(formatc1)
As usual, Amazon is pushing its Prime service these days, offering a free monthlong trial. On the surface, it seems like a reasonable offer for heavy customers: pay $79 and you get free two-day shipping with no minimum order amount and overnight shipping for $4.
Blogging at LiveCheap, Omie Ismail says the service isn’t worth it because Amazon limits the items you can use the free shipping on, and also — as we’ve reported in the past — raises prices of certain items for Prime customers.
Omie also found another drawback:
After my experience with the non-Prime purchases, I found myself looking only at the Prime eligible items. Invariably, the Prime items carried a higher price tag especially at low price points. Items that were $8 from most vendors were $13 through Amazon.com. So I would get free 2 day shipping, but it was embedded in the price. Considering that I’d already paid for the shipping advantage by subscribing to Prime, it felt like I was taking money from one pocket and putting it in another.
Current and former Amazon Prime users, is Prime a good deal or a trap to exploit customer loyalty?
Amazon Prime: Is It Worth It? [LiveCheap]
I think it is good if you buy a lot of books. Books on Amazon are cheaper than vendors and to get the free two day shipping would save lots (if lets say you buy 1 book per week)
My experience is that Amazon usually gets items here in 2 days with “Super Saver” shipping anyway, so Prime would be a waste of money.
It might get to you in 2 days from when it’s shipped. But from my experience, Super Saver shipping usually takes longer to process and I don’t get items until 5-7 days after I order them compared to the 2 day shipping which usually gets sent out right away the next day.
I have never had a problem with Amazon’s free shipping. I usually get anything I order in 3 business days or less. I never have “urgent” purchases that would require me to overspend on shipping.
I’m still waiting for a pair of movies shipped on the 21st, estimated delivery on the 27th. Granted I know Thanksgiving was just a week ago, but really. I will laugh if the movie I ordered yesterday with the free Prime trial gets here before the other two.
That depends on where you live. When we lived in Las Vegas, we were close to the distribution center in Sparks so we got stuff super-fast all the time and couldn’t figure out why anyone would pay for faster shipping.
Now that we’ve moved to Austin, it takes a LOT longer for stuff to get to us. Also, I think they now deliberately delay more free standard shipping orders to entice people to prime. I just ordered four in-stock items and the estimated SHIP date is December 9. Based on recent orders, it will likely take a week or more after that to get to me.
But I’m not going with Prime because I just plan early and buy well in advance of birthdays and Christmas. As in, that order completes my Christmas shopping, WOOT!
Very good … for Amazon. I see no benefit at all for 99.9% of consumers.
It can be a good deal if you split it with 3 other people @ $20/person/month, but otherwise probably not. Also definitely buyer beware on the pricing and well, you should be pricing shopping anyways. It’s usually a good deal if I need something quickly. next-day shipping for a couple bucks is mostly a good deal depending on the item.
3 other people would be $20/person/year, not month
yeah… what you said.. My mind meant ‘year’ but my hands said ‘month’ doh.
Isn’t it $79/year? not month
I pretty much signed up for the free trial when I bought something from Amazon that I wanted quickly, then canceled soon after.
I have had prime for 2-3 years and will never go back. All you have to do is check prices with their other vendors – it’s not traumatic at all. If I don’t need it in a hurry and non-prime vendor is cheaper, I do that. I am a pretty regular purchaser, though.
I’m also a happy Prime user and while it costs money, getting in on deals can cost me less because I don’t need to worry about the $25 minimum free shipping.
If you are worried about Amazon charging more for Prime users and you use Firefox. Grab the “Invisible Hand” add on which will automatically popup a bar at the top of your browser telling you prices at other sites. This lets you do a quick and easy price check to make sure you are getting a good deal.
I dropped Prime myself when Amazon went and discontinued their price guarantee policy. That was the one thing that actually provided incentive to purchase items from them. After that, their overall customer relations went somewhat downhill.
