders at least twice a week for his own books. What was he thinking???)

My Amazon cart told me not to worry (said that "Don't worry!"), my stuff will arrive 12/24. (Don't even ask me what I paid in shipping, . I had a $60 gift certificate and it was less than that and that managed to take some of the sting out, even though that's pure mental gyration.)

Andrea
who should have put the Amazon trip on his credit card