Ugh, I hate lawsuits. Amazon often clearly states under the price "Note: This item may be available at a lower price from other sellers that are not eligible for Amazon Prime."
1. Buy the item from Vendor X for $19.99 with Prime "free" shipping (fulfilled by Amazon) 2. Buy the item from Vendor X for $14.99 with $4.99 shipping (not fulfilled by Amazon)
If so, then I would still choose the Prime option. Items that are fulfilled by Amazon fall under Amazon's support and return policies, which are excellent. Third-party sellers not selling under those terms tend to have much less favorable customer protections.
Obviously those protections (and the integrated shipping) come at a cost, but my point is that there is more to it than just "free" vs. non-free shipping.
Lawsuit and legality aside, for those of us that use Prime primarily for the shipping this reduces the value of the service while reducing the cost to Amazon of providing the service.
Further, the new notice (and it really is new, it came sometime in the last 4 months) does not in any way absolve Amazon from cheating its customers.
They promised me that I could pay an upfront fee of ~59 dollars, and get free shipping on a wide variety of items for a year. Instead they took the 59 dollars, raised the prices of the items by approximately what shipping would have cost, and called the shipping free.
They deserve the lawsuit.
> “The bottom line is the free shipping that Amazon offered to its Prime members wasn’t free,” said Kim Stephens, attorney for one of the plaintiffs, adding that he was “shocked” by Amazon’s alleged pricing practices.
No kidding it isn't free, it costs $79/year (now $99).
> "For example, if the price of an item is advertised for $10 with $3.99 shipping and the [vendor] wishes to match or top their price, the [vendor] would charge $13.99 or higher," Burke alleges in the suit.
Exactly.
If you are selling something for $5 as a non Prime seller, and Amazon charges $3.99 for you to ship it (which they reimburse you for BTW), then why would I as a Prime seller not list my product for $8.99 due to the fact that I will be maximizing my profit, and have the benefit of having my merch sent to the customer in 2 days? I could just list it for $5 to be sure I can sell the item by undercutting, but I'd like to barely undercut the current highest price.
Also I see others complaining about shipping, it seems you all must live in the worst cities for mail carriers. I've had Prime for the last 3 years, and have been ordering from Amazon since 1999. This year I have 31 orders placed, 2013 I placed 86 orders, 39 orders in 2012. I can only remember one item in all this time which missed a delivery date (by a day).
If the price of those items increases by the cost of shipping, after you've payed the $79, Prime is now a sunk cost of $79 that has ZERO returns.
This is the basis of the lawsuit, this is very easy to understand.
Amazon should be covering the shipping cost associated with Prime items, Instead they collude with sellers to make them "Prime eligible" and those sellers increase prices by the cost of shipping. That's a scam.
I've had prime since it's inception, I have 500+ orders on my amazon account. It used to be a great deal, it's basically just a scam to get you to use their video service now.