Amazon Quietly Lowered Its Free Shipping Minimum to $35 (fortune.com)

Retailers have been busy over the weekend with Presidents Day promotions and sales, but Amazon had a significant surprise discount of its own. From a report: In a blink-and-miss-it move, the online retail giant quietly reduced its free shipping minimum rate to $35. The change was picked up and reported by a number of news outlets over the weekend, and was spotted by Fortune as well during the online checkout process. Amazon confirmed the change on its shipping guidelines and options page, designating which items and regions for delivery are eligible for free shipping. Amazon's free shipping rate, arguably one of the promotions on the site that has been the most popular and vaulted it to its e-commerce throne in years past, has gone up and down over the years. The free shipping minimum has been as low as $25 in the past and was most recently as high as $49.

Comments

Nice.

[NMBob]

Would be nicer if they rolled back the shipping on used CDs/DVDs. Used to be $2.99 (or lower), but went up to $3.99 a few or couple of years ago.

Re:Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Would be nicer if they rolled back the shipping on used CDs/DVDs. Used to be $2.99 (or lower), but went up to $3.99 a few or couple of years ago.

Supply & demand might be the cause.

Re:Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bezos has monopolized the supply, now he demands more to further his ambitions. Not interested, go peddle your wares elsewhere.

Re:Nice.

[ShanghaiBill]

Supply & demand might be the cause.

More likely it is lack of competition. I used to buy used books and DVDs on eBay, but now Amazon has a way better selection, a better search interface, and better seller feedback. Many big e-sellers, like Goodwill, aren't even on eBay anymore. Most brick-and-mortar used bookstores and music stores are gone. So Amazon can jack up the price with few repercussions.

Re:Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are just looking for the sweet spot. They don't care whether or not you are happy, just whether or not you are spending the maximum amount they can extract from you.

Re:Nice.

[daver!west!fmc]

A big chunk of the shipping price for used items is passed along to the seller as a "shipping allowance" that may cover the cost of shipping the product. For CDs and DVDs sent as Media Mail within the US, it probably does. For books, it's less certain. Anyway, reduce that price, Amazon will reduce the shipping allowance, and sellers will remove a lot of their low-priced inventory from Amazon.

Re:Nice.

[justthinkit]

Right. Amazon is the king of A/B testing.

Re:Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

friend of mine sells stuff like CDs magazines & books on Amazon... that $3.99 is the entire incentive, that's why so many common used items are 1 cent with 3.99 shipping.

if you think 3.99 is too much money for shipping and handling, my friend will be happy to hire you, he'll pay you 2.99 for each item you box/wrap, print and stick on an address label, and take to post office and put on postage, and no days off, you have to get it all done every day cuz that's where the 99% rating comes from. Also, you have to eat all the scammers who say "it was damaged" etc.

Re: Nice.

[corychristison]

There is way less fraud on Amazon. Don't get me wrong, it's still there, but much less prevalent compared to eBay.

Personally I pay for Prime and it's well worth it for me. If you stick to Prime eligible products, you don't have to deal with the fraud as you're dealing with Amazon and not a third party.

Re: Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

It will remain so until Amazon successfully runs all the other businesses out of business. Amazon already controls more than a quarter of all sales in the US, I avoid doing business with them whenever possible because of that. Amazon hasn't done anything wrong, but if people don't start using other stores, then before long we might not have any left.

The worst cases are things like record shops and hobby stores that have largely disappeared as shops like Amazon and various online distributors have gained a larger and larger portion of the sales.

Re: Nice.

[corychristison]

I live in a smallish town in Saskatchewan, Canada. All of the small shops closed up shortly after Walmart moved in 17ish years ago. I find Amazon to be the lesser of the two evils in this situation. Plus Amazon has a much bigger selection than the local Walmart, and I'm not really willing to drive an hour away to buy stuff in the next town over unless I desperately need something that day.

With that said, I do my best to support the local businesses I can. I buy meat from the local butcher, eggs and other produce from local farmers market, go to the smaller independent grocery store over the big box chain, pet food and supplies from the local pet store, etc.

Re:Nice.

[djinn6]

he'll pay you 2.99 for each item you box/wrap, print and stick on an address label, and take to post office and put on postage

Well he's a hipster who doesn't understand economies of scale. I'll bet he ships 3 CD's a week, max.

I've actually did something like this as an intern and I earned $20 an hour (mainly because the things I shipped cost thousands). I packed 2 boxes a minute. Filling out the UPS shipping form takes no time at all once I set up AutoHotkey. The label printer was slow, maybe 10 labels a minute, but I can stick them on as soon as each page was printed. The drive to UPS is 5 minutes, then add a few minutes to move the boxes between the car and the buildings etc., I can ship about 75 boxes an hour.

At $3 a box? Hell yes! I'll take $225 / hour any day.

Re: Nice.

[BenFranske]

If you stick to Prime eligible products, you don't have to deal with the fraud as you're dealing with Amazon and not a third party.

Depends how you define "dealing with" Amazon is not always the seller, they are increasingly a logistics/fulfillment company and not the seller. While it being Prime does mean they have the product in one of their warehouses it absolutely does not mean you are buying it from Amazon. In many cases they are just warehousing products for someone else and they send you the product which has been barcoded by the actual seller when you purchase it. If you have a problem with the product you might soon learn that it isn't Amazon you bought it from, prime or not.

Re: Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

I do my best to support the local businesses I can

But you won't support your local Walmart?

Re: Nice.

[nitehawk214]

Walmart isn't a local business, lol.

Re: Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't say Walmart was a local business. Read again.

Re: Nice.

[JackieBrown]

But it does employee local people.

The Wal-Marts in San Antonio pay the same as the other grocery stores here - in some cases more.

Re: Nice.

[mjwx]

I live in a smallish town in Saskatchewan, Canada. All of the small shops closed up shortly after Walmart moved in 17ish years ago. I find Amazon to be the lesser of the two evils in this situation. Plus Amazon has a much bigger selection than the local Walmart, and I'm not really willing to drive an hour away to buy stuff in the next town over unless I desperately need something that day.

Not sure aboot sunny Canada, but here in cold and dreary England you can get a fair few things delivered from Amazon in 4 hours (for a delivery fee of course). I live in a smallish town about an hour outside of London and I've been able to get things delivered at 22:00 on a weeknight. Of course you don't get the full Amazon selection, but it's actually better than the 2-3 brands Tesco would have.

With that said, I do my best to support the local businesses I can. I buy meat from the local butcher, eggs and other produce from local farmers market, go to the smaller independent grocery store over the big box chain, pet food and supplies from the local pet store, etc.

I by and large agree with this.

But that doesn't mean that local vendors should get lazy. If you make it difficult to find and obtain services (I.E. no online presence, no Sunday trading, close at 12:00 sharp on a Saturday) then of course I'm going to go to Morrisons instead.

Re: Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is more local than amazon. Wal-Mart employs local people to run the store. Amazon, unless you are in a big city or are at a random distribution facility, does not employ any local people so even less stays in your economy if you are paying the same price.

I laugh when people say they support "local" business. What does local mean? If I buy bulk XYZ and sell it at only enough markup to pay my operating costs and minimum wage to myself am I running a "local" business or am I just a mouth piece for the bulk product? Shipping your money to somewhere else with no local benefit. Most "local" businesses selling stuff to you don't help your local economy unless they are selling product OUTSIDE your city as well and even in that case; you buying from them doesn't really help, its their outside selling that helps your city.

Unless the local person hand made the item you are buying - the local person is just an intermediary to get the money to whoever actually made the item. Paying more for the item from a "local person" vs. buying it cheaper from lower paid local people doesn't change anything other than you subsidizing the higher paid local person's lifestyle at the expense of your own. That is all.

Re: Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

They employ them at whatever the minimum possible wage and benefits package is, run all the other businesses out of town and when there's nobody left to buy their goods, they close the store leaving just a depressed area.

Amazon is bad, but they're not that bad. At least with Amazon, those analogous shops have the option of listing their items through Amazon.

Re:Nice.

[Shirley Marquez]

Postal rates went up. So has the cost of packaging. It's true that the cost of sending a used book or disc is probably closer to $3 than $4 even after the increases, but there is also the weird phenomenon of selling things for $0.01 plus shipping. That would obviously be an unsustainable business model if the cost of shipping and packaging equaled the charge for those things. If Amazon were to lower the shipping rate on those items, the sellers would just have to increase their prices to compensate.

