It's been years since I ordered anything on Amazon US (made an account for some PS3 games a long time ago). I always ordered on my local Amazon store, so the France one for a long time, and the Japan one for the last 2 years.
But I wanted to buy some products unavailable in Japan, so I used Amazon.com to order. The products were in stock, the transport was not supposed to be very long (like 1 week), and not that expensive either, so no problem, right? I ordered, and then waited for my shipping confirmation email to track the package. And I waited. And I waited...
It's been one week now, and 2 of the 3 orders I made are still in preparation for shipment. One order was not fulfilled by Amazon themselves, and the package was sent the next day by the third party seller, and is at the Japanese customs right now. Everything is fine with this one. But the Amazon orders? Just garbage level of service. And it's even more shocking when I compared with the other Amazon websites I'm used to. The Japanese website ships orders in usually one day, or less. I started to pay for Prime, and I can even get my orders in 24 hours even though I live in the middle on nowhere. For the French website, it was usually shipped in one or 2 days. I lived in Paris with Prime for a while, and I could order stuff in the morning and get it with an evening delivery.
But Amazon US? One week of handling, and not shipped yet. And from what I've read on internet, it seems to be perfectly usual. It's rumored to be made on purpose to push people to pay for Prime. But even for Prime, they apparently guarantee a 2 days delivery "after shipping", not from the time of the order. In France or Japan, it's 2 days after ordering. Big difference, especially if they take one week to ship.
So, since a lot of users here live in the US, I would like to know if this kind of one-week handling time is usual? Is it always that bad? If it is, how does Amazon stay popular in the US? I mean, most websites I use offer a 2 business days shipping. Being fast is a major selling point of web stores. Is there really no alternatives available, that people keep ordering in those bad conditions?
I'm pretty sure that next time I want to order something from the US, I'll find other websites. Really disappointed in Amazon US, if this is something usual they should ask their colleagues how to work properly. And I don't believe in stuff like "US is bigger" (the issue is just the handling time), or "more orders to handle". All countries had a huge increase in online orders in the last decade, no reasons for other countries to handle it fine but not the US. I don't get it.
