Amazon preorder experience

I preordered Ni no Kuni last weekend from amazon.ca, they haven't shipped it yet 4 days after the game came out and it now appears that they are out of stock, the order says that it's expected to ship today; are they just blowing smoke up my ass?

I very rarely preorder games but I got in a mood last weekend and preordered this plus The Last of Us and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, if this is how it normally goes, I'm probably going to just cancel the whole order.

I also have a question/bitch about Amazon Prime; it just launched in Canada a few weeks ago $79 (same as US) but it's only shipping, there is no streaming service or kindle lending library; this combined with the fact that the Canadian store sells almost nothing beyond books/dvds/games and some electronics it's not much of a deal; all that on it's own isn't that big of a deal we didn't have it before and everyone was happy, except they have changed the terms of service for non prime members as follows:

"Select Super Saver Shipping as your shipping speed.To help us provide you with free shipping, your order may take an additional 3 to 5 business days to ship out from our fulfillment center(s)."

Is this the way it works in the US store? we always had next day order processing regardless of shipping option before; bullshit they are steering us into a worse situation than we enjoyed before their luxury service arrived.

I think most people will tell you that Amazon has been great for them. I've pre-ordered a lot of games from Amazon and they've always arrived within the given time frame. Hell, for prime members we get it the day it comes out. I'm guessing that Ni No kuni was more popular than they anticipated so if I were you I would just cancel the order and buy it on PSN if you have the space. You should have no problems with your other pre- orders though.

If you select the free shipping they don't send out the order till the day it comes out. Even though they have the games early, they will not reship them out till release date. I do love amazon but I no longer preorder stuff from them, cause if I want something the day it comes out I'll just go out that day and get it.

@mikey87144: I buy most anything I can on Amazon, it's always been great in the past. This is the first thing I've ordered since Prime came out and one of two things is happening:

-They are sitting on my order hoping I'll buy their shit version of Prime

-They over sold Ni No Kuni(completely understandable) and I'll be waiting weeks for it, why haven't they told me if that's the case?

Either way it's really shitty of them

My account is with Amazon.com. There's always going to be less selection on Amazon.ca, similar to looking at Bestbuy.ca and comparing to Bestbuy.com, which is an absolute joke. Plus, receiving items without a language I don't speak is a nice bonus. Never looked into it, but I would see shipping costs being the only drawback. However, after ordering countless items, it's never been significant to the point where I worry about the money I could save using .ca.

@Kidavenger: Hard to say because I'm in the US, but I pre-ordered mine with Prime and got it yesterday. I hope you get your copy soon.

@Kidavenger: Wow that is weird. I ordered mine on Wednesday and I got it today. Sorry to hear that dude, kinda unfair.

I think .ca didn't expect the game to be so hot. As for Prime, it doesn't seem worth it to me. I live in Vancouver and usually preorder all my games from Future Shop's website because they have a warehouse in town close by, so I usually get new release on day 1 (maybe day 2). I'm really sad Amazon Prime doesn't offer more though, I'd really rather give them my money.

that sucks.

I didn't even pre-order my copy and it got delivered in two days.

i've preordered my games from Amazon for the past 3 years and i've gotten every single game on day 1.  I'm also a prime member though so i always get release date delivery.  It's probably just a Amazon.ca problem.

I remember when I used to get pre-ordered shit the day it came out, or earlier sometimes with free shipping. Then Prime happened.

Amazon has excellent customer service. That really sucks that you are having a bad experience, but I feel comfortable saying that they aren't doing it on purpose or with any ulterior motives.

I've only pre-ordered from Amazon a few times but every time I have, I did it the day before it came out and received the game the next day with free shipping. I've done it with big AAA titles as well and never had any issues. I live in the states though so maybe it's a Canadian issue? I've heard my Canadian friends complaining about certain online services not being as good as they are here.

Send them an email maybe? Amazon has always had exceptional customer service for me.

Super Saver Shipping or whatever does take 3 to 5 days in the US

Almost every one of my non-PC game purchases in the last four years has been from Amazon (w/ free release date delivery through Prime). I think there's only been two occasions during that entire time when I got the game a day late.

With a game like Ni No Kuni, I wouldn't be surprised if it's just a supply issue. Amazon may have not bothered to stock many copies or Namco may have not even produced all that many (especially since up there in Canada, I think they often have to print a different cover for the case than the US that displays both French and English).

@Gerhabio said:

Super Saver Shipping or whatever does take 3 to 5 days in the US

Does it take Amazon that long to put it in the mail, or are you talking about the actually shipping to your door?

I'm pre-ordering Pandora's Tower from them, so we'll see how that goes. Whenever I've ordered products, though, they've always arrived in a timely fashion.

