Prime membership isn't worth it to me. "Free" shipping is priced into the cost each listing, and is glaringly obvious when comparing prices for the same item between Amazon and another retailer. Usually there is a few dollar difference, which is what the shipping cost would be with the other retailer. Many of the items I find on Amazon are cheaper to buy directly from the manufacturer on AliExpress, and I have no need to pay a middleman's markup.
There is also the issue of the counterfeit items I've received, and the quality of Amazon's branded products. When I went to return a knockoff product, reporting it as a counterfeit item wasn't even an option to mark as my reason for returning it. I've also had one of their branded surge protectors fail on me recently.
I've yet to find a reliable, reputable retailer that comes close to price-matching Amazon. Much less beating them. Walmart and Best Buy come closest, and they're usually in the ballpark of 5% higher.
If you're bringing up the issue of counterfeits and knockoffs, yet also suggesting ALIEXPRESS (!) as an alternative, then I don't know what to respond with other than laughter.
> I've yet to find a reliable, reputable retailer that comes close to price-matching Amazon.
Just search for the product using your search engine of choice. Google's Shopping search isn't too bad. I often find what I'm looking for from a retailer nearby, and more often than not, that product is available for purchase on their website.
At least for the products that I purchase, it's been several years since Amazon's prices have been competitive.
> If you're bringing up the issue of counterfeits and knockoffs, yet also suggesting ALIEXPRESS (!) as an alternative, then I don't know what to respond with other than laughter.
I'm under no impression that what are listed on AliExpress are anything but products meant to be resold by white-label resellers on other sites like Amazon. I just buy the white-label products directly instead of through a middleman. When it comes to things like cables, accessories, and electronic components, it's often much cheaper.
When it comes to authentic products from high quality brands, I choose to buy from trusted retailers, or from the manufacturer's website itself.
Agree with every point including white label versions of electronic components being more cost effective from AliExpress. You just have to trade the cost savings with a little bit of time if you don't need it immediately. Also with home products, fixtures, and some furniture, AliExpress has a ton of overlap with items on wayfair.com
Best Buy in my area (Cambridge, MA) price-matches Amazon when you show them the same item on the app. It has to be sold by Amazon (not "fulfilled by Amazon"). Saved me a couple of times when I needed something urgently and couldn't wait for shipping.
Yes I did this for a Garmin Instinct watch this last week. It was 30% cheaper on Amazon (80ish dollars) and the Best Buy cashier looked at it on his phone, called over his manager and she price matched it. It was a pretty nice experience actually.
I’ve tried this a few times but big companies tend to have exclusive SKUs for each major vendor, so the HP laptop sold on Amazon might be the same hardware that Best Buy has, but they’re different SKUs so Best Buy refuses to price match.
You seem to be unaware that even if you don't buy from the amazon marketplace, amazon will happily ship you something from an amazon marketplace vendor. So it really makes no difference.
It takes more time out of my day to file for returns, package and ship my returns and try to figure out why my hardware failed due to poor quality Amazon branded products than it is to go with another retailer.
Trying to ascertain whether or not reviews I see on Amazon are legit, or are even for the same product as the product they're listed under, are significant time wasters, too.
I'm not sure what you mean by generics. There are a lot of white label products on Amazon that use the same stock pictures as the manufacturers do on AliExpress. It's often just cheaper to order it from the manufacturer instead of through a middleman.
Branded products, that aren't just white label products, I try to buy directly from the manufacturer. For example, I buy my Apple replacement chargers directly from Apple.
I think 150m are poor at managing money. You can get Prime for free at almost any time (I've gotten it for free EVERY time I've ordered from AMZ since Prime existed) and cancelled before getting charged.
> I guess 150m people have more scruples than you.
AMZ has hit the gym membership (which only affects the middle+ classes) sweet spot. Scruples have nothing to do with it. "One day you'll forget or get lazy" is not unscrupulous either.
"Price of shipping" doesn't automatically include a generous return policy, or fast shipping. I am a Prime Member, but I buy elsewhere frequently. But it still save me money overall, and Amazon Prime has mostly every movie I would ever want to see.
I've stopped using Amazon other than for some consumables where price is equal or inferior to supermarkets. Unlike supermarkets like Waitrose, they don't have stock issues.
Plus, on those items I will never get counterfeit items or if I do it will be terribly obvious.
Else, I've given up on Amazon. So many issues it's not worth the hassle. I'd happily pay more for a premium store where they guarantee they are not sending me counterfeit or refurbished items as new.
It's the speed that's as good as the cost. Often I'll order things that arrive at my door less than 24 hours later - it's harder to find that with non-Prime items.
'Prime Video' is worth the price for me. We get new release Indian movies for free & great TV series.
