9am on Monday morning I placed an order with John Lewis Direct.

At 3.30 that afternoon the goods had been picked, packed and scanned by the carrier and were on the way to their hub.

11.23 yesterday evening they were loaded onto a wagon bound for Stafford Depot where they were scanned in at 4.18 this morning.

They were loaded on a van at 6.59 this morning and delivered at 12.15.

So just over 27 hours from order to delivery.

And that was standard delivery at no extra cost which is supposed to take 5 to 7 days.

For next working day delivery JL charge an extra £6.95.

I'd feel right miffed if I'd paid the extra and then realised I could've got the same service for free.

jl are really good, I bought some undercrackers for otherhalf, they turned up before his early morning coffee, the next day it was quite a shock

but another large internet place has a free 3 to 5 working day delivery, and reading the passage of the parcel, shows it passes the door at least twice before being dropped at the local courier.

Last week Mrs SDA was waiting for a parcel and the couriers website said it would be delivered at about midday.

At 9.30 am a Transit in the courier's livery came into our cul de sac, turned round and delivered to over the road. We thought he was coming to our place early, but no.

Mrs SDA consulted the couriers website and it had 'our' drivers delivery route saying he was on delivery no. 8 and we were delivery no. 20 or something. He was 4 miles away in the next village. At the appointed time a grey hatchback taxi arrived and we got our delivery on time. The driver suspected that the couriers were over-faced and hired him in to provide additional capacity.

I always use the amazon free delivery, my experiences being similar to your own,
there is an over £10 limit to use it however. I often get my order under two working days.
The premium £6+ delivery will tell as you get closer to Christmas perhaps?

I never! Pay extra for delivery having worked in and ran a couple of very large warehousing operations, no one wants to sit on your order, despite the risk of what is jokingly referred to as shrinkage (Theft to us plain speakers) it also does the reputation of the seller and courier no good.

Did anyone see the programme last night about workers in Amazon walking 11 miles on a night shift and having to locate articles in 33 seconds throughout their shift? Can't help thinking that there should be a compromise for fast delivery to save such a turnover in employees and maintain a happier workforce.

Didn't see that particular programme, Crytal, although there have been other programmes broadcast over the last 12 months, or news bulletins etc, where the subject of Amazon workers in Germany has been mentioned. These, and other what could be said to be low paid jobs i.e. package delivery drivers, really do get a green rub whilst some jobs that might entail a local actually getting his/her hands dirty are done by foreign guest workers at even lower wages. Don't be fooled for one minute into believing that it's all milk and honey over here and everyone is living the life of Riley because it's simply a myth. It's the well paid car industry (our biggest exporter) workers who claw it in and give the impression that everybody else is also in the same boat.

On the subject of deliveries: I order most online stuff from Amazon because delivery is usually between 1 - 2 days and that's normal delivery. For instance, I ordered a new Garmin GPS last Saturday evening and it was delivered this morning. Not bad I say.
The Express delivery which is free to test for 12 months and then costs six something Euros thereafter never seems to expire. I used it once, delivery was over night so pretty fast and then before the free period was up, I cancelled it. Ever since, and with every order this free offer appears in the checkout sequence athough I've never used it since as usually 2 day delivery is fine.