@Chaser324 said:

(especially since up there in Canada, I think they often have to print a different cover for the case than the US that displays both French and English).

Almost every local place I've checked has stock which makes this all the more irritating, Futureshop was even giving away a $10 gift card with it if you purchased on release day.

I'm not in any hurry to play this game, I'm more pissed that Amazon.ca seems to be jerking us around now to sell Prime memberships.

Wow that sounds like a real bummer. I've been a Prime member for years residing in a small New England town not near any cities. WIth the exception of one or two things everything I've ordered has been at my door in two days or less from when I click the Order button. Everything from release day video games to televisions, recliners, snow blowers, bags of rice or whatever else. Sounds like the CA Prime is a real bummer considering how great the 2-day shipping on almost everything is.

@Kidavenger: Bitch at the customer reps see if they might throw you a coupon for another game or something. For me I've never had any issues with Amazon I usually get it on expected date but that's probably cause I live Seattle close to their HQ and major distribution centers.

Bummer, man!. I've pre-ordered every big game of interest to me over the last 3 years or so and as a Prime member, have had no complaints. My pre-ordered copy of Assassins Creed III did get lost in the mail that was supposed to come with the steel book though. Even though it was a carrier problem, they reimbursed me the price of the game and advised me to purchase the steel book through a third party and would reimburse me the price of that as well.

If that really means 3-5 days processing, that's a shitty way to get people to buy prime. That means if you're preordering a game without prime, you may be waiting a week or so right? Fuck that.

@Kidavenger: I've used prime on the US store for years and it's great, and plus the fact there isn't any online sales tax in the state of Indiana is even better. But hopefully the service in Canada gets better cause to pay that kind of money a year and not get any real benefit sucks!

@RecSpec: 3-5 days processing plus 3-5 days shipping; i.e. no other issues it could take up to 2 weeks to get a preorder before Amazon considers it a problem...

Demand for Ni No Kuni was probably a lot higher than they originally thought. I'm in the UK, the game doesn't come out until the 1st and Amazon have said they don't have the stock needed for all of the orders.
Amazon is kind of a mixed bag. It seems to be a really great service in the US, I always hear of people receiving coupons and excellent delivery however outside of the US it isn't so great. If I'm preordering a game I tend to stay away from Amazon as it'll always be a day late, I assume so that they aren't received a few days before street date.

Pre-orders have always been fine, did you actually pre-order it; or did you pre-order it 2 days before it came out. Also the book lending is nice, but the library kinda sucks; the steaming is also lack luster. You aren't missing much, I just consider them bonuses to get free shipping.

And that Free Shipping thing is normal, if you aren't going to pay to get your shit delivered to you (via Prime or actual paying for shipping) they are in no rush to get it to you. They need to fill orders that have paid for shipping to make sure those things make it on time.

I live in Canada and I only use the American Amazon anyway, the Canadian one is fucking useless, and more expensive a lot of the time.

@MikkaQ said:

I live in Canada and I only use the American Amazon anyway, the Canadian one is fucking useless, and more expensive a lot of the time.

How do you use the American one? Whenever I tried to do that they said they don't ship internationally.

@MikkaQ said:

I live in Canada and I only use the American Amazon anyway, the Canadian one is fucking useless, and more expensive a lot of the time.

How do you use the American one? Whenever I tried to do that they said they don't ship internationally.

@Kidavenger said:

I preordered Ni no Kuni last weekend from amazon.ca, they haven't shipped it yet 4 days after the game came out and it now appears that they are out of stock, the order says that it's expected to ship today; are they just blowing smoke up my ass?

I very rarely preorder games but I got in a mood last weekend and preordered this plus The Last of Us and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, if this is how it normally goes, I'm probably going to just cancel the whole order.

I also have a question/bitch about Amazon Prime; it just launched in Canada a few weeks ago $79 (same as US) but it's only shipping, there is no streaming service or kindle lending library; this combined with the fact that the Canadian store sells almost nothing beyond books/dvds/games and some electronics it's not much of a deal; all that on it's own isn't that big of a deal we didn't have it before and everyone was happy, except they have changed the terms of service for non prime members as follows:

"Select Super Saver Shipping as your shipping speed.To help us provide you with free shipping, your order may take an additional 3 to 5 business days to ship out from our fulfillment center(s)."

Is this the way it works in the US store? we always had next day order processing regardless of shipping option before; bullshit they are steering us into a worse situation than we enjoyed before their luxury service arrived.

They try to ship the game so that it arrives at your door the day of release. Complain, politely, to their support. Usually when, and if, this happens, they respond with gift cards or other nice things to make up for your trouble.

I've never had a problem with amazon preordering until they started getting fuzzy about same day delivery. It's pretty obvious that, while they're still trying to get it there on the same day with 2 day shipping, they're phasing the 1 dollar assured arrival portion of it out.

