The key passage to me is in paragraph 12: "being strategic with your shopping cart could get you most of the advantages of shopping on Amazon without paying for Prime."
This is true, and the Post's Geoff Fowler documents it well. But in this time-starved world, there's only so much energy that most of us can devote to being "strategic" about life's minor routines. In the past six months, I've become "strategic" about getting refunds from United when the in-flight wi-fi doesn't work. I've become "strategic" about squabbling with Public Storage when they raise monthly rental rates far faster than they promised me the last time we spoke. I've become "strategic" about storing passwords, being careful about coffee-shop wifi, etc., etc.
Shoot me, but there's only so much of life's minor routines that can be handled "strategically" before I've got no ability to enjoy family, pick fun/gutsy new professional goals, travel with gusto, etc. If Amazon Prime lets me make semi-okay shopping choices without having to top up $17.98 shopping carts to $20, hey, that's a welcome way of clearing out the clutter. It creates more time to be "strategic" about things that really are strategic.
So true, I remember a friend really baffled me when he brashly chastised me stating "you know there's more to life than saving money". The conversation was exactly about one of these time/effort consuming strategies.
On a similar note I remember this really poignant example came during prep for my wedding where me and the wife did all these crazy craft projects and I really stretched to buy the minimal fancy paper to get everything to work out just right. I wound up blowing the small margin budget by not taking into consideration the printing fees which was being paid per page rather than per item. When I bought all these small cardstocks the cardstock savings was exhausted because I could not maximize the items rendered per print. If I instead had paid for the full sheet I would be able to print multiple items at once later cutting them up.
A tangential experience in this space too came in owning fruit trees where anyone whose owned one knows you get this downpour of a harvest. It's hard not to waste it and avoid fallen fruit and I was struck at how "wasteful" nature can be, it just hits you with an abundance that really threw me for a loop in trying to use so much effort to eat it all. At some point I really switched teams to just enjoying what I can and not getting all worked up about the lost potential. I guess the point of it all is that harvesting of any potential is not without effort, which may not be trivial or fit into our overall effort budget.
I cannot wait for my fruit trees to rain a glut onto me. On a serious note, I planted my apple trees close together hoping to stunt their growth and create more of a hedge then an orchard.
"harvesting potential is not without effort" - I love this, it's all about balancing inputs and outputs. Once you have an established tree, it will produce apples as an output with little human input. The harvest and preservation of this output requires a lot of human input.
The thing is you can use the apples in other ways, "the problem is the solution". Instead of trying to eat an apple a day and bake pies and make cider which are all human intensive tasks, you could allow something else to work on the extra apple output. For examples, pigs and goats love apples and could make short work over excess. They in turn they produce values outputs (meat, milk, poop). Don't want to be bothered owning animals.
>Shoot me, but there's only so much of life's minor routines that can be handled "strategically" before I've got no ability to enjoy family, pick fun/gutsy new professional goals, travel with gusto, etc.
The more services you have, the more the desire to strategize. A different solution is simply not to utilize so many services in your life. Do you really need all of them? I've never had wifi on a flight, and life is not miserable. Ditto for purchases. How much have you bought in the last year that you did not properly utilize and is sitting around the house that you intend to get to one day?
When you spend less time altogether shopping, then you suddenly have more time to be strategic about the things you do buy.
I really wonder just how much this author values his or her time, if at all.
Time for me to run to target: at least 70 minutes round trip.
Times amazon has leaked my credit cards, last 5 years: 0. Times other sites have idioted their way into a giant hassle for me, last 5 years: 8. Time spent arguing with the morons at my gym because I forgot to update my stolen credit card and they wanted to fine me $30: almost 40 minutes. Amount I resent having to deal with all of the above: a lot.
Yup. amazon needs to understand that they have at least partly become a luxury/convenience brand. We're willing to pay extra (not a huge amount extra, but definitely extra) to save time and effort. If you have third parties selling me counterfit garbage, then I need to spend a lot of time defending against that... and if I have to spend a lot of time evaluating that sort of thing? I might as well move over to ebay where it's cheaper.
