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Prime ain't what it used to be. Used to be reliably 2nd day delivery, by a real shipping company, and good movies added, etc.

Now it's as slow as "free" delivery, by a random contractor who does God knows what to the package, and prices aren't even better than Walmart or Target on many things.

The "avoid subscribing to prime" shuffle you have to do to even order anything anymore drives me away too, I only use Amazon if it's more than 5% cheaper.

I really have to wonder if non-Prime and Prime deliveries go through the same shipping pipeline to simplify the process.

When I order without Prime, it seems my order just sits for a few days, then it hits my credit card and I get it 2 days later. Almost like giving everyone free 2 day shipping wouldn’t cost them anything at this point, so they just artificially delay normal users to make the service worse.

Occasionally the order will trigger right away and I’ve gotten non-Prime stuff in 1 day with free super saver shipping.

> it seems my order just sits for a few days, then it hits my credit card and I get it 2 days later

I have Prime and this is the majority of my orders. Lately I have been seeing a lot of free overnight deliveries tho, so maybe something is brewing.

I suspect they’re doing some “intelligent batching” of some sort to save costs on shipping SOMEWHERE. But it’s all inscrutable to me.

I do miss the “$5 digital credit for forgoing prime shipping” I used to abuse.

A much simple explanation is that each order is assigned a priority f(elapsed time, is prime) prime orders starting much higher so the processing of your order gets delayed behind all the incoming prime orders until its priority catches up due to longer elapsed time

They obviously have some metric that if you buy something, you’re likely to buy something again within two days so by holding the first shipment until you do the second purchase, they combine shipping and save costs.

When ordering without Prime it says you have 24 hour (I think) to add other items without incurring additional shipping charges. I don't remember Prime doing this, and there is little benefit to the customer to care, because it's all "free" anyway.

I ordered something on Sunday, I had until Monday to add additional items. I was charged on Wednesday evening, it shipped Thursday (today), and should show up tomorrow.

I can buy the priority method. Sit it on until a lull in demand, or 3-4 days pass, whichever comes first. That's how it feels.

Even though thad had this order for 4 days so far, they are effectively giving me 1-2 day shipping once it finally ships.

Except they don’t combine shipping on separate orders afaik

I've never had Prime. Instant gratification isn't a draw for me and I can build up a shopping cart over months between orders. Funnily enough, about 75% of my boxes come with Prime tape on them. It used to signify expedited handling. Now it's just a branding exercise.

oddly enough some of my ebay orders also come in prime packaging. On that note ebay is a far better shopping experience at least for anything small.

There's an entire Amazon fulfillment business that many don't know about - if you move enough merchandise with them you get the ability to use their shipping network, which can be pretty darn cheap.

So often it's the company/seller using Amazon for fulfillment; but sometimes it's just someone doing arbitrage between Amazon and eBay.

I've wanted to quit Prime a bunch of times, but my recent experiences in the Bay Area:

* Sometimes I want my order on my Prime day, but they insist on delivering it to me 3 hours from when I ordered it.

* When my son got COVID, we ran around town looking for COVID tests. Target was out of them entirely. So I ordered them on Prime and they showed up later that day. A bunch of them. And 3x cheaper than the COVID+FLU tests I found at CVS later that day.

* Yeah, ads on Prime suck. But I'm rewatching a 90s show and ponied up $3/mo for no ads.

Screw Jeff Bezos, but then again.. I got COVID tests when I needed them.

> Yeah, ads on Prime suck. But I'm rewatching a 90s show and ponied up $3/mo for no ads.

The $3/month for no ads felt like they were nickel-and-diming the customers.

I was paying something like $129/year for Prime. The idea of paying $3/month on top of the $129/year I was paying for Prime felt so petty.

Had they just raised the price of Prime, I probably would have shrugged and carried on. But adding a monthly charge on top of a yearly charge, nope. I was done.

This of course was on top of allowing the store to be flooded with low quality junk being resold from Alibaba, counterfeit products all over the place, pushing to send shipments in their retail boxes, review gaming, them ripping off popular products to sell through their own private labels, and other such practices that have eroded my view and trust of Amazon over the years.

I ordered some headphones from Amazon a month ago, because the company that makes them was sold out in the color I wanted. I felt the need to lookup how to tell authentic from counterfeit headphones while I was waiting for the shipment, so I could validate what I received was real. I’ve received counterfeit goods before from Amazon. I heard they keep everything in the same bin, so it’s luck of the draw when picked (I have no way to validate that). No other store makes me worry about things like this, just Amazon. If brick-and-mortar stores were like this they’d be out of business in a week.

I get it -- I go through the same calculus every year. I also have the associated credit card, and.. well.. it all ends up paying for itself in the end.

I'll move to a secondary tier Amazon market where boring retail isn't quite as compromised as the bay area and the equation will probably change for me, but I'm also likely to end up in a rural mountain area and it might be a lifeline for me.

