Shipping delays frustrate Bryan-College Station Amazon Prime members

BRAZOS COUNTY, Texas (KBTX) – Lengthy Amazon Prime deliveries have Bryan-College Station customers sharing their frustrations, but Amazon says it might not be their fault.

in January 2023, KBTX did a series of interviews highlighting long delivery estimates pushing five to 10 days for Prime customers on items that could be shipped within two days to neighboring towns. Those complaints eventually died down, until this summer.

Prime members in the Bryan-College Station area have reached out saying these estimates are climbing once again.

KBTX tested a few items on Amazon Prime, with many items available for two or three-day shipping to locations like Huntsville and Madisonville. However, delivery estimates approach five to six days here.

“A lot of our local businesses died off because of places like Amazon. Now, we’re all kind of stuck with them,” Bryan resident, Matthew Marchetti said. “Why am I paying Amazon $15 a month, whatever it is, when you just have to go to the store anyway?”

Marchetti told KBTX his concerns grow higher with each day as he and his wife prepare to add to their family.

”Me and my wife live in Bryan-College Station, she’s a professor at Texas A&M and we are expecting a beautiful little baby boy at the end of September,” shared Marchetti.

Just recently, his wife was experiencing some back pain as she entered her last few weeks carrying the baby. Marchetti said the couple struggled to find a belly band to help her at local stores and turned to his Amazon Prime account.

“I couldn’t find it in stores so I went to Amazon and ordered it, and they said it would be here in 10 days, and I mean if we wait long enough, we’re gonna have the baby,” Marchetti chided. “With the baby on the way, [Amazon Prime] was half of our plan when we’re out of sleep and can’t go to the store, or just- there are certain items that you got to get online.”

Marchetti isn’t the only one experiencing inconvenient delays. Jay Boney told KBTX he’s lost memories because of the slower delivery.

”We’re potty training our son and so I went to get a chart; the same thing we did for our oldest one when he was at that age, and instead of being able to get it in a few days, it took a week. So, we lost the week of time where we were able to track that with him and show the excitement with him,” explained Boney.

Both men said shipping times hadn’t been a problem until recently.

Sam Stephenson, a spokesperson from Amazon released a statement saying this is something they are working to address.

”Like many communities across the country, delivery services in College Station and Bryan are provided by third-party partners, including the United States Postal Service. We’re aware of some issues locally with delivery speeds and are working with our partners to address them. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.”

Stephenson’s statement reflects a similar sentiment to what Boney said he was told. But, he maintains it isn’t good enough.

”They said, ‘oh, it’s probably just due to delivery delays. There’s nothing we can do about it,’” Boney relayed. “College Station, Bryan, this whole area is booming. It’s building up. Everything’s getting bigger and we’re centrally located between Houston, Austin, and Dallas… They should open up a fulfillment center in this area. A lot of people use Amazon here. I think it would just be the next good stuff exactly for our college town.”

Marchetti shared in a similar idea, adding, ”It seems to be in our region in particular, and that’s what I don’t understand. We’re a big region. College Station has a deal with Amazon, and we’re not that far from the Houston warehouse. Why does it take half a month for us to get our packages?”

USPS delivery concerns have also been highlighted by residents over the past year. Legislators have worked to improve conditions coming from USPS processing facilities in Houston that impact delivery times to Brazos Valley communities.