Amazon Offers 2-Day Shipping For $79/Year

stevejsmith writes "Amazon.com has announced their Amazon Prime service. For $79, you get free two-day shipping on all items, upgradeable to overnight shipping for $3.99 per item. The offer applies to most media (books, DVDs, CDs, etc.) and can be shared among "up to four family members living in the same household." Apparently the only way they will enforce this family-only sharing clause is by mandating that your "family members" know your birthday."

Free shipping is the way to go on big ticket items

[garcia]

I have bought many items over the years from Amazon as I'm always relatively pleased with their prices and ALWAYS pleased with their service... Just yesterday I purchased a new GPS for myself. Being an avid geocacher [geocaching.com] I am always upgrading my GPSr to make my life a little easier.

This particular upgrade wasn't just for geocaching but more for actual navigating. My fiancé needed to use autorouting to get around town with her sister dress shopping and autorouting would be the best way. What a great excuse for me to plop down $430 on a new GPS!

Ok, so I do some research with froogle and some of the other price watching sites and check Amazon just for kicks. They of course weren't showing me their price on the site so I add it to my cart to find out that it's $499.99 for the GPSMap76C. Eh, for kicks I check out the price on their 76CS (usually $75+ more than the C). I find it on sale for $428 and free STANDARD SAVER shipping. Estimated arrival sometime after the 10th and before the 15th.

With prices for shipping starting at $7.65 and me not really needing this for the fiancé until the end of February I took the free shipping. I am THRILLED I did. Last night I received word that even though Amazon.com original claimed the device wouldn't even ship until the 4th it was already out the door and en-route to me. This morning I check and find that the estimated ARRIVAL time from UPS is the 4th of February.

For no additional cost I just got 3-day shipping via UPS.

I guess Amazon's "Prime" service could be useful for families that order more than 7 items from Amazon yearly but don't spend enough to get the freebie shipping. I really can't imagine it paying off for many others but I am glad I held off on upgrading the shipping this time :)

Good for university students

[chris09876]

That's not a bad deal... I can see this being especially useful in university residences. Just get one person in the building to buy a membership and collect their $2 from everyone who wants to use it... and free shipping for the rest of the year!

The small print

[the_mighty_$]

The free shipping/$3.99 overnight is only available if you purchase directly from Amazon. i.e. it is not available if you purchase from third party Amazon Marketplace or zShops sellers.

For many items, Amazon is actually competing with third party sellers that are selling on their site. This new service might be the incentive necessary for many people to not buy from third party sellers, but to only buy from Amazon which will result in more money for them. That could be one of the reasons behind introducing Amazon Prime.

What are geeks doing ordering from Amazon anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought we all still hated them for the lawsuits over 1 click shopping?!?

I don't get it...

[tekiegreg]

My packages from amazon come in 2-3 days anyways typically. Maybe once in awhile they drag their feet out to 5 days but if it's urgent I'd usually just pay the extra $ for 2 day or overnight anyways. Sorry Amazon I'll stick with your standard model. Though I especially like the Super Saver shipping on packages I don't care too much about when they come anyways :-)

Re:Free shipping is the way to go on big ticket it

[Life2Short]

Exactly why this new service sounds like a waste of money to me. Regardless of what sort of shipping speed I select, it has always been my experience that Amazon ships when they're ready, and their projected dates often have no relationship to reality. I have even received items in the mail on the same day that I got an email from Amazon apologizing that they wouldn't be able to ship the item for some time. Whoever sends the emails that project shipping dates needs to communicate with the folks who are actually shipping stuff out the door.

incontinent bastards...

[viva_fourier]

Well, although it took little energy, I had to click to "Learn more about Amazon Prime" before I realized they only ship to continental US. So, Alaska & Hawaii (not to mention US Territories) miss out again! It's too bad we still can't sign up for the same deal and just pay the difference in 2-day/overnight shipping. Considering we don't have a ground option to begin with(here in Hawaii), this would be a nice token gesture.

*sigh*

Oh well, I'm sure hope these work-provided mai-tai's can ease my pain...

Not a bad idea, but who needs it?

[digitalgimpus]

I ask this simply because I don't know anyone who pays extra for shipping.

These days it seems that you order online if you want a good price, and you go to the store if you want it quick.

I personally calculate shipping into the price, and compare. It seems there's always 1 place that offers free shipping these days. I'll wait an extra day or 2 for free shipping.

I got a LCD TV from Amazon.com. Did free shipping. 48hrs after I ordered UPS was at the door. Yea, that's right. 48hrs, and free shipping.

In most cases I found it's well under a week.