Re: Nice.

[Shirley Marquez]

You can also get same day delivery of some things from Amazon if you live in or near one of the cities where they offer that service. It's only available in places where Amazon has its own delivery workers, not in places that only get deliveries from the USPS or the big private delivery companies.

When Amazon first started offering same day delivery here in Boston, there was controversy because the map of the areas where they offered it had a big hole in the middle of the city - that was Roxbury, which is a relatively poor neighborhood that is populated primarily by people of color. Amazon relented and offered the service city-wide, probably because of the bad publicity they were getting.

Re: Nice.

[Shirley Marquez]

The key phrase is "fulfilled by Amazon". If you see that, Amazon isn't the company that is selling you the goods. Amazon's friendly return policies may not apply.

However, Amazon does have some buyer protections in place for anything that is bought through their site, even if it is actually sold by a third party. (The exact protections vary depending on the type of merchandise; they're weakest for software and digital goods.) That makes the site safer overall than eBay. eBay's buyer protection applies to fewer purchases and their protection policies are weaker than Amazon's.

Re:Nice.

[Shirley Marquez]

They do care if you are happy. Unhappy customers don't generate much repeat business.

Amazon is all about getting you to buy things from them regularly, even offering things like subscriptions to get regular shipments of household supplies and special electronic buttons that they give away to make it easier to order things. Yes, they charge you $4.99 for the button but it comes with a $4.99 credit that you get the first time you use it. And they sometimes have sales where they sell the buttons for $0.99... but you still get the $4.99 credit when you use it, which means they are PAYING you $4 to take the button.

Re:Nice.

[Shirley Marquez]

You're not getting to keep $3/box. The current price for sending Media Mail is $2.63 for retail packages, or $2.51 for commercial shipment of packages with basic presort. It comes down to $1.82 if you can do 5-digit presort but you have to be sending a LOT of packages to qualify for that rate. Books are a bit cheaper to ship commercially because they qualify for the bound printed matter rate, which varies from $1.40 to $1.75 depending on where it is going. (That's the presorted rate; carrier route is a bit cheaper but no bookseller is likely to be shipping enough books to qualify for that rate, it's pretty much just for magazines.)

Those numbers don't include packaging; they're just the amount you pay the Postal Service. To that you have to add the cost of the envelope or box, the cost of the address label and the tape, and pay yourself or somebody for their time.

Re: Nice.

[corychristison]

No, because my local Walmart is a terrible company. Walmart as a whole is a terrible company.

Their profits get siphoned out of the country, and they treat their employee's poorly. A person can not live on two 4 hour shifts a week. They do not offer full time employment.

Re: Nice.

[corychristison]

In some cases, yes. Here in Canada they are much more few and far between. The vast majority of the Prime Eligible products are sold directly by Amazon.ca.

I would hope Amazon would punish sellers doing anything fraudulent, or not treating their customers well. After all, Amazon is the one advertising the products, and fulfilling the orders. They will receive the backlash if a customer is unhappy.

Re:Nice.

[djinn6]

GP said he's paying for just the work:

he'll pay you 2.99 for each item you box/wrap, print and stick on an address label, and take to post office and put on postage

But let's assume I'm paying for the shipping too: I can ship CD's in large envelopes for $0.98 each. The envelope itself is $0.20. Labels cost $0.40 per sheet, each of which fits about 10 labels, so $0.04 per envelope. Ink is maybe 1 cent. Or I can just write the address with a pen instead. And since I'm using envelopes that come with an adhesive strip, I don't need packing tape.

After subtracting the costs, I'm still making $1.70 each, for a total of $128 per hour.

Quietly ??? Why is it here ?.. amazon chill...

[Anonymous Coward]

Moments later posted everywhere on social media...

And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Oswald McWeany]

When free shipping went up to $49, I stopped buying as much from them. I might use them more again now, $35 was easy to pad a purchase to reach- $49 isn't.

Good call Amazon!

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

The discounts aren't even that good on Amazon anymore. I'm not sure if it is Amazon being such a dominant player now they don't feel they need to discount as much, or other retailers are catching up to amazon's discounts. Lately I've been finding prices at B&M shops and other online retailers that equal or even beat amazon prices.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[XxtraLarGe]

When free shipping went up to $49, I stopped buying as much from them. I might use them more again now, $35 was easy to pad a purchase to reach- $49 isn't.

Amazon's goal is to get you to buy more stuff than you need. What really irritates me is that I paid $119 for a prime account, and then a lot of things you look at are "Add-on Items", meaning that they only qualify for free prime shipping on orders over $25--but you can't buy them alone even if you'd be willing to pay for shipping. I needed to get some over-sized U-Bolts for my camper. Nobody locally carried them--Lowe's, Home Depot, Walmart, or the local hardware stores. Amazon had them for $8, but I had to add an additional $17 worth of stuff I didn't really want or need at them time before they would ship them to me.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anubis IV]

Agreed. As I'd imagine is the case with most people, I didn't know what to get some people for the holidays until closer to Christmas, so I wasn't able to make a single, bulk purchase. As a result, I never had a single cart that was anywhere close to the $49 minimum. It ended up being cheaper to buy individual items directly from the manufacturers than to purchase them a few at a time from Amazon. In the end, Amazon only sold me one item this last Christmas, whereas in prior years I've done the bulk of my shopping on the site.

We stopped using Prime because we were getting less value out of the service than what it cost (YMMV), then our shopping on Amazon dropped off a cliff when they jacked the minimum up to $49. I was beginning to suspect that I'd barely use the site any more, but with the minimum dropping back down again, they may actually attract some of our business again.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[olsmeister]

Just return the rest of the stuff. They'll eventually learn.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[afaiktoit]

I stopped buying from them also, I imagine a lot of people did and thus the change back

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[wbr1]

Do you drive 20 miles to go pick up a $3 jug of milk? Probably not, but if you have a larger list, it may be worthwhile to drive to a more distant store. Most add-on items are similar. Under $10 (most under $5). It is just not feasible to ship that for free by it self. The handling costs and even the deeply discounted shipping costs Amazon recieves would eat mor than the profit on an item that small.

It is not that hard to add items like that to your cart or a wishlist, then buy them all at once or on a larger order. All it takes is a little planning. Otherwise, local stores are good for impulse buys.

Caveat - I run an amazon 3rd party seller business.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

The discounts aren't even that good on Amazon anymore. I'm not sure if it is Amazon being such a dominant player now they don't feel they need to discount as much, or other retailers are catching up to amazon's discounts. Lately I've been finding prices at B&M shops and other online retailers that equal or even beat amazon prices.

I inherited some spare tools that my dad had back from the days when he bought a bunch of stuff off of Amazon because when they started selling power tools they had steep discounts. Nowadays the price is no better than just going to Menards.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the problem is they don't even give you the option to pay the shipping if you just wanted to receive that add on item. I've been in the same boat as well with their add on item shenanigans. Another retailer made that sale as I wasn't going to pad my cart to be able to purchase it when it was couple bucks shipping elsewhere.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

I buy lots of stuff from Amazon but have resisted Prime and probably will indefinitely. I almost ask for free shipping and then wait. I've noticed that Amazon's own delivery isn't quite as good as UPS yet - they do stuff like leave packages outside (this is a city apartment building) when nobody's home.

Lately I've been buying lots of used books from Amazon's network, so those aren't eligible for free shipping even with Prime.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[msauve]

"they don't even give you the option to pay the shipping if you just wanted to receive that add on item."

There's often a "buy from other sellers" choice, where you pay more but it's not Prime shipping.

Myself, I try to keep some things in a "future purchases" list, stuff I will be buying, but don't need soon. Like, right now I've got some stuff to buy related to camping next summer. So, if something comes up as an add-on, there's usually something I'd be buying anyway which I can add to the cart to make it work.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, "buy from other sellers" means you pay more and (1) have less confidence that you're not getting a shitty Chinese knock off and (2) have less recourse if you do get sent a crap product.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people probably did the same. I know I did.

