Andrew Heinzman
You should take a minute to check your pending Amazon orders. The company is pushing back delivery dates of non-essential items, like pool floats and laptop stands, by up to a month. These delays are affecting both Prime subscribers and regular Amazon customers.
This is all a part of Amazon’s COVID-19 game plan, which was announced a little over a week ago. In order to serve customers and communities, the company is focusing entirely on delivering essential items, like food and household products. Amazon is also trying to prevent price gouging by pushing some 3rd party sellers out of its network—a smart move that is likely contributing to Amazon’s delayed orders.
We expected to see order slowdowns this month (despite the fact that Amazon avoided using the word “delay” in its press release). Still, these month-long delays are impressive. It’s strange to see Prime deliveries pushed back so far, especially for Amazon-branded products.
It’s worth noting that some not-so-essential products, like power tools, LED light strips, and compression socks, are still estimated for reasonable delivery times. Plus, the 100,000 new employees that Amazon hires this month should juice up the company’s delivery network and resolve some of these long orders.
If you need to buy some underwear or a Nintendo Switch, then Walmart, Target and Best Buy may deliver it faster than Amazon can right now. And if you’re impatient, you could venture out to Walmart or Target’s physical locations (wash your hands), or order for curbside pickup through Walmart or Best Buy’s websites (still, wash your hands).
Source: TNW