IMHO I would never pay extra for shipping. Want me as a customer? Think free.

If they let me pay $x a year for all the shipping for a year (unlimited shopping and no shipping)... I would consider that.

But not to make shipping faster. Never. And I'm sure I'm not alone.

Re:Last Time...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada, they use Canada Post for delivery

It's more than that. In Canada, Amazon *is* Canada Post. The .ca operation is run by Canada Post. They do all the warehousing and order fufillment, in addition to delivery. Probably how they get the free shipping without complaint.

Re:Supersaver arrives in 2 days half the time anyw

[kaszeta]

I've noticed that when I order stuff with Supersaver free shipping during a non-holiday period, the stuff arrives amazingly fast.

I'm sure this depends on where you are. Typically if I use their Supersaver shipping, it's a real crapshoot. Typically, when I do Supersaver, it ends up getting shipped via Airborne/DHL. This has two problems:

1. For some reason, packages shipped to my office (zip code 03755) have a disturbing tendency to get shipped to the DHL office in Enfield, NH (just down the road), and then spend 4 or 5 days bouncing around "Wilmington, OH" with "Failed delivery attempts" before showing up here. I'm still not sure whether the packages actually get diverted to Wilmington, OH, or if their tracking system is just screwed, but in either case it takes either 4-5 days or quite a bit of bitching to get them to unwedge their system and cough up my package. This has happened 4 times so far
2. Airborne also has a real history of re-using tracking numbers. It's fun wondering where my product is, and they *insist* that a package shipped on 1/28/05 to Hanover, NH was actually delivered on 1/06/05 to Morrisville, NC. Meanwhile, the actual package is still bouncing around... (this one came from Adobe, not Amazon, however)

I've found it's worth the extra few bucks to actually have my packages delivered...

I could give a tracking number for these so that you could all take a gander, but that would violate the terms of their usage agreement. Hmmm, for some reason the number 71868976281 comes to mind...

Re:Supersaver arrives in 2 days half the time anyw

[AceCaseOR]

Or, alternatively, if you and a bunch of roommates are college students, you can use this to save money on textbooks (although you save more money from buying used on Amazon rather than their list price.

Re:Doesn't seem that great

[lunax]

Just for kicks I looked up what it would cost me to have a $6 Asimov book shipped two-day shipping. It was nearly $10. I don't understand where the $1500 comes from if you can order 9 books (ordered separately) for $57 and still save nearly $10 on shipping.

It's only $14.99 to ship

[ufoman]

At checkout it told me standard shipping (3 to 7 business days) was only $14.99.

Items: $19,999.95
Shipping & Handling: $14.99
Total Before Tax: $20,014.94
Estimated Tax:* $0.00
Order Total: $20,014.94

Re:Free shipping is the way to go on big ticket it

[aacool]

I blogged about Amazon Prime [blogspot.com] earlier today - assessing some impacts:

Firstly, evidently Amazon is able to better leverage pricing with the shippers - allowing them greater flexibility in the order fulfilment process. Look for Amazon to acquire/embrace a shipping company - this would mean near-complete vertical integration, and even greater cost efficiency.

... also further extends Amazon's utilization of their single-click patent - If signed in and using the Single-Click option, you see additional buttons for Prime purchases, although you can add to the shopping cart and apply the Prime option later too.
Finally, it should drive up sales for Amazon - people will be more inclined to buy if they can pick up the odd book or two without having to jump through hoops to get it shipped fast and free.Also it locks in customers.

...worked out some numbers that would make this palatable. Using the Amazon shipping rates for 2-day shipments, and assuming purchases of books, music and CDs, it would take a purchase volume of 25 books, 15 CDs and 2 electronic items(approx 6 lbs per item) to cover the cost of approx $76. Alternatively, it would take about 4 shipments in the (slower) super saver shipping scheme. So if this works for you, give it a shot.

Big shoppers will embrace this model

Re:Doesn't seem that great

[Rageon]

You might be surprised how many people order that much stuff on Amazon. I used to work there, unfortunately. There are accounts that have new orders EVERY DAY. Some people order many 3 to 5 times a day, sometimes more. There are customers that have incremental accounts (firstlast01, firstlast02, etc...) because it takes too long to load up their account history once it gets past a thousand orders or so. There are even some customers who order so much they have employees assigned directly to them for support.

I'll say this, there are people that would save thousands a year on this. However, most people won't use it enough and it will be free money for Amazon.

PS....Just for the fun of it, did you know that you cna order a 1000 pound table saw and have it shipped for about 10 bucks? They love it when those get returned and they've got to eat $400 in shipping costs.