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Amazon Offers 2-Day Shipping For $79/Year
stevejsmith writes "Amazon.com has announced their Amazon Prime service. For $79, you get free two-day shipping on all items, upgradeable to overnight shipping for $3.99 per item. The offer applies to most media (books, DVDs, CDs, etc.) and can be shared among "up to four family members living in the same household." Apparently the only way they will enforce this family-only sharing clause is by mandating that your "family members" know your birthday."
Isn't a better way is to let you nominate 4 Amazon users under your account, and you can only change these users once every x months or pay a fee for each change?
The service is limited to family members living in the same household, that means goods will(should) always be delivered to that one address, and I don't see many people can abuse it.
Enlighten me please.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Unless it can transform from a tractor-trailer into a bow-wielding vixen, I'm not interested.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I have bought many items over the years from Amazon as I'm always relatively pleased with their prices and ALWAYS pleased with their service... Just yesterday I purchased a new GPS for myself. Being an avid geocacher I am always upgrading my GPSr to make my life a little easier.
:)
This particular upgrade wasn't just for geocaching but more for actual navigating. My fiancé needed to use autorouting to get around town with her sister dress shopping and autorouting would be the best way. What a great excuse for me to plop down $430 on a new GPS!
Ok, so I do some research with froogle and some of the other price watching sites and check Amazon just for kicks. They of course weren't showing me their price on the site so I add it to my cart to find out that it's $499.99 for the GPSMap76C. Eh, for kicks I check out the price on their 76CS (usually $75+ more than the C). I find it on sale for $428 and free STANDARD SAVER shipping. Estimated arrival sometime after the 10th and before the 15th.
With prices for shipping starting at $7.65 and me not really needing this for the fiancé until the end of February I took the free shipping. I am THRILLED I did. Last night I received word that even though Amazon.com original claimed the device wouldn't even ship until the 4th it was already out the door and en-route to me. This morning I check and find that the estimated ARRIVAL time from UPS is the 4th of February.
For no additional cost I just got 3-day shipping via UPS.
I guess Amazon's "Prime" service could be useful for families that order more than 7 items from Amazon yearly but don't spend enough to get the freebie shipping. I really can't imagine it paying off for many others but I am glad I held off on upgrading the shipping this time
Does Amazon Prime compete with Optimus for leadership of the Autobots?
Perhaps he is the UPS truck to Optimus's tractor trailer?
M
That's not a bad deal... I can see this being especially useful in university residences. Just get one person in the building to buy a membership and collect their $2 from everyone who wants to use it... and free shipping for the rest of the year!
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
This might be greatly advantageous to small bookstores (new and used), if they can get any title for a person within two days and not have to order in bulk, etc.
I wonder if this rate deal covers the "used" 3rd party books.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Im in enough trouble trying to remember my wifes birthday as it is....
Photons have mass!!?? I didn't even know they were Catholic...
Why is this tech news?
Is there any money to be made in this for them? I suppose this could work out, but only if their probably theories work out and some people buy the service and don't use it. But what about the power buyers (like myself) who get heavy textbooks, heavier textbooks, and even heavier textbooks (grr @ orgo)? It just doesn't seem like it's cost-effective, but maybe I'm missing something..?
....it is tech news because someone could use Amazon to order a TI Graphing calculator. Silly question.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Well, that eliminates my family from participating.
"Contrarily the lookaside buffer might not be the panacea... "
Seems to me you'd have to spend on the order of $1500/yr in merchandise in order to make this worthwhile. And then, it'd only be worth it if you would have paid for two-day shipping otherwise.
The cake is a pie
Last time my girlfriend (yes, I have one) bought something at Amazon, shipping only took 2 days anyway. What are we paying for here? In Canada, they use Canada Post for delivery, which will usually deliver stuff to most major centers in 2 days. Some places take longer, although probably not over 5 days.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I'm wondering if i list my work mailstop if i can get 4 other people to chip in $20..?
No, because you'd have to tell them all your birthday! See? It's FOOLPROOF.
Erm... Yeah... Nevermind.
Never confuse volume with power.
It's amazing how marketing has managed to distort the English language. Hey, I'll work for Free/Hr.
At about $7 per expedited shipment, you'd break even after about 12 orders. But it only makes sense if you order about once a month from Amazon (I do), and you're compulsive and always want your stuff quickly (I do).
