Author Topic: Amazon Prime  (Read 9634 times)

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Offline schmitt trigger

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #25 on: November 14, 2018, 12:26:06 am »
What James-S said.....
If you have Amazon Prime, you will feel compelled to do more and more purchasing from Amazon itself, rather than other online stores, let alone brick and mortar ones.

Overall, a very clever way to further increase sales. 
 

Offline GregDunn

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #26 on: November 14, 2018, 02:16:31 am »
My wife has a Prime account and I have a regular one.  Every time we order something we always check the Prime account to see if there's a delivery or price advantage (sometimes there is both).  If not, I'll usually wait till we get enough items on the non-Prime account for free delivery.

Nearly 100% of the time the Prime account still delivers faster - no matter what the completed order predicts - so we end up using it frequently.  And unlike the non-Prime account, they deliver on Sundays here.  A friend of mine actually ordered a vital cooking utensil on Thanksgiving morning and received it in time to start the meal that afternoon.  On the few occasions I've been guilted into looking for something locally in order to get it immediately, the price has been higher or the specific item needed is just not available.  With more and more brick and mortar stores failing to stock sufficient merchandise every day, even local shopping is becoming less attractive.  A one day wait is nothing compared to driving all over town to find something and still coming home empty-handed.

Also, my wife uses Prime video to watch many things we can't get on cable.  Maybe we've just been very fortunate never to have had any issues (member since 1999) but for us the advantages far outweigh any perceived or real issues with their service.  YMMV.
 

Offline maginnovision

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #27 on: November 14, 2018, 02:19:45 am »
Also another father who is married. There are quite a few reasons to have prime. Free shipping and usually fast is very handy when you can't get things locally. I can get many things same day, others one day. Car ac relay dies and auto parts stores don't have it and don't want to pay 20$ at the dealer? Prime. Some kids toys after toys r us closed? Prime. Cheaper games via pre-order? Prime. Sex toys? Prime. Books? Prime. Desk? Prime. There are things I get from other places online or in real life but often Amazon is a good and easy option. Especially large items since I don't have a truck.
 
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Offline rsjsouza

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #28 on: November 14, 2018, 02:48:36 am »
Similar experience as other fathers/families on Prime, but with a kick: having twin babies and with family living abroad, it was quite taxing to simply try to go to a supermarket to buy small things, let alone the massive amount of diapers, wipes, diaper genie bags, A&D, Desitin, and gobs of other consumables. After comparing the prices of other wholesale stores (Costco, Sam's Club) and their subscribe and save service, the scale still moved towards their end. Also, the annual cost was easily offset by the 20~30kg of delivery goods per month - we don't like to think about it, but I suspect we had a lot to do with their price increase from 89 to 120 - sorry everyone else.  :palm:

Nowadays they are being beaten here and there on their own game by other retailers, although they still have quite a great selection of products with good prices and delivery conditions. Not to mention other services such as Prime video (the kids have some selected shows they love to watch).   
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Offline cdev

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #29 on: November 14, 2018, 02:55:56 am »
Do you guys think WalMart has met their match?

They are battling it out to see which will be the last store left standing.
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline MrMobodiesTopic starter

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #30 on: November 14, 2018, 03:16:41 am »
I see,
Do you guys think WalMart has met their match?

They are battling it out to see which will be the last store left standing.

I see, they are also trying to go in competition with Netflix.

Maybe next time I do order something and if they insist I will use it just use to see a few things and cancel it before the 30 days.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #31 on: November 14, 2018, 04:47:45 am »
I used my friend's Amazon video streaming for a while and was underwhelmed. They had very little that I wanted to watch and the free stuff was all mixed in with rental stuff that costs extra which made it a pain. Netflix used to be great but steadily deteriorated and now it's just a bunch of garbage original content mixed in with bargain bin filler. I dumped it last year and got Plex instead and have gone back to buying used discs to rip onto my Plex server. Much better experience.
 

Offline maginnovision

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #32 on: November 14, 2018, 04:52:00 am »
I see,
Do you guys think WalMart has met their match?

They are battling it out to see which will be the last store left standing.

I see, they are also trying to go in competition with Netflix.

Maybe next time I do order something and if they insist I will use it just use to see a few things and cancel it before the 30 days.

