Amazon back orders

[chickenfeet]

Here's a shout out to people with more experience of Amazon than I do. I've been pretty successful with Amazon when they say they have a book that "usually ships in 24 hours" and much less if that is not the case. In the latter case they give an estimated delivery window which is never updated even when it is past nor do they appear to advise that a book is not, in fact, available. In short nothing happens until I cancel the order(1). Is my experience typical?

fn (1) I wondered in fact whether Amazon booked revenue at the time an order is placed and therefore can inflate reported sales by keeping essentially dead orders on the books. It's the sort of thing IBM would do.

Comments

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

It's my experience that 'ships in 4 -- 6 weeks' means 'never ships', certainly. I've had 'ships in 10 days' books arrive on time, though.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

I *have* had that happen, yes. But I wouldn't say it's typical, and certainly not as soon as you go above '24 hours'. But I regard their '4-6 weeks' band as not worth bothering with, for the sort of reason you've said.

I've also had bad experience where they've just plain got the publication date wrong. They're not good at updating because of that.

Basically, my experience is that they're brilliant at the standard and predictable stuff. But once something proves unpredictable/difficult, they just don't cope well.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I generally buy at Barnes and Noble because Amazon gave more money to GOP campaigns and B&N gave more to non-GOP campaigns ...

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Good to know.

*rushes out to buy MORE from Amazon*

[daubentonia.livejournal.com]

4-6 weeks seems to mean "we've heard it exists, we'll see if we can get it".

And thank you a_d_medievalist for pointing out the Amazon/B&N difference, I try to keep track of that stuff. I'm making the switch!

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Not my experience, and I buy a LOT from Amazon.com, .uk, .fr, .ca (actually there was a glitch with them once) .de (the BEST for classical music) and .jp

They're unbelievably good about refunds, too.

[meirion.livejournal.com]

surprisingly, this is not at all my experience. i've found that they keep spamming me telling me "it's taking longer to find this than we expected, sorry" and then, when they realise they can't find it, they abjectly apologise and cancel my order.

however, if their political affiliations are as reported here, i shan't waste another penny of mine on them.

-m-

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

Note that "Amazon gave more money to GOP campaigns than it did to non-GOP campaigns" - not, please note, to GWB. Actually, without wishing to disrespect the person who made it originally, that comment is not terribly meaningful - most companies these days donate to both parties (just in case) and there are lots of things which affect the amount given, which can have nothing at all to do with the political affiliation of the company's leadership. It will depend on where the company has its operations, who the incumbent is, who is running in those districts, and particularly who is running unchallenged (90% of congressmen run unopposed, I read recently). Thus, if Amazon have a big distribution plant in a strongly Democratic area, it need not bother donating much because the election will be unopposed.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

nb I believe Amazon only book revenue when orders are shipped.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Thanks. How was the game?

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

you mean Villa? I didn't go. Which was probably just as well.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I have had mixed experiences with Amazon in the past - to the extent that I refused to use them for two years - but they have been pretty good recently.

But my last order was a bit strange - they said everything was in stock, but refused to send it for three weeks! It arrived exactly when they said it would, so I think they were just being churlish because I refused to pay up for next day delivery.

[jen-c-w.livejournal.com]

*stares*
what's the problem with IBM?

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

In this particular case I was thinking of some odd accounting practices, for instance booking reimbursable project expenses as revenue. In general, ineptitude, arrogance and stupidity on a cosmic scale.

[jen-c-w.livejournal.com]

They're doing a hell of a lot for the OSS community - as well as development. Difficult to be accused of stupidity when you're innovating more than any IT company.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

You should try working for them. Look at their track record with acquisitions. They must have destroyed more shareholder value in acquisitions than just about anyone else.

[jen-c-w.livejournal.com]

Really? - *thinks of oracle*
Look, I'm not paid to be a cheerleader for IBM, just calling it how I see it...

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I was a senior director at a company that was acquired by IBM. I've been working in industry and consulting for 27 years, I've participated as employee or consultant in at least six major mergers and I've never seen anything as shambolic as IBM's merger management. It wasn't even just incompetent, it was gratuitously nasty. I left at the time of the latest big acquisition, PWC Consulting, and the word is that too is a total balls up.