Expanding more on value vs. price (and it looks like most everyone agrees Amazon adds value)...

Selling on value instead of price (and that "value" can be a lot of different things) is the preferred method of doing business for most companies.

A retail example is Wal-Mart vs. Target. Of course, Wal-Mart has cheaper products, but Target has the value of a pleasant shopping experience at their locations. Target doesn't have to lower their prices to match Wal-Mart. If the consumer values the pleasant shopping experience, that is built into Target's prices.

For the most part, Target is priced competitively with Wal-Mart (most products only being a few cents more than WM), so that's great.

Then we may as well be neighbors, because I do the same thing! There are 5 grocery stores (used to be 6, but they're building another one) within 2 miles of my house, a mall, a Lowes, and a fair amount of everything else. Walking to the store is good exercise. What I don't have locally, I typically pass on my 30-minute work commute, so it's not really going out of my way.

I did just spend about $80 at amazon.uk. Want to take advantage of the insanely low exchange rate while I can. I also spent $49.35 with Amazon US: two "fulfilled by Amazon" DVD's (one long out of print...that's one of Amazons' virtues, as few merchants offer that depth of merchandise, even indirectly) and a CD on my wants list since 2014. Free shipping, of course.

Like I said, it really depends on your buying habits. I'm not trying to convince anyone one way or another to like Amazon or not (this is the complaints thread, after all), I just hate the generalizations about Amazon and that people who DO shop there are somehow blind followers and getting scammed by Prime or their other services.

Apparently it has become the hip thing to bitch about Amazon and their customers. Usually by people too cheap to pony up for prime. For $33 a year now, I get free two day shipping on everything I order, no minimums to worry about, access to many prime only deals among other incentives. Prime actually saves me money each year.

The way I rationalized it was it will come in VERY handy during single-ticket items that go on DOD, or Lightning Deals, especially during holidays, and I can just buy that single item, versus trying to find something in the last desperate second to meet the free shipping mark, probably not needing the products.

Well, you must be truly special because you've figured out a way to save $67 a year on Prime. I agree, at $33 a year, Prime would be within the realm of affordability, perhaps even offer some value, but not at $99.

Enlighten us complainers, if you will be so bold, as to how you've managed to skim $66 a year off Amazon's Prime expensive rate.

BTW: Congrats on your coup of "reverse" scamming Amazon the $67 a year's savings on Prime's cost.

He probably shares the cost and some of the benefits with family. I know we do.

Yeah, it was fairly common and often discussed that under the old Prime account settings you could share your free shipping with 4 "family" members.

They've changed it though, so you can now only share with 1 household member (although they get the other Prime benefits like streaming whereas the previous one only allowed for the free shipping). Although they haven't forced people to change if they're set up under the old account sharing method.

Yeah. It really isn't rocket science. Although, apparently, it was too advanced for some to figure out.
I have heard mention that people are still able to split prime. Seems to involve using the same login credentials, and payment. Usually gift cards.

My wife & I don't have anyone we can share the expense with so $99 becomes the amount we have to shell out. Stop acting so sanctimonious just because you found a way to cheat the system, some people aren't so lucky.

I don't see how anyone is acting "sanctimonious" about it, especially when you consider it as a response to to the tone that zyzzle originally posted.

I also wouldn't call it cheating the system, since it was a feature that Amazon allowed for quite some time.

Who is being sanctimonius and who is cheating the system? No need to be bitter just because you missed out on getting a deal on Prime.

kd5 probably took it as a response to him rather than to zyzzle.

I considered myself to be of the same opinion as zyzzle, in the same camp so to speak, and made my post based on that assumption. The part of your post that rankled, and prompted my reponse was with the comment: "...apparently, it was too advanced for some to figure out."

I'm happy you're able to split the cost of Prime with friends and family, if I sounded "bitter" with my comment, I'm really not. You should choose your words more carefully however, so will I.

Again, not to speak for jjcool but zyzzle's response and accusations to an otherwise innocuous post about Prime seemed to spark the snarky reply

This, plus the fact that zyzzle's near-entire posting history has been about the evils of Amazon and other big companies. So don't take it as directed at you, kd5.

zyzzle is getting slammed. By who you ask? Prime Members.

I don't have Prime, yet I order quite a bit from Amazon. Using their subscribe and save, the 15% discount usually puts non-perishables below the cost of local grocery stores or WalMart, plus free shipping. Some things are higher on Amazon, and I'll go locally, but Amazon is always my first stop if I don't need something right away.

I was just looking around on Amazon and noticed that Star Wars: The Force Awakens is now an Amazon Prime exclusive. Both DVD and blu-ray.

This is probably the biggest release of the year and they've made it a Prime exclusive a week after its release.

WTF? Do they think people who don't already have Prime are going to pay $100 for the privelage of being able to buy this title from Amazon?

Bought my copy from Best Buy last week (wanted to make sure I didn't get a stacker case), but these Prime exclusives really piss me off.

You get a lot for that $100 - it's worth it.

To Amazon, yes, it's worth it, for their pockets are well-lined and getting heavy. For infrequent customers, it's certainly not.

The Prime exclusive thing is the biggest bullshit from Amazon.

So don't buy the movie from Amazon. It really isn't that hard. Like was previously said, it is the biggest release of the year. There are plenty of places to buy it.

For frequent buyers it is. Infrequent buyers can take their business elsewhere, so what's the problem?

Why would someone get upset that Amazon has made the biggest film of all time a PRIME only exclusive? It seems like smart business from them since they don't want infrequent buyers' money they want money from frequent buyers.

Except for the frequent buyers for whom it isn't. But of course there's no reason to respect, or even acknowledge, those fellow frequent customers when they don't fit into one's narrative.