Cost of Amazon Prime going up?

[miami_fan]

Amazon Prime set to go on sale for $67 - Sep. 22, 2015

You have a few more hours to get Amazon Prime for $67. The deal is only available to new members.

[Suicane75]

Perhaps I'm just not savvy, but when did items become prime exclusive? I can't get my damned Fiber One bars now because they're for prime members only. Hogwash.

[Ryche]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

Amazon Prime set to go on sale for $67 - Sep. 22, 2015

You have a few more hours to get Amazon Prime for $67. The deal is only available to new members.

Signed up for it today, wife wanted it for the new Top Gear and the shipping works great for us at Christmas time. Now if only I can figure out the lending library.

[cartman]

How to get an Amazon Prime membership for $73 this weekend - CNET

[mckerney]

Amazon recently added another Prime benefit, video game preorders are 20% off with the discount being available for two weeks after release.

[lungs]

Somebody managed to get a refund credited to my account for an AV receiver I purchased back in September. They then went ahead and purchased an IPad and had it shipped to a house that is for sale in New Jersey. I called Amazon and alerted them to the fraud, went through the whole changing password and other things. I think everything is all set now, but the fraudster left me $92 in credit on my account. I did mention this to the initial person I talked to. But the credit remains in my account. Spend it? Wait and see if it stays?

[BillJasper]

Originally Posted by lungs

Somebody managed to get a refund credited to my account for an AV receiver I purchased back in September. They then went ahead and purchased an IPad and had it shipped to a house that is for sale in New Jersey. I called Amazon and alerted them to the fraud, went through the whole changing password and other things. I think everything is all set now, but the fraudster left me $92 in credit on my account. I did mention this to the initial person I talked to. But the credit remains in my account. Spend it? Wait and see if it stays?

I'd definitely wait.

[RainMaker]

Does anyone here use the old Prime sharing where you could invite 4 friends/family? They changed it to Amazon Households last August but I'm wondering if you stay grandfathered in after you renew.

[RainMaker]

Up another $20.

Amazon is raising the price of Prime to $119

[ISiddiqui]

I mean.. I'm still going to pay it .

Though my Prime reupped in January. So I'm good for a while.

Generally I love Prime for the 2 day shipping, but since getting a 4k HDR TV, I've come to appreciate that Prime is one of only 2 streaming services (Netflix being the other) that has content in 4K HDR. I'm not sure why others haven't jumped on board (I mean STARZ has episodes of Outlander available to purchase in 4K HDR, but not on its app, WTF?), but that makes Prime a bit more worthwhile to me.

[Scoobz0202]

This actually might be the increase that causes me to cancel. I have no need and never use Amazon for anything but ordering stuff. $120 for two day shipping when it sometimes take 2 days to get out of the warehouse just really isn't appealing anymore. Only $20 but $20 every year or so has really put the price at a point I don't really have any desire to pay.

[weegeebored]

At this new price I am definitely going to reconsider renewing.

[CU Tiger]

Im with ya.

We order a lot from Amazon, but not nearly as much as some folks.
We live quite a ways from the nearest distribution center and in a rural area. 2 days isnt really what 2 days used to be anyway. Anything that gets transferred to the USPS usually stretches into 3,4 or even 5 days on prime lately.

Really wondering the cost difference between just paying for shipping individually each item, and balancing the "need it in 2 days vs a week is fine on that" over the course of a year...I wonder what the annual cost is

[digamma]

I average about 30 deliveries a year from Amazon. When you add in the streaming component of Prime, I think I'm still getting a great deal, and I appreciate all of you who subsidize my membership with just a few orders a year.

[Radii]

As someone who supports a number of streamers on Twitch, the free channel subscription every month for having "Twitch Prime" (ie amazon prime linked to your Twitch account) is worth $60/year. That makes this still a complete no-brainer for me since I also order from Amazon quite a bit and use their streaming services from time to time. It'd probably have to go up to $150/yr before I'd even think about cancelling.

[Masked]

Still worth it for me for the shipping alone - my household is probably at about 75 deliveries a year and it's not uncommon to get one day or even same day delivery for no extra charge.

The streaming, music, and other features is just a bonus.

[Kodos]

We use Amazon a ton. Easy decision to stay with it.

