Amazon Prime "No Rush Shipping" changes

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by issybird

If you can hold to that, you have iron will and I honor you.

But, seriously, not to undermine you or anything, should you put a leetle more slack into this? Perhaps discount those credits a bit? While there's still time to adjust your goals? That's nearly 46 weeks of not buying books, no matter what! I'm just extrapolating from my own experiences when my resolutions have been too draconian. They should pinch, not strangle. A girdle rather than a corset, as it were.

Suppose there's another Kobocalypse?

This is a valid point. Perhaps I could stretch to ONE additional discretionary ebook per month.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by issybird

Suppose there's another Kobocalypse?

If there's another Kobocalypse, or another unmissable Kindle daily deal, I shall just buy and fail my target.

It would need to be a 90% off deal, or a favourite series at £0.99 though.

[DiapDealer]

"But Paul! What about the He-man Ebook-Buying Addicts Club?"

"I'm sorry, Diap, I've got to live my own life."

Spoiler:

... and yes, I realize that's a long road to a joke/reference that very few are going to get (or appreciate) but I couldn't resist. Anyway ... time for me to fly.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

"But Paul! What about the He-man Ebook-Buying Addicts Club?"

"I'm sorry, Diap, I've got to live my own life."

Spoiler:

... and yes, I realize that's a long road to a joke/reference that very few are going to get (or appreciate) but I couldn't resist. Anyway ... time for me to fly.

Do you wear your hair like Alfalfa?

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Umm... I may have overdone the promotional credit thing. I now have £151.62 in promotional credit, nearly all to be spent by 31st Jan or 15th February.

I have a book buying budget for 2016 of £240. I have subscriptions that will take up £93.37 of that budget. Leaving me with £146.63. [edit] Luckily I can spend some of the credit this year, so I should be able to use it all without breaking my budget.

But it looks like I'll be spending my entire discretionary book budget for the year by 15th February!

Never mind your book buying budget, what did this do to your other budgets? £151.62 in credits took a lot of orders!

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by issybird

Do you wear your hair like Alfalfa?

Yay! Someone got it!

Sadly, my hair is too short these days to pull off that particular look.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Never mind your book buying budget, what did this do to your other budgets? £151.62 in credits took a lot of orders!

That's £150 in new credits from 50 orders costing £450 in total. So not too bad. One-third off loads of Christmas presents and household things.

[FrozenYogurt]

Seems like a good deal, smart move by amazon

[DreamWriter]

The Amazon Prime no-rush shipping credit is back to $1 in the U.S. The $1 credits expire March 1, 2016. The recent $2 credits expire on February 15, 2016.

[GA Russell]

Two days ago I purchased a Word Search puzzle book for kids for $1.25.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486266729

I chose "no-rush delivery."

I was given the $1.00 credit, and it shipped today!

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

Two days ago I purchased a Word Search puzzle book for kids for $1.25.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486266729

I chose "no-rush delivery."

I was given the $1.00 credit, and it shipped today!

Interesting. I ordered one for myself (not for me me, but for the grandkids). Sometimes it makes you wonder.

[Yolina]

I've just ordered a 4-port USB wall charger - normally £11.99 but there is a code in the listing for £11.99 off so, erm paid £0 and selected no-rush delivery. I like it when Amazon pays me to order stuff I'm not sure I'll actually use the charger though as it's a random no-brand and I'm a bit wary of these things.

In case any of the Brits would like to take advantage, it's this one and the code is 72D76CO7

Edit: It looks like that promo has now expired as the code is no longer in the listing.

[pdurrant]

Wow. That seems to have worked. Well, a new USB power adapter is always handy.

[fjtorres]

It does make you wonder.
But it helps if you think of it as advertising money. Or tchotchke money.

(Which, considering how long this thread is and how long people here and elsewhere spend spreading the word it pretty much *is* a viral advertising campaign.)

Well run conpanies have budgets that make sense for them: Apple might assign $200 for a launch budget on the next iPhone and blanket TV with warm and fuzzy ads that may translate into 2Billion in added sales which given Apple's legendary markups means those $200M *may* translate into an extra billion for the McDuck vault.

Amazon has an advertising budget but they don't operate on Apple's scale. Their ads are few and limited. More to generate coverage of the ads than looking to generate direct sales. (Think of the pool ads or the recent PRIME Air video.)

Other business have budgets for giveaways, T-shirts and stuff. Once upon a time Amazon sent me a couple free insulated travel cups. They long since stopped doing that.

What they are doing these days, though, is letting buyers choose their freebies.

The individual orders don't matter; they are bookkept as normal. Somebody bought a coloring book, they made the same profit as usual. *How* that purchase is paid for doesn't matter to the bottom line. What will matter is how much total business was generated by the pot of money they set aside to cover the perk. Say they budgeted $20M for the perk and it saves them $10M in shipping and generates $19m in added sales. They made an extra $11 million though it may seem like they lost money.

(In reality, the added sales multiplier will be more than a fraction but some of those sales they were going to get anyway. Still they just turned trinket giveaway money into shipping cost savings, a sale, and "buzz". And as we've seen in the news lately, Amazon is very interested in both reducing shipping costs and increasing Prime sales. The buzz is frosting. Or maybe the buzz is the cake...

So they set aside a pot of money to do that.
They are still doing it so it must be a net win when *all* their interests are factored in. Which, apparently, the travel cups weren't...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Yolina

I've just ordered a 4-port USB wall charger - normally £11.99 but there is a code in the listing for £11.99 off so, erm paid £0 and selected no-rush delivery. I like it when Amazon pays me to order stuff I'm not sure I'll actually use the charger though as it's a random no-brand and I'm a bit wary of these things.

In case any of the Brits would like to take advantage, it's this one and the code is 72D76CO7

Edit: It looks like that promo has now expired as the code is no longer in the listing.

Yes, it is expired. I just tried it. Oh well.