For me, Amazon is slipping.

[njhorror]

I've been an Amazon customer for years, and often sang their praises. Not anymore. I want to qualify my rant with "I am not a Prime customer"
In the past I would need to purchase $25, then $35 worth of goods that qualify for free shipping to receive it.
And here's my grievance . . .

The order was placed, and within a day or two the order was shipped, and arrived within a week. No more. I've noticed that my last batch of orders have taken over a week to ship, and these are items that are in stock! This goes for a number of their outside vendors, as well. Stuff ordered from one state away take ten days or more to arrive. I can go elsewhere, get free shipping, and it takes the same amount of time, or less, and I'm not paying a minimum!

I am soft boycotting Amazon. I was tempted to become a Prime member, but no more. Prime membership looks like an endless sales pitch to separate me from my hard earned cash, buying more and more useless things. Jeff Bezos may be on track to be the richest man in the world, but he can go screw himself.

[Brian861]

Been a prime member for several years now and love it. My son orders a ton of useless crap IMO but I stick to what I want/need. If it were just me using, it probably wouldn't be worth the annual fee. Between the wife and the kid, it gets used a ton. It did irritate me that they raised the annual membership fee.

[njhorror]

Yeah, I think that's the key to it, Prime membership with enough family members to make it worthwhile. For some reason my wife will have NOTHING to do with Amazon.

[Dan Hocker]

I generally order enough from Amazon to justify the prime membership. That said I generally don't care about free shipping, and my experience with "vendors" on Amazon has been spotty at best. I try not to buy anything that isn't at the very least fulfilled by Amazon themselves. This all said Amazon has put much of it's focus on the prime membership, and I'm honestly surprised they offer free shipping at all outside of it. The way that I understand as to how it works, is that anyone who chooses the gaurenteed 2 day or 1 day shipping options orders get priority. So essentially the more and more popular Prime becomes, the longer it'll take those non expedited orders to ship. For me though if it's something I need quickly (even before I was a prime member) I would just pay the extra shipping for at least the 2 day option. Otherwise I generally expected it to take 7 to 10 days.

Personally I mostly buy from Amazon because it saves my credit card info being stored on a multitude of websites and I only have to worry about the security of one place. That and my main credit card's rewards program pays out in Amazon points, which basically gives me a couple hundred bucks a month to spend on Amazon

Honestly I don't really like Amazon as a company. Nothing to do with the front facing portion or the quality of their services, but how they treat their employees.

[Brian861]

Sunday delivery is available in our area so that's another perk I guess. Although, it's not a big deal for me personally to wait a day and get it on Monday.

I'm surprised to hear that about Amazon in regards to their employees. I've always heard that they were a great company to work for.

[Martin]

I have been a Prime member for many years and even with the increased price I find I save that on shipping alone. I also use Prime Video and Music and am now getting discounts at Whole Foods (I actually shop there often.)

I have never had an issue with shipping when it comes from Amazon fulfillment. I have had issues with items ordered via Amazon from other retailers. I too try to buy Amazon Fulfilled items.

[mhatchett]

I've been lucky, never had an Amazon issue. I've belonged to Prime for a long and plan to continue my membership. I think they do work the hell out of the folks at the fulfillment centers, but really they have to, to meet their own deadlines. And frankly trying to hire reliable folks for some of these positions is a challenge. I have family that work for them on the IT side. Again, very demanding but at least they are well compensated.

[Dan Hocker]

It's not the tech side of Amazon that's bad to work for. It's the warehousing and order fulfillment side. That's why there where all those protests / strikes in Germany on Prime Day. Also I've heard stories from Amazon UK of workers having to pee in bottles and what not. US Amazon isn't as bad, but the employees are underpaid and generally treated as "disposable". The "couriers" for Amazon have it pretty bad too (the people that handle the same day delivery stuff) it's estimated that till you factor in wear on their cars they are actually make next to nothing.

[mhatchett]

I've seen a number of people take jobs with them but they don't last.

[Martin]

My understanding matches Dan's. Technology employees of Amazon have a high workload but are well compensated. Distribution and Delivery employees are poorly paid, poorly treated and often unrealistic expectations are placed on them. From what I have heard the term "disposable" is an accurate term for how they are treated. At some point I expect the DCs here to unionize.

