
Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49 - silveira
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=527692
======
deftnerd
This is just assuming that they'll even let you order $49 worth of items in
one box.

I let my Amazon Prime lapse because I was rarely using it.

A few weeks ago I decided to do a bulk order. I ordered 18 items with a total
of $110. They split my shipment into three packages of approximately $50, $50,
and one item by itself in another box for $10. Since one of the boxes didn't
have $35, they tried to charge me shipping.

I simply removed that item but instead of having two $50 boxes, the shopping
cart removed an item from a box and put it into a box by itself to ensure that
I had to pay shipping. I spent two hours adding and removing items to discover
that there is no way to get free shipping for multiple items anymore.

Eventually I contacted customer service and they said they would take care of
it and ship it in one box with no shipping cost.

Three weeks later and my order finally shipped, in 5 boxes, with 5 shipping
fees charged to my card.

~~~
chx
I believe if you buy Amazon items then, even if they split the shipment, they
won't charge you. The above sounds like you were buying from different
merchants.

~~~
ajmurmann
The non-amazon shipped stuff on Amazon honestly had been a pain ever since
they introduced it. If you have prime it mostly is just a huge nuisance.

~~~
stanmancan
I always make sure I check off the "Prime Eligible" checkbox when searching
Amazon. It sucks to find an item, go to buy it, and finding out it's going to
take 4 weeks and $25 to ship from the UK or something.

~~~
tracker1
I go a step beyond that, and will often also check Amazon as the seller. I've
had too many mis-labelled products show up... Sometimes I forget, and that's
usually when there is a problem.

I'm almost inclined to go prefer local stores again, as Amazon's pricing
advantages seem to have slipped, and if they raise the cost of Prime again,
I'm definitely out. I've been a pretty loyal customer to Amazon, but honestly,
they're slipping a bit.

They should probably spend just a little more time on their core products.

~~~
logfromblammo
I ordered something from Amazon, with Amazon as the seller, and with the Prime
filter checked. It was marked as having low remaining inventory. After I
purchased, and the item failed to arrive with the rest of my order, I saw that
it had been moved to a separate order, from a different seller, with an
additional $10 shipping charge and an additional week of delay.

Look, Amazon, you have a real problem with sorting and filtering. What I
really want is a way to order goods by the final, bottom-line price, including
all taxes and shipping costs. If something costs $20 plus $10 in shipping, it
should rank after a similar thing that is $25 plus $0 shipping.

The Prime filter is the only way I can even approach that problem from my end.
It forces the cost of shipping to be included in the price of all items, at
the expense of not seeing potentially cheaper items. But even then, Amazon
can't even manage to sort correctly by price. Nor does it handle quantities in
a package very well.

------
tristanj
One look at their finances and it's clear why they're doing this. According to
their SEC filings, last year Amazon brought in $6.5 billion in shipping
revenue [1], and spent $11.5 billion on shipping costs. Take those numbers
together and they lost $5.0 billion subsidizing shipping. They lose more money
on shipping every year than most startups make in a decade. It's a huge cost
on their budget, not hard to see why management is trying to cut costs.

[1] Includes some revenue earned from Amazon Prime memberships; excludes
shipping revenue of third-party sellers not under the Fulfilled by Amazon
program

Data is from page 26 of their 10-K, linked below

[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872416...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872416000172/amzn-20151231x10k.htm)

~~~
mdasen
In a certain way, isn't that like saying BestBuy spend $X billion on
storefront real-estate and made $0 in people paying in "walk-out-the-
storefront-with-your-item" charges?

Shipping revenues will never cover shipping costs as long as they provide even
one free shipment a year (and don't overcharge people paying for shipping).
Shipping is one of those costs that you have to pay like having storefronts.
The goods have to actually be purchasable by customers somehow. Retail shops
sink costs in their stores. It's made up for by the margins on the items they
sell.

I'm not saying that Amazon shouldn't try to minimize their losses on shipping
just as stores should figure out whether having one retail presence in a city
is more cost effective than having two. But I think a more interesting piece
for me would be a comparison of Amazon's shipping costs to other retailers'
storefront costs. If the $5B in shipping subsidies is way lower than what
Walmart or BestBuy are paying in "storefront subsidies", it isn't necessarily
something so outrageous. It's a cost of doing business.

$5B sounds like a lot of money (and indeed it is), but what is it compared to
the storefront costs of competitors? How much does Amazon save by having
highly-productive warehouse workers as opposed to lower-productive retail
employees?* Maybe $5B is huge compared to what Walmart spends on its retail
presence. Maybe Amazon warehouses aren't much more efficient than BestBuy
stores. Or Maybe this is simply a move that Amazon is making because it thinks
it has gained enough market power (and enough buy-in to Prime) to start making
anti-consumer moves rather than a cost that's unsustainable compared to the
costs of retail.

