So we live rural (6 hrs west of Rockhampton) and Amazon has been out source for bottled water/soft drink etc. Our nearest Woolworths is a four hour return drive.
Overnight, Amazon cancelled all of our subscriptions for these heavy items, and now doesn't offer them to us, except for third-party sellers with expensive shipping.
Has anybody else experienced the same thing?
Are there any alternatives?
I wonder how the elevation is like on the block compared to the neighbours.
Im surprised amazon even bothered to start with. Shipping would have been an absoloute bomb
Not much out that way past Emerald.
It is very costly to shift bulk goods, as you know, so it was a spell of good fortune Amazon did so at all!
I haven't looked at the coverage of the other free ship offers, like one pass and kogan, but if they aren't already excluding you, I bet it won't take long.
Good thing while it lasted. You should thank Bezos if you ever bump into him.
Guess you could call this a snubscription
Blame this guy, they finally figured out losing money endlessly on a customer is a bad business model - https://www.reddit.com/r/alaska/comments/3ukw30/how_i_ruined…
try woolworths online delivery with delivery unlimited plan. you can get a 1 month free trial
This. Should be the next best thing if they allow it.
It is very strange that post things that cost a few dollars and bulky items at no cost. They could combine some of these orders to save on shipping but don't.
Try family or friends who might be a short drive away who could be eligible and go once a week to pickup your stuff.
Sometimes for me, regional shipping is extra and not free but for my sister who is 30 mins away, it is free for her, so I get it shipped to her and go and pick it up. Its cheaper and easier than going to a store or having to pay a lot extra for shipping.
So we live rural (6 hrs west of Rockhampton)
Our nearest Woolworths is a four hour return drive.Overnight, Amazon cancelled all of our subscriptions for these heavy items, and now doesn't offer them to us
and yet somehow you are surprised by this?
There’s certain things that Amazon says they won’t deliver to my place. If you set your address to a family/friend’s place in a metro area when you add it to cart, then update your delivery address when checking out it generally works.
There are exceptions of course, I can’t figure out a way to directly get around being in a ‘dry zone’ for alcohol delivery (even though there’s 12 bottle shops here, go figure..) apart from using the redirection ability with Auspost 👍🏻
In the same boat as you OP. Happiness has decreased.
You don't have large raintanks?
With all the rain you've had this year you should be set for years?
So what arrangements did you have before Amazon exists in Australia (it has not been that long)?
Can only speak for regional Vic, have long had some bulkier items delivered through Amazon but it seems Amazon no longer will deliver these items to region areas.
EG cat food, toilet paper, water/coke etc and then even more pricier items like I tested some Milwaukee kits, lego, all these were able to be ordered for delivery in Melb but the moment I changed the postcode to regional it was via 3rd party sellers only.
Seems they have hit a point where the marketshare no longer outweighs the higher cost of delivering these items.
Sucks for regional as Amazon has been great over the years if you don't have access to BigW, JB's etc where amazon often price match good deals and then would deliver.
Oh damn. I had a subscribe and save oat milk cancelled, but I assumed that was just a one-off. Prime membership became less valuable.
Yep… I can’t order bulkier items to regional NSW (Lismore) anymore. I have always had soft drink and toilet paper delivered. I saw solo zero sugar was on special… added to my cart. Amazon had defaulted to my sisters address in Brisbane, so I changed it to mine - not available.
Sucks for regional areas.. my might have to consider if my Amazon Prime is still worth it before next renewal.
It's not just a bit more expensive to deliver to regional areas, it's often double the price.
We (not amazon) are also switching from a single national price, to separate prices for metro and regional deliveries, and I'm sure we're not alone.
I think regional customers are just going to have to get used to paying more for delivery.
Enshittification
I don't really know what the alternative is.
It does genuinely cost more to deliver to regional areas, and someone has to cover that cost.
Previously it was metro customers subsidising regional customers, which wasn't fair either.
Updating shipping policies to accurately reflect the costs is hardly enshittification though.
Interesting times, positive is it's good for local business owners many would argue a bit late given internet shopping killed many of them.
What's disappointing about Amazon is it's not even a case of paying more, they simply don't provide the option anymore. I guess we will see new models like you suggest or maybe even regional requiring larger minimum spend for free shipping.
it's good for local business owners
They will also need to pay for higher shipping costs…
Seems reasonable, we've had a good run.