I haven't had issues with Alibaba stuff, and there have been just enough instances where Amazon delivered where local or alts couldn't. Like the light bulbs in my bathroom.. Ace Hardware doesn't stock my item, I couldn't order them elsewhere, but Amazon connected me to a vendor who fulfilled in about 2 weeks. And yes, I went without light in my bathroom for 2 weeks and was looking the whole time.

>Prime ain't what it used to be. Used to be reliably 2nd day delivery

Amazon delivery in LA is incredibly fast, frequently it says "will be delivered by 4am"

I hate Amazon, not encouraging anyone, but LA is a special zone.

apart from the free shipping aspect, do they actually delay shipping non prime orders if you live in a metro area? The whole FedEx business model originally was not "you pay extra for overnight" (which you would) but actually "because we deliver everything overnight, we don't need warehouses and all our rolling stock is empty every day, so it's cheaper for us"

Yep, the shipping is pretty unreliable these days on Amazon.

I somewhat feel the opposite. I used to pay for Prime for 2 day shipping when 1 week or more was the norm. Now I don't have Prime and still get 2 day shipping most of the time.

Now that you can no longer read reviews without an Amazon account, I bypass all things amazon.

> I don’t know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign up

At least for me, it's easy -- the Prime credit card, which has no extra fee beyond Prime itself. I get 5-7% back, instead of the 1-2% with my other credit cards. It literally pays for itself and more over the course of a year. The faster shipping is just a bonus.

And I'm not buying junk I don't need either. It's literally just regular toiletries, my normal grocery shopping at Whole Foods (also 5% off), and then just replacing all the things in my home when they wear out or break -- kitchen things, bedding, electronics, and so forth. All things that are usually cheaper on Amazon than anywhere else anyways. (I still use Target.com for things that are cheaper there.)

Same here. I was shocked when I first read the offer and am still shocked now that I get such a large cash back rate. It easily pays for itself.

Try the PayPal Debit card if you are in the US (and I think UK) .... you choose the category each month for a 5% cashback.

I don't think Amazon purchases fall into any of their available categories:

https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/rewards/rewards-cat...

It’s usually cheaper if you can source it from the manufacturer even paying their shipping rate. In fact the pricing structure on amazon often seems to include this shipping from manufacturer charge in the total cost just you aren’t aware of it.

You still get 3% back on that card without prime on amazon fwiw.

> It’s usually cheaper if you can source it from the manufacturer even paying their shipping rate.

This is rarely the case. In fact, it's against Amazon's policies for manufacturer/third-party listings.

But I've found that even when that's the case, returns can be such a gigantic hassle it's not worth it -- getting an RMA, having to pay for return shipping, being forced to use an inconvenient shipping service of their choice, things like 15% restocking fees...

If you're buying something for the first time and then discover it doesn't work the way you expected, it's amazing how much easier and cheaper Amazon returns are.

I’m surprised it is against policy considering I make use of this technique all the time. I don’t think it is being sold by the manufacturer but one of the faceless amazon third party sellers. Sometimes amazon.com. I haven’t had a byzantine return process in a very long time. YMMV I guess.

Yeah I've just been burned too many times.

Just in the past six months I bought an air filter and a 12" skillet directly from manufacturers instead of Amazon. The air filter was nowhere near the claimed performance, but still required a 15% restocking fee. The skillet, they sent me the wrong model. But because while the title of the listing was wrong, but the correct model name was in the description text, they refused to pay for return shipping and it cost $25 to ship it back because it was 5 lbs to the other side of the country.

Amazon is never an issue. I just drop it off at Whole Foods and it's easy. Buying direct from manufacturer is just too risky. By now I'm willing to pay even more at Amazon just for the peace of mind of returns.

Amazon’s insistence on the prices being the same, even though they take a large cut of fulfilled by Amazon, on top of their devil-may-care practices around returns, while at the same time being so big that companies feel they have to be there for the eyeballs, have put many companies in a really bad and vulnerable position.

This is why Amazon will often tell you to just keep the item you want to return. The companies lose money on returns and need to sell 2-3 more to make it up. It’s not worth it for them to even take it back. In other cases, Amazon will blindly resell the returned product and damage a company’s reputation. I saw an instance where someone returned a children’s swim suit with poop in it, then Amazon went and re-sold it to someone, poop and all. That review tanked the whole company.

For good or for bad, I've switched to Walmart for many of my orders as well as home delivery of groceries now and then and they have been decent. It's good to have competitors who are catching up.

Do frozen foods get delivered still frozen?

I live 15 minutes away from the nearest wal-mart and frozens/refrigerables are my biggest concern.

they don't do anything special for frozen items .... it's just as if you get it in bags from the store. .... add in additional time for neighborhood deliveries if any ..... usually they arrive semi-frozen .... you can track the delivery driver from the store (where they hopefully keep it in a cold room) to your home... for me it takes them from 20 mins to 1 hour for delivery ...