I used to place an order on Amazon at least once a month. When it jumped to $50 minimum, I only placed maybe two orders in a year.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[John.Banister]

This would make a lot of sense to me, if the add-on item shipped free when I purchased any regular prime item that came from the same warehouse, but instead they tie it to a dollar amount purchased, which feels exactly like they're forcing me to play by rules I already bought a membership to avoid. What it makes me want to do is think of any add-on items I might want whenever I buy something like a TV that I know will ship in a separate box, or something like a micro-sd card that I know would ship in a little mailer if it wasn't for the 5 jars of spices that were all add-on items.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[John.Banister]

I buy power tools almost exclusively from Amazon. I don't expect amazing discounts, but I like the German ones, and Amazon is my only reliable source for them.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[demonlapin]

I don't shop at Amazon because it's cheaper - it's usually not much, if any. But it's much less work for me. Get online, check inventory, make sure it's in stock, drive twenty minutes each way, hunt for the item while in the store, wait in checkout line... if I don't need it right now, I can get online, click "place order", and it appears on my doorstep two days later. Huge time-saver for me, as my work is intermittent - I have lots of three-to-five-minute idle periods, which means I can get personal stuff done during the day, instead of wasting that time and having to invest even more after work.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[demonlapin]

Have your stuff delivered to a private mailbox facility (like a UPS Store), or to your place of work, if it's valuable. Every electronic item more complicated than an SD card that I order goes to the office. There's always someone to sign for it, it isn't accessible to thieves, and it's always climate-controlled.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the Amazon Visa card, which until recently gave 3% cash back on all Amazon purchases. Now it's even better: if you have Prime, you get 5% cash back. I spent just over $5,000 at Amazon last year, so the extra 2% would have just covered the $100 for Prime. I've only ever paid for Prime when it was on a special sale, but now that I'm getting more cash back, I don't care. I'll just renew at regular price and enjoy the essentially free benefits.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Slashdot Junky]

I think Amazon has enough people defaulting now to them as their only [online] retailer and looking no where else for better deals. They can sell for higher pricing to people not looking elsewhere. This has come from the major shift to online shopping and their sheer dominance in the space. I certainly check their site first. It has also been helped along by the belief that so many have that they are getting free two day shipping through Prime. For those not utilizing the other features of Prime such as streaming TV programming, shipping has been prepaid and is, thus, not actually free until enough purchases have been made over the membership year. In my experience, Prime pricing often is enough higher that the so-called free is even less so. They've exposed their pricing pseudo-scam by showing all of the other sellers along side their pricing.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Slashdot Junky]

Plus, you have that $119 per year Prime membership that you want to take advantage of.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it there aren't any Amazon Lockers nearby. That's my preferred location to have things shipped that aren't going to my parents' house. It's kind of slick, the delivery guy drops it off and I come by at my convenience and enter or scan the code and the appropriate door opens on its own. It's located at a grocery store, so it's open all night.

I'm avoiding Amazon increasingly because I'm concerned about the lack of competition. Amazon doesn't appear to be breaking any laws, but their sheer size makes them a threat to the market. So, for the most part, I avoid buying from them unless it's something that is excessively heavy or expensive to ship, then I have my mother order it with her prime account.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[hairyfeet]

That is the same reason the wife and I have been using Walmart for our online shopping, as it often has prices the same or less than Amazon, cheaper shipping and as a nice bonus a full 2/3rds of the items we purchased last holiday had a "free ship to store" option with many having same day or next day pickup.

Maybe now that Amazon have lowered the shipping we might do more shopping there...then again Walmart recently lowered their free shipping minimum to $25 and most small items we can get free shipping to our local Walmart so I don't have to come up with a bunch of stuff to put in the cart when I just need a flash stick or MicroSD card.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would I live 20 miles from any place that sells milk? Thats the question you should be asking.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this $119 nonsense. I pay $50. Have for years.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

They do have a bunch of lockers in my city, but none in my neighborhood. If they did, I'd probably use it.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to add an additional $17 worth of stuff I didn't really want or need

Yes, it's annoying, but I keep a rather large list of things in the "Saved for later" part of my cart that I can browse through to add back into the cart. This way, I'm not adding things I don't really want to the cart, but actually things I was on the fence about anyway.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[AmiMoJo]

If Amazon carried more stuff then I'd get Prime and do this all the time, even though their prices are not very competitive with physical shops on many items.

The problem is they don't carry a lot of the things I need, especially food. Heavy stuff is often excluded from free delivery too. You have to order a hell of a lot of stuff to make Prime worthwhile.

Supermarkets are often better in that sense, although I've found that the tend to give you the stuff that is out about to go out of date or don't tell you that they ran out of and item and substitute something stupid. If Amazon could just partner with a quality supermarket I think they could cover 90% of my shopping needs.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

They did this after Walmart announced their Shipping Pass 2.0

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[mjwx]

I don't shop at Amazon because it's cheaper - it's usually not much, if any. But it's much less work for me. Get online, check inventory, make sure it's in stock, drive twenty minutes each way, hunt for the item while in the store, wait in checkout line... if I don't need it right now, I can get online, click "place order", and it appears on my doorstep two days later. Huge time-saver for me, as my work is intermittent - I have lots of three-to-five-minute idle periods, which means I can get personal stuff done during the day, instead of wasting that time and having to invest even more after work.

I tend to use Amazon because they actually have the products I'm after.

I needed bags for a vacuum cleaner, not a single supermarket or homewares store in 10 miles had them, but Amazon prime had them for less than 6 quid. I'm not even sure if a store beyond 10 miles had them. Prime delivery is 1 day and they delivered on a Sunday... but seriously, being a member of the 20 MPG club means that driving 10 miles there and back is 6 quid on it's own.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[XxtraLarGe]

Under $10 (most under $5). It is just not feasible to ship that for free by it self.

Yeah, but you're ignoring 2 points: 1) I already paid $119 for a Prime membership, which is supposed to give you free 2-day shipping and 2) I'd be willing to pay shipping for a low cost item, but that is not an option with "Add-on Items".

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[tlhIngan]

Do you drive 20 miles to go pick up a $3 jug of milk? Probably not, but if you have a larger list, it may be worthwhile to drive to a more distant store. Most add-on items are similar. Under $10 (most under $5). It is just not feasible to ship that for free by it self. The handling costs and even the deeply discounted shipping costs Amazon recieves would eat mor than the profit on an item that small.

It is not that hard to add items like that to your cart or a wishlist, then buy them all at once or on a larger order. All it takes is a little planning. Otherwise, local stores are good for impulse buys.

Does amazon not let you do the pre-order trick?

Pre-order something - preferably something far out in the future (or no specified release date). Then add all those items to your cart. Check out. Once you get all the addons, cancel the preorder.

Heck, I've done the "order something that will no longer be available" or "order something already cancelled" which works as well. Given Nintendo recently cancelled a lot of Wii U stuff, there's a lot ow Wii U games that are NEVER coming out. Order those and you'll get your addon items without paying for something extra.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[raremediumwelldone]

Not to mention if you buy from the Walmart site you're going to get the actual thing you ordered. Not a "maybe it's real maybe it's a cheap knockoff that they allowed into their warehouse".

If you bought, oh let's say a 128 GB usb flash drive. If you bought it and got one of those "4 GB of real storage and then it overwrites itself over and over" fakies, Walmart would apologize and give you a proper one (and then investigate to figure out how the hell that happened).

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Reziac]

Same here. In fact what happened is that if Amazon was going to ding me for shipping, I promptly went off to eBay, located the same item (usually from the same seller!!) offered with free shipping, and after a few iterations stopped bothering with Amazon entirely.

So yeah... stop trying to make your profit on shipping, make the threshold realistic for smaller purchases, and you'll get me back.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but you aren't getting anything for free or did you forget about the ridiculously high APR on the Amazon Visa card?

My credit union MasterCard has a 5% APR, the Amazon Visa is 15% to 23% and 25% for cash advance.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather pay more on Amazon than ever use eBay. eBay doesn't give a guarantee like Amazon does, so you can get ripped off without any recourse. Amazon's top notch customer service and A-Z guarantee is why I shop there.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Obfiscator]

It's free when you never carry a balance (automatic payment every month in full) or take a cash advance. Might not work for everyone, but maybe the GP is one of them.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[atrex]

Google Shopping is often enough just as easy to find the lowest price for a product and do so efficiently, though it will depend somewhat on the site that has the lowest price. Most sites seem to accept paypal these days, which is a good way to keep from plugging in your credit card information on sites that you don't trust.

