Is there a way I can go through my Amazon purchases for the past year, and find what the cost of shipping would have been if I didn’t have Amazon Prime and free shipping?
(And I realize that the existence of free shipping probably results in some purchases being made on Amazon that I might have done elsewhere. I’ll factor that in.)
I can’t image how you could do that. If you already have Prime, then your shipping cost is zero for most or all of your purchases.
I suppose you could make a new account, put all the items in your cart and see what the cost to ship is. Sounds like a lot of work, assuming you ordered al lot of stuff last year.
I only buy items on Amazon where I can get free shipping if the order is $25 or more. It’s not 2-day shipping, but I don’t need that.
That said, since they deliver their own packages where I live, I have no way of calculating how much I would have had to pay, unless I had written it down at the time.
You could re-order everything in exactly the say way, and when you get to the shipping page, note how much it would have been, and then back out of the order. Tedious.
Is there nothing else you get out of Amazon Prime that you would need to factor in? I’ll be signing up in time for the Ring of Power series in September.
I had 34 orders in 2021. The cost of Prime means each order cost 3.79. No one, not even USPS, ships for that low. Plus, there are other benefits you get with Prime besides free shipping.
I think by definition the OP didn’t order a whole lot of times from Amazon. If they ordered once a week, then each would be ≈ $2.50 shipping; no one ships for that little; therefore, they must have significantly less orders. Ordering 2x/month (25 orders for the year) is ≈ $5.25 shipping per order so I’m guessing it’s still less orders than that.
For non-Prime users how do they charge? Is it a fixed amount (below __ threshold, I know it’s free over some $ amt), a percentage of the order cost, or something else, like factoring in size of largest item ordered. If it’s either of the first two it should be relatively easy by looking at one’s order history.
I’m a non Prime member and I usually wait to order until I have $25 worth of stuff, which gets me free shipping. So if you weren’t a Prime member last year, you might have done the same thing. And anything you ordered that cost more than $25 would have had free shipping anyhow.
I almost dumped Prime last year - I WILL dump it this year due to the price going up to $139. I don’t really use Prime Video or Prime Music.
Once my membership ends, I’ll track every Amazon purchase and add up the shipping costs over the next year. If the shipping adds up to $139 or more, then I’ll know that Prime is worth the bucks.
I strongly suspect it’s not worth it.
It’s definitely worth it to me.
I get amazon deliveries at least twice a week, occasionally more often-- everything under the sun of every description, clothes, household items (batteries, light bulbs, cables), vitamins & cosmetics, dog stuff, some groceries. I have an amazon rewards Visa card, too, that I put everything on (all bills, including my taxes), so I have a boatload of rewards points at any given time. I pay it off every month. (Don’t need frequent flyer miles, because I never go anywhere.) I use the rewards point for toys and gadgets. Got a new “free” TV a couple of months ago. An espresso machine a few years ago. A Technivorm Moccamaster. A new, unlocked BlackBerry Key2.
I signed up for Prime for the 2-day delivery when it first hit, long before the video benefit was tacked on. It turns out just about everything I watch is on amazon prime anyway. I could lose Netflix and not miss it. I have amazon music but rarely listen to it.
I had 252 orders in 2021. That’s what, 56 cents per order?
I do use Prime video, Alexa, and music.
Comparing Prime to non-Prime isn’t completely valid because buyer’s behavior is different in the two modes.
Before I had Prime, I’d identify things I wanted to buy and add them to my cart and then wait until my cart was over the $25 threshold before buying. Only emergency purchases (after several hours of visiting local stores to try to find the item) warranted an order below the threshold.
With Prime, that behavior is completely out the window. $3 item? Put it in the cart, order it immediately. A few days later, something else for $8.99? Immediately order it. Both items available locally? Doesn’t matter if I don’t need them right now.
I probably order more things with Prime because there is no benefit in leaving the house to shop in physical stores, but not that many more items than through non-Prime, just that non-Prime will have fewer orders in a year spaced out more, so I’m really paying for time (mine) and convenience with Prime, not dollar savings.
Sure.
Create a new account on Amazon. One that does not have Amazon Prime. Ideally using a VPN (I bet Amazon has your IP pegged as you so not sure if they would fiddle with costs knowing it is the same household so why would a new, non-Prime account appear).
Then, make some test purchases that mirror your previous purchases.
Plug the costs into a spreadsheet and see what you come up with.
I would be interested to hear the results.
It is worth noting that Prime gets you more things than free shipping but, for this, I guess just stick with the shipping costs.
I just tried this based on this thread.
Problem with this is, you MUST enter a shipping address and payment method for the new account before you can get to the order page with shipping info.
Amazon has ALL of my addresses and credit cards, so I have nothing with which to create a new account.
I don’t see a way to step around that.
Me too. My Amazon ordering has evolved over time to the point where it’s the first thing I think of when I need anything, unless my need is immediate. So much simpler to receive a package at work than to drive twenty minutes to a store.
