Amazon's 'misleading' one-day Prime delivery advert banned

Amazon's one-day delivery ad for Prime members has been banned by the advertising watchdog, which has labelled the retail giant's claim as "misleading".

The ruling follows 280 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), most of them from Amazon customers who reported not receiving their delivery by the next day.

The ASA has told the Amazon "the ad must not appear again in its current form" and to make clear that some Prime-labelled items are not available to be delivered by the following day.

Amazon said the "vast majority" of the complaints followed widespread media coverage of an initial "handful" of complaints about the issue, and provided data showing that the weeks with lower on-time deliveries were affected by snow and ice across the UK.

It said it believed customers understood from using the website that individual delivery dates were displayed for each order and that they would have to check each item to find out whether one-day delivery was available and what the delivery date was.

It said a customer's later disappointment about the speed of a one-day delivery order should not render its marketing as misleading.

But the ASA said consumers would appreciate that some orders might be late, but would generally expect orders to arrive on time, barring exceptional or unforeseen circumstances outside of Amazon's control.

It said it found the majority of orders were forecast to be delivered by the next day - and were delivered on time.

However, a smaller but "significant proportion" of orders at each of the time slots, including before 2pm, were not forecast for delivery the subsequent day.

It said that "because consumers were likely to understand that, so long as they did not order too late or for Sunday delivery, all Prime-labelled items would be available for delivery the next day with the one-day delivery option, when a significant proportion of Prime-labelled items were not available for delivery by the subsequent day with one-day delivery, we concluded that the ad was misleading".

An Amazon spokesman said: "Amazon Prime offers fantastic benefits to members including one-day delivery on millions of eligible items at no extra cost.

"The expected delivery date is shown before an order is placed and throughout the shopping journey and we work relentlessly to meet this date.

"The overwhelming majority of one-day delivery orders are delivered when promised.

"A small proportion of orders missed the delivery promise last year during a period of extreme weather that impacted all carriers across the UK, and we provided support to impacted customers at the time."

Citizens Advice, the statutory consumer advocate for postal services, said problems with late deliveries were not unique to Amazon.

The service's chief executive, Gillian Guy, said: "We've found 40% of people who used a premium delivery service received their parcel later than expected.

"It's more difficult for consumers to work out what they're owed when their parcels don't arrive on time if they've paid for a service like Amazon Prime, compared to when they pay for one-off deliveries.

"Companies need to honestly advertise delivery dates and make sure consumers have easy access to compensation when they fail to meet their promises."