'Amazon Prime is Getting Worse' (fastcompany.com) 267
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.
Pantry (Score:5, Insightful)
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Their offering in the UK makes even less sense than the one in the US, not least because the UK has fairly decent online ordering from all the major supermarkets.
Prime delivery is a rip off. Most of the items eligible for Prime just have the extra delivery cost added on to the sale price. Prime Video is okay but doesn't have enough content to justify more than a month or two of subscription. Maybe if you use the Twitch sub and listen to a lot of streaming music it might be worth the rather high cost.
I just
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In the U.S., our local grocers have also developed online ordering, local pickup outside the store, and even grocery delivery for an additional fee.
Amazon's foray into groceries was a natural business evolution from the book company that wants to sell you everything, but it's going to be less successful than some of their other endeavors. I've tried Prime Pantry several times, and it is not without its merits when restocking non-perishables. It's not necessarily a bad outcome, since it typically works to t
Re: Pantry (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not just during peak. I think Amazon scales down during non-peak times and performance is almost just as bad.
I been a Prime customer since the year after it launched. I probably returned an item a year; if that. Today, our ordering has only doubled but we return atleast one package a month; primarily due to delivery issues.
I think we are on some "bad customer" list because every once in a while the rep says "You return a lot..."; implying that we shouldn't do that. We always respond with, look the notes and figure out who is at fault.
If we order blue, we shouldn't get red. If we order something gift wrapped, we probably want it before TK... not two weeks after the dinner. No, we aren't going to go to the other neighborhood or even down the street and pick up the bad delivery. No, we are not going to accept a box with a forklift hole in it. No we don't want another brand automatically substituted and billed to us. You credited us because your tracking number became active. Don't recharge me because you didn't get the return in time!
And all this we find out if we inquire or after delivery. I think Amazon just doesn't care anymore. They are more focused on AWS, warehouse automation, and another HQ.
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It's not just during peak. I think Amazon scales down during non-peak times and performance is almost just as bad.
I been a Prime customer since the year after it launched. I probably returned an item a year; if that. Today, our ordering has only doubled but we return atleast one package a month; primarily due to delivery issues.
I think we are on some "bad customer" list because every once in a while the rep says "You return a lot..."; implying that we shouldn't do that. We always respond with, look the notes and figure out who is at fault.
If we order blue, we shouldn't get red. If we order something gift wrapped, we probably want it before TK... not two weeks after the dinner. No, we aren't going to go to the other neighborhood or even down the street and pick up the bad delivery. No, we are not going to accept a box with a forklift hole in it. No we don't want another brand automatically substituted and billed to us. You credited us because your tracking number became active. Don't recharge me because you didn't get the return in time!
And all this we find out if we inquire or after delivery. I think Amazon just doesn't care anymore. They are more focused on AWS, warehouse automation, and another HQ.
That's almost the exact opposite experience I have with Amazon. Sure, every once and a while things are late. But often times I order something and it comes before they originally indicated. I can get same day delivery on most common items. The times that I have had a problem Amazon refunds me while allowing me to keep the package and has even offered me a gift card in addition to the free item.
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This is not only what you should expect before you sign up for a subscription to a store (that is open to the public), it is also what you deserve for encouraging them to treat you this way.
Re: Pantry (Score:3)
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Why do you assume they haven't complained to Amazon support when the post says, "despite multiple calls to check on the status"?
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And here I thought people were making shit up talking about their posts being removed.
SMFH
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If they want to lower their overhead, maybe they could stop using my shipping subscription dollars to make movies and TV shows. This is where they're bleeding money and they're really at a point where these could be separate services, but they'd rather reduce the quality of what most of us are actually paying for - a reliable delivery schedule.
It's the success (Score:2)
UPS, USPS etc can't do the volume anymore.
Amazon has now 50! planes itself, because of it and still.
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Re:It's the success (Score:5, Funny)
Amazon has now 50! planes itself
Amazon has 3 x 10^64 planes?! That's... rather a lot.
