Is Amazon Prime worth it?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Amazon has upped the price for free shipping to $35 making Amazon Prime seem more attractive. However, today I was doing some comparison shopping for a Raspberry Pi. On Amazon a Prime-eligible RPI costs $41. On adafruit.com the RPI costs $35. Guess what the shipping is at adafruit? Yup, $6. It’s only a single price point but this looks awful suspicious. Is Prime worth getting for the free shipping?

I know that Prime has other values (like movie streaming) but I’m mostly interested in the shipping aspect.

2

Yes. I’m sure with the 3rd party sellers there are plenty of cases like the one you found, but in general I’ve found I save money going with prime-eligible. Plus it’s 2nd day instead of “whenever” shipping.

The first year I paid for Prime was because I needed a monitor overnight and it was cheaper to buy it and have it shipped next day with Prime than it was without even including the cost of Prime. I planned to drop it after that first year but at the end of the year I had used it so much I didn’t hesitate at all to renew it.

3

It’s not just free shipping, it’s free 2-day shipping. That does make a difference.

However, not everything is eligible for Amazon Prime shipping, which is somewhat limiting in what you can buy if you want to take advantage of the free 2-day shipping.

Personally, I feel that it all kinda evens out. Normally I would not pay extra for the 2-day shipping, but it’s nice to have things delivered quicker without shelling out the premium for it. Basically it boils down to whether that’s important to you. If you regularly order a lot of stuff from Amazon and you like 2-day shipping, there’s probably a decent savings in it. If you order fairly infrequently and don’t care about shipping speed, it’s probably not worthwhile.

4

I think we’ve probably saved twice the cost of Prime in about six-seven months of having it. The original impetus was to get bundled access to two TV shows not available anywhere else (Fringe and I think Stargate SG-1), with the shipping just being a bonus, but we have found little else unique to Amazon that’s worth watching, and the shipping perks have been a continual plus. Amazon’s regular free shipping can vary from 1-day to 10; paying about what we would pay in a year for non-free base and expedited shipping to get nearly everything with free 2-day shipping is really nice, especially if you order from Amazon twice a week or more… like, um, I’ve heard some people, um, do. :slight_smile:

On quite a wide variety of goods, I have run into no case where there wasn’t an acceptable Prime product vs. a cheaper/better non-Prime one.

(Coherence better be could this in time but not to rewrite.)

5

Yes, it’s worth it IF you shop at Amazon often. I prolly spend close to $5000 a year there, so I get lots of value for my $75 Prime membership.

6

I love Prime but you certainly can’t assume that Amazon has the best price for everything. I tend to put things that I think are not competitively priced on my Wishlist and wait until the price is right (or buy it elsewhere…)

7

Worth it to me. Free 2-day shipping plus a better price than most other sites makes it pay. Also, I wish I’d hung on to my AMZ stock years ago. :frowning:

8

The cool setup is to get hitched to your friend’s or family member’s Prime membership. They can share their membership with you and you can get free shipping - you just don’t get the digital download privs or anything else that might come with Prime.

My best friend hooked me up with his Prime membership and I’m sittin’ pretty now. I shop like a motherfuck!

9

Prime easily pays for itself if you get into the Amazon ecosystem. If you don’t, then meh. If you buy a Kindle paperwhite and borrow a free ebook every month (usually cheaper or indy titles, still, worth at least $24-36/yr), watch movies and shows with amazon prime (less than netflix, but still, worth at least $5/mo vs netflix $8/mo). You already have paid for prime and you get 2 day shipping and free shipping for many orders <$35 as an added bonus. Almost nothing sold by Amazon.com is not prime eligible (unless it has to ship freight - ie VERY heavy), but Amazon.com has more and more third party merchandise, which is only prime if the seller is using “fulfilled by Amazon”.
You definitely have to price check Amazon - they aren’t really all that cheap on Electronics vs say, Newegg.com or Tigerdirect.com, but for many items they are the cheapest, and they probably have more selection in one place than any other single website or physical store on earth.

