Amazon Prime -- Anyone use it?

[LawBeefaroni]

I thought it got moved to $35 a while back?

I got $44 worth and still paid for shipping.

It varies by product and seller. Not all products/sellers qualify. I think the $25 is for free shipping and the $35 is for free next day with Prime.

I can get free same day delivery with a $25 spend (assuming I can find $25 worth of eligible items, which I usually can) with Prime. It helps to have an Amazon distribution facility a couple miles away.

Yeah, it may be the other way around, $35/$25. I have prime and pretty much or overnight (I hate overnight and just choose next day) or next day regardless of spend. Don't really pay attention to same day.

[Blackhawk]

Where I live, Amazon orders of any type, size, or amount (from Amazon itself, not third party sellers) typically arrive in two to four days after shipping, which is enough to regularly add in an extra day for weekends. Since it normally takes them one to three days to actually ship, my orders often arrive about a week after I order them. Sometimes I'll get really lucky and get two day delivery. Other times I've had them sit on it for five days before even putting it on a truck.

And I only live two hours from Indy, which has eight fulfillment centers.

[LawBeefaroni]

That proverbial last mile is a bitch.

[Blackhawk]

I have a feeling that their shipping algorithm (and there is one) identifies 'remote locations' that don't receive a high volume and intentionally holds packages to go out in clusters.

[Max Peck]

That makes sense. Amazon is nothing if not data-driven.

[Hamlet3145]

I have a feeling that their shipping algorithm (and there is one) identifies 'remote locations' that don't receive a high volume and intentionally holds packages to go out in clusters.

I live in a fairly rural area too and have been suspecting the same thing.

[Carpet_pissr]

That proverbial last mile is a bitch.

This.

[Kasey Chang]

Recently I've ordered some Maruchen ramen packs in a box of 24 off Amazon for low-low price of like $6 (for the whole box). Turns out, it was dropshipped from Walmart.

So someone is making a little money from this arbitrage.

[Max Peck]

Huh. I needed to buy some coffee beans this week and the brand that I've been buying is carried by both Amazon and Walmart (via Instacart with in-store pricing). It was on sale at Walmart, and Amazon had adjusted their price to match Walmart's sale price to the penny.

[gilraen]

...and cancelled.

I've been a Prime member since 2012. Back in the day, at $79, it was a steal even when the only benefit was free shipping. At $99, it was still a great deal. At $119 it became questionable. At $139 - f that, I'm out.

[YellowKing]

We order so freaking much from them I still come out ahead at that price. Even though it physically hurts me to pay it.

That said, I've noticed a *significant* decline in their service. While I have a warehouse close so shipments are usually still pretty quick, I've had to return no less an 6 items in the last 3 months that were either the wrong item or damaged. Twice they literally sent me a vinyl album in a bag with no packaging. Obviously it was beat all to hell and bent by the time it got to my porch. WTF Amazon?

[Daehawk]

Im lucky I can get it for $7. I cant find a need for it though.

[Smoove_B]

TV
Music
Books/Magazines/Comics
Accepts SNAP EBT cards in TN

[Daehawk]

hehe Yaaa Im not wasting my snap on Amazon foods..they are 3 - 4 times higher than stores around me

[Kraken]

We watch a lot of Prime Video and Wife keeps a steady stream of packages containing who-knows-what coming into the house. And the credit card rebates more-than pay for the annual fee.

[Blackhawk]

We order so freaking much from them I still come out ahead at that price. Even though it physically hurts me to pay it.

That said, I've noticed a *significant* decline in their service. While I have a warehouse close so shipments are usually still pretty quick, I've had to return no less an 6 items in the last 3 months that were either the wrong item or damaged. Twice they literally sent me a vinyl album in a bag with no packaging. Obviously it was beat all to hell and bent by the time it got to my porch. WTF Amazon?

Those plastic and paper bags they use to save money have resulted in a huge number of returns for damaged items from me. They will put anything that fits in them, and the result is like packing a (board game/box of tea/acrylic case/cast resin/precision tool) in a grocery bag and shipping it through the mail.

[LawBeefaroni]

We order so freaking much from them I still come out ahead at that price. Even though it physically hurts me to pay it.

That said, I've noticed a *significant* decline in their service. While I have a warehouse close so shipments are usually still pretty quick, I've had to return no less an 6 items in the last 3 months that were either the wrong item or damaged. Twice they literally sent me a vinyl album in a bag with no packaging. Obviously it was beat all to hell and bent by the time it got to my porch. WTF Amazon?

