Posted on 01/25/2016 11:59:53 AM PST by Citizen Zed
Here we are at the start of 2016, when Prime membership costs $99 a year, and a new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) estimates that there are currently roughly 54 million Amazon Prime members in the U.S. Overall, 47% of the people who shop at Amazon are Prime members, the study says.
For Amazon, the astonishing growth of Prime is a tremendous win-win. Amazon benefits doubly with Prime because 1) it collects annual subscription fees from tens of millions of consumers; and 2) subscribers tend to spend a disproportionately high amount of money with Amazon compared to non-members.
A year ago, a CIRP report estimated that the average Prime member spent $1,500 annually at Amazon, versus $625 for nonmembers. That's a huge gap, giving credence to the theory that perhaps the biggest accomplishment of Prime is that once subscribers are hooked, they more or less stop shopping everywhere else.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
I've noticed the same - but not consistently (yet). My guess is that they staff way up to handle the holiday purchases, then the usual baseline number of shipping employees are overwhelmed when the temporary people all leave.
Buyer Files Class Action Lawsuit Centered on Amazon Prime...
http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y16/m01/i18/s03
I’ve just started using Kindle on my Droid and love it. Beats lugging heavy study guides around.
Considering Prime is less than Netflix that’s what I went for. I don’t watch much TV but as much stuff I order for my machine shop the $89 (mine was 89) a year pays for itself every month.
When you factor in convenience, savings in time and gasoline driving all over town, and MUCH wider selection of products that could never be stocked on local store shelves, the true breakeven is probably 2 or 3 items. And that’s before tossing in the included music and video content.
I went to a local mall a couple weeks ago because Ethan Allen was having a closing sale. I’d forgotten how awful mainline malls are...the barkers in the aisles hawking junk, the foul smells, the raunchy crowds, the “music” I would never voluntarily listen to, getting besieged by commission-hungry leeches. Yuck.
Prime customer for life!
Have had Prime for three years. A good deal overall and I do watch several videos per month. One slight drawback, on lower priced items (say $20.00 or less), you might or might not be saving anything using Prime. They have to cover part or all their shipping and their prices can often be beat on lower priced items in brick and mortar stores.
Unreal that there are 54 million Prime users in the US. That has to be around 20% of the US adult population.
My daughter loves to go to the mall to shop. I avoid them like the plague. If I can’t get it in my small town or online, I don’t need it.
I’m a member and I know it.
We use Amazon Prime almost every week for something or other.
Add to that the streaming service that’s included, and Prime is worth more than its cost.
Good deal
And so the problem begins. AP is actually SO GOOD brick and mortar stores will have to adapt or pay the price.
Kind of what the left says Wal-Mart does.
One answer might be for local B&M stores to become AP partners and merge with Amazon Fulfillment Centers.
There are many things I prefer to handle before I buy. However so far after a near decade of buying online I have had few if any regrets.
Another issue was something I was confronted with a decade or so ago by an USPS employee. The USPS employee complained about me buying something online and using email. Claimed I was killing jobs.
I believe online purchasing has INCREASED delivery services, admittedly most being in the private sector and not union USPS.
Then again I do get many shipments using the horrible alliance of UPS/Fedex/DHL and USPS.
Maybe it will evolve but so far that has not been pleasant, at least for me.
AVOID AN AMAZON VISA CHARGE CARD.
These people are OVER THE TOP incompetent.
In carrying this crap card for six months, TWICE they failed to send me a bill. TWICE!
Just this past Saturday I received a bill with charges dating back to November though there was an actual zero balance on the card.
I canceled the card upon receipt of the outdated bill.
(my credit score is 823 in case there are inquiring minds)
I found that it slowed a couple of months ago.....still worth it though...no driving to several stores, having it delivered right to you..
what about those neat little insulated boxes they send when you order Hershey’s kisses?....can’t beat it..
A bonus. I plan to move in a few months and the many free boxes from Prime will save me some money.
I loved Man in the High Castle, even if I didn't quite understand the ending.
My wife’s Dell laptop clamshell was damaged and needed to be repaired.
My wife took the laptop into a major chain that advertised computer repair.
The store quoted in the neighborhood of $500 to repair.
I put the service tag into the Dell support web site, got the part numbers, punched the part numbers into Amazon Search, the parts came up, ordered what I needed and within a week I had the repair done for about $80 plus maybe a couple hours of my time.
Not the first time I’ve found hard to find items on Amazon. Their search algorithms are outstanding.
I don’t know how much you read but I have Kindle unlimited and it is working out real well for me. $10 bucks a month and you can read as much as you like.
Does that mean any book available on Kindle for no more than the monthly fee?
They've "crushed" themselves completely out of business in this house.
Unannounced "upgrades" are a despicable business practice. To hell with Amazon.
If you go through the Amazon Smile portal you can give a percentage of your purchase(out of the price) to the charity of your choice - even the NRA foundation.
http://smile.amazon.com/gp/goldbox/ref=nav_cs_gb
There are some quirks in the Amazon way of doing things, The more items you order in a order the odds increase proportionately that you will not get that order in two days if Amazon decides to ship them all in one package . A lot of times if you order two items, one item will be at one facility and the other item will be at another facility and alot of times they will ship the one of those two items to the nearest facility to combine them before packaging them up and shipping them from that facility.
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