Amazon Sabotages Its Own Black Friday Sales?
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Amazon Sabotages Its Own Black Friday Sales?
By Floyd Brown, Chief Political Analyst
Amazon (AMZN) started Black Friday deals early, but don’t count me in this year.
I’ve been a customer of Amazon almost from the beginning, when all they delivered were books. I don’t know how many thousands of dollars of merchandise I’ve ordered over the years, but it’s likely in the tens of thousands.
I adopted Amazon because it fit my busy lifestyle. Instead of having to visit Wal-Mart (WMT) and hustle from aisle to aisle . . . just to wait in a long line to pay for my merchandise . . . Amazon allowed me to buy with a few clicks and find the product at my doorstep just days later.
But after making its worst business decision ever, I will forever boycott using the site. And I might not be alone . . .
At first, Amazon’s premium service, Amazon Prime, improved on the customer experience.
With no shipping and two-day delivery, there was no way to beat it. My Amazon purchases exploded.
In fact, I was so addicted to Amazon last year that I spent most of Black Friday on the site completing my Christmas list. No need to fight the crowds at the mall. No need for rain checks.
Heck, they even delivered my out-of-town gifts directly to the intended recipient.
All of this joy is over now, however . . .
Serious Lapse in Judgment
If you’re a regular Amazon customer, you’ve likely noticed a change.
Amazon dropped the United Parcel Service (UPS), and it increased shipping with the United States Postal Service (USPS). Amazon made a deal with the Devil, and the customers are now required to pay.
Let me explain . . .
When the deal was announced, the U.S. Postal Service thought it was the lifeline it needed to survive. Since bills and most correspondence now come via email – and checks are often delivered by Automated Clearing House (ACH) – the USPS has lost its reason to exist.
Mail volume has plummeted and most of the mail delivered these days never makes it past the trash can into the house. They’re bleeding financially.
Now, Amazon pays huge delivery fees, and it’s looking to build its own fleet of trucks and vehicles to deliver packages. Instead, it thought it had a match made in heaven: Take the excess capacity of the USPS, and make it the delivery system for Amazon.
Makes sense, right?
But there’s a major problem with the equation. Amazon is going from being the best firm at delivering products . . . to being one of the worst.
From Pick-Up Lines to Picket Lines
In the past, the United Parcel Service would leave the parcels at your doorstep. Instead, USPS wants to cram it into your mailbox. But if you miss your mail for a day or the package doesn’t fit into your mailbox, you’re out of luck . . . the parcels end up back in the dead letter room at your local post office.
So instead of delivery, the Amazon customer has to go to pick up the package at the Post Office. That’s a line even more dreaded than Wal-Mart’s. Americans hate standing in the USPS line. And this is what’s happening to thousands of Amazon customers around the nation.
Instead of enjoying the delivery of Amazon Prime, you’re now faced with the hell of waiting in the line at the Post Office.
What sounded like a good idea on paper is a disaster for the Amazon customer. I wonder if Jeff Bezos and the other leaders of Amazon know what they’re doing to their own customers.
If this keeps up, they soon will.
Your eyes on the Hill,
Floyd Brown
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By Floyd Brown