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Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price

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Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price

#121

Post by nfriedly »

georgemcbay wrote: post #102
Lewisham wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the other thing that's missing from this is that Amazon's customer service is really very good. I'll spend the extra dollars buying something from Amazon than, say, one of their third-party merchants, because I know Amazon will take care of me if anything bad happens.

Yet another thing missing (which is huge for me personally) is predictability of shipping. If I buy something on Amazon via Prime (which means Amazon themselves will be fulfilling it), I know that if I order it 2 day shipping it will arrive in 2 days. If I bump it up to next day shipping (within the clearly marked and real-time updated window of shipping) it will arrive tomorrow. Amazon and Newegg are the only two we…

Agreed completely. I don't think a lone up-vote fully conveys how big of a deal this is to me. I've had horrible experiences with other sites not being able to give me a delivery date, or even worse, giving me one and not making it. I called pcrush.com a while back to confirm that ordering with 2-day shipping would get the item to me by that Friday. When it hadn't arrived by Saturday, I called back and learned that they had just shipped it that morning!

I don't think Amazon has ever been late in the two years I've had prime.

Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price

#122

Post by gwern »

ww520 wrote: post #41
ryandvm wrote: post #2

Amazon Prime was a brilliant move. Get people to pay what is probably less then the average user's shipping costs for a year and then they'll refuse to buy products from anyone but you. And now it turns out they'll even go as far as ignoring pricing to quell cognitive dissonance. Nice.

It is a brilliant use of a simple psychology concept - Sunken Cost. People tend to go further to justify the sunken cost. The Prime members become Amazon's captive audiences. Same thing with the Costco/SamsClub members.

Or it could be due to the mental burden of account-keeping and search, and increases in purchases a perfectly rational reaction to lowered costs.

(Sunk cost, you say? Believe me, I know about sunk cost, and sunk cost is vastly over-invoked and probably a minimal problem in individual human psychology: http://www.gwern.net/Sunk%20cost )

Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price

#123

Post by bobbles »

After living in the UK for six months with Amazon Prime.. its painful to be back in Australia where you can only get fast shipping from certain specific stores.

Well not painful, but being able to order something at 10PM and having it arrive at lunchtime at work the next day was such a better shopping experience than I normally get here.

I really hope amazon has aspirations of opening an AU store sometime soon.

Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price

#124

Post by whatusername »

gwern wrote: post #120
mattmcknight wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally wish I could go to the site and not even see non-Amazon warehoused items- effectively always keeping the "prime only" box checked. I like buying from Amazon, not the marketplace. It's also confusing for the non-savvy user.

There probably is an option somewhere for that. It's just that the Amazon site is so awfully designed and ugly... (For years I would read how Amazon pioneered A/B testing and measured statistics on every pixel of its site and tweaked out the wazoo, and I would wonder how this was possible given that the site was a chaotic mess that actively impeded me when shopping there - could my sense of what is effective and attr…

Ugly sites can convert better: http://scobleizer.com/2006/03/04/the-role-of-anti-marketing-...

See also: Any direct marketing long form sales letter.

Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price

#125

Post by tomkarlo »

leeoniya wrote: post #76
iamdave wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nightmare re: cost/inventory or both? I can kind of see how this works for merchants selling through Amazon. AMZN provides the customer with a good experience, makes customer feel valued, customer is more inclined to buy more products despite a bad moment knowing they'll be taken care of. Probably not how it pans out in practice, however.

the problem is, the customer is not always right. but your money and product is gone regardless...unless you're willing to jump through a ton of dispute hoops most of which take a long time and end up in favor of the customer on some obscure seller agreement clause. paypal does business this way as well.

As a customer, that's how I want it to be. One of main reasons I consistently order from Amazon (and buy Prime) is the bad experiences I've had when trying to get customer service / return / exchanges on other sites. Saving $5 or $10 isn't worth it if I have to waste an hour dealing with issues like getting the wrong item shipped to me, or trying to return something.

It's hard to argue with the logic behind a customer-centric policy here. Merchants are going to go where the customers are and they can spread the cost of dispute resolution, etc over far more transactions than an individual. Makes sense to inflict the "pain" on their side.

Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price

#126

Post by InclinedPlane »

georgemcbay wrote: post #102
Lewisham wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the other thing that's missing from this is that Amazon's customer service is really very good. I'll spend the extra dollars buying something from Amazon than, say, one of their third-party merchants, because I know Amazon will take care of me if anything bad happens.

Yet another thing missing (which is huge for me personally) is predictability of shipping. If I buy something on Amazon via Prime (which means Amazon themselves will be fulfilling it), I know that if I order it 2 day shipping it will arrive in 2 days. If I bump it up to next day shipping (within the clearly marked and real-time updated window of shipping) it will arrive tomorrow. Amazon and Newegg are the only two we…

As much as I like moo cards I find their shipping options frustrating. You can order 2nd day shipping or even overnight shipping. But you can't jump ahead in the print queue, which can take as long as a week, making most of the shipping options completely meaningless.

Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price

#127

Post by ben1040 »

MBCook wrote: post #95
ben1040 wrote: post #58

Amazon Prime has definitely lowered my "impulse shopping" threshold. One Friday morning last summer, I decided to do some work around the house that weekend, but I didn't have a big enough ladder. A couple clicks later, I have a 22 foot extension ladder being delivered to me on a Saturday. Even with Saturday overnight delivery it was $2 cheaper than Home Depot, and I didn't have to try to figure out how to cram the l…

I've done that kind of thing a few times. But unless I really want something, I find I still fall into the old habit of "I'm ordering from Amazon, I might as well get a few things to make up for shipping." If I can't find enough things to make it "worthwhile", I often won't buy it. I've been a prime member for years. Shipping is free. But my mind is still usually stuck in the old ways (even if I'm only 28). I have to…

I've been a Prime member for about five or six years, and for a while I shopped there the same way you did (sat down and spent time on a "shopping trip" to pile up the cart to make it "worth it").

The tipping point for me was in early '09 or so when Amazon introduced their iPhone app. At that point if it came to my mind that there was something I needed, I'd just pull out the phone and buy it immediately on Amazon.

That changed my habits too when browsing their normal desktop site. From then on, the vast majority of my Amazon purchases have been one-off purchases where I knew what I wanted, spent two or three minutes searching, bought it, and got out. And I do it often; between me and my wife's purchases there's an Amazon box on the front doorstep 2-3 times a week.

Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price

#128

Post by guelo »

ShabbyDoo wrote: post #3

"82% of Prime members buy on Amazon even if the item is less expensive somewhere else" The supposed "source" referenced another study (sans link), so I can't get the answer to the obvious question: Was "less expensive" computed using the marginal cost to the customer of this particular purchase? Meaning, do other sites offer the widget for a few dollars less but charge a lot for 2nd day shipping? I'm a Prime customer…

You make a good argument for states figuring out how to strictly enforce the sales tax on Amazon purchases. As Amazon cannibalizes local retail (similar to what Walmart has done but without even the crappy jobs) the tax base will erode further.

Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price

#129

Post by mehuln »

Check out the Amazon's revenue growth curve image here: http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2012/1/1128818_132745...

Now guess when Prime launched. Yes, 2005, the beginning of the hockey stick growth.

Prime has been a huge success for Amazon - more like a stroke of genius.

Thanks, Mehul

Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price

#130

Post by apeconmyth »

MrFoof wrote: post #33
ShabbyDoo wrote: post #3

"82% of Prime members buy on Amazon even if the item is less expensive somewhere else" The supposed "source" referenced another study (sans link), so I can't get the answer to the obvious question: Was "less expensive" computed using the marginal cost to the customer of this particular purchase? Meaning, do other sites offer the widget for a few dollars less but charge a lot for 2nd day shipping? I'm a Prime customer…

>especially coupled with the free 2nd day shipping There's an added bonus if you live near a distribution center, in which 2nd day often turns into next day. In a handful of cases, I've had next day turn into same day -- ordering something before I go to work, and finding it was delivered in the middle of the afternoon by a specialty shipper like LaserShip.

Guess I'm near a distribution center then as I generally find that free super saver shipping, which is supposed to take 5-8 days, ends up being two day. Definitely hinders my urge to go Prime.
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