hondo21

As others have said, killing STL put a serious crimp in my buying from them. Killing Free Shipping would be the absolute death knell. I hate paying shipping on anything and never pay shipping at Amazon. Which is why Amazon Prime has no appeal at all for me.

Now my only problem is that I've been using my Amazon VISA primarily, to earn gift certificates. But their value is diminishing and I think I may have to move on to another reward program.

Josh H

Lame, if super saver shipping goes away I'm done with them. The only thing I buy is books, and I don't care how quick they get to me.

Dukemstr

Do you seriously think DDD or other marchant like them could continue as a viable bussiness??? I seriously think that in the long term DDD will go the way of Buy.com. once a formidable store, and now only a shadow of past.
I realy doubt DDD is actualy making any profits (or at least at the level amazon is) and since i dont see any way they can finance their there debt otherwise, their price slashing marketing will also end soon unfortunatly.
I think that Amazon on the contrary think long term instead of short if they want to continue to survive they have to increase revenue and you have to remember, Amazon neve braged having the lowest price on the Internet, their main focus always was Service quality, availibilty and user friendly. And this as AOL once was is what the masses wants, for all the rest "dvd freaks" their are not a viable bussiness in the long term as they care for the price only and would buy DVD's from osama.com if they sold them cheaper they dont have costumer loyalty and that is what Amazon is searching for.

I hope i made myself coherent.

Dukemstr

Geofferson

I too will discontinue shopping at Amazon if they do away with free shipping.

boredsilly

Unlike many I still really like Amazon.com. It's also a great resource for research (user revies, page counts, dvd specs, sound samples, even listmania). Not going to be buying a lot of dvd's from them but they'll still get my book business but only if the shipping stays free. I too hate to pay for shipping online. Taxes too, it just doesn't feel right.

This new program doesn't really make sense to me. Granted, if you buy a ton of stuff on Amazon and need stuff fast it's great, but for the suppossed money it's going to cost Amazon to implement this vs the business it's going to drum up? I'm no great business mind but it doesn't seem like a sure thing. Like Bufford said, paying up front for a service like this isn't all that appealing.

The loss of STL was sad, but the loss of free shipping (or even upping it to $49 will be the end of Amazon for me (outside of the reviews and such).

Rex Fenestrarum

This might have mattered to me a few years ago, but nowadays I don't order enough from Amazon for it to be worth my $80.

A long time ago, Amazon had awesome prices. But they've slowly crept up to be on par with - or even higher than - most of my local B&M stores. I don't exactly fault Amazon for this - after all, they have to make money to stay in business, no? But back in the early days (1996 & 1997) I lived directly across the street from one of the largest independent bookstores in the South, yet I still ordered from Amazon... 'cos it was so much cheaper. No more. And even though Amazon sells everything but the kitchen sink these days, it's just not cheap enough to make me shop there. The two cities I've lived in - Atlanta and Charlotte - are big enough to usually have what I want at a local B&M. Perhaps if I lived out in the sticks I'd shop at Amazon more often, but I don't so I don't. Of course, I usually shop online if I'm looking for an obscure book or DVD a local B&M might not have, but with Amazon's prices being what they are, it just doesn't pay to shop there. DDD, Booksamillion, Overstock - all of them have lower prices than Amazon.

Also back in the early days, Amazon had a distribution center in Suwanee, GA, which is 25 miles or so north of Atlanta. So almost any book, CD or DVD I ordered would arrive overnight, even with standard USPS first class shipping. This was awesome, and it tipped the scales many a time on my Amazon impulse purchases. Of course, Amazon closed that center a few years ago and my orders started taking longer and longer to arrive. What was once overnight now became a week. Again, it's Amazon's business, and if they want to shut down a distributon center to save money, so be it. But that doesn't mean that I have to order from them, either.

Lastly, Amazon itself started taking forever to ship orders, regardless of the shipping method chosen. Honestly, I don't know why they even bother putting "Usually ships within 24 hours" on their pages anymore, as I haven't had an order ship in 24 hours with them in at least a year, if not two. I've ordered a few things that "usually ship within 24 hours" that took a week or more to actually ship*. Just this past Christmas, my Mom ordered me the No Thanks: The 70s Punk Rebellion box set from Amazon. She ordered it on December 10th. It was listed as "Usually ships within 24 hours". She even used overnight shipping just to be sure. It shipped on December 30th and arrived on the 31st - three weeks later. "24 hours" my ass. Thanks for nothing, jerks!