[dannyboy121070]

NJ, my man!!!! You said that you can get faster free shipping elsewhere? Good. Patronize those places! We need to keep the competition in business. I try to, because when/if Amazon becomes the only game in town...? We are fizzucked! I like Amazon...I'm a Prime member. BUT....I've seen what happens when Amazon corners the market on a product. They used to have dirt cheap prices on books and comics, but once they put Borders and other booksellers out of business, the Amazon prices on books are not as good. So I try to get books from B&N as much as possible. If Amazon drives Best Buy, Sears, etc., out of business, prices on electronics and appliances will rise. WalMart is another evil empire, but I try to spread my dollars there, as well. Our shopping choices are dwindling, and I don't really want to see Amazon be the only game in town.

That said...Prime is a great deal, if you maximize your benefits. I use the free two-day shipping constantly, BUT...You can also choose "No Rush" shipping, and get a $1.00 credit for e-books or digital music. At Christmastime, I was ordering things individually, choosing the no rush shipping, and I ended up with about $45.00 in credit. I listen to Prime music all the time. Prime video doesn't have the greatest selection, but it is getting better, and they do have some good stuff hidden away in there, if you look hard enough. Prime members get to borrow one free book a month from the "Kindle lending library", and they are really ramping up "Prime Reads", which not only has a great selection of books to read for free (You can have ten at a time!), but they're also getting brand new stuff, such as the excellent "Bloodlands" series by Harold Schechter, a collection of six short true-crime books. I've read three so far, and they're excellent. Maximize your benefits, and the Prime membership is totally worth it.

Anyway, NJ.....I support, and applaud, your soft boycott. Go get 'em, tiger!

[Brian861]

I have been a Prime member for many years and even with the increased price I find I save that on shipping alone. I also use Prime Video and Music and am now getting discounts at Whole Foods (I actually shop there often.)

I have never had an issue with shipping when it comes from Amazon fulfillment. I have had issues with items ordered via Amazon from other retailers. I too try to buy Amazon Fulfilled items.

I've never had an issue with shipping nor returns when needed.

[Brian861]

It's not the tech side of Amazon that's bad to work for. It's the warehousing and order fulfillment side. That's why there where all those protests / strikes in Germany on Prime Day. Also I've heard stories from Amazon UK of workers having to pee in bottles and what not. US Amazon isn't as bad, but the employees are underpaid and generally treated as "disposable". The "couriers" for Amazon have it pretty bad too (the people that handle the same day delivery stuff) it's estimated that till you factor in wear on their cars they are actually make next to nothing.

Pretty poor conditions to say the least.

[Dan Hocker]

NJ, my man!!!! You said that you can get faster free shipping elsewhere? Good. Patronize those places! We need to keep the competition in business. I try to, because when/if Amazon becomes the only game in town...? We are fizzucked! I like Amazon...I'm a Prime member. BUT....I've seen what happens when Amazon corners the market on a product. They used to have dirt cheap prices on books and comics, but once they put Borders and other booksellers out of business, the Amazon prices on books are not as good. So I try to get books from B&N as much as possible. If Amazon drives Best Buy, Sears, etc., out of business, prices on electronics and appliances will rise. WalMart is another evil empire, but I try to spread my dollars there, as well. Our shopping choices are dwindling, and I don't really want to see Amazon be the only game in town.

I don't think Amazon will ever be the only game in town. It may be that it'll be the only place where you can order everything from, but specialized stores will always exist. There's no "physical item" on Amazon you can't buy somewhere else, but there aren't many places you can buy everything from like Amazon. Amazon's explosion in popularity is two fold, fee / cheap shipping, and the convience of being able to buy everything you could want / need from one store front.

That said on the book front, I do see a day where the larger book retailers go away. It started with Borders, B&N is probably next if they layoff they've experienced over the past year or two are any sign.

[mhatchett]

I can't work up any sympathy for B&N or Borders. They crushed the independents here in Richmond when they moved in. Amazon is convenient and pretty easy to use.