Free shipping on Prime items is just a bonus. They have added free overnight, free next day 8AM and even sameday 6pm for my zipcode. Cutoff is noon for same day delivery! I do not see a huge pricemarkup, and sometimes I dont even need to order $35 worth of items. The two toys I ordered was $5 & $8 each, it got delivered 8AM next day,
Not only free shipping but often same day or early next day shipping for 'free'.
I'm both impatient enough and use Amazon enough where buying it every year is worth it for me. Plus ditto re: Prime Video, it's not bad, although probably the least good of my three (I'd rank: 1. Netflix, 2. crave.ca to get HBO in Canada, then Prime 3rd) the library is surprisingly deep and I've used it quite a bit.
I used to be a prime member, for quite a number of years, but I cancelled it as I didn't feel I was getting the value out of it that I originally thought I was.
There's a break even point somewhere where the cost of shipping vs. number of orders made makes sense with prime, but I wasn't using the service enough to warrant that. Additionally the other services you get with a prime membership (Amazon Video, Amazon music etc) didn't really have that much appeal.
As a German prime customer I recently cancelled. Mostly because next day shipping didn't work 75% of the time and I was unable to find the appropriate form to complain about this.
Also, all their apps are crap. Prime Video has a 300ms audio delay on my Android TV and chromecasting to said TV has an even worse delay. Their app is also extremely clunky to use and on top of that it's super slow on all my devices. It also kills all other running apps on my TV because it's so memory hungry. Sending feedback doesn't help, it's a lost cause.
Their music streaming app sent me to Spotify years ago because it crashed all the time and was slow, too.
> Prime Video has a 300ms audio delay on my Android TV and chromecasting to said TV has an even worse delay
We use a fire stick, and it has the same issue for Prime Video. We have to pause the show for a couple seconds and then start it back up to get it back in sync. It's totally annoying.
Until a few months ago, Chromecasting wasn't even an option, so their only app didn't work on a device where Netflix, YouTube, VLC, Kodi, etc. are working just fine.
Amazon can build backend infrastructure but their frontend is always bad. I have never used a single Amazon app that was well made, simple to use, and resource efficient.
As someone who shops at Whole Foods all the time, despite the seemingly ridiculously small discounts you get as a prime member, it does add up to cover most of the cost of prime membership.
I do use prime services, so I might otherwise keep my membership — but I would consider cancelling if I were just using it for shipping.
5% back at Whole Foods using the Chase Amazon card vs 3% back without Prime. $119 annual Prime membership pays for itself after just $5,950 of Whole Foods shopping. :-)
Mine is double yours then. It could be cheaper , sure, but I don’t buy crazy expensive stuff. I do spend more on meat and things by being careful about sourcing
No - I don't shop at whole foods; didn't think I suggested that I do.
When I say "careful about sourcing", I mean that a good percentage of what I buy comes directly or nearly directly from local farms. It costs more than the random grocery store stuff from large distributors. I can afford it so I don't mind and the markup isn't crazy.
Between the 10% bonus discount on sale prices and prime-only sales at WF, our prime membership pays for itself without the prime credit card, even though we do most of our grocery shopping at other stores.
> break even point somewhere where the cost of shipping vs. number of orders
Shipping without prime can still be free. You just need a minimum purchase, extra shipping time, and you have to REMEMBER to select free shipping before clicking on purchase.
Same boat. For about two years I used it to have groceries delivered via Prime Now. The nuances of dried out vs oily coffee beans and greens were enough to not forgo in-person altogether. Haven’t missed my subscription in ~3 years.
Big picture, let’s hope I don’t need anything enough for one or two day delivery. Happy with regular delivery.
Prime music streaming offers about 2 million tracks, vs Unlimited offering “tens of millions” of songs—and costs extra. So it's not apples-to-apples unless you pay extra on top or your Prime subscription for music unlimited.
True. But as a Prime member, their Unlimited service costs me $79/yr, versus $120 for Spotify. The $41 that I'm saving covers one-third of my cost for Prime itself.
Combine that with the fact that Prime Video is reaching the point where I would pay for it as a standalone streaming service. At this point, the free shipping portion of Prime is for me becoming the ancillary add-on service, rather than the other way around.
Good point: "The $41 that I'm saving covers one-third of my cost for Prime itself". Though what I'm really paying for is Spotify's excellent discovery (weekly suggestions, etc). I'll have to check out how well Prime does discovery.
Prime isn't comparable to spotify in that regard though considering the catalog differences. If you want to compare apples to apples you need to consider trying unlimited from Amazon Music.
Prime delivery is nice, but I need to buy a replacement hard drive and they won't deliver it to my nearby Amazon locker for some reason. I don't want it sitting on my porch all day (pirates), but they won't let me schedule a future delivery for when I'll be home either. So I'm creating a calendar event for later this week to try & time the delivery.
