I recently ordered some books through Amazon and used the expedited shipping service on as many books as possible. I purchased some books directly through Amazon, and others through sellers selling through Amazon. The only book I could not apply the expedited option to was by a private seller [a book selling service] that only provides normal Media mail.

It seems that every seller [not only on Amazon] has a different shipping preference. Some of the books I received within 48 hours; others came a few days later. Still, I am waiting for one book for over 20 normal days now. Sending an email to the seller results in the seller saying that the book should arrive within 21 business days. Tomorrow is Saturday; in rare cases the book may arrive tomorrow. In cases where there is a situation that the seller is unaware of [leading to a delay], you should work with the seller to solve the issue. In some cases, the seller is not at fault; in fact, she/he is on the same boat as you in such cases. On the other hand, if the seller depends on the delivery estimate figures and does not care if you get the book early or not as long as it is within the delivery estimates, you should make sure the seller realizes that you are not pleased.

It takes less than 21 business days to get a book from here to Japan using standard mail. Sometimes books do arrive late; however, using the reason that “Standard/Special Media Shipping” options take such long time is strange since I ship at least one item every business day [mostly between Monday and Friday] within America and to other countries. The receivers have always received the books within two weeks from the date I sent them the item.

Book sellers have to go a long way to make sure that customers [including yours truly, who is a seller also for some reason that I am not aware of] get the exact service they asked for, and more. Simply because the USPS can take up to 21 days to deliver normal mail does not mean that you have to ship the item late and then use the delivery estimate as a reason for late shipping. Also, ask sellers why they do not offer expedited shipping; is it because that they do not know up front what the cost for such a shipping would be [Amazon charges you automatically and does not yet give the seller the option to charge custom amounts for shipping]? The reason may not be obvious; for some sellers, the reason may be that since they have so many orders, they ship the items every few days in bulk to all their customers. That is where some of the problem lies; treat each customer as a customer. Treating all customers as a one pack of clients is the same as thinking that all customers are the same, have the exact same needs, and deserve the exact same treatment without taking into consideration their requests or order types.