So - now that their prices are not an inducement to buying, now that it takes a week to deliver my stuff and now that it takes for-freakin'-ever for Amazon to actually ship my orders... why would I want to shop there? Truth is, I usually don't.

Amazon UK still kicks ass for ordering CDs, DVDs and books that would be imports over here. Not only do they usually have stuff "in stock" (and actually mean it when it says "ships in 24 hours"), it's usually cheaper to order from Amazon UK than just about anywhere else. Hell, I just ordered the new Emiliana Torrini CD from Amazon UK and it got to my house from the UK in about 4 business days, all for £11. I can think of at least two other times when I things from Amazon UK and it was cheaper than Amazon US. For example, I ordered the A Camp CD (Nina Persson of The Cardigans' solo band) and a Madonna Bedtime Stories remix single from Amazon UK and it ended up being about $4 cheaper (with shipping) for both of them than Amazon USA's price for just the A Camp CD. Plus, I got my Amazon UK order in about a week, while Amazon US said "ships in 3-4 weeks" on their site. Why is Amazon UK so kickass while Amazon US just sucks more and more?

Lastly, I still sometimes buy from Amazon when they have an occasional good deal. Just a couple of days ago I ordered the Wonderfalls box set from Amazon 'cos it was only 3¢ more expensive that the cheapest place I could find online. Rather than pay more at DDD or deal with some new, strange online DVD retailer (DVD4U, or something like that), I figured I'd just use "the evil I know" instead of saving 3¢: I bought from Amazon. Of course, it was only cheaper because of the free "Super Saver" shipping, so by the time I actually get my friggin' hands on it, the Wonderfalls Blu-Ray Set will be out.

* = Yes, I'm talking about orders with "standard shipping", not "Super Saver"

Josh-da-man

I don't know whether or not this is significant or anything, but I've noticed that Amazon has removed the "Ships free with Super Saver shipping" notice from the item pages, but still have the "Want it delivered Tuesday, February 8? Order it in the next 71 hours and 4 minutes, and choose One-Day Shipping at checkout," notices.

Looks like they're trying to pimp fast shipping.

Note that when I put things in my cart, it still says Super Saver shipping is available.

Anla'shok

The little truck icon is gone, but "FREE Super Saver Shipping" is mentioned right after the price on just about everything I've looked at.

calhoun07

If they get rid of free shipping, deepdiscountdvd will be my major place to buy DVDs online, and there is no miminum there. The main reason I use amazon.com is I prefer the lay out of their website and the recommendations and the reviews of blind buys I am contemplating. But without free shipping, they really won't have an edge. Hell, even the nickles would be better than nothing, or at least promotional coupons.

I understand promotions cut into profits, but every store must offer promotions to draw in customers. It's like a loss leader. If they stop free shipping, they will lose far more than shipping costs on orders, they will lose entire ORDERS from many customers.

calhoun07

ahem...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...tchen&n=507846

kevin75

as someone who has shopped at amazon for quite a few years, i get the feeling that this is nearing the end of my experience with them. if they do away with free shipping, i will probably not be shopping there anymore. i mainly buy dvd's, cd's and trade paperbacks. there are too many other stores that have better customer service than amazon.

DVDealer

With all of their gratuitous changes, a program like this is certainly not worth it. The only "club" subscription I have is with The GotAnime discount (extra 10% per order) at rightstuf.com, which really pays off if you stock up on their different label sales of anime titles per year, especially with no sales tax or shipping charges if you buy big orders from them. They've been pretty consistent with good service and on their deals too.

