Amazon raises free shipping minimum to $35

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by skiizim

It wouldn't be so bad if they started shipping your stuff once you order it but it's almost like they put a delay on it before they even start your order.

Yeah, I know. Finally, someone else here notices this!!

[ultlife2013]

Originally Posted by MrHT

Yeah, I know. Finally, someone else here notices this!!

I've noticed that before.

[bsweetness]

Originally Posted by MrHT

Yeah, I know. Finally, someone else here notices this!!

I thought everyone who uses super saver shipping figured that out after a couple orders. It's part of the price you pay for free shipping.

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by bsweetness

I thought everyone who uses super saver shipping figured that out after a couple orders. It's part of the price you pay for free shipping.

The bolded part of your post is why I think people don't notice it. The price I expect to pay with free shipping is putting up with the cheap shipping service they use (i.e. snail mail). But that's not the issue. The issue I'm having is Amazon not shipping the order. It's like they purposely hold onto your order just to piss you off.

[bsweetness]

Originally Posted by MrHT

The bolded part of your post is why I think people don't notice it. The price I expect to pay with free shipping is putting up with the cheap shipping service they use (i.e. snail mail). But that's not the issue. The issue I'm having is Amazon not shipping the order. It's like they purposely hold onto your order just to piss you off.

They don't rush out your order when you use free super saver shipping because they would prefer for you to actually pay for shipping or get Prime. It's not rocket science. It's business. They're providing an incentive if you pay for shipping - it goes out quickly. If you want to save a few bucks and get free shipping, waiting a bit is part of the price. Beggars can't be choosers. Buy elsewhere if it bothers you.

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by bsweetness

They don't rush out your order when you use free super saver shipping because they would prefer for you to actually pay for shipping or get Prime. It's not rocket science. It's business. They're providing an incentive if you pay for shipping - it goes out quickly. If you want to save a few bucks and get free shipping, waiting a bit is part of the price. Beggars can't be choosers. Buy elsewhere if it bothers you.

That's what I do. Most of the time, Amazon just price-matches Best Buy, so if I can find said item at Best Buy, I get it there. Not sure why Amazon thinks I would pay for shipping if we can easily go to the store, not pay shipping, and get items the same day.

[Jett Rink]

Originally Posted by MrHT

The bolded part of your post is why I think people don't notice it. The price I expect to pay with free shipping is putting up with the cheap shipping service they use (i.e. snail mail). But that's not the issue. The issue I'm having is Amazon not shipping the order. It's like they purposely hold onto your order just to piss you off.

I don't think a huge corporation really has time to do this. But you never know, someone on the line might be having a bad day.

[bsweetness]

Originally Posted by MrHT

That's what I do. Most of the time, Amazon just price-matches Best Buy, so if I can find said item at Best Buy, I get it there. Not sure why Amazon thinks I would pay for shipping if we can easily go to the store, not pay shipping, and get items the same day.

Blu-rays might be one thing, but Amazon sells a heck of a lot more than just those. With a large number of the items they sell, there might not be the option of picking something up locally in a store. Paying for shipping often comes with the territory when ordering something from somewhere else. Always has.

[SammymeBlu]

Get Prime and don't look back!

[LordCrumb]

Could be worse.. you could live outside the states. Cost me $NZ36 shipping for four titles... and we all know how small the boxes are.

[philip74]

Originally Posted by LordCrumb

Could be worse.. you could live outside the states. Cost me $NZ36 shipping for four titles... and we all know how small the boxes are.

And we all know how shitty the packaging has become lately and how slow the shipping is! I pay usd 6,48 for shipping a single bluray.
They used to arrive in 7-10 days to Europe. Currently nothing arrives under
three weeks! My Terminator 3 blu took 8(!!!) weeks to arrive!!
I guess they switched shippers to save more money.
As a comparison, my orders from dvdpacific take 8-10 days.

[MoulinBlu]

Originally Posted by bsweetness

Blu-rays might be one thing, but Amazon sells a heck of a lot more than just those. With a large number of the items they sell, there might not be the option of picking something up locally in a store. Paying for shipping often comes with the territory when ordering something from somewhere else. Always has.

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.

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by bsweetness

Blu-rays might be one thing, but Amazon sells a heck of a lot more than just those. With a large number of the items they sell, there might not be the option of picking something up locally in a store. Paying for shipping often comes with the territory when ordering something from somewhere else. Always has.

Not true. 99% of the time, a nearby store carries the item I want.... For a few bucks more, of course. So I may pick Amazon to save the few bucks, but if I decided to use those few bucks I saved on shipping, then what was the point of ordering at Amazon? So, you see... This is why I don't understand why Amazon thinks they will get me to pay for shipping. If I cave in and want the item right away, I'd walk to the store and get it now... which is what I do most of the time when I really want my item now.

[jd_from_da_80s]

Great, I just preordered my G2 & was just looking at accessories for it. $35 in screen protectors is overkill

[Batman1980]

Doesn't really mean anything to me since I rarely buy from Amazon these days, eBay and B & M is where it's at.

[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.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by basketb

$89 maybe, $99 not likely

[Show spoiler](as it is not a prime number)

There recently was an interesting interview on NPR about amazon (transcript here: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcr...ryId=232204962 ). To quote the relevant paragraphs about Prime:

Here's another interesting article on Amazon which puts the company in perspective. People could try sending Jeff an email since he reads customer complaints and can direct change even at the expense of losing vast amounts of revenue.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...-by-brad-stone

[Show spoiler]

Within Amazon.com (AMZN) there’s a certain type of e-mail that elicits waves of panic. It usually originates with an annoyed customer who complains to the company’s founder and chief executive officer. Jeff Bezos has a public e-mail address, [deleted]. Not only does he read many customer complaints, he forwards them to the relevant Amazon employees, with a one-character addition: a question mark.

When Amazon employees get a Bezos question mark e-mail, they react as though they’ve discovered a ticking bomb. They’ve typically got a few hours to solve whatever issue the CEO has flagged and prepare a thorough explanation for how it occurred, a response that will be reviewed by a succession of managers before the answer is presented to Bezos himself. Such escalations, as these e-mails are known, are Bezos’s way of ensuring that the customer’s voice is constantly heard inside the company.
...
They also pointed out that Amazon generated a significant volume of sales with such e-mails. Bezos didn’t care; no amount of revenue was worth jeopardizing customer trust.
...
Amazon employees live daily with these kinds of fire drills. “Why are entire teams required to drop everything on a dime to respond to a question mark escalation?” an employee once asked at the company’s biannual meeting held at Seattle’s KeyArena, a basketball coliseum with more than 17,000 seats. “Every anecdote from a customer matters,” Wilke replied. “We research each of them because they tell us something about our processes. It’s an audit that is done for us by our customers. We treat them as precious sources of information.”

[Clark Kent]

Lots of rumors now indicate that Amazon will be raising the price for Prime service to $99, beginning January 1st.