On Holiday Shopping and Amazon

[Ben]

If any of you are doing holiday shopping via Amazon, I suggest you start yesterday. I wanted to start early because of everything in the news about shortages, and I'm already too late.

The whole reason I buy anything at Amazon on the holidays it to ship stuff to family using the gift wrap feature so I don't have to have it come here first where I wrap it, then spend another $50 to send it to CA.

I ordered some stuff for my grand niece and sister last week. What was even available (half was out of stock) already showed that Prime shipping was a week out. Now I'm tracking everything that has shown as "shipped" and EVERY package is late. Now three of them are showing that they haven't shipped, after showing that they did ship. At this point I have no idea when the stuff will show up, or if it was even in stock to begin with. Let alone if it will show up, because several items showed they were being shipped via some weird ass third party shipper called AMAUS, which can't even be tracked.

This might be regional, as I have a few things from Amazon coming to me, and while shipping slower than usual, it's all via Amazon or UPS and tracking shows normal progress.

Anyway, sounds like holiday shipping might be a mess this year.

[K Frame]

Your expectations are too high!

You should be doing less with even less!

I only buy presents for a very few people these days, and I have no clue what I'm getting them...

[lee n. field]

My Amazon shopping consists of getting X number of Amazon gift cards and printing them out Christmas Eve.

[Ben]

My Amazon shopping consists of getting X number of Amazon gift cards and printing them out Christmas Eve.

I might resort to that this year. I send those out too to a couple of people, but if this current situation is an indication, I might do more and be done with it, other than for my grand niece, since I want the kid to have some things to open.

I'll be curious how long it takes me to get packages from Germany this year. They use DHL, who then transfers stuff to USPS once it hits our soil. Last year a cousin sent me an expedited Xmas package in late November and I got it in late January. It took four days to get to the US. The rest of the time was USPS. I guess this year I'll get it around June. 

[grampster]

We give everyone cash in a nicely wrapped envelope.  Problem solved.

[MillCreek]

My wife just finished our Christmas shopping for the grandkids.  Everything is being shipped to the house and my wife will wrap it and give it to the grandkids when they are here on Thanksgiving.  From the package tracking, everything should be arriving within the week.

[Ben]

In fairness, what's happening in my OP also happened last year, though much later in the season and again, only in CA. I was watching packages bounce around Los Angeles for 1-2 weeks before they made it to their final CA destination.

The unavailable merchandise, mostly toys, is happening much earlier this year.

[Frank Castle]

After getting screwed on shipping a last year, I got smart and did all my Christmas shopping in September. 

[K Frame]

Last year Castle Key and his wife ordered a book for me for Christmas in either late November or early December.

Damned thing sat in Jersey City, New Jersey, until almost February.

I finally picked it up when I visited them in July.

Christmas in July!   

Worth the wait, though -- it was a book on the Leonberger -- breed history, standards, etc., basically a complete guide to the breed -- that came out about a decade ago. I desperately wanted a copy when it was published, but just couldn't afford it. Absolutely fantastic book, and there are a bunch of pictures of dogs and people I've met, which is really cool. One of the best Christmas gifts I've ever gotten.

[Boomhauer]

The post office is already saying Dec 15 is going to be latest date for arrival by Christmas but personally I think that’s a little optimistic this year myself.

[Boomhauer]

Went to target today to do some Christmas shopping. The holiday section was wrecked, bunch of empty shelves and lots of bare pegs/shelves. Normally it doesn’t look that bad until the last week before Christmas