Re:And, I might start buying more from them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's free when you never carry a balance (automatic payment every month in full)

Which defeats the purpose of a credit card.

or take a cash advance

Cash advance on the Amazon Visa is 25%. It says so right on their site.

Might not work for everyone, but maybe the GP is one of them.

I guess if all he's doing is buying inexpensive items or is rich and can afford to pay off thousands of dollars before his grace period ends each month, then yeah. For most people it's a rip-off.

what a coincidence!

[Thud457]

Walmart's started advertising free two-day shipping with no membership required.

Not that you should be buying cheap crap from China from Walmart. For that, go to Harbor Freight.

Re:what a coincidence!

[ColdWetDog]

Harbor Freight doesn't sell dog food. Or, if it did, I wouldn't buy it from them.

Walmart just recently dropped it's $49 'Shipping Pass' program. And finally figured out that shipping dog food to Alaska via Fed Ex didn't make a ton of sense. Unfortunately.

Was pretty cool while it lasted.

Re:what a coincidence!

[rmdingler]

Walmart recently ditched its Prime competitor, shipping pass, that offered free two day shipping for $49... half the cost of a Prime membership.

They also recently purchased online retailer Jet (for $3 billion cash and $300 million in stock) to compete with the Amazon juggernaut.

Amazon has fended off the other giant retailer very effectively, thus far.

Re:what a coincidence!

[Nethead]

My wife found 30 lb buckets of kitty litter for $9.99 shipped from Jet one day. We ordered 6 of them. They put the buckets in boxes with padding. Now my mailman isn't speaking to me.

Re:what a coincidence!

[ShanghaiBill]

Walmart recently ditched its Prime competitor, shipping pass, that offered free two day shipping for $49... half the cost of a Prime membership.

But Amazon Prime gives you a lot more than just free shipping. You also get free movies, ebooks, etc. Even if you just get Prime for the movies, it is cheaper than Netflix.

Re:what a coincidence!

[Woldscum]

But I don't care about or use the Music and Movie crap. Prime is $99 a year. Why not offer the old $49 a year shipping only option again? I started my prime account in the beginning 1998.

Re:what a coincidence!

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you drop that useless apostrophe? You should figure out that it's means it is and doesn't make any sense.

Re:what a coincidence!

[phantomfive]

I've never found a free movie I wanted to watch on Amazon Prime. YMMV.

Re:what a coincidence!

[phantomfive]

Prime is $99 a year. Why not offer the old $49 a year shipping only option again?

IF you really want to know, it's because at its original price, Prime wasn't cost effective.

I started my prime account in the beginning 1998.

Prime wasn't around until ~2005, you must have been thinking of something different.

Re:what a coincidence!

[ArylAkamov]

Not that you should be buying cheap crap from China from Walmart. For that, go to Harbor Freight.

For that, go to Harbor Freight.

go to Harbor Freight.

Harbor Freight.

NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN!

Re:what a coincidence!

[Anonymous Coward]

you do write thank you notes and give little gifts (a $20 subway gift card or similar) to your letter carrier and other service workers you take advantage of every year.. don't you?

Re:what a coincidence!

[Anonymous Coward]

Walmart came first. Read your news in the right order.

Re:what a coincidence!

[drinkypoo]

service workers you take advantage of

What? They should be glad they have a job, especially as poorly as the USPS performs.

Re:what a coincidence!

[Anonymous Coward]

Most consumer tools are cheap crap from china. With Harble Fright you're just cutting out the middle man and aren't paying for the brand label.

That said, you can get good stuff out of China. It's just not cheap any more - But it is MUCH less expensive than the sturdy old tools of yor. (Rather modern engineering lets you get damn good performance and reliability out of mass produced equipment)

There are dozens of youtube channels where guys just take apart stuff that gets made in china. Electronics to tools to whatever - And you know what? Every one of them. EVERY single one is surprised in the increase in quality. The stuff coming from China gets better and every 6 months or so there is a noticeable generational difference.

It's not just the quality control. There is some remarkably clever shit coming down. Doing more with less. Integrated packages. New components with higher tolerances. - LED light bulbs for a buck and a half shipped that will last 5 years and use 1/100th the power that an incandescent will. (Capacitive dropper, chip-on-glass LED module)

Ridiculous Slashdot story

[Bryan Ischo]

This is one of the lamest Slashdot articles I have ever seen. In what way is this at all news for nerds? And in what way is this any more news worthy than 10,000 other random news items of day? What about if Walmart has a one-day sale on Nintendo games. Should we get a Slashdot headline article for that?

msmash is not a competent Slashdot editor. I'm going to give Slashdot some feedback here.

Re:Ridiculous Slashdot story

[downright]

Amazon Quietly Lowered Its Free Shipping Minimum (for Star Trek shit) to $35

  problem solved. :-)

Re:Ridiculous Slashdot story

[uvajed_ekil]

Amazon Quietly Lowered Its Free Shipping Minimum (for Star Trek shit) to $35

problem solved. :-)

Can we get it on that for the good stuff (Star Wars shit)?

Re:Ridiculous Slashdot story

[Aighearach]

How much feedback do we have to leave to get free shipping?

Re:Ridiculous Slashdot story

[rsmith-mac]

It's a holiday in the US today. There's not a heck of a lot going on otherwise...

Re:Ridiculous Slashdot story

[Raenex]

This is one of the lamest Slashdot articles I have ever seen.

You must be new here.

Re:Ridiculous Slashdot story

[Anonymous Coward]

Last night's terrorist attack in Sweden was news, but maybe not news for nerds.

Re:Ridiculous Slashdot story

[taustin]

Yeah, but Doctor Who is still full price.

Re:Ridiculous Slashdot story

[Anonymous Coward]

Most stories about Amazon, any Elon Musk company, or IBM are paid placement here.

Re: Ridiculous Slashdot story

[Type44Q]

Don't be stupid; Musk doesn't need to pay for PR.

Re:Ridiculous Slashdot story

[Patent Lover]

Correct. We should instead be posting articles about douchebags like this: https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Re:Ridiculous Slashdot story

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, man. It's almost like.... like you should do better yourself! Right????

Go on, boy! You can do it! Go on! ....fuckwit.

Re: Ridiculous Slashdot story

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still trying to buy the NES classic console. So yes, I would like a story about Walmart having a sale on the NES.

Re:Ridiculous Slashdot story

[AmiMoJo]

Stories like this are a Slashdot tradition, an opportunity to moan about a big company and suggest impractical alternatives.

Personally I do all my shopping on the Dark Web via TOR, only using GNU certified Free Software (primarily the Lynx plug-in for EMACS) on PC-BSD. On an Amstrad CPC-464.

I ordered a lemon from Amazon once, but when I squeezed it only a few millilitres of juice came out and it tasted terrible so I tried to return it. Turned out it was some kind of lemon shaped sex toy and the "juice" was a mixture of battery acid and anal lubricant designed to produce large volumes of santorum.

No way I'm ordering anything from them again.

Responce to Walmart lowering theirs

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple weeks back I was pricing stuff and did an order from walmart.com(often much better prices for food items); noticed walmart did the same, lowered free shipping with orders of $35 or more...

They often price match each other in this way, walmart was the instigator(good on them).

Why this makes /. or news?!!?

Except Canada

[phorm]

Here they were initially $25, then went up to $35 (not higher). They haven't gone back down to $25 thus far.

I also can't seem to do anything without being bombarded with "Have you tried Prime" messages constantly.

The decline in online stores

[MobyDisk]

I see a bit of a decline in online stores coming soon, not limited just to Amazon, because they have pushed the consumer too far. Here is why:

1. They are selling too much low-quality crud:
There are classes of items I can no longer buy online, because I have a 50/50 chance of getting a product other than what I actually ordered. Many e-commerce sites are copying the Amazon model of putting items on their sites, even if they aren't products the company sells directly. I can't buy USB cables, batteries, flash memory cards, or really any OEM parts online any longer. Even if the Amazon or Newegg store says it is an actual Samsung product, odds are good that I will actually get is a rip-off. I bought a rustproof aluminum part from Lowes, only to find it was actually iron so it rusted out. Now I find the same phony part at Sears.com. But it isn't actually a Sears product and it isn't in their stores.

