It's really hard to beat Amazon just because of logistics. Amazon tells me if it'll arrive tomorrow or the day after if I order now and I can be 99% sure that it'll be processed today or tomorrow and it'll arrive as expected.
Anybody else? I have no idea how long it'll take them to process my order, how long it takes for it to be processed by DHL/DPD/GLS and how long the actual delivery will take.
Hm, I have an active order right now. I ordered three things simultaneously on December 15 with a stated delivery date of December 20, also called out by the website as "arrives before Christmas".
One of those things shipped the next day and is currently reported to be arriving tomorrow, which happens to match the stated delivery date.
The other two have yet to ship, but their delivery date has slipped to "December 21 - 24".
Realistically, they look unlikely to arrive before Christmas, and Amazon seems to feel no need to honor their contract.
What's your control group? Would other online retailers fare better or worse than this? Most of the time, other online retailers are worse in my experience.
Amazon is much worse on shipping than pretty much any other online retailer. The norm is that the retailer tells you when the thing will arrive, and it arrives on time. The norm for Amazon is that they advertise a deadline they don't plan to meet, and when they slip that deadline, they alter the shipping speed displayed on your order.
A long time ago I assumed that Amazon removed shipping speed options from their ordering process because, if you itemize shipping separately from the cost of the good, the customer can demand a refund on shipping when you don't provide what you sold.
My current theory is that it's a side effect of deciding they needed to provide shipping in-house instead of buying it from reliable sources. They replaced shipping they could control with shipping they couldn't control, and so they stopped letting you specify the shipping speed you needed. But for some reason they continued advertising shipping speeds they knew they couldn't provide.
It's the complete opposite for me here in Germany based on recent experience ordering from Amazon and other online retailers. It almost always arrives when Amazon says it will. I literally just received a package from an Amazon courier in an Amazon truck, something that I ordered late yesterday.
Update: between my comment above and now, Amazon has marked the other two items shipped, and un-slipped the expected delivery date back to the 20th.
Interestingly, the "shipped" status is matched to a tracking update that says "package left the shipper facility" with no time or location information. All further updates have a location and a timestamp. (Everything is shipped by Amazon.)
Anybody else? I have no idea how long it'll take them to process my order, how long it takes for it to be processed by DHL/DPD/GLS and how long the actual delivery will take.