The last three orders I placed from Amazon took over a week to ship. Every product was sold directly from Amazon, and shipped from their New Jersey warehouse to Ohio. It's my opinion that they are intentionally delaying orders that aren't Prime.
I've never been someone who used Amazon for everything, so a Prime membership never made sense. I'd estimate 2-3 orders a year at most. Placing 3 orders in a short time frame was an anomaly. But, all three had abnormally long delays compared to nearly every other retailer.
That's also my experience. I'm in Ireland, ordering (mostly books) through amazon.co.uk (since 2000) so Prime never made sense for me either, but delivery times from the UK have definitely slipped over the past two years. In-stock items 'sold & fulfilled by Amazon' used to ship within 24 hours, but now regularly take 5 days or more to ship. The result is that I shop elsewhere.
I've never been someone who used Amazon for everything, so a Prime membership never made sense. I'd estimate 2-3 orders a year at most. Placing 3 orders in a short time frame was an anomaly. But, all three had abnormally long delays compared to nearly every other retailer.