?? when did buying books online become a PITA?

[Stark]

[rant] I'm going on a cuise next week, so last week I decided to order some reading material from amazon for the trip.

I placed the order last Tuesday (I ordered "The Battles That Changed History" by Fletcher Pratt, "The Essential Little Cruise Book: Secrets fom a Cruise Director for a Perfect Cruise Vacation" by Jim West, and "Mountain Bike Like a Champion" by Ned Overend, all which the site estimated to ship from 24-48 hours) and figured the books would be here early this week at the latest. I mean, I can order a custom configured desktop from Dell and usually get it within two weeks, so books should be no problem, right?

Yesterday I went to Amazon's site to check my order. Still hasn't shipped. ETA was estimated for this Fri to the middle of next week. Excuse me? I'm getting on a plane this Saturday and it's not going to do me much good to have a bunch of books sitting on my desk at work while I'm sitting next to the pool onboard the ship.

Then I tried to shange the shipping from free supersaver to something else. That sent the ETA back another week and added $14 (2-day) to $22 (1-day). Pretty steep for $30 worth of paperback books. So I just cancelled the order.

Then I tried bn.com and buy.com. If I wanted to make sure I got the order this week, I'd be paying mega bucks for shipping and (according to the ETA given by the shopping carts) still might not get it by Friday.

I remember when I was back in college and Amazon was the best way to buy textbooks... it didn't take long to get the books and you usually saved a bunch of money over the campus bookstore. What happened? I order computer stuff all the time from newegg, insight, cdw, dell, etc and stuff listed "in stock" NEVER takes over a week to ship. I would stop buying from a vendor if they pulled this sort of crap... "oh it will be shipped tomorrow... or 5 business days from now, whichever we feel like."

Lately I've been buying most of the books I read at the BDalton's in the mall. Not the greatest selection, but it works. I think I'll continue to do that from now on. There's also a new Barnes and Noble in town... maybe I'll go have a latte and see what they have to offer. [/rant]
:|

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: Stark
[rant] I'm going on a cuise next week, so last week I decided to order some reading material from amazon for the trip.

I placed the order last Tuesday (I ordered "The Battles That Changed History" by Fletcher Pratt, "The Essential Little Cruise Book: Secrets fom a Cruise Director for a Perfect Cruise Vacation" by Jim West, and "Mountain Bike Like a Champion" by Ned Overend, all which the site estimated to ship from 24-48 hours) and figured the books would be here early this week at the latest. I mean, I can order a custom configured desktop from Dell and usually get it within two weeks, so books should be no problem, right?

Yesterday I went to Amazon's site to check my order. Still hasn't shipped. ETA was estimated for this Fri to the middle of next week. Excuse me? I'm getting on a plane this Saturday and it's not going to do me much good to have a bunch of books sitting on my desk at work while I'm sitting next to the pool onboard the ship.

Then I tried to shange the shipping from free supersaver to something else. That sent the ETA back another week and added $14 (2-day) to $22 (1-day). Pretty steep for $30 worth of paperback books. So I just cancelled the order.

Then I tried bn.com and buy.com. If I wanted to make sure I got the order this week, I'd be paying mega bucks for shipping and (according to the ETA given by the shopping carts) still might not get it by Friday.

I remember when I was back in college and Amazon was the best way to buy textbooks... it didn't take long to get the books and you usually saved a bunch of money over the campus bookstore. What happened? I order computer stuff all the time from newegg, insight, cdw, dell, etc and stuff listed "in stock" NEVER takes over a week to ship. I would stop buying from a vendor if they pulled this sort of crap... "oh it will be shipped tomorrow... or 5 business days from now, whichever we feel like."

Lately I've been buying most of the books I read at the BDalton's in the mall. Not the greatest selection, but it works. I think I'll continue to do that from now on. There's also a new Barnes and Noble in town... maybe I'll go have a latte and see what they have to offer. [/rant]
:|

Dude, if its that important, get in your car and drive to barnes and noble or any other bookstore.