Because we allow you to use the credit card without using the chip. You buy from a compromised merchant, or a merchant that isn't properly hashing it's credit cards? bam, your card is stolen. You put your card in a compromised card reader? your card is stolen. With a chip, (a smartcard credit card, like you use in Europe) this is way harder.
Yes, yes, in America, our credit cards now have chips, too... but they also have the old magstripe, and everyone buys things from the internet anyhow, so we're giving that number out to everyone.
The other side of this is that the laws in the US are heavily in the customer's favor. It's a pain in the ass, you have to complain about the charges, but it's very rare that we are actually responsible for any of the charges. (The merchant who accepted the stolen credit card is left holding that particular bag.)
Because of this? Personally, I don't worry too much about it. I figure any one of my cards might be out of commission at any point of time, and periodically I'll just call my credit card company and tell them to give me a new credit card number, just so I have a fresh one that isn't floating around all the darknet sites. I figure a credit card being compromised every five years or so is 'normal'
But it's the same in Europe. My credit card has that magstripe too. I've never used it, but it has it. And I enter my credit card number in places online. So, I don't see how I'm more protected?
I didn't know that. I thought that chip and pin was the norm in Europe, and that getting a transaction reversed as a European customer was way harder than for American customers because of this.
That's not a credit card. In Germany we call it an ec card or Girocard, it's a debit card. The amount is deducted immediately from your bank account when using it and it requires PIN and chip.
I would say the cynical answer is because our credit cards are valuable. We have the mentality that we are somehow responsible for other people's crimes/criminal negligence.
Just the other day, I read about how someone managed to pick up over a thousand dollars in overdraft fees when he was struggling to make ends meet and now he never had that problem because he has access to credit cards (that he can afford to pay off in full every month so it doesn't cost him much extra).
> I would say the cynical answer is because our credit cards are valuable
This, but not for the reasons you think. In America, it is stupidly easy to get credit in general, and credit cards have high limits. Europe is much, much more conservative in that regard.
Because the penalties to business for allowing this to happen are nowhere near high enough; instead, it's largely the problem of the individuals involved.
This is... the opposite of my impression, well, sortof. There aren't penalties for the business your credit card is stolen from (and I believe your credit card is usually stolen from a business you legitimately did business with.)
However, the thief? once they get that credit card? they use it with a merchant to buy a thing.
For example, last time my card was stolen, I saw a charge for some expensive jewelry from a Florida jeweler on my account. I called my credit card company and they refunded the money to my account... so who is left holding the bag? that jewler in Florda.
When I had a merchant account (selling VPSs) I had a few customers like that; the credit card company simply takes the money back, and it's up to you, the merchant, to try to get back what you just sold to the customer... something that is usually impossible.
I meant there's very little penalty to the business that allowed the theft to occur, so I can't see what we disagree about?
Oh, nm, you meant that businesses that unknowingly accept stolen cards get screwed. They certainly do.
But imagine a business had to write a $50 check to each and every cardholder whose card they leaked. I bet there would be a miracle, and systems would become securable.
I agree that if there were more consequences for compromised businesses, there would be fewer compromises... but it would also massively raise the barrier to getting a merchant account. Essentially, you'd live in a world where everyone used paypal or something like it. (I think apple pay would be in the running, too, but I think this might end up being natural-monopoly-ish)
The best way to solve the problem, I think, is to quit using shared secrets across minimally trusted parties. Public key cryptography is... I'm not going to say unbreakable, but it's pretty good. it's fairly secure. We need to enforce that on all physical card readers, which will make 'skimming' rather a lot more difficult, and then after that we need to figure out a card reader users can use on their computers and cellphones.
The technology is mostly there; most of my cellphones support some kind of secure wireless public key stuff, and most of my phones do too. We need to make this ecosystem work well, solve the software problems, and then make it so that your credit card number is just an identifier, not an authentication token.
That sounds pretty much like apple pay, no? If visa, mastercard, and the merchant banks can't be bothered to make it, then maybe apple deserves their cut.
