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Originally Posted by astra
I thought so too, but crich70 includes this "s/h" into kindle price if you don't have amazon premium. That's what I don't understand. Shipping and handling is free. You don't need So, I assume it must be something else.
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Oops!! this was too long, sorry about that, I was on-a-roll, haha!
Prime membership is more than free shipping. First orders from Prime members are shipping the day they are ordered. Standard orders from non-Prime members ship anywhere from a couple days to a week later. Basically non-Prime member orders ship once the Prime orders are filled.
Next Prime membership lets me get anything I order shipped overnight for $3.99 per item in the order being shipped over night. This is maybe the best feature of the deal. I have had times when I needed an item overnighted for various reasons. I have no problems paying even $20-$30 to get multiple items shipped overnight.
Last the best savings is I do not need to drive to CostCo or other larger stores to get things I need. It's at least a 50-mile round trip for me to get to a city with something beyond a crappy Walmart we have in town. Add to that the time savings and convenience and the $79/yr for Amazon Prime membership is a fantastic deal.
Only negative is if the items I want are more expensive through Amazon or are shipped by Amazon on behalf of a Marketplace seller. It happens now and then but when it does the price from Amazon is usually a bit less than from the Marketplace seller + shipping. And if there is a cheaper Marketplace seller Amazon does add a note right by the price on the item page that tells you there is a Marketplace seller who has the better deal. But as a Prime member I lose the fast processing if I go with a Marketplace seller who ships themselves and does not warehouse their inventory with Amazon to let Amazon do the shipping.
I really love the $3.99 overnight shipping for bigger ticket items. I know when I order anything I just either want or need I just pay that $4 and boom, it's there tomorrow often even if I order at 10PM the night before. Again that has saved me a few dozen times over the years. Every time that savings alone has been worth the cost of the membership.
I know on the surface it does seem like Prime is not a good deal. But once you add in the various factors such as travel to get items, at $4/gal for fuel it does not take long to realize a significant savings thanks to Prime. Also though it's the same day processing, including Sundays, of my orders so they go out that day 99.9999% of the time. Non-prime orders can take up to 7-days to ship. So I do actually get my orders within 2-days of place my order. Seriously its saves me $100s every year.
Heck in areas like Seattle and a couple other larger cities, people with Prime can now get same day delivery free. That includes the grocery items Amazon now offers. In fact they are experimenting with actual food and produce in those areas. If I could buy most all food & groceries I would save $20-$30/week in fuel costs alone. But right now for heavy items even with Prime ordering online is just too costly. I was looking at Blue Diamond Almond "milk" (it's really just water/juice but hey...
) and right now on Amazon it is price at $25/case of 12-quart containers. That's 6-half gallons and the price locally for a half-gallon is $2.30-$2.99/half-gallon but via Amazon it's about $4/half-gallon and that is not for the refrigerated version but for the shelf-stabilized product. I much prefer the in-store purchase in this case.
Anyway those are reasons why Amazon Prime has significant value and many people are not aware of the way it works. But for me it's a great deal saving me not only cost but often the much more important time-savings. I have even stopped my Costco membership as even tires are cheaper via Amazon I can then pay my mechanic to mount and balance them. That last thing was the final compelling reason for me to keep my Costco membership, at least every 4-6 years for new tires.