You have to be aware of the disadvantages and be willing to do your homework but in many situations, it’s a real money and time saver. I have Prime and it has saved me a lot of money, especially on gifts. Even if the gift I choose is $6.00 more on a Prime-eligible item, I can’t send a huge box of Lego across the country for less than $6.00. And when my husband is deployed (an average of four months every year) I can send him anything he needs through Amazon which is faster, cheaper, and more convenient than having Amazon send it to me only for me to box it all up again and schlep it to the post office.
We use Amazon for almost everything and Prime has a couple of advantages: 1 we know and can track when stuff gets to us, which living in a big city (Chicago) where UPS won’t leave packages outside doors is great. It also makes sure we get stuff when ASAP. I always check the price on another Amazon account before buying, and now with fulfilled by amazon service for tird party vendors I have even more price choice. I guess if you’re a control freak about getting things in a particular amount of time and order probably 50 things a year from Amazon like we do, I’d say its worth it.
Splitting it is a great idea it can be shared by I think up to five people and its then a lot cheaper 80 bucks a year total, so 20 bucks each for four people for the year, not a month.
Signed up every time the free trial come up, but actually spending money on it? Not really. I can make do with 1-2 day of extra shipping (usually just 1 extra day). It’s not hard to fill Amazon with other stuffs like grocery to bring it to $25 for free shipping.
The only reason I would get prime is if they didn’t have the $25 free shipping. I almost never order anything from Amazon that I need right away.Granted, with the $25 minimum free shipping, I spend a little more sometimes than I intended, but it is usually for something I would have gotten soon anyway. Besides, with how quickly stuff usually makes it to me with UPS and USPS from Amazon, I usually end up getting it in 2 days anyway once it ships.
I pretty much do the same thing you do but I just wait until I have around $50 worth of stuff that I’d really like to get before I place an order.
Sometimes I wind up placing a couple orders a month and sometimes I got several months between making orders.
The free shipping is plenty fast for me. Several times, I have received items the day after I placed my order. (I live close to a bunch of hubs, which helps a bunch.)
If I’m running into a true time crunch, I’ll pony up for the faster shipping, but that happens maybe once a year.
Ugh, I’m saying “a bunch” a lot. Sorry!
Back home, I would often receive books next day, even if I ordered on Friday afternoon.
I have always thought the same, but it depends what you are ordering. Popular items that are at most DC’s will arrive in a few days for me, but more obscure things can take up to two weeks. I’ve noticed that the free shipping now takes a few days to even leave the warehouse in some circumstances.
Yeah, that’s true, I mostly order books and there’s an Amazon warehouse in Richmond that’s less than 10 miles away. I always get the books within 2 days once they ship them. With SuperSaver Shipping, it takes longer for the warehouse to pack the item than it does to arrive once it’s shipped.
Worth it if you just sign up for the free month trial
That’s what I did last year and got all my Christmas gifts shipped out last minute. As I recall, they make it easy to cancel – I think you could set up your account so that it would not “renew” after the free month trial. I wouldn’t pay for it otherwise. It is rare that I need something right away and usually just let things accumulate in my cart until I’ve qualified for their free super saver shipping.
I did the same thing about two years ago. I remember keeping track of the date I signed up and then canceled before the free trial was over once my stuff shipped.
I don’t think it’s worth it since I don’t use Amazon enough to warrant paying $79/year for faster shipping.
I’m perfectly fine with the free 5-9 day shipping now. And usually my stuff comes faster than that anyway.
I signed up for the free trial a year or two ago, and accidentally missed the deadline to cancel. I wrote to them explaining the situation, and since I hadn’t used Prime after the deadline they gave me my money back. Pretty darn classy of them.
Anything faster than the free shipping is just a “wanting it” tax. I did the Prime trial when it first came out (what, like 2 years ago?), and at the end of the month, I decided to wait and see if I ordered anything that I *absolutely had to have* in 2 days. Here we are 2 years later, and so far, nada. That’s $178 in savings in my pocket. Which, I might add, goes a long way towards covering the cost of the next item (if there is one) that I need in 2 days or less.
Generally speaking, either I need something NOW – and source it locally – or it’s nothing I can’t wait a week or so to get.