Yes, apple pay, I think, occupies a similar place to paypal I have run a business that recieved payments through paypal; I have not run a business that recieved payments through apple pay, but my impression is that they both do the same thing... they let a business accept payments without knowing the user's credit card number, which would be essential to businesses if there was significant liability associated with credit card breaches.
Two big things about Amazon Prime (purely from a shipping perspective) for me:
1.) With more of my movie and book buying shifting to digital, I actually don't have a lot of things sitting in my wishlist any longer waiting to be popped into my shopping cart to round up a purchase
2.) Especially, as someone who travels a lot, I really (unexpectedly) found that being able to get orders fairly deterministically in a couple of days (aka less time than I'd have probably have taken to go to the store anyway) is hugely valuable.
The main downside is that, if I'm being honest, I do make some impulse purchases I probably wouldn't have made had I left things sit for a a few weeks but that's mostly another type of mental load. The buyer's regret items are both few and fairly low value.
> being able to get orders fairly deterministically in a couple of days
Seriously, this is one of the wonders of the modern world. Going elsewhere means not only wondering when an item will arrive, it means wondering whether the item will arrive at all. A 5% difference in price just isn't worth the necessary contingency planning.
A couple of times now when shopping elsewhere I've had orders deliberately delayed so that I would call and they could attempt to upsell me because they weren't making a good enough commission on the price as advertised. Life is way too short for these sort of shenanigans.
Also, once you are used to real time "in stock/out of stock" status, shopping at a physical store is an exercise in pure frustration. There are only so many times you'll buy crappy alternatives to what you actually want so that you don't "waste the trip" before you stop making the trip.
Pro-tip: write in to United any flight you have where something goes wrong. They'll usually reply with a travel certificate. They almost always have something wrong (broken wifi, in flight entertainment, delays, missed connections, etc.). Each time, it's an opportunity to score.
I write this from the airport lounge after getting off a $260 flight, which I paid mostly with a $200 certificate with the last flight's issue, and landed to a new $175 certificate for broken wifi. I'm up to over $5000 in such compensation in the past couple years.
- The restaurant is a near-monopoly at which I have to either eat at or go hungry.
- The reason I "don't like my meal", as you say, is because it was served to me multiple days late, during which time I was unable to leave and re-enter the restaurant without having to pay again (and this restaurant charges a premium).
- When I pay for food at the restaurant, I often receive an empty plate instead. The restaurant refers to this as my "not liking my meal", and chalks it up to personal preference unless I raise a stink.
- The restaurant is somewhere I am forced to eat by my employer, and my employer will not refund me when they fail to provide food.
- The restaurant has a reputation for being mismanaged and implementing policies that torment patrons--sometimes by physically beating them.
- The restaurant has slowly but surely increased prices while visibly decreasing portion sizes.
And so on. For a lot of people "just don't fly" doesn't work (people with overseas family or travel for work). And for those same people, mega-airlines like United are often the only feasible choice or one of a very few equivalently-shitty choices.
Also, complaining by email decreases (doesn't eliminate, but decreases) the annoyance caused by antagonizing an in-person employee of the airline with your grievances. The person whose day you might ruin by interrupting them is not the problem--their employer is--but it's very hard for many people to refrain from acting as if that person is responsible when they confront someone. The person whose job it is to read the complaint emails probably isn't having a great time either, but at least they can (hopefully) take a smoke break if they need to.
If a flight delay causes me to miss a connection, then I paid for a service (getting me from location A to location B by a certain time) that I did not actually get. Same if the Wi-Fi is out of service.
There is no implicit promise at a restaurant that you'll like your dinner.
It's more akin to an ingredient being missing or something being burnt. It's not like OP is making complaints like "the seats were uncomfortable" -- parts of the service were objectively missing.
Pretty sure there’s a flight website dedicated to doing these kinds of hacks and essentially flying for free forever (after a decent amount of up front investment) but my Google Fu is failing me right now.
For me, living without Prime requires no energy and takes the form of (1) waiting a few extra days and (2) buying less casually and frequently, resulting in spending less money on things I don't need.