Was the album from Amazon or a 3rd party? I've only gotten albums from Amazon when I buy them there and they've always been in those very protective album mailers.

[Carpet_pissr]

TV
Music
Books/Magazines/Comics
Accepts SNAP EBT cards in TN

Fixed. You can write Prime Music off now. They have slowly been degrading this over time, boiling the frog I guess, and the other day announced that they are basically turning it inot Pandora Lite. And if you thought it was bad before (it was), it's downright shitty now.

I signed up to use Amazon Music when it first launched, and actually sent them a note praising the fact that they offered higher bitrates than every other streamer at that time (I think there were only 2 or 3 others then). But their software/imterface/UI, has always been beind all the others, and it's actually just gotten worse over time.

Unfortunatley I committed to that platform for my music (that I had both bought, and my massive collection of ripped CD's), and I am now looking for a new home. I won't even go into the CONSTANT annoying ads to try and get you to upgrade to Unlimited.

The hilarious thing is they have NEVER figured out how "shuffle" is supposed to work, for whatever reason, compared to other music services. And now their whole platform is based around shuffling music (only)! Even stuff I have paid for! About as anti-customer as you can get and I was always a pretty outspoken Amazon fan.

It might very well lead to me cancelling Prime...it's that bad (and Prime Video has also gotten worse with time.

[YellowKing]

Was the album from Amazon or a 3rd party? I've only gotten albums from Amazon when I buy them there and they've always been in those very protective album mailers.

Sold and shipped by Amazon, which is what astounded me. I've never had a problem buying records through them before this. And even after I returned the first one and made comments about the inadequate packaging, they simply turned right around and shipped it again in a plain bag resulting in another damaged copy.

It's made me really gunshy about ordering anymore records from them.

[Blackhawk]

It's why I quit ordering board games and tea from them. Too many smashed board game boxes, and too many smashed packages of tea that won't stack on my shelf (not to mention the ones that are so smashed that the bag is just full of loose tea leaves.)

[Max Peck]

The hilarious thing is they have NEVER figured out how "shuffle" is supposed to work, for whatever reason, compared to other music services.

I see what you mean now. I pulled up a saved play list on my phone this morning and clicked on shuffle, only to discover that Amazon's idea of shuffling is to mix in songs similar to the ones on my play list instead of just shuffling the order of the songs on the play list.

[YellowKing]

Yeah I bought into the Amazon Music environment primarily for use with Echo devices, but I'm seriously considering dropping it for something else. Their algorithms are horrendous.

Amazon's algorithm is like "Yo dawg, I heard you listened to 15 seconds of a Backstreet Boys song so I'm gonna put the entire Backstreet Boys discography in your My Soundtrack so you can listen to the Backstreet Boys while you're listening to songs that sound like the Backstreet Boys."

I also went off on them in a survey because of their stupid Car Mode. I don't mind car modes for music apps, safe driving is great with me. The problem I have is when Amazon Music thinks I'm in the car when I'm walking to the bathroom, or picking my phone up off the desk. Or if I'm riding as a passenger in the car, turn off Car Mode, and Amazon Music says "Yeah....but you're kinda still in a car so I'm just gonna turn that back on for ya."

[coopasonic]

Yeah I bought into the Amazon Music environment primarily for use with Echo devices

Spotify works just fine in the Bezos-verse, FYI.

[Carpet_pissr]

I’m very happy with my recently acquired SiriusXM music (and sound quality), but I really need some kind of premium service as well since Amazon is dead to me. It will either be Spotify or Apple.

[malchior]

We order so freaking much from them I still come out ahead at that price. Even though it physically hurts me to pay it.

That said, I've noticed a *significant* decline in their service. While I have a warehouse close so shipments are usually still pretty quick, I've had to return no less an 6 items in the last 3 months that were either the wrong item or damaged. Twice they literally sent me a vinyl album in a bag with no packaging. Obviously it was beat all to hell and bent by the time it got to my porch. WTF Amazon?

I have seen a significant decline as well. It's not this - this hasn't been a problem at all for us in NJ. What's happening is that item availability and delivery times have fallen off a cliff. At one time I had thought their opening warehouses in a ring around me would improve service. It's gone the other direction.