I scanned my orders from 2004 and I spent $95 on expedited shipping costs, so for me, it might be a good idea.
News for Shoppers. Ways to save.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I have never bought two-day shipping for fed-ex or ups packages, yet receive everything within 2 business days of physical ship. Not just amazon either.
I once used two-day shipping with USPS, they lost the package, and found it again two weeks later. They kindly told me that two day shipping does not guarantee two-days to get there. I asked what the two-day shipping meant then, and I got a trout look.
Does two-day shipping price really mean anything?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
So will birthdays become like serials numbers?
Birthdates are the new serial numbers.
The free shipping/$3.99 overnight is only available if you purchase directly from Amazon. i.e. it is not available if you purchase from third party Amazon Marketplace or zShops sellers.
For many items, Amazon is actually competing with third party sellers that are selling on their site. This new service might be the incentive necessary for many people to not buy from third party sellers, but to only buy from Amazon which will result in more money for them. That could be one of the reasons behind introducing Amazon Prime.
...you can ask Optimus yourself.
Hey, I submitted the above story. How come mine didn't get posted? Sheesh. Slashdot SPAM for Nerds.
DON'T DO IT!
Where is the "nerd" in this news? This is just a marketing ploy.
People are making jokes about this, but this idea could change some of the methods of online/webbased stores. Just think, without having to worry about shipping charges _at all_, then I wouldn't have to worry about making a $5 order for a little kitchen gadget. I wouldn't have to run to the store for something, just go online, and it will be here in a couple of days.
This should really increase the sales of some of their smaller items. If I've got to get a couple new drill bits for this weekend's project, I can just click and get it and not have to run to Home Depot.
This is a cool idea if it makes the consumer think first about ordering online, and not as a second or third choice.
I thought we all still hated them for the lawsuits over 1 click shopping?!?
My packages from amazon come in 2-3 days anyways typically. Maybe once in awhile they drag their feet out to 5 days but if it's urgent I'd usually just pay the extra $ for 2 day or overnight anyways. Sorry Amazon I'll stick with your standard model. Though I especially like the Super Saver shipping on packages I don't care too much about when they come anyways :-)
...in bed
I agree. I regularly use free shipping, and sometimes it delays it from going out the door as fast as it otherwise would, but a lot of the time I seem to get it just about as fast as if I said to rush things.
I've noticed that when I order stuff with Supersaver free shipping during a non-holiday period, the stuff arrives amazingly fast.
Considering that, I think you would have to order huge amounts of items per year for this to be worth it.
Perhaps Amazon.com is planning on phasing out their Free Shipping?
I did an order a while ago for some books through some of the resellers, and their S&H is separate from Amazon's. Turned out to be cheaper overall to pay the $0.33/book extra to Amazon, and ship for free.
YMMV.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Even with picking the super-saver shipping, I have always received my goods in 2-4 days which is good enough never to need it any faster.
This is asssuming they have the item in stock, however. The only bone I have to pick is a book I odered in December. On the Amazon site, it said "usually ships in 2-3 days." After many delays, I still don't have my book. It seems "ships in 2-3 days" really means they get it from a distributor and usually in "2-3 days". In this particular case, it was backodered for months. It would have been nice to know this before I ordered, but according to customer service, they don't update their shipping estimates when they have delay from the distrbutor. Oh well. No company can be perfect but I'm more careful with "2-3 day" items.
How would such a bookstore make a profit? Most bookstores order wholesale, not retail.
The cake is a pie
This would be a great service - but not for me. Sometimes living on an island in the middle of the Pacific ocean has disadvantages.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
The stuff I bought here at Amazon Germany usually shipped within 2 days or less (depends on the ordering time and well germany isn't that large and DHL/German Post is usually quite fast for standard packets inner germany) without any special treatment and free shipping is standard anyways from 20 up without any qualifications, books are send for free from 0 on ...
I always thought amazon.com had free inner-US shipping for anything, looks like that was my imagination
As everybody here knows, Slashdot adheres to a strict peer review standard for each and every one of the submitted stories. It is just impossible that your story would be rejected unfairly.
Ok. Maybe that was just a dream I had last night.
The owls are not what they seem
The best is when you're really close to the shipping center for whoever you're buying from. If I buy electronics stuff from buy.com, I can get their free budget shipping and get what I bought in 1-2 days. Their shipping depot is in Carol Stream, Illinois which is a suburb of Chicago. So pretty much anybody in the chicago area can get essentially second day shipping for nothing.
