Amazon raises free shipping minimum to $35

[MikeCL]

Originally Posted by MoulinBlu

Actually, from what I've seen it's the BDs, particularly catalog titles, that would likely be harder to find in stores. Most everything else is not only available in stores, it's usually cheaper than amazon's price these days, as it seems amazon is trying to make up for their supposed prime losses with higher prices. Case in point, a coffee mug I recently purchased routinely sells at Walmart for $2, and at Target for $3. Amazon sells the exact same mug, but was charging $5 for it and they would still only ship it as part of their add-on program with a minumum $25 order. Now they'll ship it regular or with prime, but they upped the price to $6. And I assure you that's not an isolated case - it's becoming routine.

Larger items, they seem to be setting their prices by pricematching their bigger competitors these days. But they can't seem to be able to affordably ship smaller items anymore without charging two to three times what the items are worth.

Amazon now has a large, established customer base - many of whom seem to exhibit a blind loyalty to the etailer, based on the responses to any amazon criticism that appears in their own forum - so amazon isn't trying to grow or even aggressively keep their customers any longer. Now they're all about figuring out how much they can get away with charging or overcharging for items before too many of their customers are no longer willing to pay as much as retail, if not more, for the convenience of buying online.

Amazon is very much the newest walmart, but without the bad rap that wally world has taken for poor work conditions, unfair employee treatment, etc that has led to many people no longer respecting the chain. But based on all the criticism I've seen on amazon's forum lately and all the support threads that have sprung up in response, by more loyal buyers, or new buyers who don't even remember when amazon was aggressively driving etail sells, seeming to need to justify their continued loyalty in the face of more and more criticism and resentment of changes, like the shipping hike and goldbox remodel, it seems more people are starting to notice what the rest of us have seen happening for at least a couple years now.

The add-on program is the biggest waste of shipping and cardboard.. I only used it twice and now I try to avoid it.. a slap in the face for prime users.. this is my 2nd year with prime and in those two years I've seen a lot of changes.. most of them came in the forum of WTH and WTF at the checkout.

Anyways the add-on pieces.. they were both small.. a exhaust gasket for a car way under 1 LB.. more like 0.22 LB and a wire harness for a temp sensor which was like $6 and also way under a pound.. they shipped the tiny exhaust gasket in a large UPS express box and the wire harness in a 3x too big box.. I was way more disgusted of the waste of the boxes more then the price.

Now i just avoid the add-on or I just buy it from a non Amazon shipper.

[MoulinBlu]

Originally Posted by MikeCL

The add-on program is the biggest waste of shipping and cardboard.. I only used it twice and now I try to avoid it.. a slap in the face for prime users.. this is my 2nd year with prime and in those two years I've seen a lot of changes.. most of them came in the forum of WTH and WTF at the checkout.

Anyways the add-on pieces.. they were both small.. a exhaust gasket for a car way under 1 LB.. more like 0.22 LB and a wire harness for a temp sensor which was like $6 and also way under a pound.. they shipped the tiny exhaust gasket in a large UPS express box and the wire harness in a 3x too big box.. I was way more disgusted of the waste of the boxes more then the price.

Now i just avoid the add-on or I just buy it from a non Amazon shipper.

So they'll only ship add-on items when attached to a min $25 order, but still ship it separately? I should have already guessed that. Even with prime, I used to try to combine orders when I could, but discovered that it didn't do any good, amazon would still ship half my orders separately. I assumed with their bulk shipping contracts they figured it was more affordable to ship separately rather than pay someone to package things together. Until the add-on program that is. Before it, they had lots of stuff across their site for only a buck or two that shipped like everything else with prime. Then they not only created the add-on program making it less convenient to buy small items from them when you needed, but shortly after they started over-inflating the prices of many of those items, as if they didn't even want us to buy them from them anymore, or expected most of their customers to be dumb enough to pay twice the price of what you can get it for locally - still haven't figured out which. But I thought amazon seemed to make more of an effort to ship stuff together these days: they've even seemed to delay shipment for a few of my items, presumably to send it with another order I had due.

[duke4711]

It doesn't surprise me that they are doing this. A lot of sites have free shipping after a certain amount. I'm a Prime member and I don't even use Amazon all that much anymore. I'm probably not even going to renew. I'm sick and tired of those flimsy padded envelopes that Amazon started using, and then having to send stuff back because it arrives damaged. There is a BB and a Target right on my way home from work, so lately I've been stopping and picking up what I want. Quality just doesn't seem to mean much to Amazon anymore.

[MikeCL]

Originally Posted by MoulinBlu

So they'll only ship add-on items when attached to a min $25 order, but still ship it separately? I should have already guessed that. Even with prime, I used to try to combine orders when I could, but discovered that it didn't do any good, amazon would still ship half my orders separately. I assumed with their bulk shipping contracts they figured it was more affordable to ship separately rather than pay someone to package things together. Until the add-on program that is. Before it, they had lots of stuff across their site for only a buck or two that shipped like everything else with prime. Then they not only created the add-on program making it less convenient to buy small items from them when you needed, but shortly after they started over-inflating the prices of many of those items, as if they didn't even want us to buy them from them anymore, or expected most of their customers to be dumb enough to pay twice the price of what you can get it for locally - still haven't figured out which. But I thought amazon seemed to make more of an effort to ship stuff together these days: they've even seemed to delay shipment for a few of my items, presumably to send it with another order I had due.

Yep when the add-on program started it pissed off a lot of prime members because with prime you still had to have $25 worth of stuff, I guess Amazon wanted to give the sellers more sells because at least for them $4 +$3 S&H is way cheaper then $25 min order.