How is this a concern? Does Amazon not sell frozen food (no fresh food from Amazon around here)? Otherwise why would Walmart be unable to

Walmart doesn't include ice like Amazon does, but for me it doesn't make a difference unless the delivery driver is goofing off

> How is this a concern? Does Amazon not sell frozen food

I don't know anything about Amazon other than I will never buy anything from Amazon because Amazon is a fucking terrible company.

It's not any different than going to Walmart yourself and getting groceries -- they just put them in plastic grocery bags. I've never had a problem with anything refrigerated or frozen. (Well, I've never ordered ice cream.)

The key is to be home when they deliver it; so, you can put those things away immediately. They offer two-hour delivery windows and usually deliver within the window. In my experience -- I'm disabled and use them for groceries almost weekly -- about 5% fall just outside the delivery window. (Usually 10-20 minutes late.)

I feel someone will soon start a website "melted-icecream.com", where someone tracks orders all over the country, from major online suppliers, and graphs how warm the ice cream is.

Would be interesting.

Once melted, ice-cream is never ice cream again.

Walmart + Target + Home Depot cover much of what I would have used Amazon for, and all offer free shipping in some way without joining any club.

Walmart pickup is great.

Home Depot reuses SKUs for different products. When they fulfill an order from a local store it's a gamble if you're going to get the item you wanted. You also can't exchange those orders online and are forced to go to the same store it came from.

Best feature for home depot (and lowes) is that you can always constrain your query to the store. And when you do this, each product's page will show the the aisle and row the item is located at. (yes, I know the smartphone app will help you here but 100% of smart phone apps are bad, as are those who recommend them) Just spend a few minutes writing down your items & aisles and go visit the store. Trust me, it's better. The convenience of delivery just is not worth the stupid roulette that online retail has become.

I do this every trip. I take screenshots of the page per item (usually only a handful) once I get to the parking lot.

Then, I optimize my trip around the store to never double back.

It's worth it.

I did this recently for a lawn mower that wasn't actually at the store the website said. We went to the exact location and it wasn't there. We talked to customer service and they said they could order it for us. No thanks, Home Depot.

I used Walmart delivery for groceries a fair amount last year and didn't have a single issue. I used it maybe six times this year and there was an issue with the order five of those times. Several times it was delivered to the wrong address. The other times I was missing around half of my order. I was able to get refunds without any issue every time but the experience was so awful I canceled and haven't used it at all the second half of this year.

Your experience mirrors mine. My wife and I used Walmart+ for grocery deliveries basically every week for a year without any issues up until a couple of months ago. Suddenly, they started fucking up every single order, delivering things to the wrong address, missing items, or even claiming to have delivered an order that never arrived. After calling and complaining for the 10th time in a row, we gave up. We were so pissed off we even made a point of canceling the service, even though we get it for free as a credit card perk.

I have similar experiences though a different usage graph. My shipping peaks were college (textbooks and college needs/wants) and early in owning my own home. After that point I didn't need as much delivered, so many of my purchases had moved digital (books, music, videogames) or back to retail stores. I realized late in 2020 that the only two Amazon purchases I made that year (in 2020!, with quarantines and lockdowns and it being weird to visit physical stores, I still made more retail store purchases than Amazon purchases) were inconsequential and neither of them shipped as Prime delivery because all of them I took a discount to wait a week for (because there wasn't any rush).

In the meantime I was fed up with Prime Video and wondering why I was paying for it.

Between the dark patterns cancelling Prime and the many dark patterns trying to get you to join Prime I also stopped feeling like a welcome customer of large sections of Amazon's website and have gone even more back to boring old retail stores. My biggest remaining relationship with Amazon is because of the kindle, but their worsening DRM decisions do keep me wondering if I need to explore another ecosystem despite kindle's hardware advantages (including the possibly sunk cost that I invested in too much kindle hardware).

Just for personal use, and not any sort of support for Amazon's business practices:

When you get a free (or cheaper than you're currently paying for shipping) Prime offer, you can accept it and then the second the order has gone through go into your account and cancel it and still get the remaining number of promotional days, as well as the benefits for the current order. It's a slightly annoying step, but I figure if they're going to be dumb enough to keep offering me free promotions I might as well take advantage of it.

As a non-US based customer, I can totally relate. Even though prime is not really applicable to me (in terms of free shipping, a small selection of the media libary, etc), I'm still getting pushed to try Prime each time I try to shop at Amazon.

The main problem is that unless it's a specific brand store, with products sold and shipped by Amazon, all the other products are pure junk. I can easily find them on AliExpress with much lower prices.

> I think my goal for 2026 will be not to order anything from Amazon

This has been my position for upwards of 5 years. Between the quality / UX / social issues - well frankly I'd rather spend money elsewhere (although not at all is likely)