What is Amazon's \"Guaranteed delivery\" really

[mario]

I was surprised recently when an owner of another eBay sniping service (identity withheld, but I'm sure he'll see this), a nice guy I like, told me that he never buys from eBay. If I recall correctly, the reason was delivery speed.

On the other hand, my first choice is always eBay. I happen to like the fact that I am not just choosing a product, but seller as well. With everything that follows - including shipping, you primarily deal with the seller. I like that. On Amazon, you really don't - Amazon has its own ways to push sellers up and down, but they (Amazon) really choose the seller you will buy from, and you, buyer, only choose the product you want.

That said, I buy from Amazon as well, and mostly when I need a product quickly. That "guaranteed delivery on ..." looks good, doesn't it?

Only, in my own experience, it fails too often. I buy from both amazon.com and amazon.ca, and amazon disappointed me in large number of cases - several times with Amazon Logistics, with Fedex, and with Purolator in Canada. Too many times to count, and certainly a double digit percentage of my orders.

When this happens, as it just did to me, they display a message "Now expected 10 November - 13 November. We're sorry your parcel is late. Please come back Wednesday if you still don't have it, and we'll help you out. Was expected Friday, 9 November".

In other words, they failed, and they don't even want you to bother them by calling.

And if you do, their policy says they "may" refund your shipping, likely after you spend much more time on the phone with them than that shipping is worth.

If you already paid for Amazon Prime... well, that means you really get nothing - that delivery guarantee is completely worthless.