2. They are no longer the cheapest deal in town
Several years ago I just went to Amazon for anything and everything, and just assumed it was the cheapest. That's no longer true. Even without shipping, I can usually find the item cheaper somewhere else. I'm even finding retail stores are competing positively on price. Now, this isn't true for electronics by any means, but see point #1 above. I'd rather pay $50 for 4000mAh a OEM battery at BestBuy than $10 for a clone that's 2500mAh but says 4000mAh on the case.

3. No longer tax-free
The tax-free days are over.

4. Shipping costs
Shipping costs are increasing.

Re:The decline in online stores

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep and pretty much nobody did because it was a huge hassle to track and calculate for yourself and the retailers weren't reporting the sales to the relevant taxing authority anyways.

I live in a state without an income tax and I'm not even sure where I would go to get the forms to pay the use taxes even if I were inclined to pay. The local sales tax being over 10%, it's kind of hard to find motivation to pay when it winds up on the other side of the state subsidizing farmers that are too lazy and cheap to pay their own way.

Re:The decline in online stores

[Your.Master]

These online stores were popular in regions that collected the tax. That tax is now being collected per the law that was always there but was previously applied in an impossible way, won't change that.

Low-quality ripoff stuff is something that will damage them, I agree with that and have run into some of that BS lately. However, shipping affects non-online too, and "cheapest deal in town" is just market competition at work.

Re:The decline in online stores

[mjwx]

With Amazon, its not about the cost but the selection and convenience.

I live in the UK.

If I need something but don't need it right away (I.E. 90% of non-food items), it isn't necessarily much more expensive for the item at a store. The problem is that stores will only stock one or two brands and it takes time for me to get it. Not to mention the fuel I use going to the shop, every mile is another 30p to the price. However it's not even that.

The left low beam bulb went pop on my car yesterday. The selection at Halfords was limited to Halfords brand bulbs at £5 each, Amazon had OSRAM bulbs for £15 a pair with Prime. Even Euro Car Parts only had Chinese brand for £8 a pair or Phillips for £30. So I ordered the As it stands I've got the bulbs sitting on my desk as I type.

I got a better quality bulb than Halfords even offered and I didn't have to drive to the nearest ECP (which is a 3 mile detour though heavy traffic on my way home). OTOH, I needed a Molex to SATA power adaptor the other week, It was faster to drive to the nearest Currys and pay £4 for it (although parking was so shocking there, I may as well have walked).

Amazon isn't for cheap chinese crap any more (you've got Ebay and Alibaba for that), Amazon is for products you used to find in B&Q and Halfords before they all decided selling Chinese crap with UK pricetags. That being said, if I want 20 SATA cables, Amazon is as good a place as any.

Re:The decline in online stores

[Anonymous Coward]

Shipping costs are increasing? Ummm, the whole point of article is that Amazon's shipping costs are DECREASING. And yea, I get that it's probably all built in to the prices -- but still, I think your kinda missing the point....

Re:The decline in online stores

[Anonymous Coward]

That $50 battery you buy at BestBuy is made in the same factory in China that made the $10 one. Similar to how Dell and Apple computers are both made by Foxconn.

Re:The decline in online stores

[MobyDisk]

Not always. But being made in the same factory doesn't mean it is the same product.

Here are some differences between the "real" product and the "after hours" product made in the same factory:
* May have lower capacity. Sometimes it labeled as such, but other times it is labeled as having the same capacity.
* May have skipped QA testing.
* Will not have a warranty. Sometimes they have no serial number, or they all have the same serial number.

Also, I can return a poor quality product to Best Buy more easily than some random Amazon or Newegg seller. And I can rate it poorly on Best Buy, thus discouraging future sales. But making a poor rating on Amazon against FlyByNightCompany74 won't discourage anyone. Once they rack-up enough bad reviews they drop the product and start a new listing for what is essentially the same item, or start a whole new seller.

I don't want free shipping

[The Cisco Kid]

Its not really free, you're still paying for it - The cost is just built into the product prices.

I want to PAY the market cost, for MY CHOICE of shipping method and carrier.

And I want to be able to specify that choice, and verify the pricing, BEFORE I enter a credit card number or any other financial info, and even without having to "log in" first. And I definitely don't want my card number stored from one purchase to the next, partly because I use disposable numbers, but also because for EACH PURCHASE I want positive control over the transaction. Its the same reason I keep my wallet in my pocket until the cashier has rung up my total at a brick&mortar.

When Amazon offers that, then it will be news worth reading.

Re:I don't want free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to PAY the market cost, for MY CHOICE of shipping method and carrier.
I think it is actually better the newer way. I remember the days of 1 dollar items and 50 dollars s&h. Which price did they advert? You bet it was the 1 dollar one. It has oddly leveled the pricing field and made things more easily comparable.

Re:I don't want free shipping

[Obfuscant]

Its the same reason I keep my wallet in my pocket until the cashier has rung up my total at a brick&mortar.

Then don't go to a gas station in the US. Almost all of them in this area have gone to a "pre-pay" mode, where they think you must be a criminal who will drive away without paying unless they make you pay first. Of course, when you want to fill up, you have to guess how much it will take. If you guess low, you don't get a fill. If you pay too much, you have to trust them to give you the excess back.

I stopped at one such station the other day (because the Shell in town that doesn't pull this crap was closed already) and walked inside, expecting that they would realize I wasn't going to drive off if I was inside the store. Nope. After about five minutes of waiting for gas, and telling the checkout girl I was waiting on pump 2, the attendant walks back in and tells me he isn't going to pump anything until I pay.

A pox on such people.

Re:I don't want free shipping

[BradleyUffner]

Then don't go to a gas station in the US.
Almost all of them in this area have gone to a "pre-pay" mode, where they think you must be a criminal who will drive away without paying unless they make you pay first.

What US are you talking about? I haven't had to pre-pay for gas in PA, MD, NY, or VA in over 15 years.

Re:I don't want free shipping

[Obfuscant]

What US are you talking about? I haven't had to pre-pay for gas in PA, MD, NY, or VA in over 15 years.

Oregon. Are you paying in cash or credit?

Re:I don't want free shipping

[sgunhouse]

Here in OH, you only have to pre-pay on pumps that are farther from the booth/store. Or if you drive one of those big dually pickups with two tanks that hold 50 gallons between them. Otherwise, you press the Pay inside button, fill it up, and go inside to pay - some people even drive from the pump to the store before paying.

Re:I don't want free shipping

[lgw]

Oregon, land of mandatory full service, where they don't even trust you to pump your own gas?

Re:I don't want free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the Land of the Free.

Re:I don't want free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

In NY here, it is technically not "pre-pay", but you must present your card first and a hold is placed to ensure that you actually have enough available for the transaction to be settled afterwards. A few stations advertise that they don't place a hold.

Re:I don't want free shipping

[Obfuscant]

Oregon, land of mandatory full service,

ROTFL. You don't know anything about Oregon.

Re:I don't want free shipping

[lgw]

Oh, my mistake - as of last summer you can pump your own gas in rural counties, at night. Freedom!

in other words..

[Anonymous Coward]

$10.99 monthly prime for occasional shoppers is doing better than expected. we're going to try lowering the normal 'free shipping' threshold to see if that conversion rate sticks, so we don't look like complete and absolute crooks to the casual browser.

i will admit, i have used the monthly prime, and configure to cancel right away, the couple times i've wanted to purchase from there since they started that option -- but only because the $10.99 was comparable to or cheaper than what i would have paid for 'oh gawd don't send it through the regular mail' shipping option. i have yet to actually use prime for anything other than the shipping.

Bezos will never get to Mars at this rate

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, $50 is not too much to save the planet. Amirite?

"Quietly Reduced"

[Anonymous Coward]

As every news agency picks it up and advertises it over the weekend. How about Amazon made a PR announcement to major news agencies saying they have dropped their prices but asked them to label it as a surprise. Now you, the shopper, can be surprised as well!

No such thing as free advertising in the PR world unless it's negative.

The bad part of this for Seattle...

[Anonymous Coward]

is that we can't watch streaming video since, for example, I have a dial-up modem at home that only connects at 26.4k since there a universal SLIC between me and the CO, so we can't take advantage of Amazon's streaming video that they offer with Amazon Prime. I know even a lot of their employees can't do that since over a fourth of the people that live in my building now work for Amazon.