Walmart's revenue was $485.7 billion in 2015. Amazon's revenue was $107B last
year. Spending less than 5% of revenue on getting the products to the
customers doesn't sound outrageous. Does it seem likely that Walmart spends
$24B on store-front costs that Amazon doesn't have to get their revenue?

You're not wrong that companies will try to cut costs. I guess my question is
simply: is this really an onerous cost compared to revenue (as judged by what
competing retail firms pay)? If it's par for the course (or less), it feels
like Amazon flexing its market power against consumers. If it is an onerous
cost compared to what Walmart or BestBuy have to spend, then life has crappy
trade-offs that need to be made to make things reasonable.

*This isn't a dig at retail employees. It's just pointing out that when customer traffic is low at a retail venue, they're around with less to do. By contrast, warehouse workers can be utilized more efficiently.

~~~
cookiecaper
I think it would behoove Amazon to have a network of "customer pickup centers"
where you can order something on Amazon, it gets shipped by Amazon itself to a
customer pickup center via air, and the customer drives to close off the
figurative "last mile".

Alternate idea: Amazon builds a central warehouse in each major metro that
contains the most-ordered items for that area, has trucks that run out to UPS
Stores and drop off every hour, and the customer completes the last mile and
goes to pick up his package at the designated UPS Store within 2-4 hours from
the time he placed the order.

I'm sure they've already considered all this kind of navel-gazing, but if
customers were able to pick up within 3-4 hours of placing an order under this
type of system, it'd be awesome, and I think a big win for Amazon. One of the
worst things about ordering on Amazon, even as a Prime member who lives in a
place where free same-day is often available, is having to wait around with no
control over when the product will arrive. This would beat free same-day,
which for us rarely arrives before 8:30pm no matter how early you get the
order in after midnight.

Really Wal-Mart and Amazon are not so different. The difference is that Wal-
Mart keeps quantities of the product within driving distance of 90% of the
population, so they can have the product a half-hour after deciding they
need/want it. The ability to close this gap has got to be one of the most
important milestones for online retail. Ad-hoc delivery networks like UberEats
are kind of already doing this. Sure would be a crazy turn of events if
someone started to knock down Amazon's retail business by leveraging the
latent bandwidth in the city's existing retail and crowd-sourced driver
networks.

~~~
tracker1
I think that Amazon, may in the end be better off starting their own shipping
company. It may sound weird, but I'm half surprised they didn't buy Uber or
Lyft, not for the ride service, but for the drivers and the logistics in
place. Large trucks from warehouses, to meet drivers in individual vehicles at
drop spots, for final deliveries.

~~~
TorKlingberg
At least in the UK, Amazon already does that. Most things are delivered by
Amazon's own drivers. The vehicles are not branded, so it may be an Uber-like
model where the driver uses their own car, or they just rent white vans.

~~~
wrboyce
I think of it more as a Yodel-like model. The drivers mostly don't care, and a
lot of my parcels get delivered into my bin.

------
SwellJoe
I love Amazon and I love Prime (the included streaming services and ebooks are
great, on top of free shipping). But, lately I've been noticing cracks in the
armor of Amazon, where they're leaving openings for competitors.

I have, just in the past year, ordered a huge variety of things from other
vendors, because Amazon prices were far from competitive. And, with free two
day shipping from merchants partnered with Shop Runner (which I get free when
I pay with my American Express), the difference in experience, cost, and time
to deliver is competitive. NewEgg got my server hardware purchases, saving me
several hundred dollars on a ~$3000 order. An RV parts vendor sold me an RV
air conditioner for ~$200 less than Amazon. I'm shopping for a tankless water
heater right now, which is about $160 less from other vendors. And, on the
lower end, when Amazon first started doing subscription groceries, they were
competitively priced; now, not so much. I find I prefer just buying what I
need when I need it from local grocery stores.

I still buy a lot of stuff from Amazon, but it's much less than it used to be.
And, I don't know if Amazon knows what they're doing or not when choosing to
lose these sales. Presumably the increased margins make up for the lower sales
(or at least the loss of sales to _me_ , which may not necessarily be the same
as decreased sales overall). Surely they're doing the math.

This is the same thing. I bought from Amazon before Prime partly because of
the free shipping. The further away the free shipping gets, the harder it
would be to choose Amazon over getting it local or from another vendor, I
think.

~~~
freyr
In the past year or two, I've noticed a dramatic rise in the number of
counterfeit products. If you buy directly from Amazon, it generally seems ok,
but all bets are off when you buy from a third party.

I've also noticed the increased gaming of the reviews system. If you read
reviews of many of the highest rated products, you often find that most are
shills who are given products for free in exchange for "fair and unbiased
reviews." Funny how many of their unbiased reviews award five stars.

It's getting pretty bad.

