Registered: Apr 2000
Location: Santa Clarita, CA
Posts: 198

I'm having a problem with Amazon.com which is starting to piss me off, and I wondered if anyone else has had similar problems, or if it's just me:

I ordered a Stowaway from Amazon on November 19. They said it was in stock, and usually shipped within 24 hours. I paid regular shipping (3 - 7 business days) hoping to maybe be on the short end and have my Stowaway by Thanksgiving.

I've been checking my order status every day, and since Monday (11/20) it's said "In stock - shipping soon". That's right, the order that "usually ships within 24 hours" that I placed on Sunday night, as of Friday (11/24) at 8:15 p.m., - about 124 hours later, still has not shipped.

Now, I will admit that Thanksgiving is thrown in there, but I ordered it Sunday night, and I'm really having a hard time understanding why an item they said was in stock and usually ships out within 24 hours, wasn't shipped by Wednesday, still wasn't shipped on Friday, and now I would imagine if I'm lucky, might be shipped out on Monday, over a week after I placed the order!!

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Hmmmmmmmm......
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Registered: May 2000
Location: Great City of Chicago.
Posts: 36

I have had similar problems. When the Dragon Ball Z DVDs first came out I ordered them and it was "usually ships within 24 hours" and most of the online DBZ community (including myself) did not recieve until 2-3 weeks later. But every other time ( I have ordered from the at least 20 times) has been perfect.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: San Francisco, CA
Posts: 431

I've bought a lot of stuff from Amazon and have found them to be reliable. The only problem was with the last item that I ordered as it never arrived. After calling them, they just shipped me another at no charge!

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Metro Station, Hollywood and Highland
Posts: 1018

Boy, don't even get me started on this topic. A year ago I worked at a "click and mortar" technical bookstore similar to Powell's. Often a customer would ask for a book, and after a little checking, we'd find out the book was either out of stock at the publisher or out of print. Whenever this happened, 9 times out of 10 the customer would retort with a phrase I've come to dread: "But Amazon has it!" Uh, no -- they don't have it if it's out of stock at the publisher or out of print (or, let's just say it's unlikely). They just report the book as being available on their database.

What would typically happen is that the customer would try to order it from Amazon after we'd tell them that they wouldn't get it, and usually that customer (if he or she was a regular) would tell us that they got an apologetic email from Amazon confirming that the book was, in fact, not available. Then when you looked up that title at Amazon, the site would report the title as out of stock/print. The bottom line is that Amazon's data is current as of their last completed transaction. So the last Stowaway shipped may have been the last one "in stock," which is the status that Amazon's reporting when you're about to order it. It's like a browser that's been on CNN's website for a day without being refreshed. You're looking at yesterday's news.

Of course, this is all inferred. I don't claim to have any insider knowledge of what goes on in the Amazon sausage factor. But I think it's a reasonably educated guess. Now that we're a month away from Christmas, I personally consider it naive from this point forward to trust Amazon's stated lead times on any shipments.