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I've been thinking about starting a small business reselling all the unexpected Amazon Logistics packages that they mistakenly drop on my porch instead of random neighbors. All attempts to get Amazon to pick up the packages and deliver them to the right address fail consistently, so I have an ever-growing pile of random crap.
I can't imagine that they could possibly be saving money, given what a complete disaster their in-house logistics seems to be.
Re: It's the success (Score:2)
The sign for Amazon Logistics finally did arrive from the warehouse, but it was oddly enough duct taped over a narrow corridor...
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Same here. Every time I seem my packaging going out AMZL, I cringe. They are incredibly inept. Although they did better for this holiday season that I was expecting, given all the errors leading up to it. It was a comedy of errors:
1. Delivered to a "mail room" at my business, when we don't have one, or to some other fictional destination.
2. Lost in transit. (Happens once a quarter to me, at least.) Sometimes they show up, which is funny. They typically say "just keep it" since they had already refunded my m
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Yet they allow exclamation points.
Amazon needs better management in many areas. (Score:2)
The "Prime" labeling is what is getting diluted (Score:2)
It used to be be "Prime" meant delivered 2 days after ordering. There used to me "free shipping for Prime members" which was free shipping but arrival date longer than 2 days. Today they seem to group everything as "Prime" and hence the dilution of the label "Prime". I wish they had a search tick for "True Prime", or just a checkmark for "ETA 2 days from today".
Prime benefits as a whole haven't gotten worse, one could argue they expanded them over the tears with Prime video, music, or audible.
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About that...Audible's interface for the PC is ancient...
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In Europe everything is delivered in 2 days no matter the shipping options. Amazon started waiting 2 days before even shipping to make sure non-prime goods only arrive after 3 days. Before then prime was entirely pointless except as a video service.
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I see things listed for Prime shipping with times of over a month!
It's not (Score:4, Funny)
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They don't mean two days in a row.
That's likely true. I ordered a prime item on Thursday. Two day delivery was set for Wednesday.
Other Benefits, but Accusations (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Other Benefits, but Accusations (Score:5, Interesting)
"Well, screw /. because I just lost my entire post by switching the format to plain text,"
If you are using anything but the classic view, shame on you, you should know better. If your browser doesn't restore form contents on back navigation, shame on you, you picked a crap browser.
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If you blame the user and not the heap of crap shame on you. Now go away and continue your drinking habits instead of interrupting adults.
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If you blame the user and not the heap of crap shame on you.
The user chose the heap of crap in both cases. You're shaming me for their choices? I don't think you get how this works.
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Why should we be forced to crap browsers like Chrome that invades privacy?
Are we really this spoiled? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Real estate is more extensive than remote warehouse storage. My guess is that they don't have room for more bulk storage at home.
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A week's supply of cat food is hardly bulk storage.
Unless it's a goddam lion.
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Who said they buy it in weekly sized packaging? To save money you might buy the largest package available, but then you don't have done for 2.
"Uncle Tom"? (Score:2)
Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
Someone crying that they can't spend their hard-earned money fast enough?
Hope of humanity: Low and declining.
"Prime" (Score:3)
Amazon's website sucks (Score:2)
For the most part, Prime seems to be OK, but Amazon's website sucks. The user interface hasn't changed much in 15 years & it was never good. It's impossible to drill down to locate something. The search & filters fail to actually filter. No search within a search. Plus all the non-Amazon sellers that come & go. All that & I still find myself buying crap from them.
If they ever updated it so that the search filters worked & one could actually locate what they want, most of their cust
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You have to use both native and Google search to find stuff on most sites, including Amazon. Let's face it, even eBay has this problem, and they have more filterable metadata on products than almost anyone else. I regularly find eBay items with Google instead of the native search. If it happens there, you know if happens everywhere
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Their search does suck, They include random crap in any search list. I'd believe a lot of that is the fault of their "merchants" but it makes for a poor experience. That leads to the biggest thing I'd like to see, and that is a setting to exclude non-Amazon sellers in all searches. Most merchants that I encounter are selling counterfeit or garbage.
