'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.

Comments

Pantry

[mccalli]

Is there anyone on earth who understands their pantry thing? I mean, I can just go to Sainsbury's and order what I want, I don't have to start working out box sizes and filling them up or what have you.

Consum(er)ism

[vikingpower]

This is bitching and griping at a high level. You're a member of an affluent, Western society, with an income you can spend online; you can actually spend it on worthless gadgets like IoT ovens with a videocamera inside and an app, or dildos - or on valuable items like books. You'll get those items, worthless or valuable, delivered to your doorstep. Within days. What the fuck are you complaining about ?

The world is on fire and immersed in ignorance, but hey - dildo delivery delay must be two days, not an hour more.

And search is so gamified it's useless.

[Myself]

Prime has become worse than useless, and it's impossible to find what I want in the search anymore. It's dominated by endless clones of the same item with scarcely-distinguishable gibberish all-caps "names" that all white-label the same FBA and import products.

I've taken to shopping at eBay, which oddly enough, seems to have a more reliable experience and better dispute resolution. I've never had eBay threaten me when I open several disputes within a short time span, because they can look at my transaction history.

eBay has their own issues (shopping cart keeps getting slower, and slower, and slower...) but at least the rest of their offering is improving. They actually added a "group similar items" feature to combat the clones that're clogging Amazon.

Thanks for the reminder. I need to cancel Prime.

Re:And search is so gamified it's useless.

[Solandri]

I really think this is Amazon's biggest weakness. If some competing online shopping site comes around with a more effective search, I'd switch. It's why I still buy most of my computer components from Newegg instead of Amazon. Newegg's search works, and helps you easily eliminate products you're not looking for. (You just have to make sure to set Newegg as the seller to filter out all the crap reseller offerings.)