Lest you think I’m an “occasional” purchaser, so far this year I’ve placed 49 orders with Amazon.
My mother uses the free 2-day shipping to get 25-book classroom sets of YA fiction novels when her school district informs her at the last second that, in fact, they did not order her books because they ran out of money but they totally forgot to tell her.
None of the local bookstores are able to fill an order that large that quickly, and generally she needs them quickly in order to move on with the curriculum.
On the one occasion I absolutely needed something RIGHT AWAY that I couldn’t get locally, btw, my mom sent it to me as a gift using Prime and I wrote her a check. Otherwise I’m a cheap bastard who only uses free super-saver shipping.
and also — as we’ve reported in the past — raises prices of certain items for Prime customers.
The article linked to says that’s not the case?
“It’s clear to us, and we hope to Steve, that this is not a case of Amazon offering different pricing to members and non-members—instead, it’s a case of a third-party vendor simply offering a better deal.”
I got attacked yesterday for pointing out stuff like this so, uh, I guess I’ll take the hit.
Yeah, I have no idea why Phil would say that. I was actually shocked and dismayed until I got halfway through that article and the truth was revealed.
Amazon does not raise the price of items for Prime customers. That article you linked to just had Amazon selling at a different price than a 3rd-party seller (crutchfield, in this case).
Yes, I’ve found Prime to be worth it. Amazon pretty much limits Prime items to those sold by Amazon — third-party sellers don’t count. But out of all the things I buy in a year from amazon, only a small percentage (less than 5%) are not covered.
But I’ve found it’s great for pretty much whatever I buy. When I’m shopping for electronics or computer hardware, for example, I’ll usually search Newegg and a few other sites and comparison shop, but almost always end up buying from Amazon because it ends up costing less after factoring shipping. Even if the prices turn out to be the same (after shipping) 2-day shipping is usually better than regular shipping.
Now there’s also the option for $6.99 same-day delivery, which is cool, but I doubt I’ll ever need that more than once or twice in a lifetime.
I personally love prime. I signed up last year for the free trial to save shipping costs on a heavy item that would have cost $25 to ship via ground I liked it so I paid for the year. Contrary to this article I have very rarely seen the case where a non prime item was cheaper at a 3rd party and when it is the ground shipping cost from the 3rd party usually exceeded the amazon prime 2 day shipping price. It’s really nice to know if I order something on Wednesday I’ll have it before the weekend. I guess if you don’t mind waiting a week for your items you can save the $79, but personally I love it.
The one month free trial is awesome. I would not pay for Amazon Prime, but I’m perfectly willing to take 1 month of free priority shipping.
Have it, love it. More often than not, I get the items the next day here in NYC.
I signed up for the free trial last year and forgot to cancel, so got unwillingly signed up for Amazon Prime. I think its been good to me though, as I have been purchasing a lot of items on there. Yes, third party vendors are sometimes cheaper, but they sometimes have absurd shipping costs. Othertimes, for example, an HDMI cable was $0.25 and shipping was $2.50, so the free Prime 2 Day shipping really didnt matter to me. In cases where items were a few dollars cheaper, the vendors would ask for $7 or $8 for shipping. So in reality, even with Amazon charging a few dollars extra for shipping, they are still cheaper than the 3rd party vendors.
There have been times where I needed an item next day, so paying $3.99 extra (per item) for next day shipping is a good deal to me (I’ve probably used it a dozen times or so). I have also used Saturday Delivery (for $6.99 per item) a handful of times as well.
In addition, from what I have seen, 99% of the items are sent UPS, not FedEx, as the article said. Also, why is the writer of the article saying it is $2 for next day delivery. I have never seen it at that price; it has been $3.99 an item for next day delivery for the past year. I found the article difficult to read and poorly written.
I will probably allow my Prime membership to renew at the end of January. It has been a good deal for me.
For most people, it’s not worth it. However, for a small minority it is because they buy lots of individual small items and/or want their items shipped faster. I’m not part of this minority, but I could see why someone could benefit from it.