Consum(er)ism (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: Consum(er)ism (Score:4, Interesting)
Absolutely right this is complaining. That's what normal people do when they pay extra for a service but it is not delivered, repeatedly. Or did you forget that Prime is not free?
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No, normal people just cancel the service and get their money back.
Maybe, but check around. Most people like to express their outrage and virtue signal their way to a brighter tomorrow.
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Re:Consum(er)ism (Score:4, Insightful)
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God damn you are stupid. Can you function in society with such a severe disconnect?
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Why can't anyone make useful IoT stuff? I don't need a camera in the oven, what I need is a microwave with NFC that I can tap my phone against to automatically transfer the timer to my phone's screen.
Yes I'm that lazy/impatient.
Even if someone made it they would ruin it by making the app proprietary and privacy-invading. Honestly what is the point of living in the first world if it can't fix your first world problems!??
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If the complaint were that degradations in prime service were a human rights violation or something the fact that the situation is vastly better than most of history would be relevant. In this case it's merely that Amazon either can't hack their attempts at further scaling out or is in the 'switch' phase of 'bait and switch', which a complaint purely relative t
Re: Consum(er)ism (Score:4, Interesting)
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everyones luxuries are individual. I don't know anyone who has no vice or luxury spending.
Live in the moment. Sure consumerism is disgusting, but it will be far worse in future! And the world isn't on fire, its just america. We can turn our heads away from them and let them learn their lesson in time.
Obligatory NGOML (Score:2)
Everything is getting worse. Take Shelbyville. Did I tell you about that time I went there...
Bezos laughs on his trilliion dollar money pile (Score:2)
if you want it fast, Try Main street (Score:2)
Re:if you want it fast, Try Main street (Score:4, Insightful)
how many of thees items can be bought at a Physical location in your city.
For me, some of them but not many. Just finding a store that sells a particular brand item can be more trouble than it's worth. At the same price? Almost never. Brick and Mortars have to cover the cost of Brick and Mortar.
Granted you may pay a bit more but you in the long run are helping your community.
Best Buy and Walmart are only marginally 'my community'. And no more than Amazon, really. The odds of a Mom and Pop having what I'm looking for is pretty low. And at less than twice the price? Absolute zero.
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Then ask, do you really need to buy that thing, and that particular brand?
Yes.
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To a first approximation: nothing. Some things could be bought with higher prices and worse quality, most things offered online can't be bought locally at all. That includes the dildos and IoT ovens some idiot drooled about above.
Not all Amazon customers live in large cities.
And search is so gamified it's useless. (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't shop their (Score:2)
Amazon behaves like the world is the USA ignoring local laws, they do not pay their workers properly, fight unions, works council and other worker representation in their company, they pressure delivery services and personnel, they pressure cities to commit to their needs and pay subsidies. Really, do not shop there. Shop somewhere else.
Re: Don't shop there (Score:4, Insightful)
s/their/there
I hate auto correct. Its inventor should go to hello. Also why is there no edit button /.?
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Also why is there no edit button /.?
Because there is a preview button, which is better for everyone else, if not for you.
Re:Don't shop there (Score:2)
Amazon behaves like the world is the USA ignoring local laws, they do not pay their workers properly, fight unions, works council and other worker representation in their company, they pressure delivery services and personnel, they pressure cities to commit to their needs and pay subsidies. Really, do not shop there. Shop somewhere else.
Keeping prices low by keeping overhead low through cheap labor and telling useless unions to fuck off sounds like good business.
For a person with no marketable skill, some money is better than no money. We're at a point where unskilled workers can either work for cheap or replaced by automation.
Leveraging demands on the USPS, which is an incredible failure for an organization that functions as a national monopoly, sounds like the average taxpayer getting more for their money than they might otherwise.
