Amazon has 150M Prime members
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There is also the issue of the counterfeit items I've received, and the quality of Amazon's branded products. When I went to return a knockoff product, reporting it as a counterfeit item wasn't even an option to mark as my reason for returning it. I've also had one of their branded surge protectors fail on me recently.
If you're bringing up the issue of counterfeits and knockoffs, yet also suggesting ALIEXPRESS (!) as an alternative, then I don't know what to respond with other than laughter.
Just search for the product using your search engine of choice. Google's Shopping search isn't too bad. I often find what I'm looking for from a retailer nearby, and more often than not, that product is available for purchase on their website.
At least for the products that I purchase, it's been several years since Amazon's prices have been competitive.
> If you're bringing up the issue of counterfeits and knockoffs, yet also suggesting ALIEXPRESS (!) as an alternative, then I don't know what to respond with other than laughter.
I'm under no impression that what are listed on AliExpress are anything but products meant to be resold by white-label resellers on other sites like Amazon. I just buy the white-label products directly instead of through a middleman. When it comes to things like cables, accessories, and electronic components, it's often much cheaper.
When it comes to authentic products from high quality brands, I choose to buy from trusted retailers, or from the manufacturer's website itself.
Sometimes it works out. But not always.
I don't know if that's a fair comparison... do you consider Amazon reliable and reputable?
Trying to ascertain whether or not reviews I see on Amazon are legit, or are even for the same product as the product they're listed under, are significant time wasters, too.
Branded products, that aren't just white label products, I try to buy directly from the manufacturer. For example, I buy my Apple replacement chargers directly from Apple.
I've stopped using Amazon other than for some consumables where price is equal or inferior to supermarkets. Unlike supermarkets like Waitrose, they don't have stock issues.
Plus, on those items I will never get counterfeit items or if I do it will be terribly obvious.
Else, I've given up on Amazon. So many issues it's not worth the hassle. I'd happily pay more for a premium store where they guarantee they are not sending me counterfeit or refurbished items as new.
Free shipping on Prime items is just a bonus. They have added free overnight, free next day 8AM and even sameday 6pm for my zipcode. Cutoff is noon for same day delivery! I do not see a huge pricemarkup, and sometimes I dont even need to order $35 worth of items. The two toys I ordered was $5 & $8 each, it got delivered 8AM next day,
I'm both impatient enough and use Amazon enough where buying it every year is worth it for me. Plus ditto re: Prime Video, it's not bad, although probably the least good of my three (I'd rank: 1. Netflix, 2. crave.ca to get HBO in Canada, then Prime 3rd) the library is surprisingly deep and I've used it quite a bit.
There's a break even point somewhere where the cost of shipping vs. number of orders made makes sense with prime, but I wasn't using the service enough to warrant that. Additionally the other services you get with a prime membership (Amazon Video, Amazon music etc) didn't really have that much appeal.
Also, all their apps are crap. Prime Video has a 300ms audio delay on my Android TV and chromecasting to said TV has an even worse delay. Their app is also extremely clunky to use and on top of that it's super slow on all my devices. It also kills all other running apps on my TV because it's so memory hungry. Sending feedback doesn't help, it's a lost cause.
Their music streaming app sent me to Spotify years ago because it crashed all the time and was slow, too.
We use a fire stick, and it has the same issue for Prime Video. We have to pause the show for a couple seconds and then start it back up to get it back in sync. It's totally annoying.
Casting to a 2nd gen Chromecast from the prime video Android app works just fine for me.
I don't expect a built in function to the TV to be even remotely useful and have yet to see one that is snappy and not crap.
Amazon can build backend infrastructure but their frontend is always bad. I have never used a single Amazon app that was well made, simple to use, and resource efficient.
I do use prime services, so I might otherwise keep my membership — but I would consider cancelling if I were just using it for shipping.
When I say "careful about sourcing", I mean that a good percentage of what I buy comes directly or nearly directly from local farms. It costs more than the random grocery store stuff from large distributors. I can afford it so I don't mind and the markup isn't crazy.
Shipping without prime can still be free. You just need a minimum purchase, extra shipping time, and you have to REMEMBER to select free shipping before clicking on purchase.
Big picture, let’s hope I don’t need anything enough for one or two day delivery. Happy with regular delivery.
Combine that with the fact that Prime Video is reaching the point where I would pay for it as a standalone streaming service. At this point, the free shipping portion of Prime is for me becoming the ancillary add-on service, rather than the other way around.
Sometimes fast delivery is too fast.
Assuming you aren't constantly claiming this is happening with prior orders, Amazon will probably just send out another one free of charge.
'Prime day' of the week is similar, but not quite the same.
Ship it to your office?
My experience is the opposite - for me regular Prime delivery now regularly arrives in less than ten hours (order before bed, it's there before 9 in the morning.) I don't even live in a major urban area!
This in turn has lead me to not order as much of the small stuff, things I can also buy in a local store. Buying those while doing my grocery shopping has taught me something else: Amazon isn't cheap, they were pretty much always similarly priced, for items below 10 Euros, Amazon was slightly more expensive in about half the products I checked.
I recently cancelled and got not only a further 3 months free, but also another month free, then an offer for another month for $0.99.
They are working hard to keep people from cancelling.
I try to buy locally but sometimes I still need to use amazon, eg, a Self published book will only be available through them
True. I ended up with a Prime Music subscription at £7/month without realising I was paying for it. But then it's easy to cancel, so it's not that bad.
Absolutely unusable on an Apple TV. Cross-platform trash that behaves so poorly compared to native UX.
The official Twitch app is the same. And they shut down API access for a number of high quality 3rd party Apple TV apps for Twitch when they launched the official one.
Our client, Amazon.com Inc., has a trademarked the word Prime for all uses, across the known and yet to be discovered universe. Immediately cease and desist from using the term "prime numbers" to describe those a natural number greater than 1 that cannot be formed by multiplying two smaller natural numbers.
Our client understands this may cause some minor inconvenience to yourself and your colleagues. As a token of goodwill, we are offering all fulltime staff in your department Amazon Prime membership at the discounted student rate for one (1) year. By reading this letter, you implicitly agree to the above terms.