~~~
Klathmon
For me it's the amount of spam i'm getting asking for reviews.

One of the big reasons i shop with amazon is so i know that i don't need to
deal with making another account, giving someone else my CC info, getting
relentless spam email every week telling me to buy more.

But now sellers are using the "contact customer" system to beg for reviews,
and it's starting to get annoying enough that i want to avoid amazon.

Just a few months ago i ordered about 20 separate things for a project i'm
working on, and over the next 2 weeks proceeded to get 30+ emails asking for
reviews of the products, reviews of the sellers, asking if i'm satisfied with
their products, etc. All of these coming straight from the sellers themselves
right above the warning from amazon that this system is only to resolve
problems with the product/shipping...

~~~
PixelB
I tend to give negative product reviews when harassed by the sellers like
this. In my opinion, the review should also be reflective of the company
making/selling the product.

~~~
Klathmon
I've actually started giving negative seller reviews for this.

If you go to [http://www.amazon.com/feedback](http://www.amazon.com/feedback)
you can review the sellers instead of the product.

~~~
PixelB
Good idea, I'll be sure to do that too!

To be fair though, I believe people are much more likely to see a product
rating than a seller rating. As evidenced by the number of "unbiased" 5 star
reviews.

------
norea-armozel
All I can say about Amazon is the quality of the item selection has gone down
so much that most times I take my time digging through reviews to ensure the
padded 4 star rating isn't done by bots because I've bought some items that
were 4 star rated only to find they were utter crap later. And this is only in
the last two years for Amazon. I'm not sure what's happening but I can say
that I'm looking closer to home for stuff I need. Frankly, I think Bezos and
company got too comfy with their dominant position and now they're being lax
on the quality. I would happily load up an order 60+ USD easily from Amazon
but now I have to double check to see what I'm getting isn't from a crap third
party (that's the biggest thing I'd pay to remove is the third party sellers).
If they want more customers they need to get back to basics by improving
selection, kicking out crap third party sellers, and stop shuffling items
between addon status or Prime only. Otherwise, I can see them going under in a
hurry.

~~~
rpgmaker
Their site is unbearably bloated with scripts and whatnot, I don't know why
more people don't complain about that. The site is also filled with dishonest
merchants peddling their misrepresented wares on it. I've had more issues with
merchants on Amazon than on ebay.

~~~
biggerfisch
> Their site is unbearably bloated with scripts and whatnot

I don't think most people (outside of HN for sure and still a lot within HN)
actually run NoScript or something that makes them aware of the number of
scripts on a page. And frankly, 99.9% of the time, I don't care about that.

~~~
rpgmaker
I wasn't talking about the number of scripts (even though it does have a lot)
but about how unresponsive the site is at times because of said scripts.

------
kdamken
They are really trying to force you into signing up for prime, aren't they?

I cancelled my prime subscription at the start of the year. Some thoughts:

\- I buy less stuff on impulse. Since the price limit is (or was) $35 for free
shipping, I usually have to wait until there are enough things I really
want/need before ordering.

\- The pricing is often better other places. Normally Amazon's non prime price
will be comparable, but then shipping fees will be like 7 or 8 bucks, while
other places have cheaper, faster, or even free shipping.

\- If you do have prime, not everything with prime has free shipping. For
small things they have "add on items", which don't ship to you until you have
$25 worth of stuff in your cart. It wasn't always like this, and it was a big
negative for me. I had signed up for prime because I didn't want to pay for
quick shipping. Now I had to wait until there were other things I needed to
hit their arbitrary number.

I ran the numbers over my three year subscription period with them and it
turned out I wasn't buying enough stuff to make the math work. Maybe when it
was $79, but at the current price it's just not worth it.

It's like they're going out of their way to piss off customers.

~~~
chubot
Yup, I also cancelled my prime subscription, for the exact same reasons as
you. Their prices aren't as good as they used to be -- I shop around now.

All this stupid "add-on" shipping stuff is silly and was making my life a
bigger hassle. I like Amazon because it was quick and efficient to buy, but
that seemed to cause unnecessary friction.

And the real reason is that they made it very difficult to cancel Prime! 5
months into my membership, there was no way to cancel at the 1 year mark. They
would only provide the option to cancel NOW, which is ridiclous. I actually
had to put in a special request to customer service to do this. That was
ridiculous and really changed my opinion of Amazon as a customer-focused
company. It was like AOL tactics from the 90's.