The higher price point is due to outside merchants selling through Amazon, not some kind of conspiracy. Usually, the cost with shipping included is about the same or lower through Amazon, but not always.
In summary, Prime can be useful, but isn’t for most people (which is why you have to opt-in to the service).
I used Amazon prime for about 2 hours. It was a great way to get free 2 day shipping on my order that I wanted quickly. As soon as it was confirmed, I cancelled the service. Instant free 2 day shipping on 1 order!
you do realize that the trial is for a month, and you can go to your settings and turn off auto-renewal…why cancel so early?
Most of what I buy is cheaper sold through Amazon than a third party seller. In the cases where that isn’t so, the cost of expedited shipping usually offsets the savings. If it is genuinely cheaper from someone else, I may go that route.
I’m not sorry I spend the $79/yr fee since it provides something of a safety net for online purchases. In the same token as spending $13 instead of $8 to get a Prime-eligible item, you might spend more to pad your order to the $25 free Super Saver option. When Amazon did the $2 movies last week, I could buy them separately without reservation and no shipping cost (did they do a free shipping on all orders promo?). If I need something urgently, I can upgrade to overnight for $4 (or $7 for Saturday delivery) as opposed several times that from other retailers.
One more thing to consider is the service quality and reliability of third party retailers on Amazon. Do they offer price matching or price guarantees? What are the terms of their return policy? Are they easy to contact? Where do they ship from? Have they had good reviews? I haven’t had much trouble in the cases where I’ve had to file an A-to-Z claim, but dealing with Amazon directly has consistently been easier.
I’m an Amazon Prime user, have been since they started the program. I buy 20-30 books/semester on it (probably totalling 100+/year including Christmas gifts and so on). It’s absolutely worth it to me because I can just order a book, instead of trying to arbitrage my way into free shipping, so it works out cheaper. (One $12 book I need is cheaper than one $12 book I need and one $13 book I don’t need!) It wouldn’t be if I wanted to buy furniture or something, but, um, I don’t!
I live in a state that has an Amazon distribution center in it (well across the border in Kentucky) along with a UPS hub, so I get any order pretty much the next day paying regular shipping costs. So, yeah, Amazon Prime is not always the best deal, depending on where you live.
Personally I love Amazon Prime – where I really find it to be useful is with their recently (in the last year or so) added “Release Day Delivery” – if you have prime, it’s free, otherwise it costs the same as 1 day shipping.
I order tons of video games, books, and movies for work and being able to get them sooner gives me a few extra days with the products. Usually the free prime 2day delivery arrives overnight anyway to my location (Cary, NC) and I make enough orders per year that prime costs less than paying for any of the expedited delivery.
Prime certainly isn’t for everyone, but I’ve found it to be quite practical for my needs.
I was going to add, I ordered a media equipment rack from amazon the other day; shipping weight is ~100lbs.
I got it shipped 2 day through prime, it arrived overnight, and it didn’t cost me anything extra to ship; the same shipment through UPS ground is quoted at just shy of $70.
I live in Montana and I love Amazon prime. For me, living out here in the sticks, Amazon offers a large selection and great customer service. We have a Borders here, but who wants to pay msrp for a book? It has also curbed my impulse purchasing. When I see something that I want, I go to Amazon and actually read the reviews before I buy it. I’d say a good 30% of the time I either decide to not buy it or find a better alternative.
Amazon Prime can be very much worth the $80 bucks subscription. For me it is invariably.
It boils down to how much online shopping you do. And yeah, of course there are occasions where the non-prime eligible items are less expensive, it’s not hard to calculate in the potential shipping costs into the equation for whatever you’re shopping for.
I shop enough at Amazon that it’s paid for itself time after time. It saves me from having to go to brick and mortar stores and deal with tax and people (..eek, people!). It’s super convenient too, $4 next day has saved me on more than one occasion.
I’ve been a Prime member for a few years now. I’m closing in on 100 orders this year. I’m pretty confident in saying that if Jesus was ordering something off the Internet, he’d use Amazon Prime. Third party sellers usually aren’t cheaper than Amazon when you add in their shipping fees. Sometimes they are, and in those cases you can choose between fast shipping and saving a few dollars. In most cases you get fast shipping AND you save a few dollars.
