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Comment by tjr | Hacker News Reader

I placed an order with Amazon last week, on Friday. Just got free shipping, no Prime, nothing. It was delivered two days later, on Sunday.

Cool, thanks, but I really didn't need or expect it that fast, and I kinda feel bad for whoever may have had to work extra to get me my Friday order on Sunday...

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On the other hand, the delivery driver who got paid to make that Sunday delivery may be grateful for the income.

... if incremental income is tied to number of deliveries. If the driver was contractually obligated to work that day anyway, and the incremental load simply increased the time at work without an increase in compensation, then maybe not.

I am not sure exactly how Amazon structures the pay for drivers, but even if it is time-based instead of package-based, there have to be >0 packages to deliver for the driver to get paid anything that day.

I hope so! Thanks for the alternate perspective.

If you have to deliver a parcel anyway, why delay?

In the UK Second Class post is just held back a bit. It isn't like it gets sent by pack horse instead of by truck.

Now you are a good sort, but your neighbour might be on the phone to them on Sunday evening saying 'I ordered this Friday, moan, moan, moan...' if it was not delivered so promptly. This would incur 20 to 30 minutes of customer service time and could possibly lose them as a customer, for them to write negative reviews and bad mouth the company.

It is less work to do deliveries really promptly and have no queue to manage. Don't feel bad for the people that work to achieve this, imagine how much more miserable they would be if they had a backlog, a veritable mountain of stuff to deliver on Monday, for them to not get it all done and to be going home fretting about it.

I am no fan of Amazon but I can see what they are doing.

It actually really annoys me when this happens. My building's mailroom is only open Mon-Fri, so despite the effort put in to deliver as fast as possible, I still can't receive it until the following Monday night.

If you don't need your package that fast, you can select a slower delivery option and Amazon will either give you credit for ether digital goods or Prime Now orders.

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