My wife and I have separate monthly subscriptions and they've been very spotty. It's not like the items don't exist and there are supply issues in general. I was able to walk into a BJs and pick up the Tide Pods (and realize they were cheaper there on top!). Also the ship times have gotten silly. I made some orders on Tuesday. One item is arriving Saturday and most of the stuff won't come in until next week. And this is not new - it has just been getting progressively worse. My wife bought one of the early black friday deals last week and it was supposed to come last Sunday, then it changed to Tuesday, now it's Sunday at about 10 days (if that date holds up). Their time estimates used to be rock solid.

[Kraken]

For the past few months, our Chase Prime credit card was being charged $14.99 on the 21st of the month with a charge identified as Amazon Prime. I thought it was my HBO Max subscription, but that goes to a different card. There were no memberships to cancel and no matches in our transaction history. A few days ago I remembered that Wife has another, inactive Amazon account under a different email address. She logged in to that and found no subscriptions listed, no transactions, and it said there were no payment methods linked to the account.

Today I entered Amazon's customer support chat and swiftly discovered that my hunch was right -- her old account was indeed enrolled in Prime, even though it gave her no indication. My credit card statements showed the charges started in July, so I asked for a refund of 5 months. Their policy is limited to 1 month, but the rep got an exception to refund 3 months. I figured if they can make one exception, they can make two, so I got kicked up to a higher-level chat rep. After 15 minutes she got management approval to refund the full five months.

I come not to bury Amazon, but to praise it.

Coincidentally, our active account just paid the $139 annual Prime fee a few days ago, but getting back $75 for the phantom account takes the sting out of that.

[Daehawk]

I was Primed the last few months. Didn't use it like I thought. No problem with it. It was Nov 28 and I had $1.20 in my bank and Prime was gonna charge me almost $7 come Dec 3 so I cancelled again. Can always go back.

EDIT: huh...I had this months Prime for 3 weeks and canceled the other day. I had the choice of letting it continue until resub day and then it not charging me and keeping my benefits or cancel outright and end it then. I ended it...they refunded the entire month's fee. Nice.

[Blackhawk]

Amazon has now tweaked their ordering screens to set "Amazon Day" delivery as the default option rather than "Prime Shipping." By the time I realized it, I unintentionally delayed several important items.

Obviously, they're hoping people will accidentally choose the option that works best for them without realizing it, then be SOL because they 'chose' that option. Gee, what was the term for that kind of thing?

[ImLawBoy]

Interesting. I ordered something on my phone app today, and the options in order were 1) same day (selected as default), 2) next day, 3) Prime day. Don't know if this is a phone app update thing or not.

[Blackhawk]

All of mine were via PC browser.

[malchior]

I am seeing the same behavior as Blackhawk on the computer.

[Kasey Chang]

They've also raised AmazonFresh delivery's free delivery threshold to 150 instead of $35. Now just ordering $50 will incur delivery charge of like 7.95. If you reach $100 it's halved to $3.95, and if you hit $150 delivery's free within a 2 hour window. Dollar amounts may not be exact. Guess they need to pay those Flex drivers better.

[gilraen]

I canceled Prime a few months ago. I haven't bought that much stuff from Amazon since then, but every time I do, obviously they have the whole "try Prime now" thing all over the checkout screen.

Well, yesterday I clicked on my cart to checkout, and it gave me a whole new screen before taking me to the normal checkout page. With a whole bunch of different-color buttons to either get the Prime trial or skip it and proceed to cart. I could have sworn I clicked to skip it, but next thing I know it's telling me "Welcome to Prime". I don't particularly care, and I immediately clicked to cancel it, so I don't forget at the end of the month. But that's a dick move.

[Carpet_pissr]

They have become increasingly and quickly anti-consumer over the past year or so, on several fronts.

Shocking, really, how quickly they seemingly became dicks.

Seems to align, time-wise, with Bezos stepping down mid 2021.

[Daehawk]

I try to check the ship and delivery date but sometimes forget. Dont get to use Amazon much anyways. When I do I usually choose the fastest shipping unless they offer me a reward for using the slower....which is usually just 1 day slower. I take the rewards.

[Blackhawk]

Speaking of which, they have officially ended Amazon Smile, their charity program, as of a few days ago. As of yesterday, Smile links no longer work.

(Blackhawk's patented stream-of-consciousness decision making incoming.)