Free release-date shipping for games makes Prime worth it.
Also, I’ve had a few times where I’ve ordered an item early in the day, used Prime two-day, and had the item show up the next day.
I LOVE my Amazon Prime. I order things all year long that are under the $25 Super Saver shipping requirement. It’s great not to have to worry about finding something to “round up” my order.
During the holidays it’s great to be able to order last-minute items and not pay high costs for next-day shipping.
I added up my Amazon shipping costs for the previous year before I chose to get Prime. I definitely saved money last year, and I renewed this year.
It’s really a shame that you disparage the Prime service this way when in your own [linked] article you admit that Amazon was not gouging, but rather at third party offering a better price and free shipping.
I just renewed my second year on Prime and have saved hundreds of dollars with it.
I’ve used Amazon Prime since they made it available to me (five years now?). I noticed that Amazon’s prices for goods eligible for Prime used to be equal to or better than good deals offered at other sites or in retail stores. I used to buy lots of electronics and gifts through them. No more… Amazon now appears to roll much of the cost of shipping into their prices, so they are rarely the best deal out there. I still use Prime, but I do a lot more price research before shopping at Amazon. They may make money off my Prime subscription, but they’re losing it on total sales volume.
I love it. I troll their daily deals and other specials and buy piddly things. I bet I have a box, on average, delivered every other day to my house from Amazon. For example, they had a DVD on sale for $2.00 the other day. I hadn’t seen it before, and it was cheaper than buying it or renting it… so why not? The next day I had a new DVD for $2.00. I’ve sooooo completely cost them far more money than my Prime membership cost. I’m one of those who bus stuff to justify having spent the $79 on Prime. I never pay MORE than I would have spent somewhere else though. If something costs $100 on Amazon and I have free 2nd day shipping and something costs $90 elsewhere with $10 standard shipping, I always go for the Amazon deal. Why not?
They achieved their goal with me. Almost everything I buy online, I now get from Amazon.
I don’t think this service is a good value for me, while I do shop online A LOT there are other retailers that offer free shipping with no minimum and often match the prices of Amazon. I love amazon but I don’t shop with them all that much, not enough to justify prime. Its easier for me to add a $5-10 item or sometimes less in order to get to the $25 required for free shipping or just wait till I need a few things and order all at once. It wouldn’t make sense for me to pay $79 to get prime just so I could get single items quicker. Even if I had to add a $5 item to every order to get free shipping I don’t think it would add up to $79 per year to justify prime.
I started ordering gifts off Amazon right after Thanksgiving. The last of my gift orders shipped yesterday, and it has an estimated delivery date of Dec. 14. The problem with regular free super saver shipping is that at this point, if you put in your order, you’re probably going to get hit with a delay. I bought two blu-ray discs the day after Thanksgiving and they still haven’t shipped.
I’m seeing this across the board with things I’ve ordered since Thanksgiving. Prime would have been very helpful, since even if it took a while to actually ship, I would get it in three days. But at this rate, if packages don’t ship for another week, then it takes 4 to 7 days to deliver, I might not have much time before Christmas.
If Prime is a good deal or not can be arguable, bit this Omie’s post totally missed he point.
While the prices of Prime eligible items are usually higher than othr venders, othr venders usually DO CHARGE shipping fee. In most of the case Amazone price is still the better one.
But this is not even important: Prime is NOT about free shipping! Nearly all Prime eligible itme is also eligible for free ground shipping over $25 anyway. What Prime offers is free *Two-day shipping without minimum*.
So how do you value Prime really depends on you. For me I don’t mind waiting for the stuff I ordered for a week, and I can always find something to pad my order over $25, so Prime is worthless for me. However if you are the kind of people who always want something, NOW, Amazone Prime can be one of the best thing in the world.
The problem with amazon’s shipping in general is that customers can’t choose the shipping method, only the estimated shipping time. That might sound good in theory, but in practice, amazon uses a lot of different shippers, some of which are good at getting things delivered on time and some of which are not. Amazon doesn’t let me tell it not to use a shipping method that’s known to be unreliable.
