I have been taking one online graduate course per semester, which yields me a .edu email and gives me access to 1/2 price prime for a couple of years. Because of that, I’m using it, and yes, I’m using it for small impulse purchases just because I can. I use the music service a lot, and haven’t used the movie streaming at all because I’m happy with other services I use.
Once my 1/2 price prime has expired, though, I doubt I’ll re-up for $99/year. I’ll probably just do a quarterly $49 order. I’m really not a fan of pre-paid memberships of any kind unless it is something I have a proven record of using frequently. They never seem to be a good deal in the long run.
Then it’s not worth it for you, I, easily, spend $100 a month, plus probably at least $1000 during the Christmas season. I just buy all my regular stuff on Amazon. Just looking back at my history, a shelf, some tools, a part for an ancient laptop, more mundane stuff like some socks, a few jump drives, batteries, a muffin pan etc. Basically, anytime I say ‘I should stop at Target this weekend and grab that’ I check to see if I can get it from Amazon, if I can, it’ll usually be in my hands before the weekend anyways, and for less (and my Chase card gives me a nice kickback during Q4 each year on top of it).
Oh, and lots of books, I’ve stopped shopping at B&N, but that’s for another thread.
With Prime, I can ship all this stuff whenever I want. Regarding that, and my question from above, I found this:
So there’s another big difference. With Prime shipping, I can order on Monday and have something in my hands on Tuesday or Wednesday*, without it, you can put together a qualifying purchase and if it ships on Monday, you’ll have it the following Monday at the earliest.
*I’ve actually had things show up on Monday that I ordered on Sunday, I’m always impressed by that.
The problem with this idea is that prices on Amazon are very fluid. Sometimes you want to buy something this week because Amazon has temporarily reduced the price by 75%.
I didn’t look but I’m assuming it works like the CoinStar machine right next to it. With CoinStar, you dump your coins in, it totals then up, subtracts their processing percentage & spits out your cash (or receipt to take to customer service, I haven’t used it as my bank has free coin counting.) If you take it as a store credit you get a higher percentage. As long as it’s less than 20% fee I’m coming out ahead by cashing out & buying my groceries right there in the store.
It may be that they made the change to encourage more people to sign up for Prime, or to place larger orders than they otherwise would have. Or it may be that they were losing money under the old policy. If the orders you won’t be placing now are the ones that they would have lost money on, it’s not necessarily Bad Business.
The vast majority of things that i buy aren’t rush items.
There are some things that i don’t NEED quickly, but that i WANT quickly, These are usually thing i buy for fun: a new computer component; a new camera lens; stuff like that
Occasionally, i really do need things quickly. It happened just this weekend. I managed to break my wireless mouse. It still worked, but the scroll wheel was completely borked and unfixable, and i use the scroll wheel A LOT. I got on Amazon yesterday (Sunday) morning at 10.30 a.m., and had a new wireless mouse in my hand by 7.00 p.m. last night. About 8 hours from ordering to delivery, on a Sunday!
Yeah, our Amazon Prime membership comes due in a couple of months, and we’ve been debating about whether to renew it or not for some of the reasons you’ve mentioned here.
Even as an Amazon member, i still often buy my tech gear from places like NewEgg and B&H. I built myself a new desktop computer back in September, and got about half of my components from NewEgg, and the other half from B&H. My new smartphone came from B&H too.
Fair point. My approach is to always keep a long list of things I’m interested in, and to fill out orders with an eye on their current price. If the price jumps back up before I submit an order, back to the wishlist it goes. There’s always something else that’s looking good.
I’ll be doing more shopping local or on Ebay from sellers who offer free shipping.
I got sucked into ordering several small dollar items from Amazon when the minimum was $25 for free shipping. then it went to $35. I still continued ordering. $35 was reasonable.
Now???
Amazon can kiss my hairy ass. I’m done unless I happen to need an item that costs $50 or more.