Sometimes I legitimately feel bad checking out on an online store with free delivery because I know it's probably exceeding their margin in some cases to deliver out here. Only a couple weeks ago I got a very small and cheap item delivered for free from Kogan in an envelope covered in almost $10 of stamps.
There’s been a few posts about this already but yeah looks like tightening the strings. Probably easier to just blanket block out postcodes rather than look at offering subsidied post or similar schemes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/alaska/comments/3ukw30/how_i_ruined… - probably this dude moved to Australia
Really, Amazon has gone from "let's just make money off AWS and use the rest to destroy retail" to being a profit driven company in the post-Bezos age. No more spending billions subsidising Alexa, no more shipping $10 of goods for $40, no more spending billions on Prime Video as some kind of bizarre loss leader, everywhere has to make a lot of money.
Retained earnings, the sum of all their profits and losses for the first 25 years of the business up to 2019 was $31b. Over the last 4 years, that has increased by $83b with profits last year of $30b. Profits for the first half of 2024 are already $24b.
Oh no, my bags of concrete aggregate, ordered for Marla.
This is what happens when people abuse the system trying to get "their monies worth" from it.
If only there was a fixed annual fee to provide surety of cost to the customer…
'Getting your money's worth' is the ENTIRE premise of this website, living location is not always a lifestyle choice and regional customers are not 'abusing the system' trying to get parity of services with metropolitan dwellers.
You consider paying for and using a service as it was advertised to be abusing the system?
yeah i cant get chemicals to my new address
So we are approx 90mins east of Melbourne and until recently we could purchase most items delivered to our door. Initial delivery problems appeared to be simply a no stock issue until we tried a family members address closer to the city. And just a heads up, it's not just bulky items. It's almost random eg they will not deliver Sharpie pens, toothbrushes, coffee and other small items anymore but will deliver toothpaste (all from Amazon usually S&S). Seriously not impressed.
It really is exactly as you describe, amazon have gone from being the best most reliable service for regional eshoppers to about the worst overnight.
Looks like I will be going back to ebay and catch a lot more
I'm 40 mins from Adelaide on a freeway and I can't get delivery either. But they will deliver to addresses further from Adelaide north and south but if you live out east it's screw you.
I'm in Lismore NSW and they've cancelled all my S&S orders and severely limited what they will ship.
Did their sweet heart deal with Auspost expire?
Are they only doing it to accounts they've lost money on or is it postcode based?
I've cancelled my prime membership - not worth it anymore.
It's postcode based, I've been logged out and fiddled with postcodes and it makes no difference if you are a new account or existing.
Yeah it's far worse than I first thought, same as you all S&S are cancelled and even some small items won't ship.
Prime membership feels useless now and I have 9 months left
I did find that I could use an Australia Post Parcel Locker address in the nearest regional city (Shepparton for me) and the items suddenly are in stock. It's not ideal as the lockers only hold for 48 hours and then they are transferred inside the facility. My son only visits there once a week in the evening so could be problematic.
But it may help someone else as a viable option.
Rural WA here, weighing in with my unhappyness also. Never ordered bulk items. Just stuff that I can't get locally. Now most things are "Out of Stock." Which pisses me off also. Just say that you are unwilling to ship it. So much for a Prime membership.
How do you deal with grocery shopping like milk, bread, vegies, meat, etc.?
Campbells, Bidfoods and couriers come out a couple times a week. Aussie Post is every day. It's well serviced, so it's not as if we're in the middle of nowhere. It's pretty common to hear that from people on the coast who have never been inland.
With woolies being four hours away, we go in once every 4-6 weeks with an huge camping fridge and 200L eski, stock up and bring it home into chest freezers. Some people go in every weekend, but I just can't see the point.
We have local shops, but you can't buy everything from them. Their meat & veg comes in once a week.
Cheers, now I have a glimpse of rural life.
The stupid thing is that I would always go to Amazon as a first point of contact and often would prefer to purchase off amazon even if the item was slightly more expensive as the convience and ease of return if something went wrong was great. However, they started doing this on my account months ago, items show up as "Out of Stock" so they just cancel the orders or just leave them unsent for weeks. I have complained multiple times but the dont even have a complaint management process, they just say they will pass the feedback on which I am sure goes into a black hole.
Even tho a couple of items here and there would have lost money in postage, I am sure my sub cost + overall purchases would have made me a significantly profitable customer for them, none the less I have now cancelled my prime sub and use other sites before I go to Amazon.
@Jimothy Wongingtons - we found the owner of property Z