Well logistics is a very complex arrangement. It’s possible that in your two scenarios, there are two sellers involved. The one who could get it to you fastest didn’t have any stock the first time you bought, so they weren’t an option. Then later they had some inventory come into stock, so they were an option the second time you bought. They can deliver to you so much faster than the other guy that they actually beat him despite his head start. Maybe they’re right around the corner from you, so to speak?

Amazing fulfills a minority of orders now. It’s all 3rd party sellers and your experience is contingent on them, their prices, their inventory, their seller rating, and many other variables in the system that we can’t even see. Fluctuations will happen and it’s probably not Bezos trolling just to get his jollies.

This usually comes from a couple things.

• The Amazon site that could do faster delivery was out of stock, had too many orders already to deliver it same day on Wednesday

• The time of day you looked at the order changed so you got in on Thursday early enough to hit that time limit

Or the Most likely:

• When you were placing the order it checked the available shipping methods (not days) and they couldn’t do same say that day, so they offered standard. The next day they check the methods again (probably taking into account the above reasons) and they could do same day so they offered it.

They don’t do the “what about same day, but tomorrow” stuff because it’s usually a problem that solves itself. Either you’re fine with Saturday, or you come back tomorrow trying to get it same day again.

The thing that is worth noting is that Amazon doesn’t do everything they sell as fast as humanly possible. They still have logistics to worry about and not every possible site can ship everything at maximum possible speed. They probably could if they forced it, but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze on that approach.

This isn’t a “lets trash amazon” post

But it could be. :)

They’ve got you thinking they’re the only store you need. That’s how we got this monopoly.

You don’t need that thing delivered today.

Bezos is rich enough.

I just can’t understand why companies do this weird shit, I always thought order earlier = arrive faster, this is just… weird)

My guess is you’re seeing a tiny view of a global logistics company at work. There are warehouses all over the place and there is large overlap with the inventory in each. Lets say you’re ordering a hot pink Kindle ebook reader. If you were able to see from the Amazon side, you’d see this item represented in dozens of warehouses all over the world. There is possibly one sitting on the shelf in the warehouse right down the street from you, which would ship it to you the fastest. However, that warehouse also contains other inventory that is in high demand and that other inventory is NOT in other warehouses. So the Amazon algorithms don’t want to direct fulfillment of your order from this close warehouse to you because its getting crushed right now.

Instead it finds the hot pink Kindle in a slow warehouse much farther away from you and your order is fulfilled from there (your first order with the long shipping time). Later, the close warehouse runs out of the high-demand inventory that was keeping it busy. You make second order for the hot pink Kindle and the algorithm now optimizes for cheapest/fastest delivery, which is the warehouse down the street from you (your second order).

Welcome to global logistics.

we will click on the thing to delay some items so they can all go out together and save energy and then they just ship them out as they go anyway.

For me it randomly changes the delivery day after the purchase. Like:

• “You’ll receive it tomorrow”
• buy it
• “Nah fuck you, it’s Saturday”

Oh and wanted to cancel amazon prime because I’m tired of their bs and guess what: Both app and site sends you to a blank page when you try to cancel, you have to call support to do it. Fuck amazon

You’re seeing how changes in circumstances cause changes in estimates. If the first time the next truck going out was tomorrow because today’s was full, but now they have a promised overnight delivery for a bunch of stuff going in the same direction, they might put your package on that plane instead. If you have Amazon Prime then your membership pays for the extra fees for the faster delivery that is now available, but otherwise you’re probably going to pay more if you select that faster option.

Or maybe there was a return or cancelation for that same product and it happened to go to a warehouse local to you, so now there’s a closer option.

Lots of things change and Amazon tracks that stuff in near realtime.

Almost any and all “tracking information” is fictitious. Many, many companies use estimates and present those as facts. Some are a lot more egregious about it than others. In my neck of the woods, I’ve noticed that PostNL’s tracking info is often made up whole cloth, telling you your package will be with you tomorrow while it hasn’t even entered the country yet, much less cleared customs.

I had ordered something on the 23rd and took the free standard shipping for the 27th of December. They emailed me on the 24th that my delivery day was guaranteed to be the 24th. Any other day I would have been pretty happy but it ruined my plans since I needed a one time code to accept the package!