I've also moved most of my shopping off Amazon altogether as well, and it was surprisingly easy. Just a few searches to see who's got the best price on [x] right now. It's surprisingly often not Amazon.
I also just recently canceled Prime, and have had the same experience. I realized that I'm paying a premium for services like Video and Music that I never use. Also, it was very rare that I had a cart that didn't qualify for free shipping with or without Prime.
On the whole, I think this will lead to a much needed sanitisation of our buying habits for the coming year. We had gotten so used to buying things basically on a whim. It's good to be more thoughtful about our consumption.
What’s odd is my experience with cancelling Prime is the same with getting rid of my Facebook. Once I got rid of it I was happy and didn’t miss it. Having no prime just means I lose out on instant gratification (well 1-2 day delay becomes a week). I also did not use prime music or video, so they didn’t have their hooks in me.
> a few searches to see who's got the best price on [x] right now. It's surprisingly often not Amazon.
That's definitely not "no energy" and is kind of exactly the OP's point. Amazon might not be the cheapest but they'll still be very close, and you save time by just defaulting to them.
There are browser extensions that make them virtually "no energy". Haven't used them in a long time so I can't speak for the current experience.
I would very much dispute the "very close" claim. I find they're very close or the cheapest for fairly pricey items. For not-so-common items, or for regular supplies, they are often not even close.
I bought a steamer rack from them for over $15. It's a very popular item, made from a well known brand and with over 1000 reviews. Just last week I was in a local grocery store and found a very similar steamer for less than $7. Looking at similar steamers in Amazon, they are all above $10 if I order Prime. I do see one which is about $8, but I have to specially select the non-default non-Prime option for that listing. On a search result, it shows up as $11, not $8. Note that I am not a Prime member, yet those are the prices I see when I search.
If you do a lot of "regular" shopping, those deltas really add up.
When you start having kids, it often becomes a hell of a lot trickier to thread this needle, based off of what I've heard. Sure, for some stuff you can play this game, but school supplies for example?
If Amazon Prime lets me make semi-okay shopping choices without having to top up $17.98 shopping carts to $20, hey, that's a welcome way of clearing out the clutter. It creates more time to be "strategic" about things that really are strategic.
I've largely solved that problem by not buying things.
I didn't find this article very interesting, but I found the existence of this article interesting.
It seems like a smart career move to criticize Amazon as a tech reporter at WaPo. Since Bezos now owns the newspaper, if you're laid off or fired, you could point to your critical articles of Amazon as proof of journalistic wrongdoing. He's unfireable!
Not explicitly Prime-related, but the author ponders why someone would shop at Amazon rather than Walmart (as an example).
We don't have Walmart in my part of the world, but what I can say is that Amazon is the preference not just for the fast delivery, but for the security. If I get delivered a crap product that's not as described, I know Amazon won't argue with me. I dread taking anything back to any other retailer I've dealt with. There's only so many times you can be told some variant of "oh we can't help you because you broke the seal that you needed to break to open the box". I'll vote with my wallet, and if it means hegemony, then Amazon's competitors should have started giving a rats behind years ago.
I don't know where you are but that sounds like a cultural difference. Most American retailers have very good return policies. I was at Lowe's (big box hardware store) recently and witnessed someone return an open bag of beef jerky because they didn't like the flavor. The only places with bad return policies are small mom and pops.
Most places in the UK do as well (it's mandatory online), but Amazon tend to deal with returns outside that initial period much better. I recently had a pair of headphones break after 17 months use - still in warranty but I wanted to avoid the manufacturer if possible due to the 2 week turnaround time and the fact that Amazon listed them as "Used - Like New" (Warehouse Deals). In similar situations, other retailers have either been extremely awkward about the exchange or insisted that the manufacturer do the repair. With this one, one email to Amazon and less than twelve hours later I had a returns label and a refund on the way.
It's still worth shopping around - occasionally Amazon can be far more expensive than the alternatives - but if the price is close, _knowing_ that Amazon will sort an issue even if it doesn't show up for a year plus without even questioning is useful to know.
