Are Amazon.com's projected shipping dates accurate?

[Kai Lord]

Due to a gift certificate that essentially let's me purchase them for free, I just pre-ordered the Dragonlance Campaign Setting and Age of Mortals Companion books from amazon.com. Both books have a release date of August 1st.

However, Amazon stated that the projected shipping date won't be until September 3rd, with a sheduled arrival on the 8th. Do you suppose this is correct? Why wouldn't they ship them the day (or before) the books are released?

 

[Aulayan]

Sometimes yes, Sometimes no.

When they were shipping Morrowind to me, they said it'd be a fortnight after the release date. They were right, because of the amount of preorders they had mine had to wait till a fortnight later.

However, they can be ridiculously long. My PHB was scheduled to arrive on July 8th-10th. Even AFTER it shipped on the 17th, the projected arrival was July 8th-10th. Sadly, their time travel shipping did not work.

I've recently pre-ordered AU from there, and they're saying mid august for release, even though wbe all know when the real release date is. Damn you Amazon.com!

*Goes off to order the Babylon 5 3 season dvd pack*

 

[Emiricol]

I have yet to have one right. Frequently I receive the item before it is supposed to ship, so at least they are often early...

 

[Graf]

The date to ship for certain products has this weird slip thing.... they tend to do a lot of suddenly broadening the time frame, slipping the end range back a ways, and generally incrementally shifting the numbers around.
I've watched a few products just slip and slide from week to week (in one case from month to month) without apparent rythm or reason.

Though I have nothing to really back this up beyond my own experiences I feel pretty strongly that the "date to ship" field has been programmed more to give you the impression that we-'re-about-to-send-it-don't-cancel.

YMMV

 

[fba827]

my own personal experience (I've order an average of one book every three months for the past couple of years - so not a lot, but some):

For items that are already released, I almost always get them before the estimated date. At worst, I get them on the estimated date.

For items that are not yet released (i.e. getting an "arrival date" based on estimated release date, etc) it's (for me) been at worst, 4 days late. And even then, usually about right on estimate.

These are, again, just my experienced. Your own experiences may differ.

 

[kengar]

My advice regarding release dates on Amazon.com: Ignore them unless the printer/publisher is saying the same thing.

The biggest problem I've had is that Amazon *always* has a release date listed, even when the company producing the product doesn't. One of the most blatant examples of this was when the "Neverwinter Nights" PC game was being developed. Amazon always had an exact release date on their site (even though it would change from time to time); sometimes over a year in advance. Yet BioWare was always saying, "There is no release date. We will ship it when it's ready."

Just IME, though.