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Amazon Urges Shoppers to Order Early to Avoid Shipping Delays

Amazon Once Encouraged Holiday Procrastinators. Not This Year

In the Before Times, Amazon.com Inc. flooded the web with come-ons encouraging people to snap up deals on Black Friday, Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. Last year, for example, the company targeted procrastinators by pledging to whisk orders to them in one day or less.

But this isn’t a normal year. As the pandemic pushes shoppers online and Amazon braces for an orgy of buying, its marketing team is encouraging shoppers to order now and still score “Black Friday-Worthy Deals.”

There are other tweaks to the holiday schedule. The company’s holiday shopping landing page popped up on the website in mid-October, about three weeks earlier than usual. And Amazon has extended its returns window through the end of January in what many analysts interpret as an attempt to avoid further strain on its delivery network.

“Amazon has ramped up its capacity significantly since the start of the pandemic, but even its impressive capabilities will be put to the test during a holiday shopping season taking place during a pandemic,” says Andy Taylor, director of research at Tinuiti Inc., a marketing agency that handles about $2 billion a year in spending for advertisers.

Amazon’s strategy is a telling—if temporary—step back for a company that has long abetted fake shopping holidays. In 2016, Amazon began promoting “Turkey 5,” a cheesy exhortation to keep shopping from Thanksgiving Thursday right through Cyber Monday.

But more shopping means more shipping. “It’s very clear there’s just not enough fulfillment capacity,” said Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of Marketplace Pulse, a New York research firm that monitors Amazon’s site. This despite the fact that the company hired more than 250,000 warehouse workers this year, pledged to add an additional 100,000 seasonal bodies and, according to logistics consulting firm MWPVL International Inc., has been opening an average of one shipping facility a day.

Hanging over Amazon is the messy holiday season of 2013, when foul weather and logistical bottlenecks derailed deliveries and forced Amazon to issue refunds to irate shoppers. It was an unprecedented setback for a company that puts customers at the center of everything. Since that time Amazon has brought much of its logistics operation in-house and consistently sped up shipping to Prime subscribers.

Then the pandemic struck, shoppers stampeded online, and the company’s delivery machine began to sputter. It hasn’t entirely recovered despite the hiring binge. Now the holiday shopping season has arrived, and with eMarketer Inc. predicting that American consumers will spend a record $192.47 billion online, Amazon is trying to spread the orders out over weeks rather than a handful of pivotal days. 

During the company’s third-quarter earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky acknowledged the challenge. “We’ll all be stretched and it’s advantageous to the customer and probably to the companies for people to order early this year,” he said.

Olsavsky might as well have been referring to Amazon’s rivals, too. Most traditional retailers are falling over themselves to manage expectations. “Businesses need to do a good job of communicating the true deadlines for getting packages in time for Christmas to avoid providing a poor customer experience,” says Tinuiti’s Taylor.

Some shoppers are already getting the message. Amber Vanschoiack, a 40-year-old mother of five from Denver, Colorado, has been shopping earlier to ensure her loved ones get their gifts on time.

“I worry a little about not getting some items,” she says. “But I try to shop Prime items as much as possible, in hopes that there won’t be a great delay.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.