I absolutely think you should just try it and cancel if you don't like what it offers. Even paying for it I just don't mind for the convenience. I've been able to get new motors for my home A/C unit, repair kits for the condenser unit, tools, consumable supplies and all quickly. Amazon video is good, but not quite a netflix alternative but I do like prime music over spotify. I don't feel like I have to use amazon for everything but when it makes sense I do and I don't even have to consider the potentially large shipping charges since there is no minimum for two day. I even bought a micsig scope from amazon.
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #33 on: November 14, 2018, 08:50:50 am »
Just a point to mention, I don’t think I’ve paid for prime for about 6 months. Any time someone screws up or you whine at them it’s a free month  :-DD
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #34 on: November 14, 2018, 01:53:07 pm »
I just heard on the radio that New York governor Andrew Cuomo is giving Amazon all sorts of tax breaks to come to Long Island City, near NYC.

Mega-retailers don't create jobs as much as eliminate jobs. Mega-retailers destroy local businesses and automate so many jobs that communities are economically devastated. Which results in a net loss of economic activity because unemployed people cannot afford to buy anything except their  raw necessities.

Companies that solicit huge tax breaks  - some examples are Amazon, Uber, Foxconn, etc. are extracting wealth from communities more than bringing it.

I feel that they do not represent a sustainable, innovative model for future growth.

Is it a loss or a gain to local economies? When they pay so many so little while they undercut and put out of business other businesses that do pay their employees enough to live on.

Also, the assumption that the 'professional' jobs they create are good ones is not necessarily right either. A significant percentage may involve 'special skills' or require degrees, but may still pay minimum wage.

This is because some (in US owned firms -their subcontractors) wages may be able to go around labor laws and wage practices by using guest worker clauses in trade agreements that allow them to import their more skilled workers (such as engineers) but still legally pay them very little.

They may be 'tech jobs' technically, but they these 'tech' jobs are actually destructive to what most people think of when they think tech, prosperity as far as pay goes.

- I also now understand that Jeff Bezos is now the richest man in the world.

I know very little about him the person. Not knowing much, let me just pose the question more generally - should we be encouraging this kind of cutthroat competition? Does it make economic sense to encourage economic monocultures? Is that a good model for wealth generation?

Aren't there better models we should be choosing to encourage instead?

Workers in some of these mega firms report an atmosphere of fear, where workers are afraid to go to the bathroom, or take time off if they are sick.

What I am getting at is that I prefer buying goods from vendors who I have a better feeling about, ideally ones that I know treat their workforces well.

It makes me angry to see communities giving give huge tax breaks to mega-firms as I don't think they are the kinds of employers or offer the kinds of employment we should be promoting.

With their great ambitions, mega-companies should take more responsibility- the global ambitions would seem to impart in them an obligation to be better corporate citizens than other firms. In every respect. Not worse.

Because, if a race to the bottom becomes the norm- that would be very unhealthy for all human society.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2018, 02:28:29 pm by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline MrMobodiesTopic starter

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #35 on: November 14, 2018, 02:21:29 pm »
I have heard about it in the news early this year.

Warehouse workers overworked and one dropping dead.
Drivers claiming to live in their vans and not getting enough time to rest.
I think I saw that in a documentary on that but they blamed a contractor working for Amazon who set the rules for the drivers.
Not enough time for toilet breaks.

Shame they couldn't support shops but then it is an open market and they want it cheap.

I once met an over stressed driver back 20 years ago regarding a pickup of a faulty CRT monitor that kept one being cancelled. The firm he had worked for got taken over by company in Europe, I can't remember the name of it but they expected him to make pickups every 5 minutes (forget about traffic) and they had a target of over 400 pickups a week.
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #36 on: November 14, 2018, 02:39:57 pm »
Back in the day, some bad-apple (not Apple) tech firms became locally notorious in San Francisco both for being horrible places to work, and for leaving workers in bad financial places when promised wages and benefits failed to materialize or vanished.

(Lots of good firms emerged too, of course.)
« Last Edit: November 14, 2018, 04:28:21 pm by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #37 on: November 14, 2018, 04:21:48 pm »
I just heard on the radio that New York governor Andrew Cuomo is giving Amazon all sorts of tax breaks to come to Long Island City, near NYC.

Mega-retailers don't create jobs as much as eliminate jobs. Mega-retailers destroy local businesses and automate so many jobs that communities are economically devastated. Which results in a net loss of economic activity because unemployed people cannot afford to buy anything except their  raw necessities.


It's not a warehouse, it's a second HQ. Living in the Seattle area I can say that for better or for worse, Amazon has brought tremendous wealth to the region. These are software engineering jobs, not typical retail and most pay 6 figures. Downtown Seattle is enormously gentrified and walking around the trendy hipster areas full of expensive restaurants below luxury condo and apartment high rises you see the weirdly proportioned blue and orange Amazon badges everywhere. Amazon is so large they have office buildings all over downtown, it's hard to walk a few blocks without passing one.