My experiences have been vastly different than your own - the CRA helps, certainly - but I've found retailers don't really abide the law as much as like to be forced kicking and screaming into adhering to it.
Even retailers who boast having their reputation for support at the core of their business. I've had hellish experiences getting John Lewis to deal with failed electronics, even a DOA laptop. You have the right to take a retailer to court of course, but most know you won't bother with the hassle and give up. Again, only my experience. One I've never had with Amazon.
I’m not a big fan of Walmart but it’s either 10 minutes to Walmart or almost an hour to other retailers. That being said Walmart let’s you return almost anything. They don’t want an upset customer. I can value that especially with all the times I shred a receipt but then realize I didn’t need something or something happened to it.
Over the last year I have severely cut my contact with these mega-corporations. Don't order from Amazon, google services is limited to the rare use of ``!g'' from duckduckgo, and I tend to get groceries from smaller grocery stores (relative to Walmart). What I've learned is how easy it is to do. People just want what's familiar, to do what they did yesterday, and don't realize how much of a non-issue the alternatives are. I'd recommend giving it a try. Now if I could just get rid of Comcast.
My usage of Amazon increased exponentially since we had twins. As a parent, the 1/2-day free delivery of anything from diapers to wipes to random items like kids cups or books, I can’t even imagine having to go to the store for these things anymore. Especially with one shout to Alexa. It really makes a huge difference in quality of life, when running out even for the smallest errand can be a multiple hour process.
It's all in what you value. If, as a parent, it's more important to you to save time than have a good way to send signal your virtue to internet friends (you monster!), then you're on the right track.
OP is probably talking about Target, Kroger/QFC/Smiths, literally any other retailer.
I stopped shopping at Wal-Market around 2009 (I think). I realize Target, Bi-lo and others have adopted a lot of the same practices WM used in order to simply stay competitive and especially with stores like Target, they know customers may pay a premium just not to shop at the mega store.
So it might be symbolic at this point, you can't really vote with your dollars, but I have the money and save plenty, so I might as well try and do what I can.
I rarely shoped at Amazon and quit shopping there entirely after moving back to the US in 2016, to Seattle, and seeing Amazon as nothing more but the new Wal-Mart, not just for retail, but for server hosting as well.
They didn't address the pricing issue well. For well known products, Amazon Prime may have cheap prices. For random items, they often are more expensive (more often than not, in my experience). More expensive compared to other sites/local stores, and more expensive than the non-Prime option from Amazon.
People who sell FBA on Amazon make good money because people who have Prime usually only buy Prime-eligible products. You can get a book + shipping for, say, $10 if you are willing to forego 2 day shipping. But the lowest prime-eligible price may be $20. These are not hypothetical prices. I've sold stuff using Amazon FBA where many of the cheapest sellers are selling under $10, and I list it at, say, $25 for Prime users, and I still sell it. A lot of Prime users simply filter for Prime options and never consider the cheaper options on the same page.
Most of their packaging is recyclable and 1 delivery driver can make an efficient route delivering goods to hundreds of people.
The alternative is having everyone drive to retail stores which is super carbon intensive and then you still end up with the same packaging minus the cardboard box (which is recycled anyways).
Sounds like you are the one being unconscionable to me
I think it's likely that the person you responded to has a fairly negative idea of consumerism in general, if I may interpret his comment a little more softly.
I think it's fair to say that Amazon promotes consumption, and lots of places in the world just consume too much.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Amazon use more packaging materials than brick and mortar stores? They have to box up the items which would otherwise be in their own boxes. Also the brick and mortars would probably do a better job of recycling/disposing of packaging.
" Also the brick and mortars would probably do a better job of recycling/disposing of packaging."
That doesn't hold true everywhere. Recycling for me is easy. The city gives me a trash can for paper products, and another for plastic. But in the states, it was always spotty. I lived in a little town with no curbside recycling, and I didn't have a car. There was never a real push for recycling most places I lived in the states, and most states offer zero cash back for empty bottles and cans (it greatly increases the number of them recycled). Here (Norway) I can simply put them into a machine in the grocery stores, though some aren't accepted.
