Amazon's bad move

Well, it's time for a good whinge.

I used to buy quite a lot of stuff from Amazon. DVDs, CDs, and books. Sometimes I'd "save them all up" into one order, or sometime, I'd just buy one thing, as the mood took me.

Then they changed from using the Royal Mail to using the "Home Delivery Network".

I have ordered one thing since, and the reason is this.

I was out when they tried to deliver, so they left a note through the door. Fairly standard stuff really. However, the nearest HDN depot is, according to Google Maps "12.4 miles away - about 28 mins". Note the time. Cross city, really annoying roads. So that's 25 miles (40 kms, my metric chums), and an hour of my time to go and pick it up.

The nearest Royal Mail sorting office is about .5 miles away - nice and convenient to drive past on the way into work.

I'm not defending the Royal Mail, but they do have a very nice, wide, network of Post Offices, and Sorting Offices.

It might look appealing to cut down on delivery costs, but if you inconvenience your customers, they'll look for other providers, or just stop buying stuff.
I hope that Amazon, and anyone else considering cost-cutting measures takes this sort of thing into account.

I'll be giving play.com a try next time I want something.

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It seems like others aren't happy about HDN too. And more.