I love amazon prime. I just got it recently and being able to randomly order small things and not pay shipping/tax is perfect. I ordered a $13.99 that everyone else wanted $7 to ship.
I’ll continue to use it, especially since I split with my parents so it’s only $40/yr for me.
Exactly. I have the free trial and I’m strongly considering purchasing it for the next year. I was looking around for a new book to read. Found one on Amazon, used, since it’s not in print anymore. $3.00+$4.99 shipping, but there were 2 that were $3.91+eligible for prime. So instead of 8 bucks, I paid 4. It’s nice to just get the price and get it quickly too.
I completely disagree with his first point. I remember exactly the point in time where I got amazon prime. I’d ordered a new phone through Amazon and was cheap so I selected the free shipping option. 10 days later the phone still had not arrived and after phoning them I was told that it was gonna take another 5 days to get there.
Free Super Saver Shipping is entirely at the discretion of Amazon. It will get there when it is convenient for Amazon to move the product between warehouses.
I’m more than happy to pay a small fee for the year to get 2 day shipping on virtually anything that I buy.
As to the other points, yes that means that I often won’t buy a product if it isn’t eligible for Prime. This is often the case with Amazon partners. However, this is a good thing. I got burned a few years ago when I bought a bunch of Christmas presents through Amazon affiliates, not realizing that each product came from different affiliates and carried it’s own shipping policies. I ended up spending around 50% of the cost of the presents that I purchased on shipping (many of the items were around $5-20).
Exactly. Amazon doesn’t police or accept responsibility for their affiliate’s shipping policies. They could take 4 days, or they could take 6 weeks. It’s totally hit-or-miss. With Prime, I’ve never had it take more than 2 business days.
Another happy Prime customer here. I have been using it for years, for DVDs, books, cameras, TVs, etc. I comparison shop still, but usually end up coming back to Amazon unless I find a hands down better deal. For certain items, like computer components, it makes more sense to hit a place like Newegg. For others, even if the cost is a little more at Amazon, the lack of shipping, two day turn around, and a complete order history is worth the price of admission.
Amazon keeps track of my purchase history, reminding me if I bought something before (helping the forgetful avoid buying the same book twice!). I think it is incredibly valuable to those that would rather buy online then brave the crowded real world stores.
Personally for me Prime is the best thing going at Amazon. No sales tax (yet), cheaper than any B&M, $4 next day shipping…how can you go wrong?
I am actually pretty happy with using Prime, although I do notice that it does its job in getting me to choose Amazon over buy.com when the free shipping makes the price difference. I originally thought the price would not be worth it, until I learned the best part about about prime is that one membership can be shared between 5 different people, which makes the price much more reasonable.
I like it cause you can share it with up to 4 family members…
I signed up last year with some deal where the shipping savings on a heavy big-ticket item I was about to purchase pretty much covered the cost of the year of Prime. And, because of the timing, I still have my Prime membership during the holiday shopping season this year, which has saved me even more. I don’t specifically chose products that qualify for Prime, and if I find the item lower priced at a reputable seller elsewhere, I go there.
I think the key word here is “reputable”. I’ve seen some pretty shady deals, like where Brooklyn camera outfits super-lowball the price. But when you google their name… lots of problems. So basically, yeah… I’ll pay a slightly higher price at Amazon and know I won’t have any problems whatsoever… and I’d do that without Prime anyway.
Overall, I’ve been happy with it. I don’t know if I’m going to renew it for another year, but if you have a year in which you plan to purchase expensive-to-ship items, it’s pretty much worth it.
Actually, sometimes I use Prime when I know I need something in a day or two and can’t waste a few hours going from store to store to see if they have one. I invited my work team over for dinner Sunday and I need a programmable slow cooker. Ordered it three hours ago with two-day Prime shipping; it has already left the building and is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow. Whoa.