Amazon does eliminate some jobs, but there is definitely a net gain in the area immediately around the HQ. 
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #38 on: November 14, 2018, 05:21:46 pm »
I feel I personally have to stand up for what I believe in.

I think whatever benefit they bring is likely not a lasting one.

Also, web apps like Amazon (thats the biggest part of what they do, and its not rocket science by any means) may be somewhat labor intensive to build but maintenance mode much less so.

Its not like we live in Scandinavia with its social safety net.

I would feel totally different about them if they treated their workforce with more respect, and paid even their lowest paid employees a good wage. 

Everywhere, not just in the US.

Much more of that money which is padding Bezos's pockets should go to them.

Otherwise, if the evil mega-firm like these firms are the future of work, as the oligarchs want it to be, we're all sunk. 

That future will be a brutal horrible one.

« Last Edit: November 14, 2018, 05:26:02 pm by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #39 on: November 14, 2018, 05:24:39 pm »
Much more of that money which is padding Bezos's pockets should go to them.

That's the only bit I have a problem with myself.

It's all going into Bezos' penis rocket.
 

Offline gnavigator1007

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #40 on: November 14, 2018, 07:26:36 pm »
I have Prime and while I hate giving Amazon any more money, I do benefit from the free fast shipping. Still think about canceling every time I order from them. I've noticed lately when tracking packages that it always claims to have been handed directly to me when delivered. I suspect USPS employees are doing this to avoid the trouble around handling Amazon packages. Read this on medium recently and it explains a lot-

https://medium.com/s/powertrip/confessions-of-a-u-s-postal-worker-we-deliver-amazon-packages-until-we-drop-dead-a6e96f125126

Only ever had an issue with a delivery once and was refunded quickly. Now I've had another issue with something not arriving and the USPS carrier claims they handed it to me in person. That means no refund option on site. Not going to pursue it because while I understand people make mistakes, Amazon doesn't seem to understand.
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #41 on: November 14, 2018, 07:44:51 pm »
They use Royal Mail here, our equivalent of USPS for some stuff. If something goes missing then they refund or replace it without question even if it was marked as delivered.
 

Offline gnavigator1007

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #42 on: November 14, 2018, 08:01:26 pm »
They use Royal Mail here, our equivalent of USPS for some stuff. If something goes missing then they refund or replace it without question even if it was marked as delivered.
It seems that delivery has become more complicated than just "delivered" here. When it says "Delivered (date) package was handed off directly", the options to claim the package was not received are not available.
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #43 on: November 14, 2018, 09:11:33 pm »
Have you been to their face recognition convenience store?

I would love to know more how this store without checkout works. (No, I don't think its a good idea, nor do I think that the 'cashless cities' initiative and the influential "Better Than Cash" agenda is a good one).

 Its scary coming as it does just as deep learning tech is poised to eliminate billions of jobs, worldwide. People without money would be excluded from cashless cities, obviously.

Another reason- because of solar storms potential to wipe out the electricity grid for years, its totally unwise to get rid of cash.

That would then result in large scale starvation.

I really worry about the implementation of biometrics as the main method of id in poor countries like India where many people are illiterate. (Now they are setting up a biometric ID system called Aardhaar) Then - what happens if the power goes out and networks go out, globally, because of a Carrington class coronal mass ejection- a huge solar flare could trigger a chain of disasters which could really turn out to be unspeakably horrible. How can people transact essential things like buying food. Basically, it seems to me that nobody has really thought this cashless thing out. They want to implement it because its a way of locking in governments, giving them an unprecedented level of surveillance, if people cannot use cash.

We also may have problems from multiple nuclear power plants if a solar flare happens without warning - (Then many of the world's power grid's transformers might pop and if the grid goes out, it could be out for years - Then we'll need to start worrying about cooling the nuclear cores, fast too. Because thats why multiple 'melt-downs' happened at Fukushima.)

Lets pray none of this happens. We don't know how much the incidence of these flares is, but its likely than the average once every 80 years (half of the 160 yrs since 1859) they had previously estimated, until 2013 when one of these flares did happen and the stream of charged particles just narrowly missed the Earth. It did hit a space probe which was parked at one of the Lagrangian points, however which recorded the magnitude of it.

But to return to my original question, I think we all would like to know more about buying essentials in the store that uses peoples faces as their ID.

