Amazon's Nintendo Switch Preorders Are Disappointing Some Customers

So funny every single place I looked was out of stock for pre orders for months, then on launch day my girlfriend just casually walked in and picked one up at Walmart while I was at work haha. It was funny though she said they had dozens and dozens of consoles and a handful of copies of Zelda which sold out almost instantly so I had to buy it off the eshop. Thankfully the switch has 5g capability and I downloaded the game in like 40 minutes.

Amazon has never missed a delivery for me and usually delivers early. I've ordered something at 9pm and gotten delivery at 10am.

Best Buy, Target, and Walmart all consistently miss delivery dates for me.

Definitely agree that missing the target ship date is unacceptable, especially without any communication. That said, they're consistently the fastest service. Especially when buying things "shipped and sold" by Amazon.

Obviously this is my own experience but around here everyone uses Amazon without issue. It's far from the Walmart of online orders in regards to quality of service. If they mess up they always own and and usually do an amazing job of trying to make their customers happy.

I will say that the marketplace orders sometimes get delayed. I usually avoid those.

This is a problem. But this is amazons problem not Nintendo's

I'm done with larger purchases with amazon - they took their time with a $600 motherboard and graphics card I bought two weeks before Black Friday, they took their time with a Little Tikes play set for my daughter during the Christmas season, and they messed up another time sensitive delivery for me. All while we had Prime, which has since been refunded. Looks like other people are having the same type of problem with the Switch. Amazon has become the Walmart of internet retail...you are going to save your $5, but your going to spend extra time in the process and have to deal with unhappy and unmotivated customer service workers.

Stick with Newegg, Best Buy(I think they really do strive to do a good job) or your local business retailer for consoles.

In some aspects some of this can be blamed on Nintendo being they are the ones who make the system. Nintendo only made a certain amount as usual and this will happen time and time again. I rather wait even if it is a few months until Nintendo get the wheels rolling again. The only reason I think Nintendo does this is to test the waters and see how high the demand is. What companies should do is wait until they get confirmation from Nintendo on how many units it can supply even if it is to forgo a launch day promise to send out units. eventually everyone who preordered will get one and it is screwed up that those who did preordered didn't get theirs and hope they do get thiers. If anybody knows Nintendo practices they should have know this is Nintend's way of doing business and they do not give a squat about fulfilling a customer's request.

People should've just did what I did/had previously suggested...went to one of my local retailers about an hour before midnight release (Walmart), & was already #10 in line, about 30 more followed suit... I'm confident every 1 of them got what they came for since the employee just said "All those with preorders come to the front", which was a whole 2-3 ppl...The rest went to first come, first serve. Saw people nabbing special editions & whatever other accessories they wanted as well.

Feel sorry for ppl that felt inclined to order from Ebay, overseas etc...

Amazon service is going down the toilet. They took my preorder for zelda than cancelled it. Never using them to preorder anything videogame related again.

Mine arrived 10am :)

Amazon preordering plebs: "**** GameStop! They're shitty scam artist who **** up everything! My preorder is going to Amazon! It's much easier!!!"

Regular people: "hi can I preorder the Nintendo switch?"

GameStop employee: "sure. Here you go."

Regular people: "thanks."

*Comes back launch day*

Regular people: "here for my switch."

GameStop employee: "k. Here you go."

RP: "thanks, have a goodnight!"

Amazon preorder plebs: *this article.*

It's the end of the world, what a serious issue!

First world problems in a nutshell.

I suspect this is probably more Amazon didn't get the amount of stock they thought from Nintendo. I didn't pre-order one although I seriously considered it. I was going to wait a few months for things to settle down, but I figured if I happen to see on near me at the local Best Buy, Walmart, Target, or etc I'd certainly go ahead and get one now, but that hasn't happened. I know some people are saying they walked into their local store and brought one, but I suspect that's just pure luck and/or they aren't in a very urban area. I'm in an urban area and even though the past 2 days I've seen Target showing as having the switch "in-stock" they are definitely sold out. I've been in a few different ones all supposedly with stock an none of them had it. Heck even been to one today and it's still showing as "in-stock" even though it's certainly not lol. I guess they are hoping to capitalize on foot traffic for people looking to scoop up a Switch. I did hear the Target guy in the entertainment section at one telling another person looking for one they got in 2 this morning, but people showed up at 4am to get in line to get one.

It's really strange and disappointing that Amazon, the online-only retailer that is all about postal delivery, is the one suffering poor pre-order fulfillment, whereas traditional retail store chains, like BestBuy, are delivering the Switch on launch day.

That's what happened to me with the Xbox One launch. I pre-ordered the Day One Edition from BestBuy and it was delivered to my door around 9:45 AM on launch day. I was very impressed and couldn't have been happier.

Whereas my experience with Amazon's pre-order fulfillment is unreliable. Sometimes my pre-order ships a few days early and I receive it on time. Sometimes it's a week or two after release it finally ships. And sometimes Amazon never fulfills the pre-order at all, which was what happened for Rick & Morty Season 2 on Blu-ray. That's why I rarely pre-order items on Amazon anymore.

I stopped pre-ordering anything from Amazon because of things like this. On 2 separate occasions the items I ordered were shipped well after the release date. What's the point of having the order in their system for weeks/months in advance if they choose to ship it days later. Especially when their competitors don't do this same practice.

4 walmarts and a Target near me still have it in stock. Get off your butts and check your local stores.

I work for a shipping company. Christmas, Bad Weather, Natural Disasters including Wild Fires will cause delay in Shipping. Well, Christmas including black Friday shipping companies are just really busy so do not wait til last minute to order your gifts. People are generally working there butt off up to 16 hours days 6 to 7 days a week non stop because we wanna get you guys your packages on time. Bad weather or natural disaster can't be control. IF there is a bad storm or something and is unsafe to drive, we can't put drivers out there putting someone's life at risk.

And I will end it with this. Feel safe to ship packages all year round. Chances of there being delay or any other error is about 0.01 percent. Is just people who get there packages on time usually stay silent and people whose packages get delay start to go on rampage.

Amazon will only learn the lesson when people stops buying preorders on amazon.

Go to the store and get so fresh air.

The only way to stick it to the man.

But as a gamer, if feel for you guys & gals whom got swindled by amazon today.

Shame on you Amazon

Amazon already had a bad reputation with game pre-orders, this story does not surprise me at all

I had a similar issue from an order coming out of Jacksonville, fl. It was guaranteed to arrive in 2 days, then it changed to 3 after I placed the order. Contacted amazon, they contacted ups, and apparently there was "inclement weather" holding things up. I know there's been a lot of storms lately, so this may be why. I got an extra month of prime out of it, so not too bad.

Amazon has been sucking lately in general.

That certainly sucks for some, but I'm feeling pretty good about going with a Wii U copy. My copy arrived late day launch-day using Amazon Prime.

The cost of early adoption I suppose.

I preordered from Target, the only option was "Free Shipping" so I said ok. So it shipped on Thursday, figuring they timed it great. They did not. Free shipping is slow and it was targeted for beginning to mid next week. So Friday AM I went to Best Buy, got there at 9am and got a ticket, came back when the store opened (10am) and walked out with a Switch. I can't cancel the Target order because it's in route, will return it probably. All places should arrange to have launch consoles in customers hands on launch day, that's part of the fun. Console launches only happen a couple times per decade, hope the stores can get this figured out.

People should be happy, Amazon giving them chances to cancel their orders. Cause everybody knows after you finish your precious Zelda game it will use its advance functionality to suck dusts from your environment :D