Parcel Tracking/Shipping Stupidity

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Mad Mike said:
Amazon is a combo e-retailer and e-mall. When you deal with the e-retailer Amazon, Amazon merchandises, prices, owns the goods and fulfills them from stock in their warehouses.

E-mall sellers are different -- they work the same way as Aliexpress, using Amazon's website as a store, they control product listings, some ship direct, some are sales agents and have other suppliers drop ship, and some warehouse and fulfill using Amazon. E-mall sellers set their own prices, product descriptions, shipping options and ship-to restrictions. To many customers Amazon just looks like an online store, they don't know about the back end fulfillment, pricing and merchandising.
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I know there are multiple sellers under the umbrella, but as a first cut, amazon could implement a policy where 3rd parties cant list for more than msrp. For dodgy products could still be listed well above market value (like invicta watches with four figure msrp and often two figure street pricing) but at least common brands and products would not be priced ridiculously.
 
GreyGhost said:
I know there are multiple sellers under the umbrella, but as a first cut, amazon could implement a policy where 3rd parties cant list for more than msrp. For dodgy products could still be listed well above market value (like invicta watches with four figure msrp and often two figure street pricing) but at least common brands and products would not be priced ridiculously.
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I know a few Amazon sellers, they list thousands of items online at outrageous prices because they know some people will buy no matter what the price. List 3000 items at 2x retail, get one sale a day and you're grinning.
 
Had an Amazom order not arrive on time, when inquired to the 3rd party seller, it was "lost in shipping" and they sent another set...rear wheel hubs for a SUV...got em a week late.
 
CP updated the progress. Five days after arriving in Montreal (eight days after pickup in Ottawa), it made it to Mississauga. Expected delivery is still 1 to 11 business days.
 
I ordered something from MEC with 3 day delivery on the afternoon of the 16th. Delivery standard is 18th as per Canada Post.

It showed online as being at the store near here, but the weather was foul, and I didn't want to go down to buy it right away.

It shipped from Toronto, rather than here, and arrived today in the early afternoon. So, four days late.

Brother-in-law is making lots of overtime with CP right now.
 
They showed up Dec 23. Tracking still showed them in Mississauga. At this point, since they had blown the two day delivery by 10 days, I was hoping they wouldn't come until after xmas. The service standard CP provides Amazon appears to be 14 days, so if it took longer than that Amazon would give a discount or gift card or something.

The lights are now installed on the workbench. I wanted lots of light but it is a bit much. The bench is 6.5' wide with a 12" shelf and a 24" shelf above. I put a pair of 4000 lumen barrinas under each shelf (each pair is separately switched). Holy crap. No complaints about not enough light. A bit hard on the eyes though. When I leave the bench I need to give my eyes a little time to adjust to normal house lighting.

EDIT:
I just measured the bench, roughly 1000 lux reflecting up off the bench with all the lights on (current bench top is hardboard). If you measure light impinging the bench you get 5000 to 7000 lux because the meter is staring straight into the strips.
 
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GreyGhost said:
They showed up Dec 23. Tracking still showed them in Mississauga. At this point, since they had blown the two day delivery by 10 days, I was hoping they wouldn't come until after xmas. The service standard CP provides Amazon appears to be 14 days, so if it took longer than that Amazon would give a discount or gift card or something.

The lights are now installed on the workbench. I wanted lots of light but it is a bit much. The bench is 6.5' wide with a 12" shelf and a 24" shelf above. I put a pair of 4000 lumen barrinas under each shelf (each pair is separately switched). Holy crap. No complaints about not enough light. A bit hard on the eyes though. When I leave the bench I need to give my eyes a little time to adjust to normal house lighting.
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I got lucky this season, I probably ordered 20 packages on line, not a single one arrived late. The last one I ordered was $31 worth of stocking stuffers for the kids -- ordered at 10AM Tuesday, they were on my doorstep when I got home at 5PM same day.
 
6 items past due from Amazon. Even though the site said would arrive before Christmas, then showed shipped, then eta Jan 2 now and no longer showing shipped.

I'm not impressed, had to go out yesterday and replace all that stuff, amazon replied to my inquiry about it with sorry, we value you, blah blah, here's a 5 dollar voucher...typical cookie cutter reply.

In years past when they used ups or Canada post exclusively I didn't have issues, now they're trying to cut cost and still deliver quickly, they've gone to these no name couriers and their reputation and service is suffering. They also now ship from China, with no indication on the site that's where its coming from. I stopped using eBay years ago for the same reasons I'm reluctant to use Amazon again.
 
Amazon is great if you order Prime items that ship directly from their warehouse. The third party routine where it's fulfilled by the seller directly tends to be slower of course, but even then, I've had decent success - ordered a set of exterior lights for the front of our house that had a "too good to be true" price and were shipping from China. They arrived inside 4 business days and were actually quite good - they've been on the front of our house for 2 years and counting now.

As for shipping, I lost patience with Canada Post years ago -everyone with Amazon, do yourselves a favour - call Amazon customer service and tell them that you're having issues with CP deliveries and you'd like to have them deprioritized as a shipping option on your account. I did that a year or so back and now 95% of my shipments arrive with Amazons own delivery trucks now which not only arrive earlier in the day, but are reliable to actually arrive on the day they're supposed to. When I order from amazon.ca through Prime now I have almost a 100% success rate getting stuff perfectly on time - I'm super happy.

Canada Posts woes? Almost certainly a result of a "Do more with less" VP somewhere in the chain - makes the financial numbers look good, but actually moving the freight from A to B reliably and on time whilst keeping the customers happy? Yeah, not so much. Without going into a ton of details, lets just say I'm particularly well versed in that scenario right now. :cautious:
 
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