~~~
asheldon
"there was no way to cancel at the 1 year mark"

From personal experience, if you cancel "now", it simply doesn't renew at the
one year mark. You still get the prime benefits you already paid for until
then.

~~~
cfcef
Ditto. I signed up for the free Prime offer, after a while decided it wasn't
going to be worthwhile for me (a lot of the total delay between ordering and
receiving seems to be on Amazon's warehouses' end of things, and not USPS/UPS
physically moving it to my house), canceled, and kept using it for the rest of
the month without problem.

------
dangrossman
"Profit was held back by a big jump in fulfillment costs, which increased
32.8% year-over-year in the fourth quarter and nearly 25% for the full year.
Amazon spent $4.55 billion in the fourth quarter to fulfill customers’ orders,
up from $3.4 billion in the same quarter a year ago, and the increase cannot
be explained away by increases in Amazon sales, as the percentage of revenues
spent on shipping also increased, from 11.6% to 12.7%." [1]

"There is more than loyalty at stake for Atlanta-based UPS. This year, its
Amazon account exceeds $1 billion. ... The average cost to handle a parcel was
about $8 last year." [2]

"Some analysts say the move could help position Amazon to offer shipping
services to other companies, eventually competing with the likes of United
Parcel Service and DHL Worldwide Express. ... Amazon rolled out thousands of
its own trailers and launched an Uber-like delivery service last year to
handle the so-called last mile of delivery, taking packages from distribution
centers to customers' homes." [3]

1:
[http://www.marketwatch.com/mw2/palm/marketwatch/story.asp?gu...](http://www.marketwatch.com/mw2/palm/marketwatch/story.asp?guid=%7BB574014E-C615-11E5-B1F8-BB568A8AE505%7D)

2: [http://www.nasdaq.com/article/amazon-seeks-to-ease-ties-
with...](http://www.nasdaq.com/article/amazon-seeks-to-ease-ties-with-
ups-20151222-00789)

3: [http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-drops-hints-
it-...](http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-drops-hints-it-could-be-
building-global-shipping-business-n514921)

~~~
Gustomaximus
> The average cost to handle a parcel was about $8 last year.

Thats still Amazing low cost considering what has to be done to deliver a
parcel. Though I'm more surprised Amazon hasn't set up an Argos style business
in high density cities.

For those that dont know Argos it's in the UK and its basically a collection
shopfront with catalogues infromt of the counter. You browse the catalogue,
write down the numbers and staff go out the back and bring you what you asked
for. They have a huge range and while strange at first shopping in person from
a book catalogue it works amazingly well for a bunch of shopping needs. It
would merge perfectly with a Amazon like business.

~~~
autopov
In the States there was a similar company[0]: Best Products Company. You'd go
in, browse the display models or thumb through a catalog, and if you wanted to
buy you'd go to the sales counter, place your order, the clerk would fill out
a form in triplicate, make a call, and about twenty minutes later, your item
would come from the stock room on a long conveyor belt.

As a kid, it was great fun to watch, but I wouldn't put up with it these days.
If I have to fight traffic and go to a shop, I like to get in and get out as
fast as possible.

Best was best (ahem) known for its funky stores' architecture. The one in
Sacramento, California, was especially interesting[1]. A corner of the
building was literally removed to open the showroom then put back at night to
close up shop.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Products](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Products)
[1] [http://www.emporis.com/buildings/1260719/best-products-
showr...](http://www.emporis.com/buildings/1260719/best-products-showroom-
sacramento-ca-usa)

~~~
adaml_623
Totally personal side note here.

I saw a 'That's incredible' TV advert mentioning but not explaining the
Sacramento shop front with the sliding wall. I never saw the program. It was
the early 80s, I was under 10 years old, and I was left confused until
literally just now. Thank you. That's a personal 30 year mystery explained.

------
sirkneeland
First reaction: "NOOOOOOOO"

Second reaction: "It appears this does NOT apply to Amazon Prime."

I am assuming this is gamed to drive further conversion to Prime membership
then.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Likely. Amazon seems to have made it clear that if you don't have Prime,
they'd :RATHER: you shopped somewhere else. Arbitrary sets of items like
certain Blu-ray discs or even like... razor blade replacements and diapers
will randomly get set as "Prime exclusive items" for no reason with no
warning.

Suddenly, buying a $10 Blu-ray requires you buy a $100 Prime subscription to
go with it. And customers have found that usually, Target or Best Buy's
websites offer the same products at the same price with free shipping...
without Prime.