[molson]

I try to remind myself, when I need a handful of things, to look at non-Amazon sites. You can usually find stuff cheaper, and with free shipping, elsewhere, particularly if you're willing to dig for promo codes. Amazon just makes it SO easy to think of them, and them alone, when you need stuff. Prime is just brilliant because it gives you kind of a stake in them and incentivizes you not to comparison shop. I THINK it's still worth it for me at that price, but, I'll have to break down what I'm actually buying and using.

[digamma]

Originally Posted by molson

particularly if you're willing to dig for promo codes.

Now that you mention it, I'd probably pay $10 a month just to never have to go to RetailMeNot again.

[Fidatelo]

Not sure why, but Amazon isn't raising the price in Canada. In fact, we're still at $79. I guess we don't get as many benefits (Prime Music and Video are pretty terrible up here), but I would assume the shipping costs would generally be higher given our low population density.

The thought of it going up had me check my order history, though. I had 24 orders in 2017, but already 21 in 2018. So it's probably paying for itself, and definitely has saved my but a few times (need thing X by the end of the week, for example).

[Scoobz0202]

I'd love an $80 option for just free shipping.

[Subby]

I'm going to try it out now that they are starting to price-out the littles.

[RainMaker]

Non-Prime members still get free shipping on orders of $25 or more. It's a nice convenience to order a random cord when I need it but most of my orders are $25 or more anyway.

Their shipping has gotten worse over the years and other companies like Walmart are doing the free 2-day shipping too.

I wish I could purchase it just for shipping. Prime Video sucks and Music just isn't near what you get from Spotify.

[Logan]

I had 141 orders in 2017 and 76 over the past 6 months. It has a long way to go before it isn't worth it for me. 2 days is frequently 1 day and many times I end up with same day on the rare times I'm going over $35 and I'm ordering early in the morning.

I don't think they'll end up stripping out the free shipping at a lower sub price, but if they see their numbers drop, I could see them moving to offering a month to month plan while offering more of a discount on the annual.

[Scoobz0202]

They already have a monthly payment plan for Prime I believe

[claphamsa]

i have a ton of amazon music on my phone...but as it goes up, not sure how much i care about not switching. never use prime movies (no subtitles) and dont care about 2 day shipping...hmm

[Pyser]

That cant be true, can it? No subtitles on prime? I'd be shocked. (quick search: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...deId=201480600)

Anyway, $120 for me is a no brainer. I tried thinking how high they could jack it before I even had to consider is it worth it - and I think it's at least $200 a year. Interested to hear other people's breaking point.

[miami_fan]

https://www.emarketer.com/content/mo...embers-in-2019

In 2019, 51.3% of US households will be Amazon Prime members, according to our latest forecast—that’s about 5.2 million more households than last year.

[stevew]

Hey so what’s the cutoff time on getting next day. I know I don’t live in a mecca but seems odd that I couldn’t get next day at about 1pm.

[molson]

Originally Posted by stevew

Hey so what’s the cutoff time on getting next day. I know I don’t live in a mecca but seems odd that I couldn’t get next day at about 1pm.

It seems to vary based on what you're ordering.

[tarcone]

I just ordered a couple suitcases at about 2:30 pm CST. I am getting them tomorrow

[sovereignstar v2]

I've been an Amazon Prime member for what must be 10 years now and I'm starting to wonder if I'm getting the benefits I once I was. Like many folks the main draw from the beginning for me was the free two day shipping. I've taken advantage of discounts on some of their other products like Amazon Kids+ and Prime Book Box for my daughter, but never watched more than a handful of things on Prime Video.

My frustrations with Prime really started with the third party marketplace, probably the Xmas before last. It used to be a breeze to shop for gifts for the family, but now it almost seems like work when you have to weed through all the crap that is on there. It's ridiculous how much third party trash in on it now. To make matters worse, the review system and the manipulation of it is out of control so you have to spend a lot of time doing extra research figuring out what actually IS a good product.

In addition, 2020 started a trend that is still affecting quite a few of my orders. Stuff is just getting lost. During this last Xmas I started my online shopping much earlier to avoid the shipping delays that seemed inevitable. However, it didn't do me any favors as two separate orders ended up getting completely lost and a third wound up showing up late enough that I had make a duplicate order at Target days before it arrived. This kind of stuff is still happening to me every now and then. This last Wednesday I ordered a hard drive and it was supposed to arrive yesterday, great. USPS is still awaiting the item at this point, which mucks up any kind of estimate. The damn thing shipped from a warehouse three hours to the east of me *sigh*. It's great that they have a very convenient return system - I can get full refund if it doesn't show up tomorrow - but easy returns and refunds are a staple of basically every large merchant now (Walmart, Target, etc).