Exactly why this new service sounds like a waste of money to me. Regardless of what sort of shipping speed I select, it has always been my experience that Amazon ships when they're ready, and their projected dates often have no relationship to reality. I have even received items in the mail on the same day that I got an email from Amazon apologizing that they wouldn't be able to ship the item for some time. Whoever sends the emails that project shipping dates needs to communicate with the folks who are actually shipping stuff out the door.
Apparently the only way they will enforce this family-only sharing clause is by mandating that your "family members" know your birthday."
/.er is. Leave it to Timothy to point out how easy it is to defraud a merchant. But, just like song-stealing, I'm sure that the average clown on /. will find a way to justify ripping off Amazon. Like I always say, relative morality simply means that you can choose what you want/don't want to do and then find a way to make it seem like it's moral.
It just goes to show you how crooked the average
You're not supposed to do the math!
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Was anyone else expecting a first-person adventure game based on the venerable Amazon series?
Then order everything through that account...
Now, thats if you are stingy. But if you are going to order a lot of stuff, it's definately worth it.
Nice one amazaon :)
When it takes them a week to "ship" the item. Both B&N and Amazon have this nasty habit of taking forever to ship many items. They give you *free* 3-day shipping, but they take 2 weeks to get started on it.
Here's another annoying feature I found (this one at B&N). I ordered a LOT of books (about 15) and took the free 3-day shipping. They had to break the order up into 3 shipments at different times (over about 4 weeks). EVERY SINGLE TIME they "shipped" (gave me my tracking number) on a wednesday night, which means they gave the product to UPS on thursday morning. Magically UPS now has an extra day to handle the package, because they don't deliver on Sundays.
I thought it might be coincidence at first, but after the 3rd time I figure they had some sort of an agreement with UPS. Now I don't ever pay extra for fast shipping, because they can still have you waiting for weeks anyhow...
For $79, you get free two-day shipping
Pardon me, but if you *pay* for it, then it isn't *free*. Perhaps submitter intended "unlimited" rather than "free"?
(e.g., I want something for $20, but shipping would be $5, so I buy some $6 book and get free shipping)
Between my subscription and Squid-Sleezeball proxy and Mozilla, I thought I was filtering ads. Looks like this one got through, though.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
as cheapest form of advertising to millions?
Well, although it took little energy, I had to click to "Learn more about Amazon Prime" before I realized they only ship to continental US. So, Alaska & Hawaii (not to mention US Territories) miss out again! It's too bad we still can't sign up for the same deal and just pay the difference in 2-day/overnight shipping. Considering we don't have a ground option to begin with(here in Hawaii), this would be a nice token gesture.
*sigh*
Oh well, I'm sure hope these work-provided mai-tai's can ease my pain...
and now back to the fallout shelter...
you are paying $79 to join...
http://www.thelung.org
The Barbeaubot will surely rule them all with the D Cups of Justice.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
And wouldn't it have made more sense to just buy a wedding dress at the first store they went to, even if it cost $400 more? :)
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Get a whole extra day of "free" shipping
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Tell your friends, co-workers, etc. and order things for them overnight. Charge $5 under what Amazon charges, or your own small fee.
You make a killing.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I ask this simply because I don't know anyone who pays extra for shipping.
These days it seems that you order online if you want a good price, and you go to the store if you want it quick.
I personally calculate shipping into the price, and compare. It seems there's always 1 place that offers free shipping these days. I'll wait an extra day or 2 for free shipping.
I got a LCD TV from Amazon.com. Did free shipping. 48hrs after I ordered UPS was at the door. Yea, that's right. 48hrs, and free shipping.
In most cases I found it's well under a week.
IMHO I would never pay extra for shipping. Want me as a customer? Think free.
If they let me pay $x a year for all the shipping for a year (unlimited shopping and no shipping)... I would consider that.
But not to make shipping faster. Never. And I'm sure I'm not alone.
To do it per shipping address?
In the NY/NJ area, over a certain price they'll express ship for free. I've gotten stuff ordered at 7 pm the next day at 4 for no extra cost. Although amazon usually beats BN on price, if I factor in shipping, BN sometimes wins.
NJ Local Music Scene
On average they might lose a little bit of money on the deal in pure shipping, but I'm sure they'll make up for it hugely in sales.