Here's a thread with 248 people complaining, and Amazon definitely not caring:
[http://www.amazon.com/forum/amazon/ref=cm_cd_pg_oldest?_enco...](http://www.amazon.com/forum/amazon/ref=cm_cd_pg_oldest?_encoding=UTF8&authToken=&cdForum=Fx1UE1R6VSVMXK7&cdPage=1&cdSort=newest&cdThread=Tx2BC0NP5Y2RKMW)

Amazon is very quickly turning into the online version of Costco, and I think
they've decided they're okay with that.

~~~
copperx
That's true, but without the 15% profit margin cap that wholesale clubs have.
Lately I've found that certain Prime items (home decor and kitchen stuff) are
20-25% more expensive than what I can get them for locally.

~~~
cdr
Amazon prices change constantly. Even minute-to-minute sometimes.

At least on most of the stuff I've checked on CamelCamelCamel, Amazon has the
lowest price on something maybe one day out of ten. Which is another way they
push you towards Prime; if you have Prime, setting a price alert and buying it
the day the price is the cheapest on Amazon is simple (assuming you can wait).
If you're trying to combine items to get non-Prime free shipping, though, one
item might be cheapest but the rest almost certainly won't.

------
koyote
Amazon without prime is just frustrating at this point (and the price for
prime is not worth it for the majority of people).

In the UK minimum shipping is £20: I recently bought an item for £19.99 and
had to buy a random tiny item for £0.10 so that I do not get charged £4 for
shipping.

Both items arrived separately...

~~~
kartickv
In that case, the customer-friendly move would have been to charge you £0.10
for shipping rather than £4. As things stand, you had to waste time buying
something you didn't want, increasing Amazon's costs, and others who did not
discover the trick would have been unhappy. I wouldn't mind if the minimum
shipping limit goes up, since it's a simpler system — I don't have to waste
time figuring out these loopholes.

~~~
koyote
Yeah that is exactly my point.

Additionally Amazon has added more and more hurdles to the buying process such
as add-on items and items shipped from a merchant who has his own shipping
charges which do not count towards the 'free shipping minimum'. All of these
things make the whole buying process for the customer ever more frustrating.

~~~
Tempest1981
But while searching for that £0.10 item, some users will find another £10
item. That may be their strategy.

------
envy2
Seems like Prime shipping is still free on orders of any size, with a $35
requirement for free same-day shipping when applicable.

I'd be curious how many Amazon customers actually don't use Prime and will
thus actually be impacted by this—seems like pretty much everyone I know has a
subscription.

~~~
username223
I for one have never bothered with "Prime." It's not that hard to combine
Amazon orders until they cross the "free" shipping threshold.

~~~
jlmorton
Amazon Prime also comes with nearly Netflix-equivalent video on demand, nearly
Spotify-equivalent streaming music, Prime Now 2-hour delivery, and currently
free restaurant delivery a la GrubHub/Eat24 in a few cities, along with a
bunch of other minor perks.

~~~
darklajid
Just like abecedarius, I cancelled the free shipping service when it became
something I didn't want or need.

Free shipping was great. I don't care about the rest (and cannot play it on my
devices anyway. I try to avoid Flash, I don't want non-generic-purpose
hardware like a FireTV or something and you cannot access the Prime content
from my Kodi/Pi2 in any reasonable fashion).

If you like that offer it might be a great deal. If you pay the full price and
only use/get a tiny fraction though...

------
wantreprenr007
Now that Amazon has a de-facto monopoly on distribution and fulfillment with
around a billion skus that rivals the likes of WalMart, it's no surprise
prices begin endlessly ratcheting up.

~~~
sokoloff
Monopoly is a very/overly strong word for what Amazon has (even when qualified
as "de-facto").

------
graeme
I've had my first two annoyances with amazon, after years of having zero.

    
    
      * Add on items. Can't buy them on their own, can't buy more than five. What's going on with these? Just let me buy them in bulk. 
      * Recently, I had an item that was prime, but wouldn't ship to a PO box. I've never had this – amazon always chooses USPS/Canada Post for PO Box orders. The item was small. I had even ordered it to a PO Box before, successfully. I was able to complete the order to a pickup point, *at* the post office, just not in my PO Box.
    

These are trifles. But the reason I buy everything at amazon is that they
removed all trifles. I've been noticing more of them recently.

Of course, on the flipside, amazon.ca has massively expanded its offerings.
Which is great. However, many of them are not sold by amazon/shipped by prime,
and it increases cognitive overload. I have to calculate shipping, deal with
third party merchant shipping emails/review requests, sometimes they don't
ship to PO Boxes, etc.

------
transfire
Sorry Amazon, I don't care. And my Amazon Prime is still going bye-bye this
year. The prices are always higher than other vendors so the free shipping is
all but moot and your other services suck. I can't even get the Music service
to work.

------
danielconde
It seems that Jet.com (Ana Amazon-like competitor, I haven't used them yet, so
don't know the experience) has a $35 threshold for 2 to 5 day free-shipping.