But for the most part, it's been pretty good.

Pre-ordered Black Op II with Amazon UK Prime (so guaranteed Next Day delivery, as well as guaranteed arrival for launch day). This was at least 2 weeks in advance. The game was then shipped via 2nd Class, and then proceeded to never show up. Never pre-ordering through them again.

@uniform said:

@Ezakael said:

@MikkaQ said:

I live in Canada and I only use the American Amazon anyway, the Canadian one is fucking useless, and more expensive a lot of the time.

How do you use the American one? Whenever I tried to do that they said they don't ship internationally.

Which item gave you this issue? I've never had a problem with Games, Movies, Electronics shipping to Ontario. Ordered a stack of Blu-Rays just this week. There's a lot of reasons to love living in Canada. Trying to purchase entertainment products is not one. Bestbuy.ca, Futureshop.ca, Amazon.ca, etc etc, all garbage. Going to actual stores in this country is even worse.

I've tried to order games off of it before but it wouldn't let me because my address was located in Canada. Maybe I'll try again when I decide to order something.

it was alright. it wasn't amazon's fault but i preordered a game and i didn't get it until the night time because of where i live when they deliver. it was more ups, fedex, mail's fault for the game not coming until the later in the day.

@Ezakael said:

@MikkaQ said:

I live in Canada and I only use the American Amazon anyway, the Canadian one is fucking useless, and more expensive a lot of the time.

How do you use the American one? Whenever I tried to do that they said they don't ship internationally.

Depends what you buy; games and movies and stuff work fine. Also kindle purchases. Usually anything sold by Amazon itself that isn't like food or something really large will ship to Canada.

Every time I've pre-ordered from Amazon has been great, the game always arrives on release day - until recently.  
I pre-ordered Anarchy Reigns the day before it came out (Thursday), which is probably a little late but I figured it wouldn't matter, they shipped it the next day with expected delivery on Saturday and... it's been 2 weeks and it still hasn't arrived. Not sure what to do.

Of the two games and one movie I've preordered from them, getting it to me on launch day was never an issue. They did however send me the PS3 version of Darksiders 2 when I ordered the 360 version. Luckily I have a PS3 so it was all good.
 
But wow those new terms for Prime are stupid. If you can still cancel your order on Ni No Kuni I suggest you do so and buy it from somewhere else. Also canceling Starcraft and Last Of Us would only make sense.

Amazon Canada sucks and should be avoided if possible. The only thing I buy from them is the odd old game, but their selection always sucks and nine times out of nine times any game I'm looking to buy they don't have in stock and you gotta buy from one of the amazon dealers who over charge and you don't get the free shipping. There really is no good option for day it comes out delivery when it comes to buying brand new games online here in Canada in my experience. Thankfully I'm not a console guy so I can just buy my games on Steam and not have to worry about it, but if you want console stuff your best bet is futureshop or EB Games. If you have a Futureshop in your area you can pre-order and pay online and have it ready for you when you go in store. Not sure if it's at all places, but the one around here has a special line for online order pick ups and it's never busy when I have gone. So you just walk in, give them your name and some guy walks out back and comes with your order a couple min later.

The only good experience I had with amazon.ca shipping that I will give them credit for is when I got my new TV around cyber Monday. I ordered it and picked the usual free shipping option and it was here within a couple days. The site hadn't even updated to show an expected delivery and I already had it. I think someone in the warehouse just put down the wrong shipping or something, but that's been my only good experience. Any other time I have bought from them it's taken forever to get here no matter what shipping options.

I too was excited when I saw that we were finally getting prime, but once I took half a second to read the price and think about it I realized how much of a rip off it was. Unless you buy a fuck ton of stuff of them it's not worth it, and their selection is so crappy that I don't know what you would be buying from them.

@Ezakael said:

@uniform said:

@Ezakael said:

@MikkaQ said:

I live in Canada and I only use the American Amazon anyway, the Canadian one is fucking useless, and more expensive a lot of the time.

How do you use the American one? Whenever I tried to do that they said they don't ship internationally.

Which item gave you this issue? I've never had a problem with Games, Movies, Electronics shipping to Ontario. Ordered a stack of Blu-Rays just this week. There's a lot of reasons to love living in Canada. Trying to purchase entertainment products is not one. Bestbuy.ca, Futureshop.ca, Amazon.ca, etc etc, all garbage. Going to actual stores in this country is even worse.

I've tried to order games off of it before but it wouldn't let me because my address was located in Canada. Maybe I'll try again when I decide to order something.