I mean, if you pay them the $79 why would you order something from someplace else? Let's say a book you'd buy is $5 cheaper at B&N. Well, when you add on shipping, it's really not any cheaper than it would be from Amazon. So then you buy it at Amazon.
Furthermore, let's say you do buy lots of stuff to get the most for your money. As long as the margin on each item is greater than what they are losing in shipping, they'll be ecstatic.
The other thing is that if they can guarantee a certain amount of second day shipping business, they can probably get some nice discounts from UPS/FedEx. So that'll end up reducing their overall costs.
As for your specific exploit of the heavy books, I would guarantee that the margins they make on those heavy text books are huge, regardless of shipping, so they can afford to take a hit. I'm fairly certain they charge a flat fee for shipping books anyhow, so I think they already accounted for the variances in weight. You'd actually do them more harm by purchasing a lot of cheap things where the margins are minimal.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
The slashdot blurb forgot to mention that this is a $79 charge per year. The first time I read it I thought it was $79/mo, then I read it again, saw no timeframe, and thought it was $79 for your lifetime. Now I actually RTFA (read the f-ing ad) and it's $79/year. Wouldn't this be important to include in the description?
"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose." --Douglas Adams
I see this offer as an innovative marketing mechanism aimed at increasing customer retention and rewarding their current list of loyal customers.
Loyal customers already do most of their shopping @ amazon, so this offer will just be a way to save on shipping costs. The biggest impact is on customers that make a significant number of their purchases online, but not exclusively at Amazon. An offer like this might be enough to push them over the edge to become Amazon exclusive shoppers.
Where Macs Belong in the Living Room
They're still making money on the books. Most companies would kill to have such a "problem," and I imagine they number themselves among them.
You don't happen to work at Amazon.com do you?
maybe i lack the ability to plan but if i order something i either need it right away or I can wait about a week for it.
so this really is no help, at least for me
although the no sales tax is a huge bonus...
this sig has been discontinued.
I agree with you. I use to be one of Amazon.com's prime Next Day FedEx shipping when they had it. But when they switched to UPS, I'd pay for the 2nd day shipping and never receive the item (well, receive it 4-5 days out after numerous exception errors--it never made it on the truck--from UPS. Finally, I just decided no more urgent shipping, and to use the Free Shipping whenever possible (for me that's about 75% of my orders). Well, since I've been using Free Shipping almost all of my items arrive within two days. The other day, Thursday or Friday, I order 3 books, and was told delivery was estimated for February 4. I received 2 of the books on Monday. Apparently, paying extra for special handling, just means that UPS will screw-up.
I'm sorry...this is news? I must have mistyped the url, I was looking for "news for nerds. Stuff that MATTERS"
-Jay
I'm sure this depends on where you are. Typically if I use their Supersaver shipping, it's a real crapshoot. Typically, when I do Supersaver, it ends up getting shipped via Airborne/DHL. This has two problems:
I've found it's worth the extra few bucks to actually have my packages delivered...
I could give a tracking number for these so that you could all take a gander, but that would violate the terms of their usage agreement. Hmmm, for some reason the number 71868976281 comes to mind...
Or, alternatively, if you and a bunch of roommates are college students, you can use this to save money on textbooks (although you save more money from buying used on Amazon rather than their list price.
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
Exactly--the US is slightly larger than Germany; hence, it takes more time and money to ship things.
I ordered the Battlestar Galactica Miniseries DVDs on the 30th. Predicated arrival date with free shipping, the 8th-10th. Actual arrival date, tomorrow. The free shipping is an awesome deal.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
This doesnt seem like such a bad idea. This is a great idea mainly because it entices those who currently do not buy from amazon to do so, and as well, will encourage people to buy MORE from amazon. There will always be abusers of the system, but they are in very small numbers. Hell, I think even might start buying from them instead of ebayer's.
Anyone who wants to know my birthday, paypal me $20.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Autorouting is having you handheld GPS receiver automatically compute turn-by-turn directions. It's very useful when trying to find 1000 urban micros in Cacheville, TN, for example.
That said, excellent receiver, even if I'm a Magellanite myself, and congrats on the fianceness.
Yes, since supersaver is free you'd actually have to order an infinite amount of items per year.
Random is the New Order.