Ugh. Other people have already mentioned this, but please correct the post. Amazon does not raise the price for Prime customers. The free shipping is just limited to items sold directly by Amazon. Sometimes Amazon has more expensive prices than third party sellers, but often I’m willing to pay a slight premium because I trust Amazon more than some random company (even if they’re selling through Amazon.) Therefore, Prime still has an advantage in those situations, because with or without Prime, I’d be buying directly from Amazon, and at least with Prime, I get the free shipping.
Plus, Prime is not extremely expensive if you do a lot of shopping at Amazon, especially since you can split the cost among several family members.
I have been using Prime for quite a while (couple of years at least), and everything you said is true. I rather pay a few bucks extra to get it directly from Amazon than work through one of their third-place marketplace resellers. At least through Amazon I can return items easily, through third-party folks, who knows.
I get a lot of books, games, and movies from Amazon so the 2-day shipping is a real nice perk. The fact that I share it with my family members and we split the cost makes it an even better deal for us.
Amazon has been a disaster for me. Their prices fluctuate minute by minute to match other online retailers, but they will add in the tax of those retailers, to make their product price match theirs, but with free shipping. Then there is the mandatory “Amazon Punishment Period”(tm), a phrase I made up to cover the 5 days they will sit on any free shipping order before they actually ship it (note: DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THE EMAIL THAT IT SHIPPED, if you go to USPS and track, you will see that they only sent a notice to the post office, they did not actually ship it).
Of course, on top of this, is the ever present “sold by”, which never carries free shipping and I have personally had experience with one of those merchants I would never buy direct from (those sleeze balls who sell low, but then refuse to ship if you dont take part in an upsell) when buying from Amazon. Amazon said it wasn’t their problem.
I recently decided to give Amazon one more chance, and ordered a flash drive. They shipped UPS to the post office (or some such sillyness). The post office made 1 delivery attempt, to a business, at 5AM on a Saturday, and then told me I had to go pick it up.
As far as I am concerned, there is always better than Amazon.
As you say, the “”Amazon Punishment Period”(tm)…the 5 days they will sit on any free shipping order before they actually ship it” has been reason enough for me to consider buying Prime, and the same thing that’s held me back from ordering many things from Amazon. I can’t stand ordering something, paying my money, and then having to wait a week or two for it to arrive with “Free shipping”. I would rather not spend the money, or get it locally and spend more.
One of these days I’ll get around to adding Prime to my order (already used the trial) and watch the packages start coming.
A few years ago, I used Amazon Prime for a year. I need to order books fairly regularly. But some of the books I need are not sold by Amazon because they deal with topics too specialized for the general public.
After a year, I looked back on all my orders at Amazon (including things other than books). I computed prices and compared with what I would have had to pay if I had not used Amazon Prime. I ordered a lot that year so I came a little bit ahead but I found that in most years, I’d be losing money with Amazon Prime. It was just better for me to be patient with the orders I did not need right away and pay the shipping fees for the orders I needed really quickly.
Shipping’s dirty little secrets:
1. Never pick overnight or 2-day unless you ACTUALLY NEED the item that soon. Most of the time, you’ll get your stuff sooner than the “2-3 weeks” they scare you with to prevent you from using the free/low-cost shipping.
2. Never pick the “AM” overnight option unless you ACTUALLY NEED the item in the morning. Chances are, they’ll have other stuff going to your location in the AM, and it’s more cost effective for them to put your stuff in the same truck.
3. When you DO need the item urgently, don’t count on it getting there as advertised. If there only 2 packages with the “by 10:30″ delivery option and 30 without, they’ll throw the “urgent to you but not to them” packages on the afternoon truck and risk having to refund the shipping fee. Oh, and they’ll making getting a refund as difficult as possible so you are less likely to try.
I used Prime for a couple months last year when they had a free trial. Ultimately, I decided not to pay for the renewal because I was disgusted by the waste involved. Amazon already gets a lot of grief for their wasteful packaging. Prime encourages you to buy on whim without offering any incentive to group purchases so they can be packaged together. I was annoyed with myself when I saw how much shipping trash my Amazon Prime orders generated.