The Glade 4.0

I'm curious how you guys use Amazon Prime (AP). Today's the last day of my free trial. We tried looking for things to buy that we normally get at grocery stores or Target and were having a tough time finding things that were cheaper. The AP video kinda fills in the gaps from Netflix, but it's not good enough to justify dropping Netflix in favor of AP. Two-day shipping is kinda nice I suppose, but it seems like all the good deals I find are not fulfilled by Amazon and the stuff that is, I can usually wait a couple extra days.

How do you guys use your AP memberships? What do you feel justifies the cost?

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The Dude abides.

I couldn't justify the cost so I dropped it.

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I buy everything that isn't groceries on Amazon, and I'm impatient. Two-day shipping has saved my *** numerous times (emergency needs, forgotten-until-the-last-minute birthdays, etc.), and gives me a security that I don't have with the "ship whenever the eff you want" options. Plus, many of my orders are under $25. Several small orders' worth of shipping (or one or two expedited shipping needs, or even more, one overnight or Saturday delivery) per year more than makes up for the Prime cost. The Kindle lending and VOD are just icing on the cake.

Generally, Christmas by itself justifies the expense of an AP membership, for me. Assorted birthdays and random other purchases throughout the year is savings beyond the cost of the membership. VoD is nice, and fills in the occasional gap in Netflix, which is a decent bonus. The AP household sharing feature does me a good turn, too.

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I ordered a new gadget last Wed. Next day shipping was free, and for $3.99, it as delivered to my door the same day I ordered it, before I got home from work. So I got a new toy faster than i could have if I went shopping locally for it, and probably a lot cheaper (even if I could have found it locally).

I've been an AP member for a long time, and it always pays for itself. Like others have said, just the holiday shopping stuff is worth the price of admission.

Anything that I need soonish but isn't important enough to leave the house for.

We find that the savings from shipping will pay for itself. That stuff adds up over the course of a year. Nickels and dimes turn into a large amount of money when ignored and thought of as trivial.

But if you truly do very little shipping, I would think it wouldn't be too worth it. Amazon rarely has things that Netflix doesn't (or will soon get). Although, it does currently have a (read: any) season of Duck Tales that Netflix does not.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Taamar and I are a couple of weeks into our AP trial and have discovered the same thing. It fills in some of the Netflix Streaming gaps, but not well enough. There are far too many things that we'd still have to pay for, on top of the membership fee.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

See I don't like Shopping online so I'd have to have the discipline to use it for the little stuff to cover prime.

Yes I'm a neo-barb because I like to go into a store, hold something in my hands and pick another person's brain just for the social experience of it, even when my mind is more or less made up.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

That might work for me more if more than 90% of the time, I didn't know more about my prospective purchase than the mouth-breather who wanders over to "help" me, thus making it impossible to get an answer to any questions I may have. Rare and precious is the store employee who is knowledgeable about his products.

I think you can download one book a month for free if you have a kindle app.

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Raell Kromwell

Yep:

From my understanding, you must have a Kindle device, not just the Kindle app on a phone/tablet.

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Yea, I was kinda bummed about that. That being said, Amazon does pay the author of a book for those free downloads for prime members. Which is kinda nice.

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Raell Kromwell

I had a membership for years, but eff fedex smart post

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Smart post is utterly useless and my FedEx guy even agrees with me. How does that tie into prime?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

that is the "Free Shipping" that Prime offers

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Better than 90% of my Prime shipments are UPS.

Smartpost sucks ***. Sites need to say that they're using it, so I can opt to pay for shipping so it doesn't take two **** weeks to get my thing.

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Holy shitsnacks!

If they gave me the UPS option for free... I would have taken it

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

My shipping comes from multiple sources... I've had Fedex / UPS / Pilot

Almost everything is cheaper on Amazon, and Prime just makes the whole thing simple. No worries about how much something costs to ship, or bundling a bunch of items together into one purchase to save on shipping. No calculating if local retail price+tax > online price + shipping. It's all free, it's all fast.

After having Prime for a few years I'd have a real hard time living without it. Things you normally wouldn't consider buying online are suddenly available to you. Recent examples for me include a vacuum cleaner and a large cat tree. Both are pretty heavy and bulky and I would just assume the shipping cost would make it cost prohibitive to shop online. Plus if it doesn't work you have to figure out how to ship it back, wait for the return to process, etc. With Prime, shipping isn't an issue, return shipping is free, customer service is awesome, and most things are at least 25% cheaper than local retail. For example, the cat tree I bought was bigger and better quality than anything they were selling at Petsmart, and it cost about 2/3 as much. You'd be surprised at what big, bulky items are available with free shipping on Prime.

It also opens the door with really small stuff you wouldn't normally order online because it's not worth paying shipping for it.

Anyway, as you can tell I like Prime a lot. I just looked on my account and since getting it I average about 75 orders a year (and over 100 last year). Even if it was $200/yr I'd still get it. But it really ends up depending on what kind of things you buy. One of my hobbies is my freshwater aquarium, and for whatever reason most aquarium supplies on Amazon are either expensive or don't have Prime shipping. I end up getting all that stuff at local pet stores. Other things that usually aren't good deals on Amazon are food items, and things like consumable household goods. If those make up the vast majority of your expenses, I can see why it wouldn't be a good deal for you. But for 90% of the things I'd want to buy, it's available on Prime for less than retail.

Oh, and I use their credit card too and get 3% cash back (well, Amazon.com credit, but it might as well be cash to me) on all Amazon purchases. It's like negative sales tax.

Oh, and I can't forget the time a big wind storm knocked out our power for a week in the summer, with highs in the upper 90s. $3.99 for next day delivery on a battery powered fan and 24 D batteries was a lifesaver.

The only other downside I can think of is if you have a problem with impulse buying/controlling your shopping. The combination of low prices+free and easy shipping makes it hard not to order things you really don't need.

Sorry about the necro post but...

You can now download as many KDP Select books as you want each month.

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Raell Kromwell

You are required by both State and Federal law to remit uncollected sales tax during your tax filing for the year.

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