Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49 • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#101

Post by ascorbic » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 8:25 AM UTC

Gustomaximus wrote: post #12

dangrossman wrote: post #4

"Profit was held back by a big jump in fulfillment costs, which increased 32.8% year-over-year in the fourth quarter and nearly 25% for the full year. Amazon spent $4.55 billion in the fourth quarter to fulfill customers’ orders, up from $3.4 billion in the same quarter a year ago, and the increase cannot be explained away by increases in Amazon sales, as the percentage of revenues spent on shipping also increased, f…

> The average cost to handle a parcel was about $8 last year. Thats still Amazing low cost considering what has to be done to deliver a parcel. Though I'm more surprised Amazon hasn't set up an Argos style business in high density cities. For those that dont know Argos it's in the UK and its basically a collection shopfront with catalogues infromt of the counter. You browse the catalogue, write down the numbers and s…

They're mostly moving away from the pen and paper to entering it directly into a self-service touchscreen and paying on the spot. Much quicker. I've been in and out in 5 minutes. Of course they also do the pay online thing that so many bricks and mortar stores do. Many times I've ordered online, walked down 5 minutes from my office and it's ready when I get there.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#102

Post by yomly » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 8:28 AM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #91

__david__ wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it would behoove Amazon to have a network of "customer pickup centers" where you can order something on Amazon, it gets shipped by Amazon itself to a customer pickup center via air, and the customer drives to close off the figurative "last mile". http://www.amazon.com/locker

Ah, pretty cool. Didn't know they had this -- it's not available in my area yet.

Booking slots will probably come, its something they've always wanted to do and it becomes easier to implement as things like Amazon Fresh get rolled out. Re buying Uber - that would have been way too expensive, I think in this case it would be cheaper to slowly organically expand the logistics operation

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#103

Post by ascorbic » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 8:28 AM UTC

kdamken wrote: post #7

They are really trying to force you into signing up for prime, aren't they? I cancelled my prime subscription at the start of the year. Some thoughts: - I buy less stuff on impulse. Since the price limit is (or was) $35 for free shipping, I usually have to wait until there are enough things I really want/need before ordering. - The pricing is often better other places. Normally Amazon's non prime price will be compar…

Do they have Add-on Items in the US too? They're incredibly annoying. They still show up when you filter for Prime only, but you need to spend £20 to get free Prime shipping. This is even if you're ordering other Prime stuff so already have a shipment coming.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#104

Post by prewett » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 8:33 AM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #92

Silhouette wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We keep using Amazon, of course, so it's obviously sitll working out for them. For now. The thing about reputations in business is that they can deteriorate slowly over time and up to a point it won't matter because customers will favour convenience and the brands they know. Sometimes that point can be much further from where you started than most people would expect. However, if you ever pass that point and lose a c…

Amazon's inventory supply chain is so many light-years ahead of the competition, especially here in Canada, I think they'll be able to screw up the UI for a decade or two.

It may be light-years ahead of the competition, but if advantage doesn't produce a cost savings for the customer, it doesn't matter. I generally need about $20 of something from Amazon. At $35 I can generally find something else I will use. But if I have to buy $50 worth of stuff to get the cost advantage of free shipping, I'm much more likely to just go down to the store and buy it.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#105

Post by SatoshiRoberts » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 8:45 AM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #96

cookiecaper wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would behoove Amazon to have a network of "customer pickup centers" where you can order something on Amazon, it gets shipped by Amazon itself to a customer pickup center via air, and the customer drives to close off the figurative "last mile". Alternate idea: Amazon builds a central warehouse in each major metro that contains the most-ordered items for that area, has trucks that run out to UPS Stores and d…

I think that Amazon, may in the end be better off starting their own shipping company. It may sound weird, but I'm half surprised they didn't buy Uber or Lyft, not for the ride service, but for the drivers and the logistics in place. Large trucks from warehouses, to meet drivers in individual vehicles at drop spots, for final deliveries.

Brilliant, though I think they are investing more time in the drones

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#106

Post by hga » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 8:46 AM UTC

prewett wrote: post #104

Pxtl wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon's inventory supply chain is so many light-years ahead of the competition, especially here in Canada, I think they'll be able to screw up the UI for a decade or two.