I just noticed yesterday that even going to amazon.ca or other international amazon sites to get titles not available in the U.S. (like "The Take", which actually is in their top 100 sales ratings), that suddenly the coupons for non-U.S. amazon sites are drying up too, which makes it harder to offset the shipping charges for those occasional orders too. That's a sign that many of these "discount" prices are going away too. I wouldn't trust *any* time-oriented program from Amazon now. I look at them like I did Buy.com when they suddenly canceled their customer service line (which was about the only thing protecting customers from really bad customer experiences for a while with them). When they get into that sort of cost-cutting mode, things aren't good for them.

Not to mention, I think they put off many folks like myself now who a more progressive political viewpoint, with their PAC donations more to Republicans (especially compared to BarnesandNoble.com). Many of us (and I think, based on a lot of the customer reviews posted on Amazon that's a *large* segment of their customer base) who have shopped on Amazon of this political viewpoint have one less excuse to shop there any more. If it doesn't make sense price-wise, we will avoid going there from this point forward. That's going to hurt them from a revenue standpoint, and have them scrambling to try and whittle away at discounts that much more to keep their margins.

Digweedrocks

... this program could be a success. i have suggestiond

A. Offer a 100% Guarantee that you will get your money's worth out of the program. This could be accomplished by giving Amazon Prime Buyers a coupon at the end of the year for any amount of the $79 fee that they did not use for the Free 2nd Day shipping. We all love Amazon coupons here I assume.

B. Have a column in the Your Account section that keeps track of both yuor free second day shipping fees saved And the amount saved on overnight shipping at $3.99. Having an indication of how much you have saved gives you a good idea if you want to renew or not.

C. Have special Amazon Prime Only promotioms amd coupons that are the best way to buy the bigger ticket items or even line up box sets.

D. Make sure every new DVD arrives on Release day and make a point of advertising that point

E. Emphasize how Slow other competor's can be with their free shipping options and still beat the price of the lowest priced competitor on Overnight.

F. Have a account for $1000 or based on size that gives these same level benefits to small businesses.

G.Have group driven buys

calhoun07

Dude, they couldn't even get the bugs worked out of their coupons and their Share the Love promotions and you want them to do ALL THAT???

Digweedrocks

They didn't mess up too badly on their $50 GC I got for buying a bunch of Braun stuff from them. With STL gone that probably means they got the extra server capacity to run new promotions; one less database they have to keep.

BlackCapTen

I've purchased from Amazon for years simply because they had the occasional best price on something or some promotion running that made it the best price.

I've noticed some changes, most mentioned in this thread. I have about 80 items in my "Saved Items - To Buy Later" list. I've added to the list for the past year and a half. These are items I might have wanted at one time or another, and they include electronics, dvds, random computer accessories, kitchen/housewares, and drugstore purchases. Every day for the past 1-2 weeks I've gotten notifications that a price has increased on the list. In the past it happened only once in a while.

I was keeping my eye on a Panasonic DVD Recorder that I bought last month during their Electronics promotion (get a gift certificate if you spend $xx in the electronics store). I wanted to make sure the price didn't go down so I can get a refund on the price change. Well the price changed, it went up $100!

So they are definitely doing something by making all these changes, and I'm afraid the free shipping promo for $25 is going to end soon.

Buford T Pusser

I didn't know there's a way to get a notice that the price has increased. Hmmm.

Seeker

I can see this "prime" if I ordered about 20-30 times per year.

BlackCapTen

Sorry, I should clarify:

I keep my Amazon cart open (I use Avant Browser which allows tabs of IE -- firefox does the same). Usually once a day I refresh the page to check prices on a couple items I saved. Towards the top a box appears if an item's price increased in your cart.

So it's not an automatic notification, you do have to refresh your cart.

On a side note, the price on that DVD Recorder went back down $100. And unfortunately they don't tell you if a price went down (would be good if you had tons of stuff in there).

Buford T Pusser

Ahhhh. Thanks for the info.


BTW, do you know Lou Daniels?

BlackCapTen

No, who is that?

By the way, here's a sample of that notification, just got one when I refreshed my cart.

ChrisHicks

I have never seen this before. whenever a price changes on something in my cart I get a simular message box like this but it never tells me what has changed. strange.

Seeker

So has anyone signed up for this program?

Seeker

Nobody? Really?

Well, I did it. Now let's see if I wasted my money.

Buford T Pusser

That's one!