Shipping

Three days after Valentine's Day, 1-800-Flowers.com is still apologizing to customers whose flowers and candy never showed up. 1-800-Flowers.com sent nearly 1,000 individual apologies on Twitter, plus more on Facebook, but many customers still weren't satisfied. It wasn't the only flower delivery service with upset customers, though the number of 1-800-Flowers.com complaints appeared to outpace those for FTD Flowers and ProFlowers. Some frustrated customers complained that the phone lines for 1-800-Flowers.com were jammed over the weekend. They also sent emails and filled out online forms, only to receive automated replies. 

Amazon.com may be finally facing a worthy adversary in the retail arena: itself. The online giant recently announced its intent to increase the $79 annual fee on its popular Prime membership by $20 to $40, but our consumer insights suggest that its shoppers aren't buying into the plan, signaling what could be a dangerous move in an already hypercompetitive retail environment where loyalty is hard to win and easy to lose. Among current Amazon Prime members, the majority (63 percent) indicate that the current $79 fee is their ceiling for the yearly service. 

There are signs that same-day delivery may not be as winning a model as some had hoped. The USPS suspended one of two pilot programs called Metro Post due to a lack of participation from retailers, and eBay CEO John Donahoe recently downplayed the company's same-day delivery service eBay Now during a presentation to Wall Street analysts. The USPS Office of Inspector General is concerned about a movement it calls "crowdshipping" that retailers use to deliver same-day orders to their customers. Donahoe cautioned analysts about how to think about the demand for same-day delivery.

A proposed rescue plan for the financially strapped U.S. Postal Service took a step forward Thursday when a Senate committee passed a bill that would end Saturday delivery and make permanent a recent, temporary increase in the cost of stamps. The bipartisan bill would also restructure the Postal Service's health insurance program and a $5.5 billion annual payment the agency must make toward health costs of future retirees, two shifts that would cut significant costs. Commercial mailers, meanwhile, oppose a provision to allow higher postal rates that's designed to bring the mail agency billions of dollars in new revenue.

Men's Wearhouse has introduced international shipping to online customers in more than 100 countries. The company is promising affordable shipping rates and order totals guaranteed at the time of purchase to the international community. "We have customers around the world that trust us as their menswear fashion expert, but the only way they could shop with us was if they were based in the USA," said Men's Wearhouse Executive Vice President Susan Neal. "With our international shipping option, our customers will be able to shop and ship to more than 100 countries anytime and anywhere that's convenient for them."

Returned goods are an issue for retailers throughout the year, but they can really cause headaches in the aftermath of the holiday sales peak. You can set your calendar by it: customers who, for some reason, aren't satisfied with the gifts they've received or the purchases they've made will begin returning those items en masse even before the first quarter is over.

Amazon.com may raise the price of its Prime membership by up to $40 for U.S. customers, the company said during its quarterly earnings call. Amazon's Prime membership is an annual subscription that gives frequent shoppers "free" two-day shipping on any item sold through Amazon or one of its affiliate sellers. Prime members also gain access to Amazon's Kindle e-book library-lending program and the Prime Instant Video service, which contains a collection of movies and TV shows that members can stream for free. Membership currently costs $79 per year, and the company hasn't increased the price in nearly a decade.

Google must be seeing some success from its same-day delivery service because it's announced it will be expanding the service to the Southland. Right now, the trial run service will only be available for several hundred Google employees in Santa Monica, though should the company see success with this expansion, it could eventually be opened to the general public. Indeed, when Google launched its Shopping Express pilot in March 2013, it was only available for Google employees in Northern California. However, since September, the service has been available to all customers in San Francisco and San Jose.

Shipping carriers raise rates every year, but this year, online sellers who use the U.S. Postal Service got some good news mixed in with the rate changes, according to online postage providers Stamps.com and Endicia, which provide sellers with commercial base rates that are more favorable than regular USPS retail rates. Eric Nash of Stamps.com said Priority Mail rates are going up a net zero percent, for example. In a podcast interview with EcommerceBytes, Nash highlighted some of the instances where rates are actually going down.

The Direct Marketing Association joined with partners in the mailing community in filing an appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, seeking relief from the recent Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) decision to allow an exigent postal increase set to take effect on Jan. 26. In December, the PRC announced it would grant the USPS request for an exigent postage increase of 4.3 percent. The 4.3 percent exigent rate is scheduled to be implemented simultaneously with an inflation-based rate adjustment of 1.7 percent approved earlier by the PRC. Thus, mailers are facing a total price increase averaging 6 percent.