Re: The bad part of this for Seattle...

[Anonymous Coward]

In my apartment building, we're stuck with dialup. Amazon's offer of streaming video is not compelling since we can't use it.

Re: The bad part of this for Seattle...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously saying your apartment has no hookups for cable tv where you could have a cable modem installed? If true, I would be using a mifi device on whatever the cheapest cell provider was in the area rather than suffering dial up speeds.

I doubt slashdot would even load on dialup. or it would take half an hour to load the front page if it does.

Re: The bad part of this for Seattle...

[Anonymous Coward]

This. It also doesn't help their own employees since the vast majority of them don't have connections fast enough to stream.

Re:The bad part of this for Seattle...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a dial-up modem at home...

A lot of us do here. 26.4 kbps download sucks.

Two questions for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't 35 Canucks worth about 0.018 US cents these days?

Did you notice how much of a faggot your illegitimate son of Fidel Castro PM looked like when seated next to the God-Emperor?

captcha : kiting

Re: Two questions for you

[Anonymous Coward]

He was smiling because Ivanka was giving him a handjob under the table.

Not so hot for international shipping

[ukoda]

Sounds like good news if you live in the USA but Amazon are still at a disadvantage for international shipping. I can get stuff shipped from China to New Zealand for free, even stuff costing a couple of dollars but anything I get shipped from Amazon is really expensive, if they will even ship outside the USA, most don't. As a result I usually try to buy from China first and only try Amazon if what I want can't be source from China.

From what I have heard the Chinese government is effectively subsidising the shipping costs in many cases and that is probably the core reason US suppliers can not compete. From a consumer point of view the only downside is that it is very slow to arrive, but then again Amazon's cheapest shipping options are just as slow.

Re:Not so hot for international shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't buy from a Chinese site if they paid me.

It's not that I don't trust them... No, wait, that's exactly it. I don't trust them. I rank them just about equal in trust level to no-rep randos on eBay. And honestly, I don't see any way China (and by that, I mean both their government and their businesses) could fix that.

Every perception I have of China is that they'll cut a corner to make a buck, give in to corruption and/or coercion, and generally trade their name for a cheeseburger. They make Walmart look scrupulous and decent. And I respect the toilet paper on sale there more than I respect Walmart.

Re:Not so hot for international shipping

[LostInTaiwan]

Sorry to break the news to you. US tax payers, like you and me, are subsidizing the packages shipped via the postal service from China :(

http://fortune.com/2015/07/03/...

One of the core reasons why US manufacturer's can't complete is that our tax policy favors gains from the speculative market, ie real estate and stock market, over the actual manufacturing of products. Another core reason is that the American consumers simply wants cheap products made in an authoritarian country that is actively competing with us militarily and economically, with the goal of becoming the dominate power in the world.

At the end, we only have ourselves to blame. We voted for the politicians who set fiscal policies that decimated our manufacturing base, and we simply like to buy cheap crap from China.

Keep this up, and China will bankrupt us in the coming arms/space race, much like how we did it to the USSR.

Re:Not so hot for international shipping

[ukoda]

Thanks for the link, your post needs voted up as informative. It does explain why you are at a shipping cost disadvantage. If that was fixed you still need to fix the attitude of most USA based sellers who only ship inside the USA. I assume the logic is the local USA market is big enough and international customer are too much hassle or risk.

Does home Internet in Seattle really still suck?

[tepples]

I have a dial-up modem at home that only connects at 26.4k since there a universal SLIC between me and the CO

I know Seattle has had serious problems with home Internet speeds in the past due to some "director's rule" about rights of way that was unfriendly to tenants and neighbors of absentee landlords and neighbors of vacant lots. But I thought the rule was changed at the end of 2014, opening the door for CenturyLink to deploy gigabit fiber. Did it not reach your home?

No they didn't

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been like that for weeks (at least) and it's plainly displayed.

Prime is starting to suck

[uvajed_ekil]

I'm a Prime subscriber (for now), so I get free shipping on lots of stuff already, with no $35 minimum. But am I the only one whose "guaranteed" 2-day shipping often takes 3-4 days? I can't figure out how they guarantee their "guaranteed" delivery dates, since they miss the mark so often then do nothing for me in return. This didn't used to be the case.

Am I being scammed if I subscribe for the 2-day shipping but barely ever use any other Prime features? I asked a chat rep recently about all their failed 2-day deliveries, and after about 30 minutes of me whining all he would do is say "Sorry, I'll have the shipping department look into it." Right. I finally got pissed off and told him a friend got a free month of Prime after complaining about the same thing, and only then did he offer me the same thing.

Am I missing something about their guarantee, or do I have to bitch and moan every time a late package costs me money? Will they limit this, and do they compensate you in some other way? Last time they sent my package out a day late and the chat rep blamed the carrier for the delay, which I knew was bogus. I can usually wait for personal stuff, but an extra day or two for work-related items can cost me money and be a genuine problem.

Re: Prime is starting to suck

[Anonymous Coward]

All your mom to take care if it, little snowflake.

Re: Prime is starting to suck

[Anonymous Coward]

About 40-50% of my prime 2 day orders take 3-4 days. I find this usually happens based upon the time of day you order (magic cutoff time) and if a sunday is involved.

What really is bothersome is when they lose a prime order. And by they i mean the carrier, whoever that may be. You have to wait a few days past the expected delivery day at which point you can reorder, which restarts that 2-4 day delivery clock again. I have had UPS lose orders and it has taken 10-12 days before i get the replacement in hand. In these cases, you should be entitled to some sort of credit.

Re: Prime is starting to suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Also forgot to mention the carrier has a lot to do with it. UPS is decent. Amazon never sends stuff to me fedex. Amazon internal logistics is always on time and faster than UPS.

Post office sucks ass. Theyre always late and thats on the rare occasion that one of their rat bastard employees doesnt steal my order. Ive become convinced thieves go work for the post office to steal electronics. I had over $1500 worth of stuff stolen while in transit via usps in 2016. Slightly less in 2015. I doubt the stuff gets lost. Nothing i send or receive ever goes missing with usps unless it is expensive electronics. Fortunately, as the buyer, i am not out anything. Sucks for the sellers though.

YMMV of course.

Re:Prime is starting to suck

[denbesten]

Am I missing something about their guarantee, or do I have to bitch and moan every time a late package costs me money? Will they limit this, and do they compensate you in some other way?

Yes, No, Yes and No. These and other questions can be answered on their help pages. Open a chat with them and say "Order # xxxx was due xx/xx/xxxx, but has not yet arrived. The shipper is now estimating the due date as xx/xx/xxxx . Would you please issue me a prime extension for the missed guarantee? Thanks so much." Takes about 5 minutes and "earns" me a tax-free $8.25 off of a bill I would otherwise pay.

Re:Prime is starting to suck

[dgatwood]

Actually, what I would do is check with the carrier, and if it claims to be delivered but isn't, contact Amazon and ask them to overnight a replacement. They'll usually overnight products at no charge if you're annoyed enough to write them to complain about shipping delays even if you're not a Prime member.

Re: Prime is starting to suck

[taustin]

In these cases, you should be entitled to some sort of credit.

Yeah, but from the carrier, not Amazon (who can't control it). Unfortunately, you're not the carrier's customer.

Good luck with that.

Re:Prime is starting to suck

[Obfuscant]

They'll usually overnight products at no charge if you're annoyed enough to write them

I went through that process for a $25 item that they said would arrive Monday but didn't. I would have preferred some money back on the order, but I wound up having the hassle of returning one of the original when it finally did show up. "Keep it to make up for the inconvenience" would have been nice.

As to the original question: Amazon has two big outs they use when promising "second day" delivery. First, if the delivery is via USPS, they consider the item delivered when it arrives at the local post office, not at your house. And they often promise "second day by EIGHT PM", which means that any delivery to a commercial address where the receiving dept. goes home at 5PM is actually at least three day. And they know when an address is commercial.

Re: Prime is starting to suck

[Obfuscant]

Yeah, but from the carrier, not Amazon (who can't control it).