It's tricky and the selection sucks, but you can buy off amazon.com. When you go into the section of the items you want to buy there's a little filter on the side called "AmazonGlobal Eligible" that you must enable. If you do you can see what things they will ship outside the US. The selection sucks and it's hit or miss if you need to pay duty fee's or not, but that's how.

Uggg...Amazon.ca is just the fucking worst. It's incredibly frustrating to watch them leech off of the US site's reputation while continuing to offer a shit service.

Free release day delivery for pre-orders without prime was never a standard, sometimes you got it as part of the deal, other times you have to pay for it. Prime release day delivery on pre-orders is also not standard, but you'll get it more often than not. My copy of Ni no Kuni arrived the same day it was released.

Prime streaming and kindle library are free add-ons they're providing. They weren't part of Prime initially, so I don't see the reason to complain that you don't get it in Canada yet.

Prime in the US is great, depending on where you live the two day shipping could turn into one day. But preordering games in general is BS, and the few times I've done its been a crap shoot whether it gets here same day or the day after.

@crusader8463 said:

@Ezakael said:

@uniform said:

@Ezakael said:

@MikkaQ said:

I live in Canada and I only use the American Amazon anyway, the Canadian one is fucking useless, and more expensive a lot of the time.

How do you use the American one? Whenever I tried to do that they said they don't ship internationally.

Which item gave you this issue? I've never had a problem with Games, Movies, Electronics shipping to Ontario. Ordered a stack of Blu-Rays just this week. There's a lot of reasons to love living in Canada. Trying to purchase entertainment products is not one. Bestbuy.ca, Futureshop.ca, Amazon.ca, etc etc, all garbage. Going to actual stores in this country is even worse.

I've tried to order games off of it before but it wouldn't let me because my address was located in Canada. Maybe I'll try again when I decide to order something.

It's tricky and the selection sucks, but you can buy off amazon.com. When you go into the section of the items you want to buy there's a little filter on the side called "AmazonGlobal Eligible" that you must enable. If you do you can see what things they will ship outside the US. The selection sucks and it's hit or miss if you need to pay duty fee's or not, but that's how.

Ah okay that makes more sense now. So the Canadian Amazon sucks for selection and so does the American one (If you're Canadian). Can't we catch a break?

They actually shipped it out today at 5:01pm, they're definitely just sitting on non prime orders now as per their new order fulfillment policy, if that's their game, I'm suddenly warming back up to retail.

@Ezakael said:

@crusader8463 said:

@Ezakael said:

@uniform said:

@Ezakael said:

@MikkaQ said:

I live in Canada and I only use the American Amazon anyway, the Canadian one is fucking useless, and more expensive a lot of the time.

How do you use the American one? Whenever I tried to do that they said they don't ship internationally.

Which item gave you this issue? I've never had a problem with Games, Movies, Electronics shipping to Ontario. Ordered a stack of Blu-Rays just this week. There's a lot of reasons to love living in Canada. Trying to purchase entertainment products is not one. Bestbuy.ca, Futureshop.ca, Amazon.ca, etc etc, all garbage. Going to actual stores in this country is even worse.

I've tried to order games off of it before but it wouldn't let me because my address was located in Canada. Maybe I'll try again when I decide to order something.

It's tricky and the selection sucks, but you can buy off amazon.com. When you go into the section of the items you want to buy there's a little filter on the side called "AmazonGlobal Eligible" that you must enable. If you do you can see what things they will ship outside the US. The selection sucks and it's hit or miss if you need to pay duty fee's or not, but that's how.

Ah okay that makes more sense now. So the Canadian Amazon sucks for selection and so does the American one (If you're Canadian). Can't we catch a break?

I wish we could, but I doubt it will happen in our life times. The reason it's so hard to get good online shopping in Canada is because we have a low population and it's spread out over one of the largest countries in the world. Canada has relatively small but dense pockets of people spread out over great distances while small smatterings in between. For example, according to Google Canada has a population of roughly 34 million. New York city alone has 8 million people. That's like 3-4 NY's spread out over the entire country, and of those 38 million they would be doing good to get 5%-10% of that shopping. Even when they set up distribution centers the cost to move the packages costs them so much that it doesn't make much sense for them to make Canada a priority. In the US they have massive populations in very tiny spaces so it makes things a lot easier for them. So you can see why it doesn't make much sense for them, even though it sucks donkey balls for people like you and I.

As for the buying from the US places, well that's just BS legal crap that makes sure we always get the short end of everything. You got the government bending over backwards to give the US everything they want and making the laws in their favour while never giving us an advantage.

That's my two cents anyway.

Never had any issues with amazon, though it been awhile since i preordered a retail copy, i think the last time was when i got the Diablo 3 CE and it showed up day one. Thats not to say its infallible though, i know people have had issues in the past, though you take that chance everywhere.