Amazon – A Prime Case Of Madness
So I noticed that Amazon UK have finally launched the Amazon Prime programme which has been available in the US for ages. Pay an annual fee and you get some benefits, like unlimited next-day deliveries.
The Mrs and I do a certain amount of Amazon shopping, so on Monday of this week when he was about to place an order we agreed it made sense to sign up. Inexplicably, however, having done so, he discovered that the cost of the order had actually gone up. He decided to cancel the Prime membership, but because that would take 48 hours, and placing the order before then would entail the additional cost, I placed the order instead. Given the urgency - there's a limit to how long he was willing to wait for the new Girls Aloud album - we decided to take advantage of their new evening delivery service and scheduled delivery for Tuesday evening.
Monday evening, there's a ring at the door, and a friendly delivery man hands over the order placed about eight hours earlier. Good job one of us was in.
Amazon appear to be achieving the strangest combination of under-delivery (the extra cost and confusion created by the 'money saving' Prime membership) and over-delivery (the arrival of the goods a full 24 hours ahead of the delivery I'd paid for; though even this could be regarded as a problem, as I'd arranged to be in on Tuesday night, but it was only by a fluke that I was back from work by the time the Monday delivery was made).