As a frequent Internet shopper, I love Amazon Prime, the $79-a-year subscription service that offers free two-day shipping on millions of items from the online retail giant.
I recently signed up for a free 30-day trial of ShopRunner, the Prime counterstrike from Amazon’s competitors.
ShopRunner, which also costs $79 annually, gives consumers free two-day shipping at dozens of online retailers including Toys R Us, and Sports Authority.
The program, launched in October 2010, would seem to level the playing field with Amazon (sales tax collections aside) for participating merchants.
But it works only if all of the retailers live up to the two-day shipping guarantee. My experience through the first two purchases found that they don’t, making it highly unlikely that I would sign up for an annual membership.
In comparison, Amazon has delivered on the promised shipping time on every Prime-eligible purchase I’ve made, which stands at about two dozen.
With ShopRunner, my first item, bought from eBags, was delivered within two business days. But the second purchase, through , arrived seven business days after I placed the order.
A WatchWear customer service representative said via email (I was never able to reach a person by phone) that my order was delayed by two days because the shipping address differed from my billing address.
The item was a graduation gift and I placed the order a full week before it had to arrive. If it would have been shipped via two-day service, as promised, the gift would still have arrived on time despite the two-day delay.
But the FedEx tracking number e-mailed to me showed that the watch was instead shipped via ground service, which takes five days. The gift arrived a day late.
Miffed by the selected shipping service, I reached out to ShopRunner to see how closely the program monitors whether its participating merchants live up to the shipping guarantee and whether any have been dropped from the network for non-compliance.
Fiona Dias, ShopRunner’s chief strategy officer, said the program closely monitors shipping performance with real-time data.
“We use the data obtained by the shippers to publish a weekly scorecard that measures both the actual time in transit … as well as total processing time,” she said.
Dias said ShopRunner regularly reviews results with merchants and has not asked any member retailer to leave the network for non-compliance.
To its credit, WatchWear offered a free gift for the error, though I didn’t accept. ShopRunner customer service reached out to me by phone (after I indicated separately that I planned on reviewing the service) and extended my free trial to 90 days. I may give it another try, but would not use it for a time-sensitive purchase, which eliminates one of the key benefits of such a service.
Andy Vuong : 303-954-1209 or
