Amazon lying about shipping dates?

I use Amazon more than once a week in a major US city, and 95% of the time items are delivered on-time, or frequently earlier (when I choose a slower method like Amazon Day five days out, and it delivers next-day anyways -- or when it says shipping 20 days from now, but it gets shipped four days later).

On the other hand, about 5% of the time an item is several days late, and about half of the time that's due to delay during shipping, and the other half is delay in sending out to ship.

I don't think Amazon is lying. Logistics is just hard. I would guess that in your case, there was only 1 item left in stock and someone else ordered it right before you did and the database wasn't updated in time. Then the "month from now" was the most conservative estimate of when the manufacturer would send more stock, but then the manufacturer sent new stock straight away, and so it's going to take 2 days to arrive to Amazon and process, and another 2 to send to you.

The reliability of Amazon's logistics and shipping, at mega-scale, is essentially state-of-the-art for 2022. But it's not perfect. But that doesn't mean Amazon is "lying" or "gaslighting" -- it's just that no systems are perfect.

For the past year or so I think Amazon has been making no effort to get Prime packages delivered in 2 days.

It's not unusual on the other hand to get free or affordable 1-day shipping from other retailers like Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Office Depot, Adorama, etc.

I think Amazon figures if you subscribed to Prime for 10 years you are hooked, but every other retailer sees shipping as a way they can impress you.

It can be inconsistent for sure. I see the most inconsistency when "shipped and sold" by a third-party. FBA ("fulfilled by Amazon"), or whatever the term is for when Amazon stocks and ships it, seems to more consistently meet the 2-day time limit. When it doesn't, the blame can often be placed on the shipping company. Even when the blame is on Amazon, it's a day or two delay, and accompanied by an email with a (usually) accurate reset of expectations.

Yes, I've had items sold by Amazon, ship from their own facility, after waiting 4 days to ship even though it was in stock, only to have it relabeled and delivered late by UPS. Ive had items that said next day turn into weeks just after I purchase. Atleast sometimes you can cancel and rebuy for a better delivery date.

Ive gotten the feeling that Amazon doesnt actually know how to do final mile delivery properly, especially considering how much money they waste by sending 4 different vans to my house within a single day

I buy a lot from Amazon, too much, and they are incredibly accurate. Almost always 2 day, sometimes same-day. Whenever they don't have an accurate date (third-party seller) it says so. Sometimes USPS does final delivery and they have been delayed once or twice.

This is all in a large city.

Third party, shipping is all over the place. Amazon, I can think of only one occasion that they missed the date--and that was UPS goofing up. This was back with the 2-day promise but the package went out ground--from close enough to me that it should have gotten here in time anyway. Unfortunately, it went halfway across the country instead. Somebody obviously put it on the wrong truck.

On the other hand, I have a warehouse in town, most stuff gets here next day.

On the opposite side of the coin: I have never had Prime and when I've lived near a distribution center, Amazon will frequently ship packages before the estimated date. In years past they have seemed to withhold shipment until the estimate window arrives but that is less frequent now.

I recently (Aug 1st) was on a product page that said "Prime One-Day", but when I ordered it, it said on the confirmation page it would be delivered Aug 11th. That confused me so I checked the product page again and it still said "Prime One-Day". I took a screen shot. I clicked the link to change delivery schedule and it said "Confirm Aug 11 delivery", with no options to change it.

I did an online chat with an Amazon rep, explained the problem, they apologized and changed it to next-day delivery. The rep said that I had to click something on the order page to get 1-day delivery. If that's true, it's a pretty slimy way to treat customers, hoping they won't click that option and thereby saving money on delivery.

Did that happen just once, or does it happen all the time?

If it happened just once, it's probably just some warehouse/inventory updation delay or something.

In my country (not USA) Amazon is very punctual, and sometimes I even get things a day early.

In the UK, prime is next day delivery, and this "feature" has been annoying the hell out of me for months now. The number of times I've ordered something that says "order in the next X hours to get next day delivery", gone right through the checkout with every step telling me it'll arrive tomorrow, only for tomorrow to come and go and my package to turn up some days later. We don't even get emails about shipping date adjustments here, they just straight up lie to you.

I don't know if it's still prevalent, but I've heard of a... routine where some sellers will sell an item, stretch the delivery date out, and if the item's cost goes down, release it to be shipped. If the price starts trending up, they sit on it and cancel it, later listing for a higher price, basically speculation and attrition.

Edit: I WILL take a moment to complain about getting higher prices on items when signed in on an account than incognito. Sign in and they jump back up.

Funny, my entire job is based on getting things back to 2day shipping / increasing throughput. I'm a roboticist.

The absolute explosion of amazon's popularity as a seller and storefront has been the source of their prosperity and problems. Growth never magically becomes easy, no matter how big you are.

Two day shipping with Prime is nothing more than a fond memory for me.

As of right now - 1pm on Wednesday - the earliest delivery date listed for Prime items is Monday. In my experience about half of what I order today will get here Monday; the rest may take anywhere from an extra day to an extra week.

I regularly get this and I live just a few blocks from one of their centers

Granted I'm sure my center doesn't have most of what I buy - it's not large - but still it's confounding

I routinely see the "Buy within x hours for delivery tomorrow!" and after I do so, I get a confirmation email saying it'll be delivered 2 days from now.

Just my personal experience—the estimated delivery at checkout is almost always 1-2 days earlier than in the email confirmation a minute later.

Amazon has reached a scope and scale that more than warrants antitrust action.

Yes, I live 2 miles from a DC, and they couldn't deliver anything same week even though I have had Prime for a decade