The e-commerce behemoth Amazon is so keen to fill 50,000 open jobs that it’s holding a series of job fairs across the country. Most of those jobs are in its warehouses and sortation centers, and the problem Amazon is encountering is that the labor market for people who work in warehouses is becoming very competitive. [More]
SHIPPING
Walmart Expands Use Of Giant Orange Vending Machines For Online Pickups
By 7.5.17
Walking into your local Walmart you could soon be greeted with a giant, orange vending machine, as the big box retailer expands the self-service kiosks in order to provide online customers with a quick option to pick up their orders without the apparent hassle of having to speak to a human being. [More]
Your Holiday Shopping Could Get More Expensive, Thanks To UPS
By 6.19.17
If you were planning to do your holiday shopping from the comfort of home, scooping up bargains with a click, you should know that you may have to pay a little more this year since UPS is tacking on a holiday delivery surcharge during the busiest weeks of the year. [More]
Walmart Employees Now Delivering Packages To Your Front Door
By 6.1.17 — Updated: 6.9.17
Two-day free shipping, online pickup discounts, grocery pickup — these are just a few ways in which Walmart has tried to up its online shopping game while staying competitive with rival Amazon. Today, the big box retailer rolled out its latest effort: sending associates to customers’ houses with orders in hand. [More]
Target Quietly Raised Minimum Free Shipping Threshold From $25 to $35
By 5.9.17
While Amazon just recently dropped its free shipping minimum from $35 to $25, Target has made the baffling decision to go in the opposite direction, raising its minimum required purchase for free shipping to $35. [More]
Amazon Drops Free Shipping Minimum To $25
By 5.9.17
Online shoppers are benefitting from the e-commerce battle between Amazon and Walmart. Amazon has once again lowered its minimum for free shipping for non-Prime orders, from $35 to $25, undercutting Walmart’s minimum by $10. [More]
Amazon Won’t Say Why Next-Day Shipping Option Sometimes Vanishes
By 5.2.17
When you’re looking at an item page on Amazon, you may see a note that says, “Want it by tomorrow? Order it within 45 minutes,” and realize that yes, you do need that printer cartridge the next day. What’s confusing for some shoppers, though, is that sometimes same-day or next-day delivery is available on the item page, then disappears when they go to check out. [More]
Amazon Reduces Minimum On Free Shipping For Non-Prime Customers
By 2.21.17
Almost exactly one year after Amazon increased the free-shipping minimum on non-Prime customers from $35 to $49, the e-commerce giant has decided to revert back to the old $35 minimum. [More]
Amazon Files Patent For Parachuting Packages From Drones
By 2.15.17 — Updated: 2.21.17
Now that Amazon’s Prime Air delivery drones have made their first dropoff, it seems the e-commerce giant wants to make the process even more efficient: Instead of unmanned aerial vehicles landing to set a package on the ground, Amazon has cooked up an idea for fly-by deliveries. [More]
Amazon Signs 50-Year Lease On Air Cargo Hub In Kentucky
By 2.1.17
Sure, Amazon keeps saying that it isn’t interested in carrying freight for other companies even as it leases planes and invests in one of the companies it leases from. Now the company has signed a lease on a space similar in size to the air hubs of FedEx and UPS. [More]
Walmart Ditching $50/Year ShippingPass For Free Two-Day Shipping
By 1.31.17
Less than a year after its national launch, Walmart is pulling the plug on its $50/year ShippingPass subscription service that was intended to compete directly with Amazon Prime. In its place, the big box retailer plans to offer free-two day shipping on millions of products with a lower minimum purchase price. [More]
When This Company Ran Out Of Shovel-Sized Boxes, It “Got Creative”
By 1.30.17
As someone wise once said, if you don’t have a box that will fit what you want to ship, just figure something out. One of our very own Consumerist readers was the recipient of such necessity-driven creativity recently, when an item she’d ordered online showed up on her doorstep in, shall we say, unexpected packaging. [More]
Amazon Makes Boy’s Dream Come True With Visit To Phoenix Distribution Center
By 1.27.17
Though we may be used to the idea of summoning any product you want from anywhere around the world with the click of a button, the process that goes into making such a feat possible is a lot more complicated. And for an eight-year-old boy who spent a lot of time, while fighting cancer, thinking about how Amazon makes it all work, seeing that system up close and personal on a recent trip was a dream come true. [More]
FedEx Customers Will Be Able To Drop Off, Pick Up Packages At Walgreens Stores
By 1.11.17
We’ve all seen what can happen when a package is left out in the open or otherwise unattended, but not everyone can be home during the day, live in a doorman building, or have their stuff delivered to an office. Also? Some carriers just hate coming to your house. In an effort to solve these problems, FedEx and Walgreens announced plans to put delivery lockers in as thousands of Walgreens stores by the end of next year. [More]
UPS Expecting To Send 1.3M Packages Back To Retailers On ‘National Returns Day’
By 12.27.16
If you’re the kind of person who likes keeping track of arbitrary holidays, here’s one more to add to your list: Jan. 5, known as “National Returns Day,” or, “The Day You Send That Horrorshow Of A Sweater Back From The Fiery Chasm From Whence It Came.” [More]
Pilots Warn Amazon Shoppers That Holiday Packages May Be Delayed
By 12.19.16
Although a federal judge recently granted a temporary restraining order keeping pilots who fly Amazon shipments from striking, the union that represents them isn’t giving up on airing the workers’ grievances, Instead, they’re taking the issue straight to consumers, warning that Amazon won’t be able to meet the holiday demand. [More]
Reminder: If A Retailer Sends You Something You Didn’t Order, You Can Keep It
By 11.28.16 — Updated: 5.15.17
In the madness of the holiday shipping season, mistakes are not uncommon. Sometimes, lucky shoppers find themselves on the winning end of those mistakes, like when you get 99 extra knives or when a retailer sends four iPods instead of one. So what’s an honest consumer to do? [More]
A Strike At An Airline You Probably Never Heard Of Could Mess Up Your Christmas Shopping
By 11.22.16
Unless you work in shipping logistics or aviation, you’re probably not familiar with ABX Air. You can’t book a ticket on the Ohio-based airline; it doesn’t carry passengers. It carries boxes. And as the companies it carries boxes for — including Amazon — are ramping up for the super-busy holiday retail season, ABX pilots have gone on strike, potentially leaving a lot of those boxes in the lurch. [More]
