Octopus Overlords

Whole Foods will handle returns as well now and so will whatever they call their Amazon stores they have in malls.. 4 Star?

Jeff V wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2020 9:52 pm

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2020 7:59 pm No Kohl's anywhere near me, unfortunately. Closest is a city away in Colma.

Here they are ubiquitous. My little fly spec town (pop 19K) has one, as does the slightly larger horse fly spec town (pop 33K) about 15 minutes away. I know of at least 5 others within 30 minutes drive.

Isn't your "fly speck" town just outside a metro area of 9 million people?

stessier wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 12:55 pm Isn't your "fly speck" town just outside a metro area of 9 million people?

About 90 minutes to downtown Chicago on most days. Lots of cornfields in these parts.

Amazon bringing back Kids in the Hall?. Yes please!

hepcat wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 10:45 pm Amazon bringing back Kids in the Hall?. Yes please!

Yes! Loved The Kids in the Hall.

hepcat wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 10:45 pm Amazon bringing back Kids in the Hall?. Yes please!

Except now they are old fogies now and the "hall" is a concourse in their nursing home.

Kevin McDonald pops up from time to time. The kids know him as "that funny guy who was on Odd Squad."

I remember laughing uncontrollably at so many of their (often politically incorrect) skits. Anything with Scott Thompson's Buddy Cole character was gold (my favorite: Buddy coaches an all lesbian softball team called Sapphos Sluggers), and the dark but hilarious Daddy Drank skit...which you can find on youtube...I'd posted it earlier but deleted it because I had forgotten there's a little bit of humor in it that they probably wouldn't do these days.

Hope they keep Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet.

We used to race home from the bar early whatever night the new eps debuted to watch them fresh. And then tape the ep and watch it again immediately.

We went to the bar every night in those days because there was a war on.

Pretty sure I've got them all on DVD somewhere. I wish they were doing more than 8 episodes!

hepcat wrote: ↑Fri Mar 06, 2020 3:15 pm the dark but hilarious Daddy Drank skit...

Kevin has said in interviews that that is an accurate portrayal of his father.

Fun times. With NJ shut down Amazon has pretty much become unusable for me. Anything non-eDelivery is showing a delivery time of 4/22 right now. I'll keep an eye on it but something has definitely gone wrong.

This is them load-balancing for food/personal/hygiene supplies. My guess is that they're putting an automatic +30 days on "non-essentials" but you'll get it in 7-10 days. I know for all the dry goods I've been ordering over the last three weeks, they've been giving me crazy estimates but then 24-48 hours later they revise delivery dates to within a week.

For the most part orders have been fine for me (in Boston) - seems like mostly another day or two. So far the longest wait has been for an Amazon computer mouse, which is scheduled to arrive a week after I ordered it.

I ordered HDMI and DVI cables (for WFH). Sunday order, scheduled for Thursday delivery.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:19 pm I ordered HDMI and DVI cables (for WFH). Sunday order, scheduled for Thursday delivery.

Expect it to be late.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:20 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:19 pm I ordered HDMI and DVI cables (for WFH). Sunday order, scheduled for Thursday delivery.

Expect it to be late.

I can live if it's late but they've been on target with other deliveries this past week.

As a test, I just ordered a movie with a scheduled delivery date of Friday. We'll see what happens.

pr0ner wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:38 pm As a test, I just ordered a movie with a scheduled delivery date of Friday. We'll see what happens.

Man, you must have slow internet if it takes that long to stream.

hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 9:03 pm

pr0ner wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:38 pm As a test, I just ordered a movie with a scheduled delivery date of Friday. We'll see what happens.

Man, you must have slow internet if it takes that long to stream.

Ha. I still buy physical media for things I want to watch with the absolute best picture quality.

I’m seeing similar expected times (April 22) for everything as is my brother in Dallas. So it seems like it’s not really based on your location.

It may just be a coincidence, but I ordered a few things last week that were supposed to get here today; instead they arrived on Saturday. Could they have been trying to get all the non-essentials out of the way and rushed my delivery?

