I still haven’t bought anything from Amazon, and what’s been the most surprising thing to me is that I’ve barely even thought about it. This is a surprise to me because it has made me more aware of just how pre-occupied I was when I had the free trial of Prime and was wringing every last drop out of the free-ness of it. Now, I’m not constantly thinking of things I could buy before it’s ‘too late’. This is a good thing, and hopefully bodes well for the challenge.
Another reason that I may not have been thinking about making a purchase from Amazon is that I was waiting for some books to arrive that I’d ordered from Penguin a few weeks ago. There were two reasons for my order, one is my total weakness for books, and linked with that is the fact that they were on offer: 5 books for £25, even with the delivery charge, I figured it was worth it to pay money directly to the publisher and to avoid giving Amazon more money. However, it did not go without a hitch, and when I hadn’t received the books a couple of weeks after ordering, I contacted Penguin, who very kindly refunded the delivery charge and said they would look into it. Another week passed, and I emailed: no response, I felt frustrated, but as much as I LOVE books, I was well aware that there were more important things going on, so I waited another week. My patience started to run out and so I Tweeted them…still nothing, this was now bordering on frustration, so I emailed again (and followed up with a Tweet) and I finally got a response last night, apologising and saying that they’d sent a replacement set of books to me. The books arrived first thing this morning (see above pic), and I’m not going to lie, I felt like hugging the postwoman when she delivered them (of course, I did not do this, but I gave her a very enthusiastic thumbs-up from the window). I appreciate that this was not Penguin’s fault, and am pleased that it was sorted in the end, but I must admit that the whole experience did prompt me to make comparisons between this experience and what Amazon have done whenever I’ve had issues in the past, and I have to say, Amazon have generally been excellent, and I have had very little cause to complain. I also never had to send more than one message to get an issue sorted, however, I am willing to give Penguin the benefit of the doubt, I’m sure they are working with a skeleton staff, due to coronavirus, and so I don’t see this experience as anything more than bad luck. It’s also got nothing to do with the further 10 books I’ve got saved in my basket for after payday (😉).