~~~
sremani
jet.com is OK. For most of the stuff, they are reliable but books, they rely
on Barnes and Noble and at times there is delay in delivery.

Also your discount increases the more items you add to the cart, so jet
actually encourages you to make one big shopping cart with their system.

~~~
wantreprenr007
Sadly, Amazon can just undercut and outspend them.

"Competition is for losers" \- Thiel

------
CodeWriter23
They are trying to create lock-in via their customer loyalty program known as
Amazon Prime.

------
harryjo
Amazon finally decided to stop losing a little on every sale and making it up
in volume. This looks like a classic dumping strategy -- sell products below
cost (and evading sales/use tax, wink wink) to bankrupt competitors, and then
raise prices.

~~~
ben174
And then watch competitors come back. I look forward to the return of some
competition.

------
deepsun
More incentive to apply for Prime membership. Prime locks in customers a
little, which is good for business. Not for free market, though.

------
petecooper
Prime subscriber here, though it's the UK model (next-day delivery on many
things, plus Amazon Video as a perk).

My approach on it is somewhat different to many others here. I can order some
stuff before 8pm and have it delivered next day. Things ordered earlier in the
day (pre-noon) could be any courier, but the post-6pm orders are almost always
delivered by DPD to my area (north Cornwall, EX23 postcode).

Talking with my regular courier, so take this as anecdotal rather than cited,
there are apparently courier representatives (brokers) at some major depots
that bid on the packages as they are being readied: presumably, lowest bidder
wins the business.

I also use Prime for earning download credit. I can select a slow delivery
option for my order [0] if I'm not in a hurry, and get 1GBP as a kickback. In
November and December, this increases to 3GBP.

Over the year, I typically place 200+ orders (some for me, some for clients)
and most are slow delivery. This effectively means I make money on the Prime
subscription, and I can expand my Kindle library without spending real money.
At any given time, I have about >5GBP in digital credit [1] - there are
supposed to be expiry dates on it, but I've never fallen foul of it.

[0] [http://imgur.com/MLPTR1H](http://imgur.com/MLPTR1H)

[1] [http://imgur.com/0190B9O](http://imgur.com/0190B9O)

~~~
rahimnathwani
"though it's the UK model (next-day delivery on many things"

I order a couple of books today, for delivery to London. As Prime customer, I
was offered several free options:

\- same day delivery (6pm-10pm if I recall correctly) \- next day delivery \-
timed delivery (day after tomorrow, within a 4 hour window)

~~~
petecooper
Most of the UK is next-day minimum, as I understand it. Us rural folks don't
have the same-day perk.

------
parka
I live in Singapore and the free shipping to my country is USD $125.

Sometimes I really wonder how they make money when the items they ship are so
heavy.

In my country, the shipping cost would easily be 2 to 3 times what Amazon
would charge for their paid standard shipping. E.g. The box that I received
recently would have cost USD $30-50 to ship from my country to USA. They
either have a fantastic shipping deal or they really have deep wallets, the
latter is probably true.

~~~
jonknee
> They either have a fantastic shipping deal or they really have deep wallets,
> the latter is probably true.

Both are true.

------
noir_lord
Tried to buy some computer components of Amazon the other day, it became such
a pita that I aborted the order and bought the SSD in person at the local PC
World (for those not in the UK shipping at PC world is the last resort when in
a rush) for a couple of quid more.

At this point I actively avoid Amazon, they lost their mojo and ruthless focus
on customer experience.

------
t0mbstone
This article seems to be talking about books, in particular.

I just checked and my free Prime shipping is still in effect.

What am I missing? Did Amazon once offer free shipping to people who didn't
have Prime?

I'm pretty sure that they can't just change the benefits of Prime in the
middle of my membership.

~~~
DanBC
> Did Amazon once offer free shipping to people who didn't have Prime?

Yes. It wasn't next day delivery. You still get it, but there's a minimum
spend requirement now.

> I'm pretty sure that they can't just change the benefits of Prime in the
> middle of my membership.

Don't they have a clause saying they can change the terms whenever they like?

~~~
mystikal
I can't remember there not being a minimum spend. I can remember back to 2005
I think.

------
nmjohn
FYI: Prime one/same-day shipping is still $35 - this only seems to apply to
non-prime shipping.

------
esaym
I figured this would happen soon enough. I just hope they leave Prime alone. I
try hard not to "abuse" it any. I normally try to select the free no rush
shipping and save the free 2 day shipping to the things I actually do need
quickly when/if that need pops up.

Having free shipping on any order has certainly changed my online shopping
habits over the years. Other than food, I pretty much don't even go to the
store for anything. Even clothes, I just buy the brands I know fit me well off
of ebay used (and been doing that for like that last 8 years now)

~~~
ianai
I don't consider using Prime to be abuse...but I also place a preference on
buying locally when I can.

~~~
copperx
I don't think it's abuse either, but back when Prime was $79 and small items
shipped free, I cringed at the thought of buying, say, a pack of razors from
Amazon. It felt wrong.

