Amazon Prime. 2 day free shipping on anything they sell. And they have "Earth's Biggest Selection". Sounds almost too good to be true.
I ended up signing up for this almost a year ago. It has been great so far. Prior to this, I tended to be reluctant to ordering online (although still would), due to shipping cost and waiting 5 "business" days. Something you order this Wednesday might show up next Tuesday or Wednesday. I'd either put off ordering (which I realize is illogical since it makes the total time greater) or just not order at all. From a cost perspective, I'd also try to combine shipping to save on it, which often resulted in me not ordering something at all or forgetting about it. I tended to order more for "special occasions" or really cheap deals.
Amazon Prime changed this. For one, I could order items serially and not have to worry about shipping costs or combining. More importantly, it allowed me to "get things done": if I needed something, I order it and it shows up before I wonder where it is. 2 days is not immediate, but for me, it's usually below the time where I think of it again aside from big ticket items.
They seem to have made changes lately. They've done this previously, with $3.99 one day shipping, Saturday delivery, free MP3 for taking the crappy shipping, etc. What I've noticed lately is them "rounding down" the shipping service. Before, you could order something late Wednesday, and have it show up Friday (effectively it's a 1 day order since it would ship Thursday). Also, if you ordered Friday, 2 day shipping = Tuesday. I ordered something an hour+ ago, and they said it would be Wednesday. A bigger farce was that "one day" shipping would be Tuesday. Is this my imagination? Or did they always do this ordering this late and I never noticed?
The big direct change that just came out is add on items. Before, they'd ship a $7 item to you in 2 days, now they are holding you hostage for a minimum order. It defeats some of the purpose for me. Although some of the cheaper "fulfilled by Amazon" Prime eligible items clearly had the shipping padded in in the past, so whatever. I guess I somewhat understand this, but 2 day cheap items was a big selling point for me. I need batteries? Click "buy" and it's here in 2 days. They also seem to have limited severely the subscribe and save, something which can use the cheap shipping and so is annoying as hell.
Will I keep it? I'm on the fence. Although to be honest, it's probably still better than the alternatives. I ordered a protective case for my phone (Amazon, but via a third party) and it's gonna be a week plus before it shows up. It's really annoying, and I can deal with them rounding the service down more than dealing with that slow nonsense.
