Amazon Orphans unite!

[Cirex]

OK, here's the deal. I was concerned because while My Account still says "shipping June 6th", the product page says "in stock June 16th." Being an anxious wreck like the rest of you ;-), I decided to contact Amazon. I entered in my phone number and literally two seconds after they called me back (try it!). After explaining my concerns, the very nice customer service rep said that they have a copy reserved for me. To put it another way, if yours says "shipping June 6th" then they already have one reserved for you and you don't need to worry about the later date.

My sense is that the discrepancy in dates probably means that they had to order more from Wizards. So if you didn't pre-order before they sold out of the original batch, your gift set will be shipping June 16th or later. My guess is that Amazon underestimated how many gift sets would sell, but ordered enough individual copies.

As for when my books will actually ship, who knows. The rep seemed pretty confident that it would ship today, but we shall see.

Much love for you for contacting them

About the shipping / delivery, I ordered a few minins some weeks ago and they arrived 3 weeks before the estimated. Actually, the estimate said 9th june, so go figure.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

Thanks a lot Mercurius!

 

[TerraDave]

I have recieve the following email

From "Amazon.com" <ship-confirm@amazon.com>
Sent Friday, June 6, 2008 4:26 pm
To DELETE
Subject Your Amazon.com order has shipped (#002-7189102-8716233)

Greetings from Amazon.com.

We thought you'd like to know that we shipped your items, and that this
completes your order.

DELETE

The following items have been shipped to you by Amazon.com:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Qty Item Price Shipped Subtotal
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC):
1 4th Edition Core Rulebook ... $57.72 1 $57.72

Shipped via FedEx (estimated arrival date: 09-June-2008).

So I guess ordering 5 months early does have its advantages.

 

[Saberj]

Mine still hasn't shipped, nor moved to "Shipping Soon". However, it still says it will arrive on Monday (Next Day shipping via Prime). Since the nearest warehouse is literally like 10 miles from my house, I think it could technically "ship" Saturday and still get to me on Monday. It just lists an arrival date, and not a ship date. So I have no idea whether or not it will go out today or not...

 

[Zogmo]

I'm checking amazon.com often to see if my preorder seems processed, if the shipping or the delivering date have been changed and all that kind of details.

About complications, if you got X preorders, you can go below it, even if you feel that 30% of them will cancel. We are talking a product with a life-span of 4-6 years and extra stock (called security stock) wouldn't do any harm. Stock Rupture is what Amazon is suffering right now...all the money lost for the lack of stock, money that goes to other companies.

What you have stated here is the exact reason why Amazon might not carry extra stock (security stock).

1) There is a huge life-span to this product. No need to have it now! Now! Now!
2) They way their model works is by not having huge warehouses filled with stock. They order what they think will sell and since they sold out completely even if they never sell another set it was a complete success. They sold everything they had.
3) They did get confirmation that a second print was being run so they can still fulfill all of the orders taken. There is no need to have stocked up on more because the life-span expectancy is long and it's only going to be a few weeks before they get more. In the long run of the products life that's a very short time.

AND just because some small group of gamers are really excited about this and want it NOW NOW NOW it doesn't mean they should be concerned about that. Obviously those people would have preordered way in advance and their books would be shipping today. If someone didn't preorder soon enough then they must not be that much of a fan compared to all the others who did.

The majority of people are not thinking like the people on this message board, they are waiting but not panicked into thinking that Amazon sucks now and they have no idea what they are doing. There was only so much to go around to begin with and it all sold out. From their point of view they see this as a totally reasonable situation and will sell more books as soon as soon as they get them.

As far as having "extra" stock in their warehouses goes you need to do a little search on the economics of retailers that do business online and how the brick and mortar business model had to change because of the paradigm of doing business on the internet.

 

[Nifft]

Shipment Date: June 6, 2008
Estimated Arrival: June 9, 2008

Mua-ha-ha!, -- N

 

[JohnRTroy]

Actually, shocking the Internet community Amazon's entire web site was down for a while today.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9962010-7.html

I think it's all the D&D fans hitting reload! ;-)

 

[thundershot]

My shipping estimate says June 10th. I chose the free shipping... I got a PHB at borders this morning (I ordered the boxed set and another PHB from amazon.. at $19 bucks a book, I couldn't pass it up) using a borders 20% off coupon http://www.borders.com/online/store/BordersMediaView_visitborders . This way I have one for me, one for my wife, and an extra copy for the people who aren't regulars getting their own...

Right now, I've got plenty to sink into with just the PHB. The hardest part is reading it while trying to get out of a 3E mindset...


Chris

 

[Grimstaff]

My shipping estimate says June 10th. I chose the free shipping... I got a PHB at borders this morning (I ordered the boxed set and another PHB from amazon.. at $19 bucks a book, I couldn't pass it up) using a borders 20% off coupon http://www.borders.com/online/store/BordersMediaView_visitborders . This way I have one for me, one for my wife, and an extra copy for the people who aren't regulars getting their own...

Right now, I've got plenty to sink into with just the PHB. The hardest part is reading it while trying to get out of a 3E mindset...


Chris

Hey, i did that too, got a PHB at Borders to tide me over until my Amazon box set arrives. I figure someone will probably need it at the game table until all my players get one. I got a 30% off coupon for Borders plus $5 frequent shopper bucks, so for less than $20 the PHB was a steal!

Remember when 3.0 PHB's were $20 retail!? sigh...

 

[Kzach]

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I pre-ordered back in March and they still haven't even debited my account