Amazon Cancelling Bulky Subscription Items / No Longer Shipping Certain Products to Many Postcodes (Megathread)

LRolloTomasi on 16/05/2024 - 13:52
Last edited 15/03/2025 - 14:32 by 2 other users

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?

Mod: This is now a megathread to discuss the recent changes (downgrades) to Amazon's delivery network & service.

Food & Grocery

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Comments

    • JIMB0 on 26/11/2024 - 18:21
      +1

      Blame Gerry

  • The Magic Pudding on 24/12/2024 - 22:47
    Merged from Amazon Prime: No Delivery to Some Regions and Invisible Deals

    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/885904#comment-16098775

    Just sponges I didn't want anyway.

    This deal is be invisible to me when I search Amazon (in a normal window, not private) it wasn't like this when I paid my yearly subscription, if it was I wouldn't have.
    I had a service and I paid to renew it for a year but they stealthily took most of it away.
    I think there is an argument for:

    If they don't want to deliver to the regions, they should refund the Prime subscription to regional people.

    • elgrande on 24/12/2024 - 22:50
      +1

      Yeah that's a shame.

    • Hybroid on 24/12/2024 - 22:59
      +2

      FREE delivery 8 - 20 January for Prime members to Sydney. I can imagine there are some items they do not feel are worthwhile from a logistics point of view to delivery regionally and/or are not stocked in warehouses that do service those areas.

      If they don't want to deliver to the regions, they should refund the Prime subscription to regional people.

      Odd thinking. Surely the onus is on you to cancel if you do not see benefit in the service. Speak to customer service to get a full refund. There might be other regional people that are happy with it and suits their needs.

      • The Magic Pudding on 24/12/2024 - 23:41
        -1

        "Speak to customer service to get a full refund."
        Do you think they'll give me one?
        There might be other regional people who don't realise how they're being forked.

    • boomramada on 24/12/2024 - 23:28
      +2

      Why not contact them and ask for refund OP ?

      • solidussnake on 25/12/2024 - 06:51

        Nah he would rather have a mighnight ramble about sponges

    • The Magic Pudding on 24/12/2024 - 23:57
      -3

      Oh joy, contact them and experience the full bot cyclical experience.

      • Japius on 25/12/2024 - 06:53

        Ive never had a bot experience with them I send them the message and within a few hours i get an email with a resolution. And when I have used the live chat option I've been with an operator fairly quickly. Never actually had any hassles with Amazon when it comes to Customer Service

    • The Magic Pudding on 25/12/2024 - 00:39
      -4

      I'm not having much success with Amazon customer service so far, how long has it been?

    • The Magic Pudding on 25/12/2024 - 00:48
      -5

      you didn't help me with this and no there isn't anything else i have for you to not help me with

      • boomramada on 25/12/2024 - 07:12

        I could help you with this with a $79 nonrefundable service fee and your credentials.

        • AndyC1 on 25/12/2024 - 09:48

          I can do it for $78.99 if a set of steak knives are delivered first.

    • bargaino on 25/12/2024 - 01:12
      +4

      You are not sponge-worthy.

      • solidussnake on 25/12/2024 - 06:50
        -1

        I think OP is a few sponges short of a carton with the way hes carrying on…

    • tanksinatra on 25/12/2024 - 08:24
      +2

      I created a thread about this a few months ago which got merged with another thread.

      Essentially Amazon have stealthily been removing most regional eligibility from their hottest deals. As you’ve noticed, they are hiding this by making the item invisible to shoppers in affected regions.

      It’s pretty disappointing that they’ve been so opaque about this.

    • JimmyF on 25/12/2024 - 09:15
      +2

      If they don't want to deliver to the regions, they should refund the Prime subscription to regional people.

      I agree the service has slipped, I have family in the country that I order things for and have noticed lots of items can't be sent to them now. Finding Kmart etc better value with the one pass.

      I do get it, Amazon has to use Auspost/courier for these areas, so it costs real money. They are not making money if you buy a $3.50 sponge but costs them $10 to send via Auspost!

      Compare this to the city areas that Amazon has its own delivery people running around at a much lower cost.

    • Counter Intelligence on 25/12/2024 - 11:55
      +3

      Yeah, sometimes I'm not logged in and Amazon thinks I'm in the regional areas and some items are mysteriously unavailable. I need to remember to change the postcode as soon as I enter the website instead of just going straight to searching for items.

