Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

My approach on it is somewhat different to many others here. I can order some stuff before 8pm and have it delivered next day. Things ordered earlier in the day (pre-noon) could be any courier, but the post-6pm orders are almost always delivered by DPD to my area (north Cornwall, EX23 postcode).

Talking with my regular courier, so take this as anecdotal rather than cited, there are apparently courier representatives (brokers) at some major depots that bid on the packages as they are being readied: presumably, lowest bidder wins the business.

I also use Prime for earning download credit. I can select a slow delivery option for my order [0] if I'm not in a hurry, and get 1GBP as a kickback. In November and December, this increases to 3GBP.

Over the year, I typically place 200+ orders (some for me, some for clients) and most are slow delivery. This effectively means I make money on the Prime subscription, and I can expand my Kindle library without spending real money. At any given time, I have about >5GBP in digital credit [1] - there are supposed to be expiry dates on it, but I've never fallen foul of it.

[0] http://imgur.com/MLPTR1H

[1] http://imgur.com/0190B9O

With prime getting more expensive (we don't was the video stuff), the new "add on items and the rubbish delivery service we have given up on Amazon and very rarely use it.

There are several Amazon lockers near me and I can't conceive of a reason that I'd personally choose to use one. (Single family residence, so drivers just drop the package on the porch. In a multi-unit building, I can see some security reason.)

I saw a 'That's incredible' TV advert mentioning but not explaining the Sacramento shop front with the sliding wall. I never saw the program. It was the early 80s, I was under 10 years old, and I was left confused until literally just now. Thank you. That's a personal 30 year mystery explained.

Story 1:

Buying the brand of catfood I do is cheaper through Amazon. I'd buy seven 24 can cases (one of each flavor) every 6 months or so, qualifying for the 15% subscribe and save bonus, plus charge it to my Amazon store card, getting another 5% on top of that.

Local stores charge $25 a case, Amazon averages out to a little more than $22 or so a case (each flavor is slightly different) and then I I pay about $18 after those discounts.

Almost every case I get from them is crushed due to improper packing. One time they shoved all 7 cases into the same shipment. I have no clue how the outer box itself didn't self destruct.

Yes, they would replace them at no cost, and the replacements would also be crushed. Between the original and the replacement, I would have around 24 cans per case worth keeping.

The most recent shipment is what killed it for me, only about 12 cans salvageable out of 3 cases. They refunded me in full after arguing with them a bit, and I'm just going to pay extra to buy it locally. This bullshit isn't worth saving a few dollars given how much time I have to waste fixing their problem.

Story 2:

I decided to not be a fatass anymore. Along that epic journey, I decided to start lifting weights, and bought a barbell kit (two bars, two sets of four plates, a plastic box to store them in, etc), and I started needing more weight to continue.

I purchased four 10 pound plates, they had them on sale for less than a dollar per pound. The box clearly self destructed, and was taped up by the fearless team at UPS somewhere between the warehouse and my house. Only three plates were in the box.

Amazon shipped me the replacement, but clearly there is no training being done at Amazon on how to properly pack boxes or choose a proper box size based on the weight of items in it.

Story 3:

I bought a $400 food processor, and a few other items for my kitchen, including a new frying pan. The shipping label was attached to the frying pan's retail box, and that was shipped. Everything else in the shipment didn't arrive, but the frying pan did.

Amazon, again, fixed the problem, but what the hell. How does that even happen.

Story 4:

Back to the subscribe and save again. Items I keep subscribing to either change price (to make them more expensive than just buying them locally), or stop being offered for subscribe and save altogether.

Same with Amazon Prime Pantry: I'll add stuff to a Pantry box, try to fill it (since I have to still pay S&H on that, even though I have Prime), and items I try to add either do not exist in Pantry, are out of stock, and are never all in stock at the same time (so waiting on some times causes other items to go back out of stock).

And I can't subscribe to Pantry items, nor can I tell Amazon to ship me my box when everything is in stock.

I've gotten one Pantry box ever. That is the only one I could ever get filled with things I want. It ended up being a box full of toilet paper. My hall closet, for the past 8 months, has had more toilet paper in it than it ever has in it's existence.

Story 5:

Amazon Prime Day. Amazon decided they didn't want to participate in Black Friday anymore (and thus, give out garbage Black Friday deals), and are holding theirs on a completely different day.

However, all they give deals on are on stuff nobody wants, and Amazon wants it out of their warehouse, and it is painfully clear this is what is going on.

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So yeah, between all of that, and the fact every few years they increase the cost of Prime to pay for things I don't want: Kindle lending library (I don't own a Kindle, and their Android software kind of sucks), Prime TV (I use Netflix, and Prime TV doesn't work on non-Kindle Fire Android devices or Chromecasts (only Fire TVs)), Prime Music (massively inferior experience to Google Music), Prime Photos (again, why when I already have Google Photos), and countless other things.

I just wanted the free two day shipping when it was $79/year, and when Amazon had legitimately good prices. Given what I "save" on Amazon, I doubt I'm actually making back $99/year. Having to deal with all this bullshit isn't worth it.

I feel like Jeff Bezos has no clue how to just stop. He needs to learn how to just sit back and enjoy that Amazon won. We have reached peak Amazon, and it is only going to go down hill from here.