Transaction Placed – 11:33 AM 10/10/18
Order Shipped – 4:07 PM 10/10/18
Customer Email Sent – 4:14 PM – “tracking number not located, can you recheck number please?”
This was an order that came in today, shipped out 4 hours later, and the customer is disappointed that the tracking # is not in UPS system 7 minutes after the product shipped. Let me break down how the business side looks at this vs the customer.
Business Owner – Your order was entered into our system about 2 hours before the UPS driver stops by our facility for pick up. We shipped your product out in 4 hours. A UPS trucking system that you paid a mere $15 dollars will take your package down the entire east coast and deliver it to Florida in 2 days.
Customer – Where’s my package?
What I Take Out Of the Human Psyche
If you paid for upgraded shipping (Next Day Air) and were guaranteed same day shipping by someone you spoke to, that’s different than placing an order for ground shipping in my mind. The standard for 1 day ground shipping is about a 5 hour radius from where it was shipped from. A 2 day service is around 15 hours driving. Anything more than that and you are in 3-5 delivery to any part of the country by UPS aside from Hawaii and Alaska. Realistic expectations from normal businesses are if you place an order that day, standard business is it will ship the next business day. That’s when you’re package expectations should begin. Checking where it is 7 minutes after it ships means you don’t have enough going on in your life.
I get why this is the case:
What enables Prime’s strong supply chain network is economies of scale. In the free-shipping game, big shippers, who get more favorable rates from package carriers like FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. because of guaranteed and predictable volume, have a big competitive advantage. Amazon often get volume-driven discounts of 70% or more on certain shipments, in comparison to smaller retailer’s to 5%. Amazon is among the handful of top customers who pay the Postal Service an average of $1.87 a package to make the last leg of a residential delivery. Other retailers must pay for a package’s full journey.
We are not a big shipper and customers have unrealistic expectations. You can make the case that this person simply wants to know what part of the country her package is shipping from to know when to expect delivery. I understand that, but here’s where my gears grind. I was listening to Howard Stern a week ago and he said it’s been researched that callers into radio shows are dumber than the average person. This is because instead of spending time “working”, they are sitting on the phone. I use this as an analogy that if you don’t have anything better to do than check the status of your package, you don’t have enough going on in your life.
When I buy a product, very seldom do I need to expedite it. Perhaps this is because I utilize planning. If you find yourself needing products and checking tracking numbers, you need to re-evaluate certain aspects of your life because “You’re Doing It Wrong.”
This Blog Promotes…
I don’t feel like I should even have to write this paragraph, but I know people are stupid. If they read this and do even remotely any part of what I wrote, they immediately pertain it to themselves and think I’m writing about them. Listen, this blog is not a “life is fair, I love people, we are all equal” blog. I take stances because that’s what it takes to make decisions. I’m not wishy washy and when I’m not right, I’m right, and when I’m wrong, I write I’m wrong. I have opinions and I’m not here to tell you to be on the fence about subjects. Do I truly think you’re an idiot if you track your packages? Of course I do. Of course not.
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