Amazon: Lost in Transit

I very rarely get time these days to have a leisurely stroll around the shops, so when I needed a present for my nieces impending birthday I decided to call upon the trusty Amazon lot to help get a present to me on time.

Like most little girls, my niece is mad for anything Disney Princess so I was thrilled to see the vast selection Amazon had to offer. I was even more delighted that I found a gift that my niece didn’t already have. I selected my item, and proceeded to the checkout.

Now I am a regular customer of Amazon and what I like even more is that I don’t need to re-enter my address and billing details each time I shop. The transaction was complete, my dispatch date was given and I could rest assured knowing that my gift would arrive in time for a certain someone’s special day....or so I thought!

The money was taken from my account, great, and my goods were on their way, fantastic, but they weren’t. The delivery date passed and I was running out of time to have the gift delivered in time. I emailed Amazon to find out where my parcel was and explained I would have a very unhappy 9 year old to answer to. Amazon responded telling me that it was still too early to ship me another item as I would risk being sent the same parcel twice! Instead I had to wait. But I didn’t have time to wait, it was Friday afternoon and the party of the year was taking place the next day, I needed a gift, and quick!!

I had to make a mad dash into my local shopping centre and luckily I found the exact same gift at the Tunbridge Wells Fenwick store, I was a little miffed that the same gift I had ordered, paid for and was still waiting for from Amazon, was a whole £7.00 dearer in Fenwick’s, but I needed this gift so I paid for it, knowing that should my Amazon item arrive, I could send it back for a refund.

Another 5 days passed and still no parcel. I placed another complaint and my response was somewhat different. “First of all, I am very sorry for the inconvenience caused by the non delivery of your order as the estimated delivery date was on 12th of September 2011. I can certainly understand that this was not what you expected when you placed your order and I realise that you have been counting on us to deliver your order promptly during this important time and that on this occasion we have fallen short. Please accept our sincere apologies. At this point, I can assume that it was lost in transit. To redeem this issue, I have now placed a new order for the same items to be sent to the same delivery address at no extra cost.”

Lost in transit?? How many other items that Amazon dispatch to hopeful customer simply get ‘lost in transit’? This item was no longer of use to me, I now had to wait for my second delivery to arrive and to take the time to ship it back and wait for my refund.

With Christmas less than 80 days away, Amazon really can’t afford for customer orders to get ‘lost in transit’. Consumers will be Christmas shopping any day now, and for a company that quotes itself on being “An extraordinary company, doing business on the Web in a real customer-oriented way." It needs to live up to expectations.