Anecdotally (Score:2)
Anecdotally, it has been the same for me as it has been for years. Shipping was timely right up through Christmas. The fact that Prime has been "diluted" to offer even more things to its members is, anecdotally speaking, a good thing. Using your terminology, a "concentration" of Prime that removes features, like music streaming or unlimited picture storage, would be a good thing then to you? Anecdotally of course.
Maybe you're using and relying on Prime more, and thus you are more sensitive to any and ev
Prime is unsustainable (Score:2)
Works fine for me (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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its a scam (Score:2)
it is sort of a racket, its like a long line at the grocery store but the store manager is accepting payola to get cuts in line at the cashier, i only use amazon as a last resort if i cant find what i want elsewhere, and since walmart has a much bigger brick & mortar presence and their own fleet of 18 wheelers it just makes walmart better at shipping in terms of both faster & free shipping, and walmart made their
"But I want it now." (Score:2)
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I love how the other two comments are right, but voted to negative to be hidden, while chucklenuts here has a 2.
Sorry "Fly Swatter" people pay for Prime. They pay to have their stuff sooner. They don't have to "grow up" because they have. Paying to expedite things is part of that being an adult. Not getting what you paid for gives you the right to complain, and it doesn't make you immature.
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Prime customers are grown up. "I want it now, and I'm willing to pay extra for it."
It's like fishing. (Score:2)
And you're the fish. First they hook you, then they play you.
If you keep preferring Prime even as they back off on the initial promise of convenience, then they still have wiggle room to play you.
Prime member for years (Score:2)
I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing this happening. Not only do my packages arrive late at times, but I thought I was crazy: I look at "free 2 day shipping" and see a date that's often 4 days away. Free 2 day shipping rarely means 2 day shipping anymore.
When Everybody is special... (Score:2)
NOBODY is special.
The amount prime members is so great now , its become the low bar.
getting worse from some time now (Score:2)
turns out that according to amazon they have never promised two day shipping when you order something. what they do is promise free two business days shipping counting from the time the item ships. an amazon rep in twitter said that to me and it actually made be think of cancelling the service.
price hikes and the actual lose of benefits such as 20% off game preorders are going to make me think twice.
what i would like is just a prime shipping ONLY plan for something like 50 bucks a year.
My experience (Score:3)
My motto is: never subscribe to anything if there is an alternative way, so I always pick the Free Shipping option (usually arrives in 1-2 weeks).
Half of the time a very expected thing happens: it arrives significantly earlier.
The reason for that is that the delivery times for Free Shipping are artificially exaggerated to cover potential delays further than required by business.
Nobody is going to store your items longer than necessary because as Quentin Tarantino said: "This ain't storage for Amazon items"
Ditch Prime. Use free shipping when offered, use cheapest shipping always.
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'no matter how you say "But look at my calculations", because all you see is the prices on their website, not what their profits are. So a real comparison is not possible.'
Their profit is economically irrelevant to me. What matter is the value I derive from what I purchase with respect to the prices I paid.
It is completely plausible that both the seller and the buyer are benefiting from the transaction. That's how capitalism works.
don't forget the counterfeits (Score:2)
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Amazon isn't doing crap about counterfeits. I contacted them two times and talked to at least 6-8 reps about fake footmaster leveling casters.These are fake and they are still there https://www.amazon.com/Happybu... [amazon.com] .
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lol @ relying on government to solve your problems. There's no money for politicians in cracking down on Amazon. Letting the market sort this out is the only realistic option. Vote with your wallet.
Amazon is now a mature company (Score:2)
Bezo's created Amazon and did a good job for the first 20 years of creating a customer first culture, but he always had to fight investors and a general business climate that said he should avoid pushing profits into new infrastructure and and return them to shareholders.
It's obvious that he was wounded with the failure of the fire phone, and Amazon's retreat from everything android.