That brings me to my final point. Places like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy have made gigantic strides when it comes to their online shopping experiences and shipping speeds. If I need something like coffee I can generally find the same product on another site and get equal speed shipping (that can be more reliable...) as long as I spend 30 bucks or so.

I don't live in the boonies and my Amazon experience used to be pretty much flawless until 2019/2020. I really think they've started to lose control of some things as they've been growing and expanding. The competition really has me debating whether I need to be a member of any of them.

Anyone in the same boat?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

Places like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy have made gigantic strides when it comes to their online shopping experiences and shipping speeds.

We're definitely in different boats.

Walmart, in particular, has the absolute worst 3rd party sellers I've run across. The kind that make eBay look trustworthy & reliable.

Haven't shipped anything from Best Buy so I can't really comment on them, Target usage has been minimal though I haven't had any issues.

My only real issue with Amazon stuff has simply been availability. And most any time that's happened, I can't find Item X anywhere else either.

Is it worse than it was? Yeah, that's fair.

Is anything else anywhere near as reliable at the same prices (even with membership factored in)? Not that I've found.

[bob]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

I've been an Amazon Prime member for what must be 10 years now and I'm starting to wonder if I'm getting the benefits I once I was. Like many folks the main draw from the beginning for me was the free two day shipping. I've taken advantage of discounts on some of their other products like Amazon Kids+ and Prime Book Box for my daughter, but never watched more than a handful of things on Prime Video.

My frustrations with Prime really started with the third party marketplace, probably the Xmas before last. It used to be a breeze to shop for gifts for the family, but now it almost seems like work when you have to weed through all the crap that is on there. It's ridiculous how much third party trash in on it now. To make matters worse, the review system and the manipulation of it is out of control so you have to spend a lot of time doing extra research figuring out what actually IS a good product.

In addition, 2020 started a trend that is still affecting quite a few of my orders. Stuff is just getting lost. During this last Xmas I started my online shopping much earlier to avoid the shipping delays that seemed inevitable. However, it didn't do me any favors as two separate orders ended up getting completely lost and a third wound up showing up late enough that I had make a duplicate order at Target days before it arrived. This kind of stuff is still happening to me every now and then. This last Wednesday I ordered a hard drive and it was supposed to arrive yesterday, great. USPS is still awaiting the item at this point, which mucks up any kind of estimate. The damn thing shipped from a warehouse three hours to the east of me *sigh*. It's great that they have a very convenient return system - I can get full refund if it doesn't show up tomorrow - but easy returns and refunds are a staple of basically every large merchant now (Walmart, Target, etc).

That brings me to my final point. Places like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy have made gigantic strides when it comes to their online shopping experiences and shipping speeds. If I need something like coffee I can generally find the same product on another site and get equal speed shipping (that can be more reliable...) as long as I spend 30 bucks or so.

I don't live in the boonies and my Amazon experience used to be pretty much flawless until 2019/2020. I really think they've started to lose control of some things as they've been growing and expanding. The competition really has me debating whether I need to be a member of any of them.

Anyone in the same boat?

This is my experience to a tee. 2 day shipping has often become 5-7 day shipping, lots of packages are lost requiring me to contact customer service repeatedly, and the only non-shipping benefit I use is Amazon Video and it is a giant mess to navigate on the FireTV since it shows everything available on any streaming service (and the Amazon offerings kinda suck).

To their credit, I have had a few cases where they have refunded an order and then told me just to keep the item if it showed up (did once 3 weeks later). Other refunds have been no issue - i think lots of people have had this issue.

At this point, I would cancel, but my wife uses it to buy school supplies since Fulton County doesn't bother to provide those to teachers.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

We're definitely in different boats.

Walmart, in particular, has the absolute worst 3rd party sellers I've run across. The kind that make eBay look trustworthy & reliable.

Haven't shipped anything from Best Buy so I can't really comment on them, Target usage has been minimal though I haven't had any issues.