I've cut down my Amazon shopping repeatedly. I'd like to cancel Prime and remove them entirely as an option, but it's tough due to my location. I've relied on them for years to balance out the lack of resources available living in a small town, where getting something simple (like, say a power strip, an HDMI cable, or a bottle of paint) can mean waiting weeks to get to a store that carries them. But they keep making themselves a worse and worse place to shop. Between paid shills and listing hijacks, their reviews and ratings are meaningless. They're no longer the cheapest place to buy (and are often far more expensive than their competitors.) Prime is no longer a deal when it comes to shipping. It's still the cheapest option, but it's now often the slowest, and the products are, far too often, counterfeit, misrepresented, or damaged. And more and more companies now offer free shipping over a reasonable amount. The problem is finding the 'miscellaneous' items which either don't justify shipping elsewhere, or are hard to find reliable sellers for that aren't just as bad as Amazon (where do I buy a tea strainer, a folding ottoman, and a smart plug online without putting in $75 orders or paying more than the item's value in shipping?) Of course, I could save those up and order them all at once from Amazon, but I'd still be shopping at Amazon, and it's a problem sometimes when I need something particular. Amazon still lets me order those individual items as I need them.

If they arrive, and arrive intact, and are what they said they are.

Prime video has a few shows I watch (The Boys, Invincible, Wheel of Time (out of morbid fascination), Rings of Power, Vox Machina), but I need to look at it purely as a streaming service. Are those shows worth $11.58 a month ($139/year) when I could just sub to Prime a few months here and there for $14.99/month (so probably $45-60 per year), or to Prime Video alone ($9/month, so $27-36 per year.)

And the perks? Honestly, the only perks I use I wouldn't miss. Free bonuses for games I may or may not play are just noise. It isn't like I'm excited for whatever 'free with Prime' shovelware game they release next, I don't use Prime Reading or Music, I don't need food delivery (every place in town is within a few blocks), and I've never even seen a Whole Foods.

And then there's the question of doing business with a shitty company. The truth is, that unless you are wealthy and live in a place where you can get everything you need or want from local businesses, you're going to do business with shitty companies. And if you're poor (and I am), then you're going to doing business with a lot of them.

So, would the cost (realistically $103 per year - $139/year minus the $36/year for a few strategic months of Prime Video) justify the benefits of being able to quick-order the small stuff that I need from time to time, balanced with the chances of getting ripped off? If I lived in even a small city, no. I would just run out and grab those things, but it's a lot harder in a town of 4,000 that's the largest town around. Just one order a month from other places with $8 shipping for something would match the Prime fees. But the items themselves would be cheaper.

One option would be to, instead of vaguely 'cutting back' on Amazon for things, actively avoid them until I've checked every other option, and try to order multiple things I'm needing at once to combine shipping. Even then, I'm not sure that the fees would end up being less than the combined shipping fees (in which case I'd just be hurting myself by canceling Prime.) Or I could just keep Prime, do what I just said (go to them only as a last resort), and take satisfaction in the idea that I'm supporting them a lot less than I used to.

Sigh. I ran through all of that and still don't have a clear answer for myself.

[Isgrimnur]

[Anonymous Bosch]

Sigh. I ran through all of that and still don't have a clear answer for myself.

Keep in mind, if you receive SNAP, Medicaid, or other qualifying low income government assistance, you ought to qualify for a full Prime membership at half the normal price, i.e. $6.99/month instead of $14.99/month:

All of Prime, half the price.
Qualifying government assistance recipients can access all of Prime for $6.99/month (reg. $14.99/month).

If you receive SNAP, Medicaid, or other qualifying government assistance, you can save more with Prime Access.

To get Prime Access, upload an image of your eligibility letter or card to one of the following:

• Medicaid: Upload image of your Medicaid eligibility letter
• SNAP: Enter your EBT number and upload an image of the EBT card
• SSI: Supplemental Security Income (this is different from Social Security and SSDI)
• Direct Express Prepaid Debit Card: Upload image of card
• TANF: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
• TTANF: Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
• NSLP: National School Lunch Program, (letter must include your child's name and the school’s name)
• LIHEAP: Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
• WIC: Women, Infants, and Children program

[Blackhawk]

Nothing on that list applies to me. I have Medicare with SSDI, and don't receive SNAP or other benefits.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Nothing on that list applies to me. I have Medicare with SSDI, and don't receive SNAP or other benefits.

Figures. Sorry that info didn't help.