Author: Karen Weise / Source: New York Times
The first Bluetooth speaker that Olivia Zimmermann ordered went awry, delivered to a different town. She demanded a refund and ordered the item, a gift for her sister, through Amazon. Alex Garcia for The New York Times
SEATTLE — Olivia Zimmermann started her holiday shopping early this year, buying a Bluetooth speaker from Best Buy for her sister.
It was supposed to arrive by Dec. 10, two weeks before Christmas.The speaker never showed up — and the post office said it had delivered the package to a different town. Best Buy apologized and offered to reship it. But Ms. Zimmermann, who works in marketing in Chicago, was over it.
“I just want a refund,” she told the retailer, and then added: “At this point, I have already ordered from Amazon because I know for a fact it will be here when they say it will.”
Amazon is far and away the leader in e-commerce, outpacing competitors like Walmart, Target and eBay. But its dominance is never more pronounced than in the nail-biter last-minute sprint before Christmas.
The company, based in Seattle, has had a two-decade-long obsession with shrinking the time from click to doorstep. It has built warehouses in more than 30 states and a sophisticated web of delivery methods, giving it a logistical advantage.
Amazon has used that edge to lead people to expect near instant gratification that, for a while, only it could deliver. The company built trust in its delivery speed with its Prime membership, which costs $119 a year and includes two-day shipping. This year, in the days leading up to Christmas, Amazon’s share of online sales will increase by almost 50 percent — to about half of all digital sales — while most rivals fade, according to the market research firm Rakuten Intelligence.
“Amazon’s ability to fulfill more quickly and effectively than competitors has been a key differentiator back to the earliest days,” said Kenneth Cassar, an analyst with Rakuten Intelligence, which is an independent subsidiary of the Japanese e-retailer Rakuten.
Traditional retailers still enjoy strong sales when the holiday season begins around Thanksgiving. They advertise widely, luring shoppers with doorbuster deals. The promotions also drive sales to their websites instead of Amazon. Around Thanksgiving, Amazon’s share of online sales can dip to as low as 20 percent in the United States, according to Rakuten.
But as November turns to December, and then into Christmas crunchtime, shoppers’ preferences change. Last year, Walmart and Target had their busiest online traffic of the month on Dec. 10. Amazon’s was eight days later, on Dec. 18, according to an analysis by Griffin Carlborg, a researcher at the digital intelligence firm Gartner L2.
Multiple people in Ms. Zimmermann’s apartment building in Chicago had the same idea for last-minute orders from Amazon.
“Amazon has just built up its reputation around rapid fulfillment incredibly well,” Mr. Carlborg said. “Customers really trust Amazon’s fulfillment offerings.”
Those shoppers include Carissa Vinovskis, 26, who puts in 12-hour days researching diabetes at Children’s Hospital Colorado. She used to shop for Christmas gifts in stores, but as she got busy with graduate school and later her job, she had less time and patience.
Panic set in fast in the middle of this month when Ms. Vinovskis realized she had just six days to get presents before visiting her…
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