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'Amazon Prime is Getting Worse' (fastcompany.com)
Mark Wilson, writing for FastCompany magazine: That little Prime logo used to mean something. Now it feels like a ruse that lulls shoppers into a false sense of security, until they go to checkout and see a shipping arrival date far later than anticipated. This cuts through the greatest promise of Prime. It's not just the free, two-day shipping. It's that it's so reliable, you never have to think for more than a second about buying something. In this sense, Prime was constructed to be great for the consumer (so efficient) and great for businesses (mindless impulse shopping!). I've been a Prime member myself for over a decade, so I've come to expect that the rush of the holiday season will clog the arteries of Amazon's fulfillment centers and delivery services alike and make shipping less than reliable. But anecdotally, to me and many of the people I know and work with, this year, it feels worse than ever.
It doesn't help that we've seen a slow dilution of Prime itself over time, with the rise of Prime Pantry and Add-on Items. They force you to buy a minimum number of items to get the best deal, adding back the very psychic burden Prime had eliminated from the equation of online shopping in the first place. As a result, it can be hard to find true, two-day Prime items that aren't marked up to insane prices by third-party sellers. But Prime was still Prime. This holiday, I've noticed things that are in stock and labeled "Prime" have nonsensical shipping dates. I'm not alone in experiencing Shipping Shock. Complaints about slow Prime shipping abound across the internet. Quora literally has a thread asking, "Has Amazon slowed down their free shipping speed intentionally?" The "top answer" with 22,000 views is a customer rant about late shipments. Many others chime in to confirm the slowdowns, and offer conspiracy theories as to what could be going on.
It doesn't help that we've seen a slow dilution of Prime itself over time, with the rise of Prime Pantry and Add-on Items. They force you to buy a minimum number of items to get the best deal, adding back the very psychic burden Prime had eliminated from the equation of online shopping in the first place. As a result, it can be hard to find true, two-day Prime items that aren't marked up to insane prices by third-party sellers. But Prime was still Prime. This holiday, I've noticed things that are in stock and labeled "Prime" have nonsensical shipping dates. I'm not alone in experiencing Shipping Shock. Complaints about slow Prime shipping abound across the internet. Quora literally has a thread asking, "Has Amazon slowed down their free shipping speed intentionally?" The "top answer" with 22,000 views is a customer rant about late shipments. Many others chime in to confirm the slowdowns, and offer conspiracy theories as to what could be going on.
If you're tired of talking to their useless teenaged chat and phone staff, you might write a proper letter of complaint. Apparently the address is:
Jeff Bezos
Amazon.com
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
I can't say that it'll do any more good, but I've just cancelled my Prime membership and won't renew after too many failures on their part.
There should be a class-action suit against them for all their false guarantees.
Well, screw /. because I just lost my entire post by switching the format to plain text, so here's a summary:
Prime has other benefits, but they keep lowering them.
10+ year Prime member. Been buying since 98 when they sold books. Past 2 months I had packages 'lost' or 'damaged' in transit. Upon the 3rd complaint (I don't regularly complain at all, even when packages are late), they escalated me to a supervisor, at which point I had to explain that all the items that were lost/damaged in transit were the only items in the past few years that I've actually requested 2 day delivery for, and they were supposed to be delivered by *THEIR OWN DELIVERY COMPANY*.
So, I was close to being banned from Amazon for mistakes they made. They couldn't even replace the product (their own 4k Fire TV Box) because when it wasn't delivered, it was $50 than when I ordered it.
Mind you, I do roughly 400-700 orders per year with them (business and personal, and only when they are cheaper), as well as send them referrals through my site.
At my day career, we were (repeatedly) assured by one of their AWS reps that we wouldn't be charged for X services. 2 weeks later, we were billed several K.
They are really doing a great job of shooting themselves in the foot lately.
You certainly went around your ass to get to your elbow.
To close your account, go to Your Account from the top drop down on the main page:
Select 'Prime'
Select 'End Membership and Benefits' from the list on the left.
Confirm
No chat, no hassle.
the parent poster was talking about closing an amazon account, not ending prime membership. I just checked and the way you have to do it now is almost the same as the parent posters method. It is-
> select 'let us help you'...
> select 'help'...
> select 'need more help'...
> select 'contact us'...
> choose 'prime and more'...
> select section 'tell us more about your issue'
> choose dropdown 'select issue > update account information'
> choose dropdown 'select issue details > close my account'
> message: How would you like to contact us?
- options:
- 'email' button is greyed out and non-functional
- 'chat' button has text 'recommended' underneath
My wife bought a few of the kid's Christmas presents and they showed up on time. Last-minute I bought a heating pad for my mom that showed up right on time, and that was on Saturday. Beyond that my wife likes the shows on Prime Video, and I've been watching Mr Robot and Endeavor.
Last year I ordered a set of knives (that apparently you can ONLY find on Amazon for some weird reason) for Christmas but used the cheapo shipping to get a few Amazon gift cards. They all showed up well before Christmas.
I'm sure there have been problems but I haven't seen any.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.