Amazon Prime increasing rates (2 Viewers)

[Zack Lee]

With taxes, my yearly sub, which hit in Dec, was $131.34. And yeh, I have the Kindle app on my phone which is pretty awesome when I'm away from my Kindle. I read enough free books each year to easily make up for the extra $10 or so a year, and I don't use audible, I like to read in my own head, lol.

I prefer reading as well. I used audible to record books for trips and such. The kindle app is awesome. I used to get a lot of use out of the kindle fires but once I bought an iPad and found out the kindle app works just as well on those, I gave my latest kindle to another SR user. But there is nothing wrong with the Fire, it was more about the syncing options with my phone and Mac. I guess I haven't popped in to check out free options on kindle in a bit. But I am pretty much glued to prime for the shipping; unless they start increasing every year anyway.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I’m positive I’d spend more than that on Amazon shipping without Prime

 

[Optimus Prime]

Just an aside

It is amazing how far we’ve come regarding shipping

I’m sure many of us are old enough to remember the time when you ordered something from a catalog or from TV it took 6-8 weeks to get

Now it’s often two days and sometimes not even that long

There’s some things I can order from Amazon right now and it will be delivered by this evening

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Interesting article with a few good points. However, at some of those prices I would expect the writer's looking at third-party sellers who always sell at a higher price.

How Amazon Prime's $20 Price Increase Helped Me Save Over $1,000 a Year

When your business is sourcing supplies, it pays to consider all the options.

www.inc.com

 

[Zack Lee]

Interesting article with a few good points. However, at some of those prices I would expect the writer's looking at third-party sellers who always sell at a higher price.

How Amazon Prime's $20 Price Increase Helped Me Save Over $1,000 a Year

When your business is sourcing supplies, it pays to consider all the options.

www.inc.com

oh my lord. That is one of the worst written articles I have ever seen. That’s one of the worst written articles I’ve ever seen.

 

[FL_Saint]

My wife and I discussed recently. We are staying with Prime for the foreseeable future. Yes, Amazon is sooooo eeeeviiiillllll. But I get my stuff quick and, let's be honest, the shows that have been produced for Amazon are better than the stuff on networks.

We got rid of all cable (including streaming cable) a few years ago. We have over the air, Netflix (might get rid of it), Paramount, Disney/Hulu/ESPN, HBOMax ("free" from AT&T) and Prime. So, $50 a month.

 

[itztime]

I do actually take Amazon into account when shopping online and I find their prices really aren't that great. I remember them being considerably cheaper than most online retailers. Now it seems the same or more. To say I don't know what I'm missing sounds really depressing to me.

I think I would miss it but I have to agree with jboss about prices now, Amazon has psyched us a bit and slowly has raised those prices to the same or above other online retailers. With the shortages to the pandemic, I was forced to shop around for items that were out on my monthly subscribe and save list. I found I could get most of those items cheaper than the subscribe and save, online @ Walmart, Sams, Target, etc. and that was factoring in the extra 15% savings, those retailers still beat Amazon out.

 

[DaveXA]

I think I would miss it but I have to agree with jboss about prices now, Amazon has psyched us a bit and slowly has raised those prices to the same or above other online retailers. With the shortages to the pandemic, I was forced to shop around for items that were out on my monthly subscribe and save list. I found I could get most of those items cheaper than the subscribe and save, online @ Walmart, Sams, Target, etc. and that was factoring in the extra 15% savings, those retailers still beat Amazon out.

While the prices might be the same, the difference is the convenience and free shipping on most items. I've tried some of the competition and their shipping aren't always free, and usually more limited. And normally the wait is longer. Also, I don't really get out to brick and mortar locations much these days.

Overall, shopping Amazon is mostly cheaper except for the big ticket items. For example, the Sony TV I bought was $200 cheaper through Costco than through the lowest priced similar offering through Amazon.

That's not always the case, but I always shop around before buying big ticket items.

