Amazon and Target

Update: A Facebook friend (Thanks Bernard!) let me know that Amazon compensates one free month of Prime membership for each missed two-day shipment. The policy is here. Just send Amazon support an email and they will add the month to your Prime membership (it took them less than a day to do so for me).

I am not sure what’s up with Amazon, but in the past few months, their Prime two-day shipping has been a bunch of misses instead of actual two-day shipments. I ordered a surge protector on Monday (7th), it shipped the next day (8th) and Amazon’s email promised that said it would arrive here today (10th). At 8:45pm, nothing, so I check online and now Amazon is letting me know that the package will get here by the 13th, or please contact them if it hasn’t arrived by the 14th. This is not an isolated incident.

Maybe I have just gotten complacent and not used other online retailers. Maybe I have just gotten too used to going to Amazon to order everything. Well, I am going to change that and give one of Amazon’s competitors a try. I just got a Target Red Card and I am going to use Target.com for stuff first before going to Amazon – Target’s free shipping is 3-5 days, which is not bad given Amazon’s record of late deliveries. And, with Target.com there is no need to pay $100 for the privilege of getting “almost” two-day deliveries.

The one thing that Amazon has going for it is the breadth of items that it sells. That sheer variety makes it hard not to shop at Amazon. I looked over my recent orders at Amazon and most (70-80%) of the stuff I ordered could have been ordered from Target (and some for cheaper). Some specialty stuff could only be found at Amazon (Ubiquiti EdgeRouter, Ubiquiti Unifi AP, some older movies on Blu-ray). For the most part though, Target seems to be competitive on more popular stuff.

So, Amazon while you run a great service, a little competition can’t hurt ya. It’ll help you become better. Target, I already shop with you locally and you guys are good. Don’t fail me with my online shopping. Maybe when the time comes for me to renew my Amazon Prime subscription, I won’t.