On top of that, commercial trash is quite a bit different. City dwellers usually pay for trash removal through taxes. The businesses, though, pay for it themselves. Most are motivated to recycle their cardboard because the company pays them to pick up trash. (plastic and other similar things just go in the trash).
Now, lets consider Amazon. They have a bit more in common with a factory than a brick and morter. Some of their stuff isn't in their control to recycle, though they could offer returnable packages. The rest, though, is doable. After all, some factories send absolutely nothing to a landfill (Subaru in Lafayette, Indiana is one of those). I'm pretty sure something similar can happen at Amazon if they had the right incentive. They'd already have the trash incentive brick and mortar stores have.
I agree. Unless your brick and mortar store puts every 4-5 items into their own cardboard box with padding and tape, then a typical Amazon habit is using way more material. Unless I'm missing something, GP's point is obviously true...
Even if a high percentage of Amazon packaging gets recycled, that's more wasteful than just not using it for shipping, right? Then, we get into the relative carbon footprint of people driving to the store, and as others have pointed out, that could be marginally low when you consider they are already at the store, or are out and about for other reasons.
>The alternative is having everyone drive to retail stores which is super carbon intensive
For regular household items (soap, supplies, etc) - which many buy using Amazon Prime, you're really not saving gas by buying on Amazon, as you likely go to these stores anyway to buy groceries, etc.
Generally I agree, but it's definitely an area Amazon could improve on at times. They recently shipped me a 60cm steel rule in a box that was roughly 70cmx40cmx10cm.
I've started trying to cut down on Prime and it's been nice actually. I've been getting electronics from Ebay and vitamins/nootropics from speciality stores, and coffee from local roasters, and I've found some better deals and overall higher quality. I'm glad that WaPo also was able to write a critical article about its sponsor.
I think it's really just about what you value more. I don't mind spending a few bucks more here and there to remove hassle. Buying from ebay would certainly count as a hassle for me.
I also absolutely love Amazon's customer service: in my experience they're 100% no-questions-asked no matter what, as long as you return within 30 days. And if it's a small enough item that's not worth the return shipping cost, I don't even have to go through the hassle of shipping it back. With nearly any other retailer I would dread having to attempt a return.
I use Amazon's "Prime Now" service to get groceries from Sprouts (a health food store similar to Whole Foods). I don't have a car so it makes it really worth my Prime membership. I also find it much more professional and reliable than Instacart. Tips are added by default to checkout (but you can still not tip).
Personally I shop three sites for most goods, Amazon, Wal-Mart, and E-bay. I am an Amazon prime member. I use Wal-Mart for items I cannot get via Amazon but I also check them to see if they have what I want at my local store.
My issue with Wal-Mart is their site can be a real mess at times and filtering to my local store only oddly doesn't work all the time. They also have a shipping issue where they have split an order and both arrived the same day so how they don't lose money I don't know; one arrived Fed Ex in the morning and then another as Fed Ex Home at night - they were multiples of the same item from the same location!
Now I have watched some Amazon Prime video and I use it to get stuff my parents want faster and have it delivered to my house. Yet one are the Post missed is their partnership with Twitch, now I can support a single streamer for free each month where that used to cost me 4.99 a month.
Also, Prime is a godsend for those who cannot get out of house either from infirmities, medical (think IBS), or simply not comfortable in crowds.
> My issue with Wal-Mart is their site can be a real mess at times and filtering to my local store only oddly doesn't work all the time.
Have you tried their mobile app? It seems to be a lot better at showing local inventory than the web site (at least the iOS version...I've not tried the Android version).
Just tried to order 3x15ft rope lights from a sight for that sort of stuff. Around $60 for each spool. They wanted $161 shipping. Same thing on Amazon, $70 each with free shipping. My wife and I order something once a week at least (household stuff). Prime works out well. Plus we get to watch the Grand Tour!