There has been one minor error on Amazon’s part over the years, which was 50% my fault. When I inquired about sending the item back, they accepted responsibility and reshipped my ~225 item, telling me to keep the very similar but not exact first shipment.
I use Amazon Prime Video and our Alexa plays whatever music we request.
That’s where I’m stuck. Hell, even if my need is ‘immediate’, I can often (well, not lately) get Amazon to deliver next day or even same day.
However, lately, it’s been awful. More awful than usual. Virtually nothing is available for same day/next day and a solid half of my deliveries are late. I also really don’t use their streaming service and have never used their music.
I’d whine to them about it, but I whined so much last year they refunded my Prime membership fee (second time they’ve done that IIRC). I worry that if I complain any more, at least during my current membership period, they’ll remove my prime membership and/or not let me use it anymore.
I have noticed the same problem. Prime used to promise two-day delivery. Now, it is more a, “we’ll try for two days but who knows cuz COVID ¯_(ツ)_/¯”
Further, I find loads of merchants gaming the system. Sort by Prime only? Well, somehow loads of things show up on the webpage that somehow won’t actually be delivered in two days.
Also, Amazon support and returns used to be aces. They were super customer focused. Easy to get help, easy to get returns, often a credit for the trouble.
No more. Returns are iffy (since they are not the shipper) and never a credit.
I rarely return things but that is what kept me coming back. Now, Amazon doesn’t work so hard on this anymore and I am buying less from them all the time. Which makes my Prime membership less valuable.
I have not cancelled yet but I can say I have started thinking about it.
Mind you, I get the challenges COVID has made but I think they hide behind it. I paid for a promise of service. If they cannot deliver I should get a refund.
This seems more suited to IMHO, but we recently decided not to renew at the new higher prices. While thinking about it, we tried to find some kind of way to measure how much it was saving us, but came up empty.
It seems to me that many discount membership programs are happy to give you a number for your “savings”, and while such a number would be somewhat self-serving, at least it would be something concrete. The fact that Amazon doesn’t do this is interesting. Obviously, they have other bundled services, so they don’t want to say, like, you saved $80 on shipping with your $140 subscription! but they could still give you some kind of nonsense like
Free shipping - $80 savings
Prime Video - $120 value
Whole Foods - $46 savings
and show you that your $140 Prime membership was worth $700 to you or whatever.
We moved somewhere that’s farther from the global logistics flow, so deliveries take a long time and for many things it’s just as cheap and nearly as easy to order online from a local retailer and go pick it up if we actually want something quickly. 2-day prime really was faster, often, than finding a time to drive out to a store. 1-week prime sure isn’t.
I recently ordered a new TV, and chose the delivery option where you sign for it and they don’t just leave it on the porch. After a week I got a call with the earliest delivery date: Another 2 and a half weeks out. Cancelled it. I can just drive to Best Buy with that kind of delay.
I’m surprised at the amount of ordering some of you guys do. I probably average 6 or 7 total Amazon orders per year, most of them for multiple items so I’m above the minimum for free shipping. With Prime now going up to $139, 25 orders per year means you’re now paying $5.56 per order. Now that’s an interesting number because I have an Amazon shipping charge here for reference. I ordered two small items which together qualified for free shipping, but somehow Amazon screwed up and broke the order up into two shipments, one of which was free and the other was charged $5.47 shipping & handling. Clearly, with my order volume I’m much, much better off paying for shipping, or, more commonly, bundling items so shipping is free.
Incidentally, I complained to Amazon about the shipping charge and they promised to refund it. I just got an email a minute ago confirming the refund (Amazon really does have excellent customer service). I still have no idea why it happened. I got a confirmation email that simply said “Your purchase has been divided into 2 orders” and giving two order numbers, with no further explanation.
In any case, both orders arrived very quickly, no Prime shipping involved. Both were ordered last Saturday. The one where I was charged for “standard shipping” shipped the same day, and arrived on Sunday. The free shipping item was shipped on Sunday and arrived today, Monday. I can live with that kind of response time! 
But sometimes it does take much longer.
I’ve had the same experience with fast delivery lately. Stuff I’ve ordered arrived in just a couple of days, without me having paid for expedited shipping. It’s never been stuff I needed that quickly but it’s nice when it occurs.
I was initially pulled in by the delivery, but as time has gone by I’m more about the “Included with Prime” video. For instance, “Man in the High Castle” and “Sneaky Pete” were excellent, but I’m always finding other things. Remember, that includes imdb (which has commercials, but I find good stuff in there).
The other day Mrs. L texted me that in a moment of carelessness she dropped the coffee pot on the tile floor and it shattered. So she went on amazon and ordered a replacement. It got there the same night—we didn’t pay extra or anything.
They deliver so much of their own stuff it seems that it’s hard to say what delivery would cost with USPS etc. And I’ll say their batting average is down from the old days. Some things arrive late or get delivered to the wrong address. But their average is still pretty darn good. I think it remains to be seen if they’ll get so incredibly successful that they rest on their laurels.