I recommend adding a small lithium coin cell battery to your order to activate ORMD ground shipping. This will usually get the hdd packed in a semi sensible way. Otherwise, you'll often have it tossed in a box or even a bubble envelope.
I'm not sure where you live, but at least in the SF Bay Area, we have the option to set a "delivery day" and the shipments all arrive on that day. I've never used it though but it sounds like it could be very useful for you in situations like this.
Not sure if it is an option for you, but I've resorted to using a PO box for these cases. So far, everything seems to be able to be shipped to the PO box address when a locker won't do.
Quick question, why simple box for packages on the porch isn't used as a solution against pirates? Delivery people won't put it there? Or it's considered ugly? Or something else? Seems like a quick and effective solution - if pirates can't see that you have a package waiting on a porch, they won't steal it.
In my case, I'd have to go through the HOA's architectural review process to put one there. So .. not going to be allowed unless enough residents want one, and they can settle on a uniform style.
I never really had any issues with using Amazon’s services (I’m just talking about usability here, not getting into the fact that they’re a horrible company), but in the past year or so many of my packages from Amazon haven’t been arriving on time. I’m starting to lose faith each time I order something that I’ll actually receive it when it says I will.
> in the past year or so many of my packages from Amazon haven’t been arriving on time
My experience is the opposite - for me regular Prime delivery now regularly arrives in less than ten hours (order before bed, it's there before 9 in the morning.) I don't even live in a major urban area!
But it's guaranteed to arrive by tuesday! I've chosen not to renew my Prime for exactly that reason. Why pay for premium shipping if you don't get premium shipping?
This in turn has lead me to not order as much of the small stuff, things I can also buy in a local store. Buying those while doing my grocery shopping has taught me something else: Amazon isn't cheap, they were pretty much always similarly priced, for items below 10 Euros, Amazon was slightly more expensive in about half the products I checked.
In the US alone, over 2/3 households have Prime. Regardless of opinions of said company, that's an astounding market penetration. It makes you think they could become similar to the fictional Tyrell Corporation or Big Brother but more likely Central Services. And that inverted techno totalitarianism seems more likely to happen/be happening voluntarily (and with network effects like not wanting to be the only green imessage bubble or FOMO of AR social networks) rather than with force. But really, they seem like they will gain an oligopoly or a monopoly before gradually raising rates on what was cheap to get everyone hooked on fast/free shipping and free movies in the early days: want supplies and support with your Amazon Pacemaker or Amazon Ocular Implants? you must continue to be a Prime subscriber or we repossess them. Now with Prime, only $1299 per month!
I just canceled my free month of Prime a few weeks ago, that I used for Christmas time... back to 7 day deliveries which is fine by me (but it does feel that they add artificial delays for non-prime members).
Amazon makes it really easy to accidentally resubscribe to prime, as well as accidentally subscribe to random products that have a subscription option. The dark patterns are such a turnoff.
I try to buy locally but sometimes I still need to use amazon, eg, a Self published book will only be available through them
> Amazon makes it really easy to accidentally resubscribe to prime, as well as accidentally subscribe to random products that have a subscription option. The dark patterns are such a turnoff.
True. I ended up with a Prime Music subscription at £7/month without realising I was paying for it. But then it's easy to cancel, so it's not that bad.
Absolutely unusable on an Apple TV. Cross-platform trash that behaves so poorly compared to native UX.
The official Twitch app is the same. And they shut down API access for a number of high quality 3rd party Apple TV apps for Twitch when they launched the official one.
Am I the only one who has misread the title as "Amazon has 150M prime NUMBERS"? I thought that the article was about some weird practice of reusing prime numbers for encryption ;-D
Our client, Amazon.com Inc., has a trademarked the word Prime for all uses, across the known and yet to be discovered universe. Immediately cease and desist from using the term "prime numbers" to describe those a natural number greater than 1 that cannot be formed by multiplying two smaller natural numbers.
Our client understands this may cause some minor inconvenience to yourself and your colleagues. As a token of goodwill, we are offering all fulltime staff in your department Amazon Prime membership at the discounted student rate for one (1) year. By reading this letter, you implicitly agree to the above terms.
I don't have much to contribute, except my thanks for your reminding me to cancel my prime subscription. They REALLY tried to get me to not do that. I had to click "yes actually end it" around 5-6 times. I bet each of these hurdles keeps a couple million subscriptions in their pocket every year.
There is also the issue of the counterfeit items I've received, and the quality of Amazon's branded products. When I went to return a knockoff product, reporting it as a counterfeit item wasn't even an option to mark as my reason for returning it. I've also had one of their branded surge protectors fail on me recently.