Alexa and buying Whole Foods are the only real advancements of the last few years.
Everywhere else, you can see that Amazon is
Re:News?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon dark patterns force people to fill up their Amazon pantry [medium.com]
Then when they don't like this, Amazon dark patterns make it more difficult to leave low-rated rather than high-rated reviews [netinstructions.com]
Then if the user wishes to leave Amazon, the user must navigate a complex, non-intuitive chain of commands that do not start with 'close my account'. This chain changes regularly, to ensure that current 'close your amazon account' instructions found on google do not work for more than a few days. I closed my account in March 2018. At that time, this was the process:
1. select 'let us help you'...
2. select 'help'...
3. select 'need more help'...
4. select 'contact us'...
5. choose 'prime or something else'...
6. dropdown, choose 'update account information'...
7. dropdown, choose 'close my account'...
8. user is put into 'chat'...
As soon as the phrase 'I need to close my amazon account' is typed into the chat input, the user is logged out of chat and must repeat the above (I found this 'bug' was repeatable)
At that time, I had to find a way to communicate that I wanted to close my account without using the phrase 'close my account' in chat.
Re:News?? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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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
Re:News?? (Score:4, Insightful)
" Amazon is not the same company they were 10 years ago. You can feel the skeeviness is creeping in."
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I don't really see how that "fill up the box" with Pantry is a dark pattern, that's just a result of how they handle shipping and you can save $5.99 by filling the box instead of ordering twice. It's not really much different than the "Spend X more to get free shipping" when you don't have Prime. I'd much rather have that shipping price information made explicitly visible than having it only shown at checkout like in some other shops. And yes, it does gamify things, but as long as shipping is paid by the bo
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Funny, anecdotally, this is the opposite of my experience. I almost always get things in two days, and lately, I've been getting a lot of free one-day deliveries, with some of them even arriving on a Sunday.
M
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Same here. My experience with Amazon's shipping in Northern Virginia is fine. I needed to get a last-minute present and Amazon Prime was promising to get it to me by December 24. When it didn't show up in the regular mail, I thought I was finally experiencing what people have been complaining about, but on a whim I checked my front porch later, and there it was.
I certainly believe the stories people are telling, but I haven't experienced the problems myself.
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I normally try to buy local. When the price is reasonably close, I will, but when the net is 30% less, then I do buy online. Very often I find the Amazon price to be much higher than in other online shops or even my local stores.
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"prime is bad for the consumer if they have it."
What?
"usb keyboard - amazon showed me the deals for prime only deals so add $99 to the cost,"
Amazon does NOT stop showing you non-prime items if you have prime.
"The book, marked up +$12 over a competitor store, also non amazon sale."
So what? They are in business to make money and they've figured out that enough people will buy it at an elevated price point that it's more profitable for them to set that price.
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If you have Prime, they show you they Prime version even if it is more expensive. I think they have some text in a small font that tells you it is cheaper from other sellers, but it is easy to miss if you aren't careful.
So be careful. I'm not only careful about that, but I have the camelcamelcamel addon that puts Amazon's own price history for the item into every Amazon page. If the price takes a hike for the holidays, I know about it and I can look somewhere else.
In general, once I identify an item for sale on pretty much any site, I google for the product by name, part number, etc. and see if I can find it cheaper somewhere else. Often I look for a cheaper alternative. For example I needed a 1" heater hose splice connect
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Just like Amazon monitors, controls and manipulates it employees, so it does the same to customers. So they launched prime and did all the thing they 'KNEW' customers wanted. Now that they have you signed up on prime and paying, they will start taking stuff away, until the cost of losing customers of prime exceeds the cost savings achieved by cutting back prime. They will not stop there but continue to push that boundary, how cheap and crappy can they make the service, whilst charging more and more for the
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Lots of homeless people around here are couch surfing, living in their vehicles and such rather then living on the street. Rents are expensive and hard to find.
Utter bullshit, AC, utter bullshit. (Score:2)