All I can say about Amazon is the quality of the item selection has gone down so much that most times I take my time digging through reviews to ensure the padded 4 star rating isn't done by bots because I've bought some items that were 4 star rated only to find they were utter crap later. And this is only in the last two years for Amazon. I'm not sure what's happening but I can say that I'm looking closer to home for stuff I need. Frankly, I think Bezos and company got too comfy with their dominant position and now they're being lax on the quality. I would happily load up an order 60+ USD easily from Amazon but now I have to double check to see what I'm getting isn't from a crap third party (that's the biggest thing I'd pay to remove is the third party sellers). If they want more customers they need to get back to basics by improving selection, kicking out crap third party sellers, and stop shuffling items between addon status or Prime only. Otherwise, I can see them going under in a hurry.
Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49
161–170 of 241 posts
Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49
#162I didn't realize anyone buys from Amazon who's not Prime. Only sort of kidding. At $100/year kind of a no-brainer.
$100/year is nice but $0 is nicer. It's usually not hard to combine items to reach the free shipping threshold, and there are plenty of alternatives if that doesn't work.
Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49
#163Since everyone is sharing their Amazon stories, I shall add mine: 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…
I feel as if these horror stories are why Amazon wants to get heavily into the shipping/delivery/freight industries these days. They can't rely on the shipping services currently available to handle their wares reliably and professionally.
Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49
#164Reminder: just say no to amazon!
Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49
#165One look at their finances and it's clear why they're doing this. According to their SEC filings, last year Amazon brought in $6.5 billion in shipping revenue [1], and spent $11.5 billion on shipping costs. Take those numbers together and they lost $5.0 billion subsidizing shipping. They lose more money on shipping every year than most startups make in a decade. It's a huge cost on their budget, not hard to see why m…
That page has some explanations including what they will be doing, "We seek to mitigate costs of shipping over time in part through achieving higher sales volumes, optimizing placement of fulfillment centers, negotiating better terms with our suppliers, and achieving better operating efficiencies. We believe that offering low prices to our customers is fundamental to our future success, and one way we offer lower prices is through shipping offers."
Those explanations do not include what you're saying.
Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49
#166Earlier 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…
For me, and I suspect a lot of others, one of the best things about ordering from Amazon is that the amount of time I am personally tied up on the transaction after selecting the item is 1-5 minutes online, 1-2 minutes opening the outer box, and 1-2 minutes disposing of the cardboard. Asking me to drive and park at a UPS store or locker location doesn't work for me. There are several Amazon lockers near me and I can'…
I use them because my apartment is in a secure building and the office closes before I finish work. If lockers didn't exist I would order less stuff from Amazon and just drive around looking for the locally-available version. Now I can place an order and stop by 7-11 on the way home a couple days later.
Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if they weren't in the same facility, why would that make it understandable? How are you, as a customer, supposed to be concerned with which Amazon facility has what stock? (information you don't even have)
Agreed. Feels like Amazon outsourcing part of its shipping algorithm to customers.
They already outsource fixing the errors made by their algorithms to customers and the businesses that ship for Amazon.
Lol.
"Hey, lets merge these two colors, what could possibly go wrong?" is an algorithmic decision made by Amazon that happens far too frequently after I've gone home or to bed. :p
Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49
#168I didn't realize anyone buys from Amazon who's not Prime. Only sort of kidding. At $100/year kind of a no-brainer.
$100/year is nice but $0 is nicer. It's usually not hard to combine items to reach the free shipping threshold, and there are plenty of alternatives if that doesn't work.
For me at least, the $100/year is quickly made up in those instances when I need overnight shipping. Prime gets you free 2 day and really cheap ($5 or so) overnight.
Having some random part break and be here the next day is a godsend.
Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me it's the amount of spam i'm getting asking for reviews. One of the big reasons i shop with amazon is so i know that i don't need to deal with making another account, giving someone else my CC info, getting relentless spam email every week telling me to buy more. But now sellers are using the "contact customer" system to beg for reviews, and it's starting to get annoying enough that i want to avoid amazon. Just…
I tend to give negative product reviews when harassed by the sellers like this. In my opinion, the review should also be reflective of the company making/selling the product.
I did that once and the review got removed for "not appropriate" or something. I'm sure the seller flagged it for review for amazon knowing since I reviewed the seller and not the product, he could get it removed. (Which doesn't really make sense, because in buying the product I got harassed by the seller, so it affected my enjoyment of the product).
Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49
#170All I can say about Amazon is the quality of the item selection has gone down so much that most times I take my time digging through reviews to ensure the padded 4 star rating isn't done by bots because I've bought some items that were 4 star rated only to find they were utter crap later. And this is only in the last two years for Amazon. I'm not sure what's happening but I can say that I'm looking closer to home for…
Their site is unbearably bloated with scripts and whatnot, I don't know why more people don't complain about that. The site is also filled with dishonest merchants peddling their misrepresented wares on it. I've had more issues with merchants on Amazon than on ebay.