~~~
hga
Exactly, it offends my sensibilities to order such things 2nd day unless I'm
likely to really need them that quickly. And with their incentives for slower
shipping (but still pretty fast as a rule) like $1 in free digital goods for a
limited time (a few months) they recognize that. They also use it to promote
their Pantry system (regular bulky subscriptions that some in big monthly
boxes).

And it makes me feel non-abusive when I order something for 2nd day that's
close to the line.

In general I find it a sane system, would be even more so if I didn't live
behind a slow broadband connection and had made my household 100% Linux.

~~~
matwood
Like you when I need something small, I usually just add it to my next Amazon
shipment. Pantry and Subscribe and Save have almost made it where I do not
have to go to the grocery store. Add in something like Blue Apron for fresh
dinners and I may never have to go to the grocery again.

I miss when I lived in Denver and had a milk man. Every week he would deliver
milk (obviously), eggs, bacon, bread, juice, etc...

------
tempestn
I'm curious whether they would revert the change if they saw a large dip in
sales as a result, and if so, how large it would have to be (relative to the
savings on shipping costs).

------
DiabloD3
Since everyone is sharing their Amazon stories, I shall add mine:

Story 1:

Buying the brand of catfood I do is cheaper through Amazon. I'd buy seven 24
can cases (one of each flavor) every 6 months or so, qualifying for the 15%
subscribe and save bonus, plus charge it to my Amazon store card, getting
another 5% on top of that.

Local stores charge $25 a case, Amazon averages out to a little more than $22
or so a case (each flavor is slightly different) and then I I pay about $18
after those discounts.

Almost every case I get from them is crushed due to improper packing. One time
they shoved all 7 cases into the same shipment. I have no clue how the outer
box itself didn't self destruct.

Yes, they would replace them at no cost, and the replacements would also be
crushed. Between the original and the replacement, I would have around 24 cans
per case worth keeping.

The most recent shipment is what killed it for me, only about 12 cans
salvageable out of 3 cases. They refunded me in full after arguing with them a
bit, and I'm just going to pay extra to buy it locally. This bullshit isn't
worth saving a few dollars given how much time I have to waste fixing their
problem.

Story 2:

I decided to not be a fatass anymore. Along that epic journey, I decided to
start lifting weights, and bought a barbell kit (two bars, two sets of four
plates, a plastic box to store them in, etc), and I started needing more
weight to continue.

I purchased four 10 pound plates, they had them on sale for less than a dollar
per pound. The box clearly self destructed, and was taped up by the fearless
team at UPS somewhere between the warehouse and my house. Only three plates
were in the box.

Amazon shipped me the replacement, but clearly there is no training being done
at Amazon on how to properly pack boxes or choose a proper box size based on
the weight of items in it.

Story 3:

I bought a $400 food processor, and a few other items for my kitchen,
including a new frying pan. The shipping label was attached to the frying
pan's retail box, and that was shipped. Everything else in the shipment didn't
arrive, but the frying pan did.

Amazon, again, fixed the problem, but what the hell. How does _that_ even
happen.

Story 4:

Back to the subscribe and save again. Items I keep subscribing to either
change price (to make them more expensive than just buying them locally), or
stop being offered for subscribe and save altogether.

Same with Amazon Prime Pantry: I'll add stuff to a Pantry box, try to fill it
(since I have to still pay S&H on that, even though I have Prime), and items I
try to add either do not exist in Pantry, are out of stock, and are never all
in stock at the same time (so waiting on some times causes other items to go
back out of stock).

And I can't subscribe to Pantry items, nor can I tell Amazon to ship me my box
when everything is in stock.

I've gotten one Pantry box ever. That is the only one I could ever get filled
with things I want. It ended up being a box full of toilet paper. My hall
closet, for the past 8 months, has had more toilet paper in it than it ever
has in it's existence.

Story 5:

Amazon Prime Day. Amazon decided they didn't want to participate in Black
Friday anymore (and thus, give out garbage Black Friday deals), and are
holding theirs on a completely different day.

However, all they give deals on are on stuff nobody wants, and Amazon wants it
out of their warehouse, and it is painfully clear this is what is going on.

\--

So yeah, between all of that, and the fact every few years they increase the
cost of Prime to pay for things I don't want: Kindle lending library (I don't
own a Kindle, and their Android software kind of sucks), Prime TV (I use
Netflix, and Prime TV doesn't work on non-Kindle Fire Android devices or
Chromecasts (only Fire TVs)), Prime Music (massively inferior experience to
Google Music), Prime Photos (again, why when I already have Google Photos),
and countless other things.

I just wanted the free two day shipping when it was $79/year, and when Amazon
had legitimately good prices. Given what I "save" on Amazon, I doubt I'm
actually making back $99/year. Having to deal with all this bullshit isn't
worth it.

I feel like Jeff Bezos has no clue how to just stop. He needs to learn how to
just sit back and enjoy that Amazon won. We have reached peak Amazon, and it
is only going to go down hill from here.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
I feel as if these horror stories are why Amazon wants to get heavily into the
shipping/delivery/freight industries these days. They can't rely on the
shipping services currently available to handle their wares reliably and
professionally.

