^ that’s true. Unless they share unofficially, the login and everything.
You have to watch Amazon on pricing. Sometimes they have better prices, but they often mark up the price of Prime items, so the shipping isn’t really completely free. And sometimes they are selling at quite a markup compared with other stores. And on Cyber Monday, I was watching the price of a laptop that I had just bought to make sure it didn’t get marked down more and what do you know… The price went UP $50. When I had Prime, I tended to do less comparison shopping, but since I let it lapse, I notice it much more. I think we will see more and more of this kind of pricing as Amazon becomes more sure of an uncritical customer base.
And then the add-on items are infuriating… Although they are making me a big fan of “subscribe and save.” I recently wanted to buy a large bag of cough drops. They offered it as an add-on at a fair price, and they also offered a “Prime” version of the same thing that cost several dollars extra. I didn’t want to wait till I had $35 worth of stuff, and didn’t want to overpay. Well, turns out that if you “subscribe,” they will discount the add-on item AND ship it to you for free, AND you are under no obligation to continue buying the item. So in 6 months if I don’t want more cough drops, which seems likely, I’ll cancel or postpone.
I am probably in the minority here but I cancelled Amazon Prime when it went from $79 to $99. I do sometimes order books from them for my Kindle or real books but I actually prefer to order from B & N or go to the B & N store as I always have free shipping and coupons from them. I am trying to use Overdrive more for borrowing ebooks as well as real books from the public library or buying real books in real bookstores whenever I come across them. Mostly what I buy on Amazon are for people’s gift registries. Actually I’ve never thought to order any other kinds of things from them, although I did order a case for my I-phone. I don’t have any pets so need to order food or litter, although I do sometimes buy cat food for my daughter from Trader Joe’s or DH will pick up in Costco. We buy bulk paper goods and stuff like that from Costco, most groceries in Trader Joe’s or local supermarket and whenever we we are near Fairway.
When comparison shopping, you also need to check reviews (ignoring the nutjobs or people reviewing a different product.) I’ve chosen to pay a few more dollars for something with more positive reviews and/or better customer service. I also check the dates of complaints. And I usually (not always) order ‘fulfilled by Amazon,’ which means, if there’s a problem, return to Amazon, get their refund.
Since all four members of the family use my Amazon Prime at four different addresses, I figure I’m giving each of them free two day shipping on anything they purchase on Amazon for the entire year. That’s a pretty nice birthday present and well worth it to me. And of course I get all the Prime video and music etc.
I am guessing this means the prism annual rate will be increasing too.
Prime, not prism. Note to readers, do not buy a zag iPad keypad for iPads. Mucho autocorrects and strange mistypings (only some of which are operator error!)
I’m a prime member and it seems to be worth the fee, especially now that the rest of my family can share my prime benefit