Now I can't tell any non-family my birthday without Amazon suing me for breaking their copy protection.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
As nerds, our time is far too important to spend on "meatspace" shopping, thus, we purchase things through the interweb, allowing us to never leave our domiciles. Amazon.com is a distinguished online retailer, and thus, special offers may pique some interest among us.
I remember a couple of summers ago my girlfriend telling me about this awesome promotion that amazong was having. For $20 you get a years membership to some club where the only perk is that you get 10% off your first $200 of purchases.....
;)
she couldn't wait to join either.. needless to say.. she's not a math student
in the bonds, ppka
But when it actually comes to boycotting, nobody cares. Look at this topic on Amazon, how many slashdotters use Windows to play Half-Life 2 (with steam) and look at how popular World of Warcraft is, and people still play Blizzard games even after that whole Bnetd thing. Not to mention the popularity of iTunes and such services which go to support the RIAA.
"Joy is contagious," he said, peering into the microscope.
Amazon Prime = Amazon' = d Amazon / d ShippingCost as d ShippingCost -> 0
--- Ban humanity.
I agree. I'm pretty happy with their Super Saver program, so as long as they don't drop the free shipping I like the new options. I can use it or not. It's probably better for some other people who are ordering more than I am.
I cannot count the number of times I have recieved my confirmation email giving a date two weeks away for arrival, along with the option to 'upgrade my shipping'; I do nothing and the next day I get a 'your order has shipped' email giving the arrival date as 2-4 days.
Anyone else see a pattern here?
This promotion means jack to me -- I live in Australia, and it'd save me a small fortune in book shipping. Oh, well, guess I'll just buy my books from booksellers that will import from the major sources (UK, US, and Australia), and charge a flat fee for shipping within Australia, regardless of where the books come from. (I'm pretty sure those three are outsourced to the same company, but I don't care -- as long as the books arrive in good condition and at a reasonable price, I'm happy.)
and it's not "free shipping", either. it's pre-paying $79 for shipping every eligible item you buy from amazon in a year - which means you have to make at least 10 or 20 separate orders for it to be worthwhile.
can i interest you in a $100000 subscription to an amazing service which gives you 4 free cars per year? wow! it's free!
Items: $19,999.95
Shipping & Handling: $14.99
Total Before Tax: $20,014.94
Estimated Tax:* $0.00
Order Total: $20,014.94
The following statement is false.
The previous statement is true.
Welcome to my world.
...just order your stuff a few days before you would have ordered it otherwise, and ship it ground!
Big shoppers will embrace this model
Before everyone signs on to this deal, it is available in the US only.
"Enjoy free second-day shipping on every order or overnight shipping for only $3.99 per item to addresses in the continental United States,"
Oh, bravo! A classic example of the style, and totally deadpan, too!
Quick quiz: was the above quote written by:
Inquiring minds want to know!
It comes with terrifying ground effects.
Also, you simply must read the comments from the Amazon link, including the one about the Hummer and the MINI.
I had had a perjillion dollars, I would buy one of these and then a few Segways to stuff in the back and some Scout Trooper armor for scouting expeditions.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This word you keep using, I don't think it means what you think it means.
You keep saying "fiance" but I think you mean fiancee.
Sorry for nitpicking, I'm sure she'll make a lovely husband.
I haven't seen anyone comment on the possibility that this will be the end of Amazon's "free super saver shipping." They'll yell for a few months about what a great deal this is. Everyone will moan that all you have to do is spend $25 and it's truly "free".
So Amazon pulls free shipping entirely, leaving you the option of $5+ per order, or $80/year.
It's brilliant, really, unless consumer backlash is worse than they're prepared for.
(I will say Best Buy ending their free shipping pretty much put an end to me ordering from them...) [oops, does that make me a Devil Geek, admitting shopping at both BB and Amazon?]
You are seriously categorizing groups of consumers into "good" and "bad" groups? How about the sole problem lies more in our ridiculous consumer culture as opposed to the methods people chose to consume. Get a clue man.
Sounds more like Costco (or any other membership club) to me - pay your membership fee of $45 or $100 a year, and shop til you drop.
Clever way of getting people to shop exclusively with Amazon. Unfortunately, the fly in the soup here is that people will still be able to ship for free for $25 purchases. Most ./ers would probably build up big orders for free shipping.
