Amazon has now started its own delivery service using some plain-white vans with a rather under-stated Amazon logo on its body. I saw one of these vans in my office driveway a few weeks ago. They recently used this in-house service to ship a package to my house. Here's how the process went:
1. I placed the order for a couple of rather ubiquitous items: a HP laser printer toner cartridge (black) and a generic cell phone case.
2. I was told that the cartridge would ship in... 1-2 months. That's no typo! Months it was! I reluctantly went ahead, since I had time on my hands. At least for the toner. I could have used the cell phone case sooner.
3. A couple of weeks later, I received a jubilant e-mail from Amazon: great news! They had managed to somehow scrounge up the toner sooner than they had anticipated! I'd have the items sooner than they had predicted!
4. Now, why could they not have sent me the phone case right away?
5. The package shipped on February 4 with a scheduled delivery date of February 6.
6. Yesterday was D-Day. I eagerly tracked the package status online, and half way through my work day, rejoiced at seeing a "delivered" status update.
7. It was dark when I reached home at a very late 6:00 PM. No packages to be found. Not outside, not inside. Not outside the front door. Not outside the garage door. Not outside the other garage door at the opposite end of the house. Not under my car (I checked, in case I had inadvertently run over the package in the dark).
8. I logged in and checked the status again. Delivered, in solid green lettering.
9. That's when I found out that the delivery was not via USPS or UPS, but via Amazon's delivery van.
10. A Google search revealed the following helpful information:
11. Wait 36 hours?! Seriously? Why should this even happen, even in the rarest of rare cases? Why can't the status at least be updated the same night when they find the package in their van instead of at my house?
12. Was this information helpful? I am not sure. I'll decide once I stop scratching my head about this one.
For now, I wait. Maybe today I'll finally have my cell phone case.