My only real issue with Amazon stuff has simply been availability. And most any time that's happened, I can't find Item X anywhere else either.

Is it worse than it was? Yeah, that's fair.

Is anything else anywhere near as reliable at the same prices (even with membership factored in)? Not that I've found.

I'm in the same boat more or less. It's worse than it was but still tough to beat. Been using Target a lot more but that's for curbside pickup and because I can toss on some groceries.

One issue I've noticed at Amazon (and I'm guessing anyone that offers 3rd party sellers) is counterfeit products. I'm getting to a point where I am buying only products "Shipped and Sold by Amazon". In the last year I've gotten knockoff brand name socks, an expired allergy medication, and a hard drive that was bogus. Amazon has an issue with fraudulent products from what I can tell from the review section on many products.

[sterlingice]

Even with stuff directly from Amazon or fulfilled by Amazon, the time has gone way up the past year. And it's not like they can blame the post office as it's almost always crap delivered by their own truck fleet.

Same with the knockoff product problem. I've gotten expired batteries, used stuff, and items I don't think are legit sold even under the Amazon brand. I've taken to searching the most recent reviews and going through a couple of pages to see if anyone got knockoff stuff, even with the Amazon shipped items.

SI

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

(and I'm guessing anyone that offers 3rd party sellers)

I pretty much avoid anything from 3rd party on any of the major/big box sites.

I doubt I've gotten even 50% of those on time + as ordered.

[bob]

Amazon combines their stock with third parties. So even if you order something sold by Amazon, it could come from stock sent in from third parties to manage. This has been a big issue with board games, where someone orders from Amazon and gets counterfeit games instead

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by bob

Amazon combines their stock with third parties. So even if you order something sold by Amazon, it could come from stock sent in from third parties to manage. This has been a big issue with board games, where someone orders from Amazon and gets counterfeit games instead

The "tell" for me has been to watch the Sold By and Fulfilled By lines

It's the latter that has been problematic here at times. If it isn't being pulled from the Amazon warehouse, it's coin toss all the way.

[sachmo71]

Originally Posted by bob

Amazon combines their stock with third parties. So even if you order something sold by Amazon, it could come from stock sent in from third parties to manage. This has been a big issue with board games, where someone orders from Amazon and gets counterfeit games instead

eww, have to watch out for that one.

[bob]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

The "tell" for me has been to watch the Sold By and Fulfilled By lines

Due to commingling of stock, both of those could still ship from the same bin of product.

[Ksyrup]

I haven't had a single issue with Amazon shipping, and most often, I get things on time or before time. In particular, I've found that agreeing to ship a week later for the $1 digital credit still gets me my stuff earlier than I expect. I don't recall a single thing coming late.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by bob

Due to commingling of stock, both of those could still ship from the same bin of product.

Not if it's labelled as "shipped by" or "fulfilled by" the third party.

That means it ain't ever in the Amazon warehouse.

[bob]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Not if it's labelled as "shipped by" or "fulfilled by" the third party.

That means it ain't ever in the Amazon warehouse.

Yep, I misread what you originally typed. You are correct there

[Toddzilla]

Anytime I see delivery is via Dynamex, I just expect the package to be 1-2 weeks late. I've never received anything from them less that a week after the date promised - I even got a birthday gift I ordered for my son 7 months late.

[sovereignstar v2]

The missing item that kicked off my rant appears to have showed up on the grid this morning. I already got the free replacement on Monday. $180 gain here. Did I mention I love Amazon?

[sterlingice]

They're definitely not listening in on you from inside your house and reading your message board postings

SI

[sovereignstar v2]

Lol @sterlingice

And stupid me, I just re-read the email they sent after I submitted for the replacement and it says to refuse the package or use the online return system if the original shows up. /fail

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

Lol @sterlingice

And stupid me, I just re-read the email they sent after I submitted for the replacement and it says to refuse the package or use the online return system if the original shows up. /fail

How they expect you to refuse the package? Sit by the door all day & wait. I've yet to ever have anything delivered from them -- via their carrier or any other -- that was anything other than left on the porch.

And you can forget anybody ringing the bell or anything.

[sovereignstar v2]

Yep, this looks like it will actually require additional effort from me now. However, I do plan on seeing what actually happens if I hold onto it for awhile. Probably naive of me to think they might not get alerted to the original showing up...