I regularly buy one sub $15 item via Amazon Prime, rather than schelp down to the store. I would have never done this before Prime. Actually Amazon Prime makes not owning a car in a midwest city quite a bit more realistic, for me.
Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price
111–120 of 151 posts
Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price
#112Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
[citation needed] I have never heard of this happening ever with amazon, though I would love to know where your experience with this is coming from.
The magic phrase to search for is "extraordinary number of incidents with your orders and corresponding shipments" which is from their standard form email when they cancel your account. My guess would be that Amazon's business model is very sensitive to the return rate, since returns are very expensive for them: their whole system is built around getting product out the door to the customer not the other way round! O…
This behavior is not limited to Amazon. Big-box retailers and department stores also ban people who abuse the return policy. And, as an honest shopper who likes being able to return things from time to time, I'm glad for it.
Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price
#114Earlier 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…
Sadly, this isn't true of international shipping. Depending on where you are in Australia it's entirely hit-and-miss.
Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
That covers books. But amazon.ca also lacks the non-book products that are so plentiful on amazon.com I had assumed it was for import/distribution reasons, but I'd be interested to find out the real reason. The Canadian site now tends to have all the books the US site has.
Sorry for the lameness of this reference, but I think it covers the essential. If Amazon wanted to open a physical business in Canada, it would require Canadian partners that it might not have or want. "The bottom line: If you are a non-Canadian who wants to open a business in Canada, you will have to immigrate to Canada or find one or more Canadians to team up with." http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/startup/f/Non-Ca…
Yep, it has to do with Canadian law and the desire to retain a Canadian Cultural identity (thus we protect our Cultural industries). I don't think that applies any more though--or at least since 2010 when Amazon was permitted to open up a local shipping distribution center by essentially buying out our cultural protection laws with a couple tens of million (I think it was 20 mil).
Books were the first step, and if you notice other departments have started to be available on our .ca-- I assume it's just a logistics issue before they establish a near identical system.
In some ways it's kind of sad, because I do think it will hurt the Canadian arts in the same way Canadian film and television has become second-rate American entertainment-- but the damage is done and with the way things are set up and have been established over the last 20 years, it's inescapable.
Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price
#116"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.
It's especially magical if you're shipping to Manhattan as they offer same-day delivery. It's such a delight to click "Buy!" in the morning and have it by mid-afternoon.
Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price
#117"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…
But don't you need to leave the house to return the items? I've always regarded dropping off and mailing packages to be a huge chore.
From my wife's perspective, that's an added bonus -- the UPS store is right beside Starbucks :) In all seriousness, the post office, UPS store, FedEx Office (formerly Kinkos), etc. are all located in places we pass by during other common excursions (grocery store, etc.), so the marginal cost is low.
Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
But don't you need to leave the house to return the items? I've always regarded dropping off and mailing packages to be a huge chore.
I buy more than I return so the "pain in the butt" cost is still lower. Plus Amazon makes it really, really easy to return stuff, you just print the label and drop it off.
Good point. Returns usually are exception conditions, so one need only factor in a fraction of the "cost" of a return when making most purchases. However, when I order two sizes of the same shirt, I obviously will be returning one of them.
Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
The magic phrase to search for is "extraordinary number of incidents with your orders and corresponding shipments" which is from their standard form email when they cancel your account. My guess would be that Amazon's business model is very sensitive to the return rate, since returns are very expensive for them: their whole system is built around getting product out the door to the customer not the other way round! O…
This behavior is not limited to Amazon. Big-box retailers and department stores also ban people who abuse the return policy. And, as an honest shopper who likes being able to return things from time to time, I'm glad for it.
I think the troubling issue for some is that they can return things for perfectly good reasons, the items in question were in fact faulty, or mis-described on the website or whatever, but Amazon canceled their accounts regardless.
Of course it's possible that those who go online to complain about this are in fact abusing the system, but from Amazon's POV it makes perfect sense: they don't want picky customers who will return borderline goods because it will eat into their margins. It's much more profitable to sell to those who won't notice the dead pixels on their laptop display (or whatever the problem happens to be).
Re: Amazon Prime members buy twice as much, don't compare on price
#120"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…
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 attractive be that out of whack? And then I read in Yegge's famous Google+ post that this was not true, but the cluttered chaos was kept at the specific request of the CEO, Jeff Bezos. And I went, 'oh of course; that explains everything.')