It's not a warehouse, it's a second HQ. Living in the Seattle area I can say that for better or for worse, Amazon has brought tremendous wealth to the region...
« Last Edit: November 14, 2018, 09:25:23 pm by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline G7PSK

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #44 on: November 15, 2018, 11:50:07 am »
I have an Amazon account and my wife has prime, recently anything ordered on for next day delivery is getting put back on the delivery date by Amazon or DPD and not being delivered for several days, I think it is due to being out in the sticks and not on a regular van route. If the same thing is ordered elsewhere such as ebay it comes via the post very often the next day and usually at a lower price with free postage. I very rarely buy anything on Amazon now and my wife is using other online stores more and Amazon less.
Amazon will have to change or start loosing out,maybe they are past their prime.
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #45 on: November 16, 2018, 07:34:17 am »
[...] maybe they are past their prime.

Pun intended?  ;)
 

Offline steve30

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #46 on: November 16, 2018, 02:15:29 pm »
I haven't used Amazon in years (no need - other reputable retailers are available), but my mother seems to be a regular customer. Here, they seem to use their own delivery service, as opposed to the Royal Mail, which means things come at peculiar times and often end up being left next door.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #47 on: November 20, 2018, 03:21:36 pm »
On Prime here and have been for.... well, apparently I first shopped on Amazon in 1999 (but didn't get heavy for a few years).

Amazon is my goto for pretty much anything, although it's not necessarily where I will ultimately buy something. The reviews are important, but what makes it for me is the service - it is hard to imagine how it could be any better. As a for instance, I ordered something from another online store the other day and it's now been delivered to Portland TN (bit of an issue since the delivery address was in the UK). A couple of emails and contact-us form missives later there is nothing from them - I am going to have to get PayPal involved.

If this had been Amazon I would have started a chat session at any time of day or night and would have a refund a few minutes later. The worst experience I've had with their online reps has been where their carrier failed to deliver some item but his GPS showed he had been here. Indeed he had - I have CCTV footage that shows that he rolled up and got out of the van but couldn't find the front door (you need to see the place to understand how this could happen). Got back in and drove off. But from Amazon's viewpoint he must have delivered since the gps showed he scanned at the right location. Clearly, Amazon were suspicious I might be pulling a fast one, but I still got a replacement (actually a refund because I'd reordered before we got to that point since it was an urgent item).

Which brings me to the main use of Prime - I am too used to realising I want something and then having it in my hands ASAP. Which, of course, is Amazon's fault. I can recall being surprised, at the start, when I'd order something late one day and it'd be on the doorstep in the morning. Now, that's the default I'll accept, and sometimes I specifically buy stuff for delivery later the same day. Which might even be a Sunday. It is hard for any other retailer to beat that.

I see the comment above:

Quote
We managed to plan ahead just fine long before Amazon was a thing.

That is true. But you may also recall that we managed just fine when datasheets involved a call to a disty and then waiting for the book to arrive in the post. Now, I have a wall full of datasheets and the like right behind my chair (literally), yet whenever I want to look up something I go to Google and pop up a pdf. Frankly, we managed just fine then because there was no other way to manage, but it's not appropriate to now.

Amazon does have a lot of issues and it is a personal thing as to whether one can ignore those whilst taking advantage of it. But from a customer perspective, using it as it's intended to be used, I don't see anything even approaching the same heights. Which is no doubt part of the reason it's a trillion dollar company.
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #48 on: November 20, 2018, 03:38:54 pm »
I'm refusing to get Prime. I was tempted to subscribe years ago, but then Amazon bundled the fast-track shipping with their video streaming service (and made it much more expensive). I have no need for video streaming, and find the compulsory bundling of two completely unrelated services annoying.

Over the last three years or so, I have ordered less and less from Amazon. Most of the time, other dealers have better prices; and other dealers' regular shipping is consistently faster than Amazon's non-Prime service. In fact, before Amazon started pushing Prime in Germany, their regular shipments arrived within 1 or 2 days. Once they started to emphasize Prime, it feels like their regular shipping has slowed down, by at least a day on average.

Many small online sellers offer a "purchase without an account" option these days. So the nuisance of leaving a "trail" of rarely used accounts and passwords behind is no longer the issue it used to be, if you prefer to buy from a variety of sellers rather than the Amazon monopoly.
 

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: Amazon Prime
« Reply #49 on: November 20, 2018, 04:13:30 pm »
In fact, before Amazon started pushing Prime in Germany, their regular shipments arrived within 1 or 2 days. Once they started to emphasize Prime, it feels like their regular shipping has slowed down, by at least a day on average.

I noticed that as well.
 


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