Amazon blocks non-Prime members from buying certain video games

Post by im3w1l » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 3:13 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #113

jghn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is one of the two reasons I signed up for prime in the first place, I'd always get super saver and 99.9% of the time it'd arrive in 2 days. All of a sudden it started taking the full time. I don't remember exactly what the other reason was, but it involved a one time money savings which was > the cost of a year of Prime at the time.

So I can imagine that this was originally a bug. Probably at some point they reached the capacity of things they could physically get out of their warehouse and onto a shipping truck per day, regardless of whether that truck is heading to other trucks or to a plane. So you need to prioritize, every day, the things that must go out overnight to meet the deadline. If you're full and you have things that could be shippe…

Post by justinlardinois » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 4:21 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #120

Spooky23 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a financial hack. Amazon has low margins so cash flow is king. They make money off you either way, when they sit on the order for 5 days, they probably book your revenue a month before they need to pay for the product.

Do they charge your before the order actually ships? I don't think they do.

Post by killbrad » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 4:50 AM UTC

gdulli wrote: post #58

mikeash wrote: post #15

Amazon put a lot of effort over the years into establishing themselves as the best place to buy nearly everything online. Now they seem bound and determined to throw that title away. Between rising prices, add-on items, confusing marketplace sellers, a refusal to sell certain products that compete with Amazon branded products, and now this ridiculous Prime tie-in, I find it more and more difficult to find a reason to…

When you factor in the well-documented pattern of how badly they treat their employees (both warehouse and corporate) it gets even harder to justify.

Post by vidarh » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 5:57 AM UTC

takno wrote: post #112

morganvachon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...my orders with free shipping due to price threshold tend to be significantly slower than Prime, often taking weeks for items of all Prime eligible items. I've had the opposite experience (and posted about it here before). Since I joined Prime last year, I've had issues with the guaranteed 2 day shipping taking 3-4 days or sometimes a week. I don't live in the backwoods either; I'm well within the Atlanta metro a…

Prime in the UK is next day, and whenever they miss that they give you a free month of prime, which was essentially getting me prime for free. I gave up in the end because the waiting in was getting too expensive

Post by jldugger » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 6:30 AM UTC

tehwebguy wrote: post #21

jerf wrote: post #4

I don't get it. As an incentive to sign up for Prime it makes no sense; Prime needs to offer me things I can't get elsewhere (or at least not for the same price), not return to me things that I can easily get elsewhere. I just spot-checked Amazon US's price for GTA 5, 39.88 [1], and it's the exact same price at Wal-Mart [2], so it's not an exclusive deal or something. (Nor did I spend several minutes hunting for a co…

My guess: - They cost more than the free shipping threshold, giving shipping away free - New games are low profit to begin with - Amazon sells enough of these that they are already in every distribution center - Every unit Amazon ships probably arrives in a "Prime" amount of time anyway, giving away expedited shipping for free This is just bringing some video game sales into alignment with what Amazon wanted Prime to…