I think this is a case of "something has to give".

Amazon built an empire based upon 2 day delivery service which was in turn based on the US Postal Service.

Both Amazon and Ebay depend on the US Postal Service for their business models.  The issue is that USPS has bankrupted itself attempting to move all those little packages that fast.

China and its competitive posture totally depends on USPS 2 day delivery.

Today, Oct 1, the USPS formally gave up and has formally gone to a 5+ day delivery service model and has just cut their delivery infrastructure IN HALF to reduce their costs to something that allows them to break even.

Amazon will have to adjust all their systems to a 5-10 day (at the best) delivery service.

CONSUMERS BEWARE  -----  AMAZON ISN'T QUICK LIKE IT USED TO BE.

Amazon has completed its master plan to destroy all small local retail businesses and to run all the competition other than Walmart and Lowes, Home Depot and Harbor Freight slap out of business, so now you the consumer are stuck with a SLOW SLOW SLOW  5-8 day Amazon delivery system if you chose to use it.

A symptom of this change is Amazon is abruptly changing the A-Z guarantee dates to a week later on all current shipments but doing it midstream without warning --- an action that Amazon would ban a vendor for doing.

Not cool, Amazon.




( ....... and folks wondered why Bezos wanted out of running Amazon just recently and that he cashed out all his Amazon stock doing it)

 I think the fact that the USPS policy is governed by Congress/Senate, yet is not funded by the traditional means that Congress deals with (tax dollars) is also part of the problem.  Like when they essentially bankrupted the USPS overnight with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act requiring them to pre-fund retirement 75 years in advance.

 No company or Federal Agency comes close to having that level of mandated financial burden.  To lay the blame on Amazon seems a bit too isolated.  It's an impact for sure, but the USPS also has made a lot of money from Amazon contracts.

 I asked an associate who has sold through Amazon for years if they can be banned for altering "guaranteed" delivery dates after purchase (contract) and she said only if there is no logistic reason for the change.  If the USPS won't deliver in the timeframe the vendor isn't accountable for that, but if she had repeated issues and didn't request assistance resolving them then she could be banned.

 I've heard the same thing.  Mostly about volume, which is a direct impact on the lower level employee as they are stuck doing all that physical movement.

 On the upper end I'm not sure what the overall financial benefits are.

I use Amazon as little as possible.  They have too many third party sellers, cheap, knock-off junk, poor service etc.  It used to be a good place to find things for bargain prices.  Then, it was about convenience.  Well, most things on Amazon cost the same (and often more) as I find local in-store.  And the convenience has fallen off b/c of the first item.  If I can find it locally, and for less, I'll have it right not.  Not in 2 days.  And certainly not in 5 days.  
Amazon will still likely have good delivery times for many items since they've built distribution centers everywhere to stock billions of items.  And they have fleets of trucks helping congest the roads and cause more wear and tear on the tarmac.
Most folks I know are not really fans of Amazon, but do use them to some degree.

I have carefully watched a couple of USPS shipments since the change.

All of them waited days at the source distribution center until the container headed to Teterboro NJ got 100% completely filled up ......

All intra USPS shipments were made as only full container loads when going from distribution center to distribution center.   One of my packages actually moved down I-95 right past my house headed to the Atlanta distribution center from the New Jersey distribution center (over 2x the distance it needed to travel).   I was surprised that USPS will send stuff so very far out of the way just to theoretically save some money.

The delays involved in this new system are astronomical.   I have watched "a container full requirement" stop a package's progress at Teterboro NJ  for over 7 days before it moved again.  I have watched a full container load get "stacked up" at  the Atlanta Distribution Hub for over 7 days just waiting to get it unloaded and bar code processed at Atlanta to go on to the next step.  

This is all slow down BS that didn't used to happen.

Once it gets serviced by the "correct" regional distribution center the container load then gets broken into smaller packets that then move on over into your local USPS system and process at more normal speeds.

This whole container only "shuffle and bump" has added over 14 days to a two day package delivery time and has rendered Amazon's old delivery system completely invalid.