It may be light-years ahead of the competition, but if advantage doesn't produce a cost savings for the customer, it doesn't matter. I generally need about $20 of something from Amazon. At $35 I can generally find something else I will use. But if I have to buy $50 worth of stuff to get the cost advantage of free shipping, I'm much more likely to just go down to the store and buy it.

Back before my father and I decided to share a Prime subscription (I buy the stuff with my account and charge it to his credit card), I solved this by keeping in my deferred cart various items I wanted sometime in the coming months that I wasn't in a hurry to get. If you can take a long very about enough things it worked out pretty well, especially since your metric is to, over a year, pay less than a Prime subscription.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#107

Post by hga » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 8:50 AM UTC

deftnerd wrote: post #9

This is just assuming that they'll even let you order $49 worth of items in one box. I let my Amazon Prime lapse because I was rarely using it. A few weeks ago I decided to do a bulk order. I ordered 18 items with a total of $110. They split my shipment into three packages of approximately $50, $50, and one item by itself in another box for $10. Since one of the boxes didn't have $35, they tried to charge me shipping…

This happened when you selected "ship in as few packages as possible" option? That worked for me in the $35 minimum days before I and my father got a Prime subscription.

A related patience game to decrease the costs of your Prime subscription is to allow them to ship is slowly and give you a limited time, but several month, digital $1 credit, or if you to the pantry thing, I've seen discounts for it.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#108

Post by lucaspiller » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 8:52 AM UTC

Gustomaximus wrote: post #12

dangrossman wrote: post #4

"Profit was held back by a big jump in fulfillment costs, which increased 32.8% year-over-year in the fourth quarter and nearly 25% for the full year. Amazon spent $4.55 billion in the fourth quarter to fulfill customers’ orders, up from $3.4 billion in the same quarter a year ago, and the increase cannot be explained away by increases in Amazon sales, as the percentage of revenues spent on shipping also increased, f…

> The average cost to handle a parcel was about $8 last year. Thats still Amazing low cost considering what has to be done to deliver a parcel. Though I'm more surprised Amazon hasn't set up an Argos style business in high density cities. For those that dont know Argos it's in the UK and its basically a collection shopfront with catalogues infromt of the counter. You browse the catalogue, write down the numbers and s…

I can't help but think the days are numbered for Argos. Since internet retailers have come along (which are usually a lot cheaper) the only real reason to buy from them is if you need something now rather than next day or in a few days. At the same time supermarkets have expanded into selling the same sort of products that Argos sells (small appliances, electronics, toys, etc).

I can't find any numbers on Argos itself, but the group that owns them (as well as a few other large retailers in the UK) made profits of £93.8m on revenues of £5.7B last year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Retail_Group#Financial_pe...

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#109

Post by hga » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 8:58 AM UTC

copperx wrote: post #68

ianai wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't consider using Prime to be abuse...but I also place a preference on buying locally when I can.

I don't think it's abuse either, but back when Prime was $79 and small items shipped free, I cringed at the thought of buying, say, a pack of razors from Amazon. It felt wrong.

Exactly, it offends my sensibilities to order such things 2nd day unless I'm likely to really need them that quickly. And with their incentives for slower shipping (but still pretty fast as a rule) like $1 in free digital goods for a limited time (a few months) they recognize that. They also use it to promote their Pantry system (regular bulky subscriptions that some in big monthly boxes).

And it makes me feel non-abusive when I order something for 2nd day that's close to the line.

In general I find it a sane system, would be even more so if I didn't live behind a slow broadband connection and had made my household 100% Linux.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#110

Post by Sir_Substance » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 9:03 AM UTC

deftnerd wrote: post #36

chx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe if you buy Amazon items then, even if they split the shipment, they won't charge you. The above sounds like you were buying from different merchants.

All the items were eligible for free shipping, according to Amazon. Some of the items were from individual merchants, but all of those were FBA (so they were warehoused at an Amazon facility). It's possible that even though they were eligible for free shipping, they weren't all in the same facility. If that was the case, I would understand why they were put into separate boxes. What doesn't make sense is removing one…

>All the items were eligible for free shipping, according to Amazon.

What amazon says on their main page is very disconnected from reality. What it says on checkout is what matters.

When I buy stuff from Amazon, they have a little checkbox on the side that says "only items that ship to Iceland". Never the less, when I get to the checkout 90% of the stuff they show won't ship to Iceland.