 

[CapitalCitySaint]

I think I would miss it but I have to agree with jboss about prices now, Amazon has psyched us a bit and slowly has raised those prices to the same or above other online retailers. With the shortages to the pandemic, I was forced to shop around for items that were out on my monthly subscribe and save list. I found I could get most of those items cheaper than the subscribe and save, online @ Walmart, Sams, Target, etc. and that was factoring in the extra 15% savings, those retailers still beat Amazon out.

The other thing with Amazon is that you’re not always getting the real product and instead some knock off version. That’s why I only buy certain items from them.

 

[CapitalCitySaint]

FYI, Target has free shipping for all orders over $35. This is helpful for me so I can just buy what I need (detergent, lotion, whatever) without getting sucked into buying another $150 of crap I don’t really need that I get distracted by when I go to the actual store.

I usually get my order within 2 days for every day items like soap, tp, etc. If you order something like furniture, it can take a tad bit longer.

 

[DaveXA]

The other thing with Amazon is that you’re not always getting the real product and instead some knock off version. That’s why I only buy certain items from them.

This is true. Although I would add that the knock off items are a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes they work well, sometimes they don't. I bought some knockoff stove knobs a few months back because the old ones were stripped and would fall off. It's been 4 months and knock on wood, they're still as good as new. It would have cost me $120 for new factory originals, but I got the knockoffs for $30. In this case, the price difference was just too much, but the cheaper ones worked well enough.

That said, this wouldn't be the same for a lot of products where you wouldn't want a knockoff.

 

[CapitalCitySaint]

This is true. Although I would add that the knock off items are a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes they work well, sometimes they don't. I bought some knockoff stove knobs a few months back because the old ones were stripped and would fall off. It's been 4 months and knock on wood, they're still as good as new. It would have cost me $120 for new factory originals, but I got the knockoffs for $30. In this case, the price difference was just too much, but the cheaper ones worked well enough.

That said, this wouldn't be the same for a lot of products where you wouldn't want a knockoff.

Yeah that was my point. If you know it’s a knock-off and that’s what you want, fine. But I don’t want to be mislead to buying, for example, a specific brand of shampoo and then get it & it smells and looks different but is in the same bottle as my shampoo.

There’s a lot of bait & switch going on in the Amazon marketplace.

 

[DaveXA]

Yeah that was my point. If you know it’s a knock-off and that’s what you want, fine. But I don’t want to be mislead to buying, for example, a specific brand of shampoo and then get it & it smells and looks different but is in the same bottle as my shampoo.

There’s a lot of bait & switch going on in the Amazon marketplace.

Yep, to some degree it's buyer beware. If it's a knock-off, I normally will read the reviews, but even those are hit and miss. Usually I won't buy those if there are fewer than 100 written reviews.

 

[Sailorsaint]

Yeah that was my point. If you know it’s a knock-off and that’s what you want, fine. But I don’t want to be mislead to buying, for example, a specific brand of shampoo and then get it & it smells and looks different but is in the same bottle as my shampoo.

There’s a lot of bait & switch going on in the Amazon marketplace.

Are you saying you order Prell but get something that is called Pell? Because that’s illegal. Or are you saying you order something called Pell that’s supposed to be “just like Prell” and isn’t? Because that would be a buyer beware situation.

 

[itztime]

Yeah that was my point. If you know it’s a knock-off and that’s what you want, fine. But I don’t want to be mislead to buying, for example, a specific brand of shampoo and then get it & it smells and looks different but is in the same bottle as my shampoo.

There’s a lot of bait & switch going on in the Amazon marketplace.

Yep, had this happen with AirPod Pro's, they connected to my phone funky and had some weird name. After examining next to my wife's and son's airpods I had been duped. Though the box and wrapping was superb, could not tell the difference. After researching how can this happen, the consensus is that 3rd party vendors drop ship their items from Amazon, with Amazon mixing the vendors supply with the Amazon supply bins as I chose Amazon as my seller and NOT the 3rd party.