      And yes, they probably should refund some part of the fee; especially since the areas of service have drastically changed. How much is reasonable is uncertain, but you will need to argue with customer service…

    • DarkSide on 21/02/2025 - 21:41

      im same issues i ordered 30 cans last month and now they wont deliver to my address now I got incontact with amazon but they did nothing gave me 50 amazon coupon tho

    • Freddies on 04/03/2025 - 15:22

      I've seen the same and I don't even live at any remote spot

  • Froodleme on 27/01/2025 - 08:34

    With the closure of Catch now due to the growth in Amazon, and Amazon themselves saying how big of a market Australia is to their baseline it's quite difficult to see why they'd shut down a large part of their distribution to non-city areas.

    I live 12 hours west of Brisbane, and relied quite heavily on Amazon for goods like toilet paper, tissues, cereals etc. We have a Foodworks in town but I'm not eager to pay $15 for a 250g box of cocopops while the family who owns it rip the town off. Partly the joys of living rural, but Amazon provided a way out that even Catch couldn't fill completely.

    Now, quite a few items have become unavailable including sanitary goods and dry foods. This has happened about roughly 2-3 months ago, it just all stopped despite being able to change my postcode to St George and it's all good. The stupid thing is, Federal government provides subsidies to anyone who ships out to rural remote areas, so there isn't any excuse. Ah well, back to eBay and bulk buying at Costco when on the coast.

  • pink on 27/01/2025 - 18:02
    Merged from Country and Regional Members - Who Is Cancelling Their Prime Membership?

    It seems that Amazon no longer delivers certain products to regional/country areas. With no announcement, I originally thought it was an item here or there being extended (like flammable items) but it seems this has now extended to a fair portion of things I’d buy from Amazon . Don’t think Bezos cares about those in regional areas, so it’s not worth a complaint. Instead, I vote with my wallet and plan to cancel my Prime membership before renewal. Wondering if anyone else plans to do the same?

    • AndyC1 on 27/01/2025 - 18:43
      -4

      Looks like OP has missed posts like this over the last 12 to 18 months. Nothing new.

    • nahi11 on 27/01/2025 - 18:54
      -2

      NBN is an example of why it doesn't make sense to serve regional customers.

      Sucks, but fair play.

      • RolloTomasi on 28/01/2025 - 11:26

        I live five hours west of Rockhampton and our town enjoys FTTP. Saying NBN doesn't make sense for regional people is classist at best.

    • boomramada on 27/01/2025 - 19:56

      Why you even need to ask, if they not delivering, just cancel it.

    • MS Paint on 27/01/2025 - 20:55
      +3

      Adverts on prime, hardly delivers all the good stuff = cancel

    • geekcohen on 28/01/2025 - 05:11
      +2

      Nope. I just get it delivered to family in the Metro Area and then pick it up when I see them or am that way. Prime still has lots of benefits (like the video streaming). A lot of what I buy on Amazon I can get delivered, its only the odd thing that I might have to get delivered elsewhere.

      I am in Regional VIC.

  • auozb on 15/03/2025 - 14:27
    Merged from AMAZON AU Stops Deliveries to Regional Australia

    I lived in a city and presently live in kinda remote NT.
    This started over a year ago. I started to notice that when my NT address is selected in account, the items I was watching would show as not in stock with Amazon AU, but if I were to select my city address (like Melbourne, Sydney etc) then the items would show in stock with Amazon AU as a seller and delivery options, together with S&S options.

    Over the last 12 months a lot more items went this way, pretty much all of S&S items are now not available to be delivered to rural areas. Amazon aggressively removed this to save money on transportation, that's my take. As they improved delivery services in big cities, Amazon AU completely forsaken rural Australia, where the shopping choices are limited (no coles or woolies) and people pay much higher prices already, so Amazon's S&S was very helpful.

    You can test this yourselves, by creating a rural address and see if you can still get S&S item delivered there.

    I've raised this over the last 18 months with Amazon customer service, every single time they would refer to different areas and managers for follow up and promise to fix this, but nothing happens.

    So my question to you all, is there anything that can be done to change it? Does Amazon hold responsibility to provide its services across ALL of Australia equally?

    • RolloTomasi on 21/03/2025 - 12:55
      +1

      Yep it's very widespread now. Living rural, I was in the first postcode block to be banned.

      What was funny, is that a lot of people here and on reddit were of the opinion that I should think myself lucky for having it in the first place.

      Then they kept adding more postcodes, and a lot of those people (some less than an hour from Melbourne) were put on the list. A lot less criticism nowadays lol.

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