Do you not use Prime Video at all? As someone who doesn't subscribe to Netflix, Hulu or any of the premium cable networks, I'm finding I get a pretty decent fill of entertainment with Prime Video alone.
Incidentally it was Prime Video that caused me to cancel Prime briefly a few months ago (though re-subscribed when it became evident that shipping costs would cost me as much and didn't feel like cutting my nose off to spite my face) - they added (or I noticed) pre-roll ads for other Amazon shows which I really dislike in a paid product.
I've done that re-evaluation and have decided that the extra per-order for shipping is worth it to me. I also do watch things on Prime Video, so that's a useful add-on.
I've found after the first initial years of establishing myself, I rarely buy much of anything from amazon other than the rare uncommon $5-$15 object that would be hard to find in a store.
What I do buy is significantly cheaper to just buy at target anyway during grocery runs.
I also never use the other services even though they are available. Amazon music isn't as good as spotify, the tv offering isn't that interesting, etc.
I dropped Prime when Azon started their clever strategy of leaving my purchases on the street. (I live alone in an urban, somewhat sketchy area with a mail slot in my door.) It is just way too much of a hassle to buy something, only to have to argue with Amazon after they gifted it to some random person.
So I buy a lot less from Bezosmart these days. Can't say it is much of a loss for me.
It's the carriers (USPS, FedEx, UPS etc.) who leave your purchases on the street, not Amazon. Amazon can't micromanage their shipping partners to alter the way they do deliveries.
You don't have argue with Amazon. You press the "where's my stuff" button and send a message. They'll ship a replacement right away.
If you live in a sketchy area, don't order things. Similarly, I live in a cottage behind a big house. I can't hear or see delivery trucks, so I avoid any orders that require a signature.
Amazon's own couriers are the worst of the bunch for me (in the UK). They leave stuff pretty much anywhere, even if you're in, up to and including inside a general waste bin (which is great fun when you have pets to clean out and don't immediately notice the Amazon card...) and show up at pretty much any time (after 10pm on more than one occasion).
>It's the carriers (USPS, FedEx, UPS etc.) who leave your purchases on the street, not Amazon. Amazon can't micromanage their shipping partners to alter the way they do deliveries.
Amazon has been using their own delivery service here for quite a few of my orders, and they don't always know what they are doing. I would wager this is why the parent was facing problems.
I've actually had to contact Amazon about this several times after we moved to this location. To the extent where I was seriously annoyed that I couldn't find a customer service option right on the order page and instead had to click separately through their customer service flow, only to find that the agent has no idea what order I'm concerned about, and that I have to go through the whole rigmarole of telling them my name (if you have an uncommon name like mine, this quickly becomes a chore), address, order, etc.
To Amazon's credit, they've always made it right with me, but I shouldn't have to contact them every week about this issue. That's at least partly the reason I canceled our membership.
Yep. The majority of our purchases at my house are now delivered via Amazon Flex, which is the name for their services that contracts ordinary people to deliver using their personal vehicles.
The degree of professionalism here is lacking, compared to USPS or UPS.
In one particular instance I spent 20 minutes looking for a package, checking with neighbors, etc. The Amazon app said "delivered to mailroom" but I live in a single family home.
Turned out the driver just chucked the package out their window while driving by, and left the package in a pile of leaves along the street.
>Less than 1 percent of Amazon Prime members even consider other sites in the same shopping session, according to market research consultancy Millward Brown Digital.
Yes, because I dont care for the shipping cost but the guaranteed overnight shipping for pretty much everything I need.
The argument, that you get cheaper delivery is moot if that isnt the reason why you use amazon prime.
As a former prime member, there are times I miss it, but not much.
What I miss most is Amazon caring about me as a customer. I don't think I am the only one who finds that as a non-prime customer my packages take a really long time to ship.
I often have to contact Amazon to get them to actually ship my infrequent orders.
> I don't think I am the only one who finds that as a non-prime customer my packages take a really long time to ship.
This is precisely why I refuse to even try Prime. It feels like a protection racket. It's not unusual for them to take a week or two to even dispatch an item. If I don't like it, I'm welcome to pay their protection money.
