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Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year

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Re: Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year

#41

Post by icefox »

codegeek wrote: post #23

For a heavy amazon user such as myself, not much difference. Still very happy to continue using amazon. The math is simple. We probably have 5-10 shipments on average a month coming in. Most of it is for our kids (newborn/1 year) and includes subscriptions for milk, diapers etc. Just recently, my wife added another subscription for stuff like toilet paper, napkins. Without amazon prime, you might end up paying $3-5 o…

You get free shipping with orders over $35. After I heard they were going to increase the price I did a quick check on last year and found that I buy more than I thought on Amazon and if I just let stuff accumulate in the cart for on average less than a week I would have a cart that had free shipping. The vast majority of orders did not need to get to my door in two days. (A common example was sure it was nice to get a book quickly, but I wasn't able to read it until the weekend anyway.) So I won't renew my subscription and just let things accumulate for a few days at a time. The other thing I have noticed is that the last year I have been finding things cheaper on other sites, but continued to buy from Amazon only because of prime, now that reason goes away and I can support other on-line purchasing options. The most amusing thing about this was that it was only because of the price increase that I looked into my purchasing history. If they hadn't said anything I most likely would have let it continue auto renewing.

*The other two benefits both don't benefit me: video (I have netflix which last when I compared last fall is better) and the cheap upgrade for overnight (both times I have used this and really needed something it failed to get there overnight).

Re: Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year

#42

Post by caw »

mhb wrote: post #29
codegeek wrote: post #23

For a heavy amazon user such as myself, not much difference. Still very happy to continue using amazon. The math is simple. We probably have 5-10 shipments on average a month coming in. Most of it is for our kids (newborn/1 year) and includes subscriptions for milk, diapers etc. Just recently, my wife added another subscription for stuff like toilet paper, napkins. Without amazon prime, you might end up paying $3-5 o…

I'm considering whether it's worth it. I thought that, for orders over $25, shipping was free anyway. With the amount of ordering you do, wouldn't there be little advantage to having Prime, especially if you tried to aggregate your items?

It's nice to not aggregate your items. I looked at my prime history, and it's a combination of books, music, and household items that don't always meet the $35 free shipping (used to be $25 until Q4 last year). For example, my most recent purchase was a $15 book that I got on 2 day shipping.

Also the way free supersaver shipping works is that you wait 3 days or until the warehouse is low on work, whichever comes first, before they pick your order. You then have to wait for 3-5 day ground shipping. You can pay for shipping at any speed to avoid the product picking delay.

Re: Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year

#43

Post by [deleted] »

dnissley wrote: post #31
xur17 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon's streaming video is useless to me. It doesn't work on any of my devices (android, linux, or chromecast), while Netflix does. I made 2 online movie rentals within the past few weeks, and both times I checked amazon, but then remembered that it doesn't work on my devices, and ended up getting it from Google Play. They're missing out on purchases, and getting people used to using other services - not a great way…

Yeah, I can't quite figure that out. Is their kindle business really so valuable that they are willing to cannibalize their media services? Just doesn't seem to make sense to race for device adoption in a world where everybody else seems to be racing for broader platform adoption. I guess I've never been all that impressed with their offering in this area though, especially video, so maybe they're simply recognizing…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year

#44

Post by dbpatterson »

mhb wrote: post #29
codegeek wrote: post #23

For a heavy amazon user such as myself, not much difference. Still very happy to continue using amazon. The math is simple. We probably have 5-10 shipments on average a month coming in. Most of it is for our kids (newborn/1 year) and includes subscriptions for milk, diapers etc. Just recently, my wife added another subscription for stuff like toilet paper, napkins. Without amazon prime, you might end up paying $3-5 o…

I'm considering whether it's worth it. I thought that, for orders over $25, shipping was free anyway. With the amount of ordering you do, wouldn't there be little advantage to having Prime, especially if you tried to aggregate your items?

Just as a side note, the over $25 shipping is the slowest they can find. So if it is all books, it is media mail (which is _really_ slow), and otherwise it is whatever the slowest that UPS does (3-5 days), vs two day shipping on everything.