Amazon knows very well it cannot make the delivery promise in many cases using the delivery method they choose, so yes, they do control it. You know they control it because they will often mark the shipment as "delivered" when you track it, even though it doesn't arrive until the next day.

Re: Prime is starting to suck

[uvajed_ekil]

All your mom to take care if it, little snowflake.

All your English to make sense, bloated pancake.

Re: Prime is starting to suck

[uvajed_ekil]

In these cases, you should be entitled to some sort of credit.

Yeah, but from the carrier, not Amazon (who can't control it). Unfortunately, you're not the carrier's customer.

Good luck with that.

In the one incident I alluded to specifically, Amazon took over a full day to ship the item out, then incorrectly blamed the carrier. And I am indeed a USPS customer, though they are not to blame when Amazon takes too long to get things out of the warehouse. And perhaps they shouldn't offer a guarantee that they have no intention of backing.

Re:Prime is starting to suck

[uvajed_ekil]

Yes, No, Yes and No. These and other questions can be answered on their help pages. Open a chat with them and say "Order # xxxx was due xx/xx/xxxx, but has not yet arrived. The shipper is now estimating the due date as xx/xx/xxxx . Would you please issue me a prime extension for the missed guarantee? Thanks so much." Takes about 5 minutes and "earns" me a tax-free $8.25 off of a bill I would otherwise pay.

Thank you, but as I said, they seem very reluctant to issue any refund or extension, in my experience.

Re:Prime is starting to suck

[uvajed_ekil]

Actually, what I would do is check with the carrier, and if it claims to be delivered but isn't, contact Amazon and ask them to overnight a replacement. They'll usually overnight products at no charge if you're annoyed enough to write them to complain about shipping delays even if you're not a Prime member.

Thanks, but of all the times an Amazon delivery has been late, I've never had a case of them claiming it was delivered on time. They usually just say something like, "Sorry, the carrier was delayed," or, "Sorry, we'll look into it." The last time, they ended up issuing a one-month Prime extension, but only after too much whining. I did ask for a refund last time, since it was something I needed before a work deadline and had to scramble and buy a replacement locally, and they told me just to use the normal return process.

Online chat helpfulness seems spotty, with various reps much more reluctant than others to do anything that costs them money. Loosing subscribers and shoppers would cost them more, of course. Just my own experience here, which used to be excellent but has been much different over the last year or so.

Re:Prime is starting to suck

[uvajed_ekil]

First, if the delivery is via USPS, they consider the item delivered when it arrives at the local post office, not at your house. And they often promise "second day by EIGHT PM", which means that any delivery to a commercial address where the receiving dept. goes home at 5PM is actually at least three day. And they know when an address is commercial.

If they consider my post office my house, they're going to lose me for sure. I get the commercial address thing, since if they've delivered it to the address they really shouldn't be responsible for another company's internal package handling. But I don't have access to the back room of the post office, and they do not deliver to residential addresses after 5:00, unlike UPS. Hell, when they tried to blame USPS the last time, my package was still at a post office in another county on the night it was originally supposed to be delivered, because they took over 24 hours to send it out. I've ordered numerous times from Amazon over the past 5 or 6 years, and they used to always get things to me on time, but now it's become hit and miss.

Re: Prime is starting to suck

[taustin]

What I replied to was about the carrier losing the package. Which is clearly beyond Amazon's control. Try to pay attention.

Re: Prime is starting to suck

[taustin]

What I replied to was about UPS losing the package. Try to pay attention.

Re:Prime is starting to suck

[SvnLyrBrto]

What I've noticed is that about two years ago the reliability and consistency of Amazon's 2-Day "Guaranteed" shipping dropped dramatically. I used to have maybe one order a year arrive late. (And I shop on Amazon a lot... I probably average an order a week.) But in the last couple of years, I've been given so many of those "complimentary one-month prime membership extensions" that I'm not even sure when or, indeed, if I'll be billed again. And I've had more lost shipments replaced than I remember.

I think they must have renegotiated their contracts with the shippers for lower rates, but also with lower quality of service. Maybe it's cheaper for them to give out all those free months and replacement packages than it was to pay for better shipping in the first place? I'm not sure what els could have changed, anyway.

One thing that I have noticed though, is that shipping to business addresses is a LOT more reliable now than residential. And I have significantly fewer issues having switched to having most of my stuff to my office instead of home. I guess UPS, Fedex, Et al, are less inclined to fuck around wth businesses than with plebes.

Re:Prime is starting to suck

[AmiMoJo]

I found that I could keep a free trial of Prime going for months just by complaining every time and item look longer than guaranteed to arrive. In the UK it's next day delivery on Prime, and every time you complain about a late delivery they give you an extra month free.

I've done 5 month free stints that way, and when they expire if you just wait a few more months without buying anything they offer you another free trial.

Re:Prime is starting to suck

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been an Amazon customer since the year 2000 and only had 2 problems with orders, one arrived a day late and another was never delivered. That's out of hundreds of orders (43 in just the last 6 months.) The problems you are experiencing are due to your local carriers failing to deliver (FedEx, UPS, USPS.) Most likely UPS hand-offs to USPS or a local contracted delivery company. Take a look at the tracking information to verify where the delay occurred and file a complaint with the particular carrier that is delaying your packages. At best, the only thing Amazon can do is flag your account to not use a particular carrier if that carrier is consistently having problems.

Re:Prime is starting to suck

[dgatwood]

Usually in my neighborhood, if it says it is delivered (with the exception of "delivered to post office"), it means it got delivered to the wrong address. This usually results in it getting returned to sender after days or weeks, if at all. But your mileage may vary.

Economics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

They can afford to do this because Bezos is one of the richest men in the world and a true friend of all mankind.

Jet.com is gunning for them

[rsilvergun]

they're an eCommerce outfit formed by an ex-amazon guy. Got a lot of capital so they can spend a few years trying to beat Amazon at it's own game of loss leading and .0001% profit margins. It'd be nice if somebody managed to compete with Amazon. I'm not looking forward to a time when they're literally the only retailer in the world.

Re:Jet.com is gunning for them

[Anonymous Coward]

And they were bought by Walmart recently.

Re:Jet.com is gunning for them

[blindseer]

I'm seeing more and more competition from Amazon every day from brick and mortar stores improving their on-line presence. Amazon is great but in many cases I either want to see what I'm buying before I get it (think clothing and other items where how it looks is just as important as function) or, more likely, I want something right away and I can order something on-line to pick it up at a local store.

What I can do is shop online for something at home and then if I decide to buy then I can drive to the store to pick it up. If I decide I need to see how it looks in real life first before I buy then I can see if the item I want is in stock before I drive out to the store.

What is interesting is that even a local grocery chain is getting in on this. They offer home delivery on purchases now. If you buy over a certain amount they'll deliver for free. Amazon has been in on this market for a while, selling things like diapers and laundry detergent. What I see now is the grocery store getting in on this while also offering perishables for delivery. People might buy laundry detergent from Amazon but they aren't going to get ice cream from them any time soon.

I like Amazon and I'd buy from them again. What I find myself doing though is shopping on many other websites to compare prices, see who has something in stock, etc. Around here Best Buy had something of a captive market on electronics and their prices reflected that. Recently though they've had to compete with the likes of Amazon and, again, their pricing shows this. I've actually avoided Best Buy for a long time knowing I'd likely get ripped off. I've found myself shopping there again now that I can order on-line and pick up in the store. I will sometimes see a small premium in price for this convenience and I'll pay it if the convenience matches the price difference.

I guess one could say the price premium at Best Buy was always the cost of convenience since the nearest competition in a brick and mortar store meant an hour of driving. Calling someone on the phone to buy something and having it delivered in a couple days existed since there were telephones. What has changed though is that phones now fit in a pocket, and delivery times got shorter. This meant that brick and mortar stores have had to improve their online presence or go out of business, and online stores have to find a way to leverage this new speed in delivery to keep up.

If you aren't seeing this competition against Amazon then I suspect you are looking in the wrong places for it.

Re:Jet.com is gunning for them

[uvajed_ekil]

they're an eCommerce outfit formed by an ex-amazon guy. Got a lot of capital so they can spend a few years trying to beat Amazon at it's own game of loss leading and .0001% profit margins. It'd be nice if somebody managed to compete with Amazon. I'm not looking forward to a time when they're literally the only retailer in the world.