It's saving me plenty though. Most the stuff I get from Amazon, I can get from China at a fraction of the price. Now that amazon isn't neccessarily faster than China (yes, let that sink in!), I may as well order it from China.
(and note I'm talking about time to dispatch here. I'm not complaining I get default shipping rather than 2-day shipping. I'm complaining it takes them a week or two to pull the item off a shelf)
I had prime for a couple of years specifically for the video. I probably didn't get hooked on the shipping for a good two years after I first signed up. I don't have cable and I find Netflix gets stale if it's all one uses. There have been precious few competitors to Netflix and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay Hulu and watch their commercials. Network TV pretty much sucks anyway (imo) so I don't really see any use for Hulu.
> My nearest store is 15 minutes away, and the nearest Walmart is an hour away.
And I'll bet your nearest Amazon Fulfilment Center is a lot farther away than those. But hardly relevant, either, when you can go to walmart.com or target.com and order the same items, often also for free two-day delivery.
It is fascinating in these comments to see the reductio ad absurdum that Prime membership seems to invoke. People arguing that if they didn't have Prime they'd have to walk to a store.
Amazon wasn't the first online e-tailer, it isn't the only one and surprisingly it isn't the biggest in many countries.
Remote? I live in SF; we don't have a Walmart, and our only large retailer is Target, which is a 10 min drive (plus the pain of finding parking) or a 25 min walk (which limits what I can carry back with me). Even when I lived in a suburb (still Bay Area), retailers would be a 10-15 min drive minimum.
I've lived in some really remote parts of the west and the worst my prime shipments have ever been is a day late.
Count that against the 40 mile drive into town that I only make once every other week -- even if they took a week to get to me it would be sooner then if I went to the store (plus all the gas savings for myself).
You’re really close to Burlington, you’re not remote from the shipping perspective. Many places in NY in the middle of nowhere add 1-2 days delivery because UPS routes are super long or they need to use USPS and a rural carrier humping packages in the back of his Subaru.
What's the point of this article? Is it news? Is it interesting? Is it HN material?
It's not hard to quit amazon prime. I only sign up for amazon prime once a year during christmas and then cancel the membership at the end of the month. Takes me a few seconds.
Wish HN was more technology centric like it used to be rather than peddling silly washingtonpost and nytimes articles.
The ability to have nearly anything I want shipped to me with 2 days for a flat annual rate is absolutely devastating. I don’t know how I don’t know how I manage to function when a BIG, EVIL corporation is manipulating me into buying stuff I want. /s
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here. If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.
Yeah, it must be fun being sarcastically dismissive of criticism when you aren't the one getting the short end of the stick (or maybe you are and don't even realise it).
Trampling workers rights, unloading externalities onto taxpayers, establishing dangerous dominance in many sectors, wiping your ass with user privacy, hugely increasing pollution to deliver packages a day earlier, just a few examples of what it costs to ship you packets of cheap crap within 2 days. Dismissing all that because you appreciate the convenience of free 2-day delivery is the purest expression of first-world privilege.
Find me a good warehouse job because I have yet to hear of one that is good (Amazon sounds average for warehouse but warehouse jobs are hard regardless of your company).
This is true, and the Post's Geoff Fowler documents it well. But in this time-starved world, there's only so much energy that most of us can devote to being "strategic" about life's minor routines. In the past six months, I've become "strategic" about getting refunds from United when the in-flight wi-fi doesn't work. I've become "strategic" about squabbling with Public Storage when they raise monthly rental rates far faster than they promised me the last time we spoke. I've become "strategic" about storing passwords, being careful about coffee-shop wifi, etc., etc.
Shoot me, but there's only so much of life's minor routines that can be handled "strategically" before I've got no ability to enjoy family, pick fun/gutsy new professional goals, travel with gusto, etc. If Amazon Prime lets me make semi-okay shopping choices without having to top up $17.98 shopping carts to $20, hey, that's a welcome way of clearing out the clutter. It creates more time to be "strategic" about things that really are strategic.