10

It saves money for me because I’m not tempted to spend $25/$35 just to get the free shipping. :slight_smile:

I buy almost everything at Amazon and always look for Prime Eligible first. I’ll sometimes find a better price off the site, but Amazon has the best return policy and excellent customer service. So unless the price difference is huge, I’ll use Amazon and Prime.

11

I don’t know how I overlooked this - I have Prime on my account, which is more business/commercial than personal, and so my wife has been giving me lists of things to buy under the Prime shipping. I thought that was a little restrictive but never thought further. I just invited her and now she shares the shipping - which is a load off both my time and our wallet.

Have a beer or something on me. :smiley:

12

The first thing you need to do is to look at your Amazon order history for the last year. You then delete the orders which were NOT fulfilled by Amazon fulfillment, delete the Subscribe and Save orders, and delete the type of orders the OP mentioned where the price was jacked up to include shipping. If there are few orders left it is doubtful you will suddenly massively increase your order rate enough to make Amazon Prime worthwhile.

13

If you do a lot of shopping through Amazon (and I do a WHOPPING amount!) it’s definitely worth it. I get cat food by the case from amazon, vitamins for me and my dogs, i.d. tags for my kitten (who keeps losing collars), office supplies, tea, shoes, hearing aid batteries, and plenty of other stuff, including, but not limited to books. I also send gifts. The prices can be excellent. With the two-day shipping, the stuff just shows up on your doorstep sometimes quicker and definitely with a lot less trouble than if you had gotten in the car and driven somewhere to buy it.

I have an Amazon rewards card and get extra points if I buy through Amazon. Since I put EVERYTHING in my life on my credit card (and pay it off every month), the points really add up. I got a carpet for my living room, a fancy-schmancy water thing that keeps water hot all day for tea, a juicer, some beautiful presents for people— all for “free.” (I don’t need a frequent flyer miles card, as I never go anywhere.)

Many of my friends don’t use Amazon for anything except books, and they never even think to look there, which mystifies me. Someone will say, “I went all over town looking for <some product>, but I couldn’t find it.” And I’ll ask if they looked on Amazon. Duh.

And the Amazon reviews are tremendously helpful. Many, if not most, reviewers are as smart, literate, and thorough as the posters here :cool: and they will tell you, “I love this product,” or “It fell apart after a week.” Some will write incredibly long, detailed reviews, with videos even.

ETA: Okay, in my enthusiasm, I veered off the Amazon Prime topic. Sorry. I find Amazon a tremendously useful site.

14

The problem is, once you get Prime, you can’t go back. We had Prime for a year and then when it ended, we didn’t renew. Those were a hard 3 weeks.

The main thing we order is dog food (Royal Canin) which is cheaper than local. I also use it to buy the occasional board game here and there when it gets cheap. There are some plug-ins like Tracktor and Camelcamelcamel that can track prices and let you know if you’re getting the best price on amazon too.

15

To me, not worth it. I tried the trial for the movies, there’s only 100 or so available free on prime at a time. Over 80% of what I order are books, which are free shipping anyway. On the 20% that are not books, only like 1 out of 10 are prime eligible. The ones that are prime eligible include the shipping fee in the price as stated in the OP.

16

Yes it’s worth it… and it’s true… once you get it… you will literally not be able to go back… at least I’'ve never known anyone who’s been able to hold out… I held out a few weeks myself and as soon as I was able, I was whipping out my card and signing up for another year.

17

I used Amazon for years and years before finally caving and signing up for Prime last year. I love it to a ridiculous degree. It’s incredibly convenient to not have to save up and bundle purchases to get the free shipping (or buying extra stuff under the guise of saving money to reach the [del]$25[/del] $35 threshold), and everything shows up faster.

18

I tried the free version, & a lot of my items arrived broken, or badly packed.
So, no.

19

Got a free trial several years ago. Liked it enough to start paying for it.

20

Given I live deep in the woods and NH does not welcome retail businesses, I order a ton off of Amazon that I simply can’t get in a brick and mortar store within reasonable driving distance. I probably get my money’s worth in shipping by March or April.