Re: Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year

#45

Post by tcoppi »

joesmo wrote: post #27

The quality of this service is hit and miss. Sometimes they use a reliable carrier like UPS, other times they send things via USPS so they can be stolen. With this price increase, and their inability (I've asked multiple times) to determine what carrier they will ship with and ship with a reliable carrier, this has become a liability now that I wish I had not renewed. It's amazing to me that Amazon would ship anythin…

I agree. I just let mine lapse because they kept sending me packages via UPS SmartPost, and it was more often than not taking days(!) extra after the handoff to USPS for packages to arrive to my apartment.

Re: Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year

#46

Post by knowaveragejoe »

xur17 wrote: post #13
josefresco wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prime these days is less about fast shipping and more about the bundled streaming/media services.

Amazon's streaming video is useless to me. It doesn't work on any of my devices (android, linux, or chromecast), while Netflix does. I made 2 online movie rentals within the past few weeks, and both times I checked amazon, but then remembered that it doesn't work on my devices, and ended up getting it from Google Play. They're missing out on purchases, and getting people used to using other services - not a great way…

Seems to depend on the device. I have no issue using Amazon video on the PS3. As for total selection, I'd say it dwarfs Netflix's library, but you have to pay to rent/own most of it.

Re: Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year

#47

Post by lsaferite »

gdulli wrote: post #22

I can't understand the idea of paying for shipping (whether it's annual or per-shipment) when there's an option to get it for free. If I decided I couldn't wait a few extra days to get the things I order, I feel I'd be crossing a line of giving in too much to consumerism. Taking away impulse buying is one of the better things about shopping online. And the streaming services combined don't match what I get with cable…

I hate shopping in physical stores as I don't like crowds of people and find it a waste of my time. As a consequence, I order most things online. Over the years as a Prime member, I've saved an enormous amount of money in shipping.

If you cannot control your impulse buying in a store, what makes you think you can control it online any differently?

Where are you shopping that you can get free shipping for everything? Hell, even getting free shipping for anything before Prime came out was rare, at least for me. After Prime, many stores have shifted to offer free shipping to compete with Amazon. But still, finding everything you want online with free shipping is difficult or impossible. I know because I still find myself buying from other shops when Amazon doesn't carry something I need.

Re: Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year

#48

Post by knowaveragejoe »

csmatt wrote: post #7
josefresco wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prime these days is less about fast shipping and more about the bundled streaming/media services.

Is it? I'd rather they split this into 2 plans and let me have just the fast shipping for $79 (or less) and people who want streaming can pay $99. Netflix still has the better offering IMO. Not only content, but the video interface is better too. Initially Amazon's video player worked on Linux out of the box, but now it's just as hacky to get running as Netflix. Due to this price increase, I'm going to reevaluate how…

It's not just fast but free shipping. For someone who orders from Amazon regularly throughout the year, that's the real value.

Also, Amazon has way more content on their video streaming service with the caveat that you have to pay to rent/own a lot of it. Agreed about the interface though, Amazon's app offerings for PS3/SmartTV have been subpar in comparison to Netflix though.

Re: Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year

#49

Post by lsaferite »

amykhar wrote: post #8
wdewind wrote: post #6

While I would always wish to pay less for something, this is fine with me. Prime is still such an amazing value for me, and Amazon has created so much good will with me by being so awesome for so long that my reaction to this was basically to shrug and say "what took so long?"

Agreed. And, they haven't raised the prices in years.

Yeah, I checked the BLS site about the inflation from 2005-2014 and they are just about on track to follow inflation. And if you consider they didn't adjust in that entire period then the slight amount over inflation is warranted (IMHO).

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=80&year1=2005&y...

Re: Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year

#50

Post by uptown »

While I don't mind the Prime price-hike, I've begun noticing that Amazon's prices are also increasing quite-dramatically. Cereal that used to cost $10 now costs over $18. Dog biscuits used to cost $11 are now over $22. Yet if you compare Amazon's prices to Walmart, you can get these items close to Amazon's old prices with $5 shipping (or free shipping over $50). I know there's been considerable discussion about Amazon being able to "flip the switch" on profitability, and maybe this is what we're seeing ... but even if many consumers are trained to just "go to Amazon" for their shopping needs, if prices rise by 100%, they're likely to seek discounts from competitors. I definitely have.
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