It's definitely item based. There was some thought about it being Amazon locker vs not. That seems to be in the mix. We figured out that Amazon lockers at Whole Foods were better than Amazon Lockers at Wegmans. That makes sense if they just use the Whole Foods network.

Anyway what it looks like it comes down to is availability of a particular item in local warehouses. It isn't essential vs. non-essential either I believe. Unless Monster is essential.

The items were picked by just following suggestions from Amazon - so this is what their algos are pushing. Clicking on colors even sometimes matters.

Monster Energy Drink - Red / April 22nd
Monster Energy Drink - Purple / Saturday
Premier Protein Latte / Saturday
Premier Protein Caramel / April 22nd
5-pack Amazon Basic 6-foot HDMI cables - Black / Saturday
5-pack Amazon Basic 6-foot HDMI cables - Blue / April 22nd

I also wonder if they're getting push back from USPS over deliveries? I know my poor local RR driver has been the real MVP for me, delivering all kinds of Amazon nonsense over the last ~3 weeks.

Wife ordered a thermometer two weeks ago so we'll know when we have the COVID. It was reported shipped yesterday.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 10:36 pm I also wonder if they're getting push back from USPS over deliveries? I know my poor local RR driver has been the real MVP for me, delivering all kinds of Amazon nonsense over the last ~3 weeks.

In my area I see branded Amazon vans mostly. Occasionally it is unmarked vans. Rarely USPS / Extremely rare other carriers.

A dog collar I ordered Saturday says it will be delivered Thursday. My wife ordered an end table today and it was scheduled for April 22nd.
I went down my shopping list of items and a pair of Oofos Exercise recovery sandals said March 31st for it. Wifi headphones March 28th. SSD drive April 22nd. Pet gate March 28th. So I'm not sure what the algorithm is for deciding what is essential...

Lassr wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 11:01 pm A dog collar I ordered Saturday says it will be delivered Thursday. My wife ordered an end table today and it was scheduled for April 22nd.
I went down my shopping list of items and a pair of Oofos Exercise recovery sandals said March 31st for it. Wifi headphones March 28th. SSD drive April 22nd. Pet gate March 28th. So I'm not sure what the algorithm is for deciding what is essential...

I think they'll happily sell what is local. What they won't guarantee anytime soon is getting those items back in stock and they aren't going to be doing any spoke-to-spoke item transfers. What they re-stock will be prioritized based on what they consider essentials...whatever that means.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:25 pm

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:20 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:19 pm I ordered HDMI and DVI cables (for WFH). Sunday order, scheduled for Thursday delivery.

Expect it to be late.

I can live if it's late but they've been on target with other deliveries this past week.

Arrived today, a day early.

Put in an order for something last night (a vacuum - how exciting!) and the delivery date is listed as this weekend. So maybe the April 22 date was just a temporary holding place?

I'm still pretty sure it's just Amazon covering their asses. It's like Scotty said, " Oh, you didn’t tell him how long it would really take, did ya?" They're giving themselves wiggle room to prioritize other orders without dealing with support calls, and possibly trying to temporarily make other products less appealing to ease the pressure on what's sure to be a decreased workforce.

In other words you'll still get it in a few days, but if they should suddenly have to shutter a warehouse, they're covered.

Amazon seems to be functioning smoothly enough hereabouts. I was able to place a Prime-shipping order yesterday afternoon that shipped overnight and I just received a notification from the courier that it is out for delivery this afternoon.

A quick scan of the grocery section mostly shows goods that are either out of stock or have shipping times ranging from one-day to one-week, but nothing I noticed is marked as a one-month shipping time. Prices range from pretty normal to weirdly expensive, but that was true pre-pandemic as well.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 10:36 amI'm still pretty sure it's just Amazon covering their asses.

I'm totally fine with that. Having lived in an era of "Wait 4-6 weeks for delivery" being told it might take 4 or 5 days for something to arrive makes me shrug my shoulders. I'm just happy it'll arrive at all.

My last couple orders have actually come a day before they are estimated. I've been doing the "let it come later for a credit on Kindle books" and they've been early. So that's cool since I'm doing a lot of reading with this free time.