> News for Shoppers. Ways to save. Stories: *Sale at thinkgeek: FREE slashdot shirt with $50 purchase *Get your free Linux plush toy (just spend $100 at ThinkGeek!) *New toy at ThinkGeek: 300W laser with auto plane locator. Use responsibly. *Linux computer goes on sale at ThinkGeek. It only cost 2x the price of a dell /w Windows
*ThinkGeek coupon code to get $5 off. Hurry, expires soon!
*Get a free slashdot subscription with a $50 purchase so you can see the ThinkGeek sales 20 minutes early!
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*ThinkGeek now sells gift cards. Give one to your favorite slashdot user.
*Cowboyneal wants a ThinkGeek gift card. The first person to give him one gets 20 free mod points. (minimum $20)
*Michael is making the same offer. Hurry for your mod points.
*Cowboyneal wants a ThinkGeek gift card. The first person to give him one gets 20 free mod points. (minimum $20) CN: sorry for the dupe. Sorry, I'm not giving out another 20 mod points, I forgot that I had already submitted the story. Oh well, these $20 donations to OSTG/OSDN are going straight to me. Thanks!
*Michael is making the same offer. Hurry for your mod points. M: Yep, it's a dupe. I couldn't let CN cheat like that, so I had to as well.
Your $1500/year assumption also assumes that the price will stay $79/year. Their ad calls this a "special introductory price". The worst thing is that unless you pay enough attention to cancel before hand, they will charge the next non-special, non-introductory fee to your credit card in exactly 12 months without any notification to you. From the Terms and Conditions:
They don't provide (AFAICT) any option to buy just one year. By purchasing Amazon Prime you are giving them permission to choose any price and charge it to you next year. They may also "in our discretion change these Terms ... or any aspect of Prime membership without
notice to you ... YOUR CONTINUED MEMBERSHIP AFTER WE CHANGE THESE
TERMS CONSTITUTES YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHANGES." So they can change their terms without telling you, then you automatically accept if you don't immediately notice and cancel. Great!
I hate it when companies try to pull this. Forcing an annual set fee on people is bad enough -- but to raise the price arbitrarily and still charge people's card without notification is outrageous. This is the kind of thing sleazy porn sites do (or so I hear :).
There may be some advantages to this program, but I certainly won't sign up until they let me buy ONE YEAR at a known price. None of this blank check nonsense.
-Fyodor
Concerned about your network security? Try the free Nmap Security Scanner.
> News for Shoppers. Ways to save.
/w Windows
Stories:
*Sale at thinkgeek: FREE slashdot shirt with $50 purchase
*Get your free Linux plush toy (just spend $100 at ThinkGeek!)
*New toy at ThinkGeek: 300W laser with auto plane locator. Use responsibly.
*Linux computer goes on sale at ThinkGeek. It only cost 2x the price of a dell
*ThinkGeek coupon code to get $5 off. Hurry, expires soon!
*Get a free slashdot subscription with a $50 purchase so you can see the ThinkGeek sales 20 minutes early!
*New at ThinkGeek: FREE limited edition t-shirt of your chose with your $100 order.
*ThinkGeek now sells gift cards. Give one to your favorite slashdot user.
*Cowboyneal wants a ThinkGeek gift card. The first person to give him one gets 20 free mod points. (minimum $20)
*Michael is making the same offer. Hurry for your mod points.
*Cowboyneal wants a ThinkGeek gift card. The first person to give him one gets 20 free mod points. (minimum $20) CN: sorry for the dupe. Sorry, I'm not giving out another 20 mod points, I forgot that I had already submitted the story. Oh well, these $20 donations to OSTG/OSDN are going straight to me. Thanks!
*Michael is making the same offer. Hurry for your mod points. M: Yep, it's a dupe. I couldn't let CN cheat like that, so I had to as well.
I do the same thing as long as it's not UPS ground. There's something about UPS's policy of "yeah we'll get it there sometime over then next 3 weeks maybe" that bothers me. I always upgrade to the cheapest shipping option that says how long it'll be. and never ship "brown"
Editors, what is going on? Why do we care about advertisements? Why is Slashdot now posting ads as if they were news?
It would be a true miracle (just like a virgin mary statue crying real tears) if the typical woman could find a dress she liked for any amount of money at the first 5 stores she visited. Your logic would hold if it were a man renting a tux, but alas you have not factored in the whole woman buying a wedding gown thing.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
You're right - for non-holiday periods. Try free shipping during the holidays only if you're not shopping for the holidays. But their maximum sales are during the holiday shopping periods - that is where this may be useful, esp when buying multiple gifts and shipping them around the country.