I've had a lot of luck with eBay, though I won't buy through them when I know I need something quick. I've never bought from Jet, nor do I know anyone who has, and they're owned by Walmart now, IIRC.

Not a Walmart fan, can't stand their website, and have never ordered from them for home delivery, admittedly. I did order online for store pickup three orfour times, and each time was a pain because the employees seemed clueless as to how to find my order and took a surprisingly long time. I wonder whether Newegg will continue to try to diversify their online sales, now that they've changed ownership, too. They've always been quick and reliable for me, though I've only ever ordered computer stuff.

Re:Jet.com is gunning for them

[Anonymous Coward]

they're an eCommerce outfit formed by an ex-amazon guy. Got a lot of capital so they can spend a few years trying to beat Amazon at it's own game of loss leading and .0001% profit margins. It'd be nice if somebody managed to compete with Amazon. I'm not looking forward to a time when they're literally the only retailer in the world.

You mean Walmart is gunning for them.
http://news.walmart.com/2016/09/19/walmart-completes-acquisition-of-jetcom-inc

Re:Jet.com is gunning for them

[Anonymous Coward]

most of their profits come from their cloud infrastructure which is starting to look old and in need of updates. so its the perfect time now for competition to emerge

There is no such thing as free shipping.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its all just word play and mind games.

Re:There is no such thing as free shipping.

[uvajed_ekil]

Its all just word play and mind games.

I suppose so, but when an online retailer offers an item at the same price as another retailer but offers included shipping, it does benefit you. And one of the big draws with Amazon is that they offer so many items with free/included/low-cost 2-day guaranteed shipping, which no one else does on the same scale. So call it a game if you like, but interpret it correctly rather than oversimplifying it and you'll see that not all "free" shipping is equal, or equally non-free.

Response to Walmart.com

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure it has nothing to do with Walmart offering free 2-day shipping on orders greater than $35, no membership required.... Under $35, no worries, $5.99.

Walmart also has a reputation for shipping things out promptly unlike Amazon. Amazon is fine if you have prime, but if you choose free shipping, there are times you may wait a week for your item to even ship.

Re:Response to Walmart.com

[Crashmarik]

I'm sure it has nothing to do with Walmart offering free 2-day shipping on orders greater than $35, no membership required.... Under $35, no worries, $5.99.

Walmart also has a reputation for shipping things out promptly unlike Amazon. Amazon is fine if you have prime, but if you choose free shipping, there are times you may wait a week for your item to even ship.

Bingo. Walmart also has the best customer service you will find.

Re:Response to Walmart.com

[uvajed_ekil]

I'm sure it has nothing to do with Walmart offering free 2-day shipping on orders greater than $35, no membership required.... Under $35, no worries, $5.99.

Walmart also has a reputation for shipping things out promptly unlike Amazon. Amazon is fine if you have prime, but if you choose free shipping, there are times you may wait a week for your item to even ship.

I can't speak to Walmart's rep for shipping promptly, but Amazon has been letting me down on that front way too often lately. I just can't stand Walmart's website, though I'll admit that when you search for something very specific they don't show you as much unrelated garbage as Amazon. I wish you could refine Amazon searches as tightly as eBay searches, since eBay doesn't seem so determined to advertize what they want you to see rather than just what you tell them you're looking for.

Re:Response to Walmart.com

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never heard of that happening with Prime. The regular free shipping items go into trucks and then depending upon how long it takes for the truck to fill, it might take a day or a week in order for it to ship out. It's how they offer that free shipping without having to charge more than they were if they would be charging for shipping.

It's one of those things like USPS priority mail being unverifiable that you just have to know about because it doesn't get communicated clearly to the customer.

Re:Response to Walmart.com

[drinkypoo]

Bingo. Walmart also has the best customer service you will find.

Did you just type that with a straight face? Wal-mart employees know fuck about shit. They're fucking useless. This does not differentiate them from the average retail employee in any way, but it's still true.

Re:Response to Walmart.com

[LunaticTippy]

I've been using Walmart online lately as I become more wary about Amazon's size. Their customer service is excellent. When I do in store pickup there is rarely a wait, returns are hassle free, heck even their extended warranty paid for a new bicycle when I wore the old one out.

I wouldn't dream of trying to get an employee to answer any questions beyond where a department is. However for my limited use they are doing a good job. It sure feels weird to have Walmart be the underdog, but up against Amazon I guess they are.

Re:Response to Walmart.com

[Crashmarik]

Sure they don't know crap about tech, that isn't their job. Their customer service job is resolving any problems you had with the purchase or goods shipped.

Re: And, I might start buying more from them again

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem. But if you offer pre-paid unlimited shipping (ie prime) don't complain about the users that aren't profitable.

Prime has become a "unlimited internet (hidden and undisclosed 200 GB and we cancel your service cap)" deal.

I won't buy prime because it's a raw deal (Canadians don't get anything but the shipping deal). But if I did I would want it to cover everything like Amazon wants me to believe.

Shipping charges on Amazon

[Kernel Kurtz]

or any other site are just part of the e-commerce shopping game.

Many things that say free shipping are not really so when you go to check out. And what is with $20 items with $150 shipping costs? Why even show that, do suckers really fall for it?

Caveat emptor applies to delivery too.

Re:Shipping charges on Amazon

[uvajed_ekil]

$20 items with $150 shipping charges, and non-free shipping advertised as free? I've had plenty of issues with them missing "guaranteed" delivery dates, but I've never seen what you're talking about. Are those through third-party sellers? I pretty much only use them for items they sell and ship themselves, or at least ones they handle the fulfillment on, and never run into that sort of problem.

Re:Does home Internet in Seattle really still suck

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK, CenturyLink has completed roll out of fiber in Seattle and Comcast is early stages on deploying their own fiber.

If the GP doesn't have any sort of broadband, he's chosen not to get it. Even before the recent upgrades, the worst case scenario was DSL at 1.5mbps. Which was an embarrassment, but definitely not the claimed 26.4k.

Also, for the purposes of streaming video, T-Mobile is pretty good around here. I haven't tried it with Prime, but it works well with the other streaming sites I've used.

Blink and miss it?

[ayesnymous]

You mean this was a temporary thing? Because it's still at $35 for me.

Re: And, I might start buying more from them again

[Anonymous Coward]

Prime in Canada now gives you the shipping and movies + Amazon original programming. Started in Jan I think.

Counterpoint

[mentil]

I made an Amazon.co.jp account just to preorder a Nintendo Switch (for some reason they're abundant in Japan). After (shipping (from Japan to USA) + duties/customs/export taxes, currency conversion fees etc.) ~= $18 the total was a few bucks less than if I'd bought one at a store down the street (if they weren't all sold out of preorders, that is.) I imagine the weak Yen is responsible for this. Oh and I get it 3 days after it's released. And I pay no sales tax (although my state does have a Use Tax so I pay a bit regardless.)

Indeed

[nospam007]

That's why I order lots of small stuff on Aliexpress, they even ship a single piece of underwear for free.

No More Price Adjustments--Rather Buy from Walmart

[Anonymous Coward]

Recently learned the hard way that if Amazon drops their price, they will no longer give any credit for it (and I spend a lot at AMZN). The item in question was the same price at Walmart, who also lowered their price. So, for now, I'd rather purchase from Walmart if it is available where I can easily return it.

Re:santorum

[amalcolm]

Had too look that one up .. wish I hadn't :(

Nice

[r1348]

Last year here in Italy they raised the limit from 19€ to 29€.

Reactionary

[Anonymous Coward]

They lost a lot of Prime subscribers when they upped the annual cost while giving new subscribers a big discount, they then upped the minimum for free shipping due to those former subscribers simply using their wishlist to wait until they had $50 worth of stuff to order, in a desperate move they caved in and offered Prime for a monthly subscription to try and gain back the loss of revenue as people shopped elsewhere. Now, they have finally caved in and reduced the minimum threshhold to try and cook the books to make things look rosy to the idiots that invest in their stock.

Slightly less assholy

[coinreturn]

When it was $25, I liked it. When it went to $35, I was peeved. When it went to $49, I thought, "What a bunch of assholes, just trying to get us to buy more Xmas shit!" Back down to $35 is the right direction. If they put it back at $25, I will buy a lot more from them.