One item in my cart is annoying me though and that's a new router. My current one is ooold and craps out once a day and needs to be bounced. Now that I've got the money and ordered a new one it's out of stock for a couple weeks. I don't have a problem dealing with that but with both my wife and I working from home we need that stable connection.

Z-Corn wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 2:29 pm One item in my cart is annoying me though and that's a new router. My current one is ooold and craps out once a day and needs to be bounced. Now that I've got the money and ordered a new one it's out of stock for a couple weeks. I don't have a problem dealing with that but with both my wife and I working from home we need that stable connection.

Shop around.

You may well find the same router for a cheaper or similar price at Walmart, NewEgg, B&H Photo Video, Monoprice, or Best Buy.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 3:03 pm

Z-Corn wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 2:29 pm One item in my cart is annoying me though and that's a new router. My current one is ooold and craps out once a day and needs to be bounced. Now that I've got the money and ordered a new one it's out of stock for a couple weeks. I don't have a problem dealing with that but with both my wife and I working from home we need that stable connection.

Shop around.

You may well find the same router for a cheaper or similar price at Walmart, NewEgg, B&H Photo Video, Monoprice, or Best Buy.

I may end up shopping around or going with my second choice but I'm beholden to that 5% return from using my Amazon card. They've got me locked in like a sucker!

edit to add: I checked, nobody has it cheaper than Amazon.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 7:09 pm This is them load-balancing for food/personal/hygiene supplies. My guess is that they're putting an automatic +30 days on "non-essentials" but you'll get it in 7-10 days. I know for all the dry goods I've been ordering over the last three weeks, they've been giving me crazy estimates but then 24-48 hours later they revise delivery dates to within a week.

That's good to know. My middle child, who is home doing distant-learning for college, managed to ruin the power adapter for his school laptop. Amazon was quoting April 23 as the delivery date for a replacement. I'm also in NJ.

Z-Corn wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 3:07 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 3:03 pm

Z-Corn wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 2:29 pm One item in my cart is annoying me though and that's a new router. My current one is ooold and craps out once a day and needs to be bounced. Now that I've got the money and ordered a new one it's out of stock for a couple weeks. I don't have a problem dealing with that but with both my wife and I working from home we need that stable connection.

Shop around.

You may well find the same router for a cheaper or similar price at Walmart, NewEgg, B&H Photo Video, Monoprice, or Best Buy.

I may end up shopping around or going with my second choice but I'm beholden to that 5% return from using my Amazon card. They've got me locked in like a sucker!

edit to add: I checked, nobody has it cheaper than Amazon.

I ended up buying what was my first choice months ago before I switched to my second choice which had lured me in with bells and whistles. New router and mesh extension will be here Monday!

Going with Synology RT2600ac and MRC2200ac combo.

Hrdina wrote: ↑Fri Mar 27, 2020 5:41 pm

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 7:09 pm This is them load-balancing for food/personal/hygiene supplies. My guess is that they're putting an automatic +30 days on "non-essentials" but you'll get it in 7-10 days. I know for all the dry goods I've been ordering over the last three weeks, they've been giving me crazy estimates but then 24-48 hours later they revise delivery dates to within a week.

That's good to know. My middle child, who is home doing distant-learning for college, managed to ruin the power adapter for his school laptop. Amazon was quoting April 23 as the delivery date for a replacement. I'm also in NJ.

I'm still seeing massive delays. My monthly Amazon order (that I'd typically get next week) was just pushed back 3 weeks. These are all food/personal products that I've been getting monthly for well over 2 years.

A lot of stock is now listed here with shipping dates that are a month out, but there is also stuff with one-day shipping still available.

Our local public health is now recommending wearing non-medical face masks for things like grocery shopping, to reduce the chance that you are depositing respiratory goo while in public choke-points, so I placed an order for a reusable dust mask last night and it shipped overnight. Of course, as of this morning the same item is listed as in stock but available for shipping on 10 May, so they may be closing off shipping options on more and more stuff as time goes on.

I had an order yesterday. Said it would arrive April 28. It shipped same day and will probably be here by Saturday.

Last order was placed on 3/28, estimated arrival of 4/22. It arrived 4/1.


I think they are being very careful to under-promise in a big way on the delivery times.