It looks great, to folks living in the US, but it's free/$3.99 to the continental US only. AND!!! it took quite a bit of digging to find that.
We are 2+6 family (yeah I have had sex at least six times), so should I put the rest of us (which are over the mentioned "up to four family members living in the same household" to closet or what?
Actually, at the turn of the year UPS started offering "ground" to hawaii and alaska. I should know, my shipping department had to educate the local UPS folks about this.
I suspect that in order to take advantage of this offer, one needs to buy stuff from Amazon. I never have, and keeping true to my belief in the evil of software patents, I will not Amazon until they release that rediculous "one-click" patent into the public domain. An apology wouldn't hurt, either.
I'm amazed at how much lip service Slashdot readers are willing to pay when it comes to software patents, but then turn right around and feed companies that have abused them.
Maybe they WANT people to leak their secret birthday key. It's a great way to offer a deal without leaving money on the table by giving the discount to everyone, including those who'd buy anyway, without the discount.
We have all kinds of promo codes and they get leaked from time to time, but we never disable them. Unless you lose money by them circumventing the system, there's no reason to deny a sale to someone who wouldn't buy at all without the discount.
When you study all the conditions and restrictions this will end up being as valuable as those "Fuel Prepurchase" offers we all love at car rental companies. There will be a few consumers whose routine behavior benfits from it. The rest of us are going to find out the hard way that this is just another way to get us to part with our money buying something we didn't need in the first place -- either the shipping itelf or the items we'll buy trying to use up the "shipping prepurchase".
This program is limited to certain products sold by Amazon.com on www.amazon.com that are shipped to continental United States addresses
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
If I had $79 spare I'd sign up. I noramlly buy cds from amazon biweekly as I get paid and I almost always pay for shipping instead of going for the saver shipping cuz I don't like the wait and untrackability of it. I'd end up paying about the same for shipping without prime, but with prime I'd get 2-day as opposed to the 3+ of their normal shipping. It doesn't apply to used items from the marketplace though which is the only thing holding me back, aside from being broke.
Did they patent use of English verbs as well? Or is "Amazon" now a verb meaning "to shop at Amazon.com"? If the verb is to be understood from the previous sentence, so is the object, unless the object changes between sentences.
"Products are eligible for Prime only if designated on the website"
eh?
I routinely buy books from Amazon and have them shipped to Norway. Then the shipping can be expensive. If I pay for express delivery (about 3 to 5 days), it can be about $40 for a typical 3 or 4 book order (average software book, i.e. O'Reilly, etc). Otherwise, regular shipping isn't that much cheaper and takes up to two weeks.
Now, if they only offered this for international, I'd sign up in a second!
Beware: When you give both your name and birthdate, you uniquely identify yourself.
Recommendation: Decide on a fake birthdate and use it like you would a password. Use different birthdates for different purposes. NEVER give a true birthdate.
I would never trust a marketing-crazed company like Amazon with anything unnecessary. Marketing people are usually the ones who are not too smart anyway. They seem to fall into a kind of mental illness in which, as time goes on, they justify to themselves more and more adversarial behavior.
I'll give you odds 1:364 that you can't guess mine.
(no, you wouldn't get to try 365 times)
TC - My Photos..
... because I can't say I know exactly what any of my family member's birthdays are. Guess I won't be sharing an account.
And Germany has better communications means than the US.
A company advertises a new premium package for its customers. So what? Does this merit a story in Slashdot, ene if said company is Amazon? I think not.
You'll find at the top of the page this interesting little message " This item is not eligible for Amazon Prime, but over a million other items are. Join Amazon Prime today.". I wonder what the official cut off limit is.
Purchasing a shipping company is quite a stretch. Besides, why would they want something so far out of their core business. With the volume they ship they can leverage very good deals out of established carriers, particularly with the new programs that are being offered. For instance, as their volume increases, they can contract with TL/LTL carriers to take truck loads or pallets to bulk mail centers and then have the postal service handle the last mile. The postal service does a pretty good job of delivering packages quickly in a local area.
Other companies are doing this as well. Dell Business, for instance, loads a complete trailer and then drops it at a regional center for a parcel carrier. They used to use Airborne for final delivery, but I think they have changed.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
lol - guilty as charged. Notice the sig. : )