 

[Stark]

I'm pretty sure none of those books will be in stock at the local barnes and noble. I probably could have had them special order them and got them this week, but now it's too late. I didn't realize amazon would suck so bad.

 

[Kyteland]

Just because it says the ETA is next Friday doesn't mean it won't get there faster than that. They usually just say that to cover themselves in the offchance of a slow delivery. The FedEx Express Saver option at NewEgg is 3 to 4 business days for shipping but every time I have used it I have gotten my package in 2 days.

If you had just left the order alone it probably would have gotten there midweek, with plenty of time for you to take it on you trip.

 

[Heifetz]

I never had any problems with any of my amazon orders.

 

[Stark]

Originally posted by: Kyteland
Just because it says the ETA is next Friday doesn't mean it won't get there faster than that. They usually just say that to cover themselves in the offchance of a slow delivery. The FedEx Express Saver option at NewEgg is 3 to 4 business days for shipping but every time I have used it I have gotten my package in 2 days.

If you had just left the order alone it probably would have gotten there midweek, with plenty of time for you to take it on you trip.

you're probably right, but I have no idea where they ship from. newegg is usually next day or two because they ship from so. cal. Stuff from the east coast takes forever unless you pay for 2-day.

What ticked me off is that they hadn't even shipped after almost a full business week. The first thing I tried was to change shipping from the "group everything together" option to "ship as soon as available" and it immediately reset the ship date back another week. I was officially out of luck when I did that.

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: Stark

Originally posted by: Kyteland
Just because it says the ETA is next Friday doesn't mean it won't get there faster than that. They usually just say that to cover themselves in the offchance of a slow delivery. The FedEx Express Saver option at NewEgg is 3 to 4 business days for shipping but every time I have used it I have gotten my package in 2 days.

If you had just left the order alone it probably would have gotten there midweek, with plenty of time for you to take it on you trip.

you're probably right, but I have no idea where they ship from. newegg is usually next day or two because they ship from so. cal. Stuff from the east coast takes forever unless you pay for 2-day.

What ticked me off is that they hadn't even shipped after almost a full business week. The first thing I tried was to change shipping from the "group everything together" option to "ship as soon as available" and it immediately reset the ship date back another week. I was officially out of luck when I did that.

That is wrong and I hate that as well. Did you try calling them? Alot of times, they take awhile to update their website. Even the big companies. I can't count the number of times I've received my Dell shipment when it still said the order was processing on their website

 

[aphex]

Amazon has always blown goats for me...

Ordered a teddy bear for my anniversary once, shipped 2 weeks after the ETA and well past when i needed it....

I hate amazon.

 

[Stark]

Originally posted by: dabuddha

Originally posted by: Stark

Originally posted by: Kyteland
Just because it says the ETA is next Friday doesn't mean it won't get there faster than that. They usually just say that to cover themselves in the offchance of a slow delivery. The FedEx Express Saver option at NewEgg is 3 to 4 business days for shipping but every time I have used it I have gotten my package in 2 days.

If you had just left the order alone it probably would have gotten there midweek, with plenty of time for you to take it on you trip.

you're probably right, but I have no idea where they ship from. newegg is usually next day or two because they ship from so. cal. Stuff from the east coast takes forever unless you pay for 2-day.

What ticked me off is that they hadn't even shipped after almost a full business week. The first thing I tried was to change shipping from the "group everything together" option to "ship as soon as available" and it immediately reset the ship date back another week. I was officially out of luck when I did that.

That is wrong and I hate that as well. Did you try calling them? Alot of times, they take awhile to update their website. Even the big companies. I can't count the number of times I've received my Dell shipment when it still said the order was processing on their website

I think I'm just spoiled by newegg. It seems like computer hardware vendors (maybe not dell peripherals) understand the geek mentality and ship ASAP. When we buy something we want it NOW (or at least know when it's coming so we can check the UPS/FedEx website every 2 hours)!!