I’m shocked by how much I’ve been buying from Amazon. Rather than driving to a store, finding the item, getting in line, paying; it’s easier to just order it online at work. In two days it arrives at work. That, plus streaming, and I think I’ll be doing Prime for the foreseeable future.
I think on some level this makes sense. Amazon free shipping limit started at $25, but that was when Amazon was mostly just a bookstore. As they started adding more and more things, the shipping costs likely increased quite a bit ($25 of books is fairly easy to ship), so they went to $35, and now up to $49, BUT books are still $25 for free shipping.
Though I’ve had Prime for years (one of the best things I buy every year) so it really doesn’t have an impact on me.
The problem I have run into several times lately with prime shipping is that it isn’t always 2 day shipping. Sometimes after I place my order, it will say “shipping next Wednesday” making it not truly 2 day shipping. Or worse, you watch the tracking and within 24 hours it ships via UPS all the way to my home town, where it is handed over to the USPS for delivery and that step takes 3 additional days
I have heard that Amazon will throttle your shipping, even with Prime if you order too many small items. They will hold it till you get enough. And they will slam you for return shipping if excess, though I assume they will give you warning messages first.
Where I live, shipping is so awful; by everyone UPS, USPS and especially Fed Ex, that I’d rather pick it up at a store and save time and that means I have never found a bargain that I couldn’t replicate locally.
Of course living in a big city has that advantage and I realize not everyone is so lucky.
Some items say ‘prime shipping when it stock’ or ‘takes X additional days’ so you have to watch out for that. Also, never hesitate to pull up a chat window and complain if the item is late. It happens to me a few times a year and they typically give me a month of prime for free. Even if it’s for something that I don’t need right now, I figure the more I do it (and others) they’re more they’ll get on FedEx about passing things off to USPS or get on USPS to stop saying my business is closed on Sunday when it’s not (and they didn’t actually attempt to deliver it).
I’d be surprised if that was the case. Return shipping is either free (for some items) of dictated by this chart. As for Prime Shipping, everything gets to you in two business days after the day you order it. Order on Monday, you have it by Wednesday. Order on Friday, you’ll have it by Tueday. They sell you a prime membership because they know people will buy more to get their money’s worth. If they break these rules, people will stop paying for prime and probably stop ordering from them. And that’s on top of the social media backlash.
The only thing I’ve ever heard is that you can have your account suspended (forever) if you return too many things compared to how much you buy. You do get a warning letter though.
Contact them and complain next time this happens. I’ve had Amazon give me free months of Prime for violating their “Guaranteed Delivery Date” promises.
It’s also very handy if you don’t have a car or live in an urban area.
Using Prime saves me well over $99 a year in subway/bus/taxi/Uber fares, not to mention time. Need LED Flashlight? Click. UPS shows up two days later. No take the train then the crosstown bus to the store that sells those supplies then come all the way back again in 23 degree weather. Takes me two minutes to shop instead of two hours.
That’s true, I get items on Saturday and sometimes on Sunday as well, but they guarantee it within two business days.
You/we/I forget how good we have it with Prime until you order from another website and it takes 2 weeks to show up (Overstock, Woot etc). Really makes you remember those days of “Mail in a check and your item will arrive in 6-8 weeks”.
ETA, but that’s why I said you’ll have it by Wednesday or Tuesday, since sometimes you get it before that day, especially if you live near a warehouse.
I’ve been using Amazon less and less. Between jacking up the cost of Prime, then required sales tax and now this (after I let Prime lapse) I’m really better off just stopping at Target on the way home nine times out of ten.
Also, the last couple I items I did order on Prime weren’t really “two day shipping”. More like tell me “Order today to have by Thursday!” and then it sits in packaging for a day or two and THEN ships and arrives on Saturday.
I suppose if Prime has another sale, I might re-up. The last sale it had, current Prime subscribers weren’t eligible for. I can wait until then. I have Shoprunner via my AmEx card so, if I ever REALLY needed to ship a birthday gift somewhere across the country fast I could use the free shipping on that (albeit limited to participating stores).
:rolleyes: 
