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Comment by martinald | Hacker News Reader

Yeah I find S&S very odd. You'd think Amazon would know how to do this properly with their logistical and pricing prowess, but the price swings all over the place (sometimes to ludicrous levels) and items are often out of stock/backordered for weeks.

It reminds me of Uber's prebook a taxi, which (may have changed), doesn't prebook anything and if there aren't any ubers when you booked you are out of luck.

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I’ve had good luck with subscribe and save in the UK. It seems to take the lowest recent price for each product, so there haven’t been many times I was surprised by a high price - but a lot of times that I was pleased with a low price!

The trick is to go in and review the order before it’s due to ship (you get an email reminder) and cancel/substitute/defer any items you don’t need or that are priced too high.

Occasionally I’ve also noticed items that are showing out of stock on the product page, but they still managed to find stock for my S&S order.

I am also in the UK (person who you replied to replied to) - your second paragraph is exactly what I mean. It's fine, it's good, but it's not set it and forget it, it's plan a bigger order, and check it nearer the time.

It definitely doesn't 'take the lowest recent price', it doesn't even claim to, it gives you whatever discount (either 0/5 or 5/15 percent depending the product, and less/more than five items respectively) against the exact product listing and exact seller for that listing that you set it up against. I've cancelled/skipped them and ordered the same literal product (maybe a different listing) cheaper as a one-off order on numerous occasions. Nevermind all the ones I have set up that are basically just 'salt' or whatever and I don't care about the brand, the cheapest brand can vary a lot and if you're not careful you can end up subscribed to one that happens to go maliciously expensive.

For me it's not so much about price, but availability. I have a couple things that I use at both very consistent rates and aren't available locally. It's about not running out without having to consciously think about it.

Yeah I can’t see myself every subscribing for the discount or something, but it has a lot of value as exactly that.

The coffee I like isn’t available anywhere near me. And even if it was, it’s just one more thing to stay on top of because I damn sure don’t want to run out.

I go through it consistently enough that I just haven’t had to think about coffee in probably two years. Every once in a while I open my door and some has appeared and that’s exactly when I realize I was running low.

Oh yeah absolutely, but we could also just order them without the subscription for that right. I just notice some items fluctuate in price a lot, or sellers chop and change in having.. not even just the best price but reasonable vs. exploitative.

I don't use it for price, at least not wholly, but I do have to pay attention to it if I don't want a surprise ridiculous price. If that makes sense.

(Although I just noticed I said in top-level comment that it was just for price, heh. I suppose it's just a mix of things, and I've never really thought much about why I use it. Price can be nice, but definitely convenience too: the prompt to check if I do need more of whatever or can skip it, otherwise I would likely run out and only then order/go out to buy.)

> but we could also just order them without the subscription for that right.

Sure, but then you're losing out on "have the thing on hand at all times without having to think about it".

Yeah I don't know what I thought your comment said but my reply doesn't make sense! I agree though basically, I've just had some change in price to such an extent that I'd have rathered get it myself, or buy an alternative instead.

I certainly make sure I get the 15% S&S discount. But I've also noticed that sometimes even the base price (before the discount) shows lower than the current price on the product page. Maybe I've just gotten lucky and the price was lower at the time my S&S was processed, which tends to be a week or more before it ships. What happens if the price on an item drops during that window between when the order is processed and the ship date?

> The trick is to go in and review the order before it’s due to ship

That basically defeats any advantage of a subscription. You might as well just have a bookmark calendar event that leads to the one-click purchase.

There are several other advantages with subscribe & save: 1. You get a 15% discount. 2. Everything arrives in one shipment, with multiple items in the same box, saving on packaging. 3. It saves time to have the products you use regularly pre-loaded into the Amazon order (I can't think of an alternative way to do a "one click purchase" of multiple items, and its easier to remove items from a pre-filled order than to have to search for them and add them). 4. As mentioned elsewhere, Amazon seems to try to make sure there is stock available for subscribe & save customers, reserving stock even if it's showing as sold out on the product page.

I may as well do the coding myself if I'm going to do a code review?

Sibling gave some other clear benefits, but I'd also add it's helpful just to have a basket prepared for you too. Imagine if you walked into the supermarket and someone offered you a basket of things you'd told them you often like to buy. Maybe you don't want them today, there could be all manner of reasons, but you might, it's still helpful.

Lyft's pre-book is even worse. They do assign you a driver when you pre-book, but then you're beholden on that driver to still be driving when your booking time arrives.

I pre-booked a ride to get to the airport at 4AM, figuring prebooking is the best way to make sure I had availability. Driver accepted it at 9PM, was not awake at 4AM. The Lyft app made me call support to cancel the pre-book and get an on demand ride. I couldn't cancel even though my driver wasn't active.

I used Uber's schedule thing recently and I was really worried about it because it sat unfilled for a week, but they assigned a driver a week before. I'd use it again. I'm pretty far outside the normal Uber area (which is why I booked so far in advance) so the driver has to travel 1.5 hrs without a fare to pick me up, but they told me it works out pretty even in the end.

You have to be very careful with Uber schedules. They do NOT guarantee a pickup time like a normal private car.

There are many stories stating that the driver never shows up, or shows up 15 minutes early and leaves charging you with a no-show fee.

They were late but it showed me that in the app and it showed their position, so once I know they're on the way it's all good

> You'd think Amazon would know how to do this properly with their logistical and pricing prowess

I imagine they prioritized the short-term profits of a just-in-time middleman.

Yeah I subscribe and save to melatonin gummies and I got an email in May saying they’ve “paused” my subscription until October because they’re afraid that the gummies will melt during shipment. Like how is that not a predictable problem? Summer is hot.

I don’t understand this comment.

It IS a predictable problem. And they predicted it, and did something about it.

If you live in a super hot location you can’t always get stuff shipped year round.

I’d prefer that to dealing with the return and refund process.

Because the point of a subscription is to receive it on a schedule. If you can’t fulfill that subscription, don’t offer it.

Sending you a 6 month supply in October and April would seem to work?

Yeah I would have been fine with that.

They've paused offering it while they can't fulfill it?

I suppose GP's argument is they know the schedule & frequency of the subscription, so if they predicted it further out then it could have been a notification 'we've moved your subscription two months early, because we're not going to be able to send it until October after that' instead.

Which.. yeah, would be cool, but I do think it's a level of analysis everyone who uses S&S is aware does not happen.

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