~~~
DiabloD3
All of my stories are Amazon's problem, though.

Story 1 is because Amazon did not properly pack boxes (only a couple air
pillows to prevent shifting in the box, no bubble wrap _at all_ ); 2 is not
splitting the order between multiple boxes OR using higher weight boxes, and
also not using ANY air pillows; 3 is failure to attach shipping label to the
box instead of the product's box; 4 is failure of Amazon policy before I even
get to make an order; 5 is failure of Amazon policy and outright insulting.

Yes, I think Amazon should get into shipping, but they also need to start
PACKING THEIR SHIT RIGHT.

4 and 5 are the worst, I want to give them their money and they can't get
their shit together enough for them to take it. _I am already their customer_
, they already did the hardest part, now take my fucking money.

------
yAnonymous
Interesting. There have been rumors that Amazon are planning to set up their
own delivery service in Germany, so they could possibly go from losing money
to making money with the delivery.

[http://t3n.de/news/amazon-baut-eigenen-
lieferservice-649799/](http://t3n.de/news/amazon-baut-eigenen-
lieferservice-649799/)

------
eva1984
Not surprising, they lose money for shipping. With the competition going down,
they might feel it is a good time for price bump.

------
athenot
Sometimes I have a better experience looking up something on Amazon, finding
the site of the merchant and ordering from them directly. Especially when
things are not fulfilled by Amazon.

I let my prime membership lapse last year as I realized I was picking Amazon
by default for a lot of things that were cheaper elsewhere.

------
CamperBob2
Hmm. Being a Prime subscriber, I had no idea you could even get free shipping
without Prime.

~~~
fma
Yeah back in the day it was $25 for free shipping, then they bumped to $35,
now $49. The free shipping is not the same speed as prime. Prime gives you 2
days. Free shipping is just that..free regular ground shipping which could
take a few days to get to you.

------
smileysteve
Competitive note: Walmart does free shipping at $50 orders as well. Seems like
this just shows that Amazon didn't think that they needed the additional $15
advantage.

------
ck2
It's interesting that oil/gas prices are less than half of a year ago, yet
shipping prices have increased.

------
dkrich
Can we assume then that a hike in the cost of Prime isn't far behind?

~~~
drcode
It's possible they raised the shipping minimum in order to get more people to
sign up to Prime, so perhaps not.

------
zelcon5
Despite the temptation to bikeshed Amazon, I'd have to say this is quite
justified. Amazon seemed TOO cheap for a lot of things. It was amazing they
made any money at all. Now that they have a monopoly, they can stop with the
freebies.

------
nchelluri
What was it before?

~~~
ksherlock
$25. Then $35. I forget what came before $25 -- back then, discount codes were
so common it didn't really matter.

------
swehner
Reminder: just say no to amazon!

------
kefka
Well, that's fine.

I'll just buy more from AliExpress. Shipping is free, albeit long.

------
cavisne
Would love to be a fly on the wall when Amazon decided on this, it's pretty
much opposite the leadership principles which are essentially a religion for
the people who make decisions like this.

------
pbreit
I didn't realize anyone buys from Amazon who's not Prime. Only sort of
kidding. At $100/year kind of a no-brainer.

~~~
mikeash
$100/year is nice but $0 is nicer. It's usually not hard to combine items to
reach the free shipping threshold, and there are plenty of alternatives if
that doesn't work.

~~~
Karunamon
For me at least, the $100/year is quickly made up in those instances when I
need overnight shipping. Prime gets you free 2 day and really cheap ($5 or so)
overnight.

Having some random part break and be here the next day is a godsend.

~~~
mikeash
If you need it then I can see where it would be totally worth it. Personally,
I'm not sure I've _ever_ had something to order online where I needed it
overnight.

