Amazon Prime "No Rush Shipping" changes

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I wonder how much of the $99 fee is used up by Prime shipping?

Given my experiences with them this year, they seem to have cut back on both the quality of their shipping and their customer service. I've had more late shipments and more unsatisfactory dealings with customer service agents this year than I've had in the past.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by issybird

Sure they can. But if they want to coerce more people to take the slow-ship option, they need to give back more. I assume Amazon parses the elasticity of this excellently, but it still means that some customers who would take slow shipping on their $5 item haven't been seduced away from the Prime shipping they *paid* for.

Coerced?
Are they putting guns to people's heads?
Sending out Guido and Tananda?

Maybe it's time to take a step back:
Prime is a loyalty rewards program.
It offers perks to convince you to shop through their website.
The core is free two-day shipping.
That's it.

Everything else is frosting. Stuff Amazon adds to serve *their* needs, not yours. If they benefit you, then great. If not... Tough luck? Dunno. (Do you think a lot of people are going to drop Prime over not being able to apply the credits to Agency books that can't be discounted anyway?)

Hate to break it to you, but Amazon doesn't keep piling up the perks out of the goodness of their heart; they do it because they set aside a portion of the Prime revenue base for "subscriber acquisition" and, as the subscriber base grows, so does the pot of available funds and, since most of the digital perks are mostly fixed-cost services, that growth can be funneled into newer perks that serve their needs. If you look at the perks, each one exists to support a separate new business in the Amazon empire.

Prime Video was added to more quickly ramp up Amazon's video operation, which is being expanded into a paid service across the world. It has also given visibility to Amazon Studios that is allowing them to bring in A-list Hollywood talent. It is quite conceivable that an Amazon movie might win an Oscar next March.

Prime Music likewise spawned Amazon Music. It exposes listeners to acts they might want to hear more from, either by buying or by subscribing to the full-catalog service.

Prime Reading? Ditto. It exists to expose readers to a subset of Kindle Unlimited. Some will go on to buy further books by those authors or pay for a full subscription. (Remember, KU authors are Amazon customers, too. Of KDP.)

Discounts for Freetime Unlimited? Sell tablets. Catch the next generation of shoppers young.
Student Prime? Ditto.

Look closely and all the perks come with strings.
None of the perks benefit everybody.
Each perk is going to be a "Wow!" for some and a "Meh" for others.
It's all factored in: Prime perks are a grab-bag bundle and the "cost" of providing them is accounted for in a variety of ways, mostly promotion of the other businesses.

Slow shipping is no different.
It exists to get you to buy more stuff. Dry goods, mostly.
eBooks pose a problem there on two fronts:

The first is obviously Agency, which demands all their books sell at the same price all the time, everywhere.

The second, less obvious, is a potential antitrust claim of subsidizing the sale of ebooks with money from other businesses. Amazon might win such a case but they would have to spend litigation money.

Besides, applying the credit only to KDP titles makes KDP more appealing to its users and they too are Amazon customers. Unlike tradpubs, who are only suppliers and some only grudgingly so.

Net result: they apply the digital version of the perk where they can maximize the return two ways: selling more ebooks and helping their KDP customers. They're not crazy. There is always a business reason behind their moves. Nothing is ever just what it seems.

Those perks all have strings that help justify the existence of the perk by growing Amazon's businesses, not just their sales volume. They're tricky folks, Amazon.

A lot like illusionists, they always have a new trick up their sleeve.
You may like it or you might not but if not they'll come up with a new one eventually.

[issybird]

That's a whole lot of words to say what I said in a sentence, "Amazon parses the elasticity of this excellently." You honestly think ("Hate to break it to you") that people here don't understand that Amazon's in it for itself and that they have huge interlocking strategies to promote that?

People just want to beef a little about a change for the worse in a come-on and question its cost-effectiveness at certain margins. This screed strikes me as a wee bit (OK, a heck of a lot) of overkill.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by issybird

That's a whole lot of words to say what I said in a sentence, "Amazon parses the elasticity of this excellently." You honestly think ("Hate to break it to you") that people here don't understand that Amazon's in it for itself and that they have huge interlocking strategies to promote that?

People just want to beef a little about a change for the worse in a come-on and question its cost-effectiveness at certain margins. This screed strikes me as a wee bit (OK, a heck of a lot) of overkill.

I merely thought "coerce" was too dramatic a term and divorced from reality.

Good to know you are still grounded.
We need as many realists as we can muster these days.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The second, less obvious, is a potential antitrust claim of subsidizing the sale of ebooks with money from other businesses. Amazon might win such a case but they would have to spend litigation money.

Besides, applying the credit only to KDP titles makes KDP more appealing to its users and they too are Amazon customers.

Except that the credit also applies to all Android apps, all music, all movies & TV shows, so all the limitation does is either drive users to buy something other than eBooks, or convince them to not even bother with slower shipping to get the credit.

The real problem here is that unlike all the other digital items, Amazon has been forced by fear of those lawsuits to not "sell" any books by any of the big 5 publishers or their subsidiaries. When the movie and TV industry is more open with their terms, you know something is wrong with the publishing industry.

[Wearever]

I have been just going with the 2 day shipping. Yesterday a package came a day early. It was pouring rain and very foggy and I wasn't home, so they left it by the house. I would have preferred that it came today instead. Today the mail truck was absolutely filled with Amazon packages, when our mail was delivered to the house. Only none were mine. Just mail this time. I guess it's hit or miss this close to the holidays.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

Except that the credit also applies to all Android apps, all music, all movies & TV shows, so all the limitation does is either drive users to buy something other than eBooks, or convince them to not even bother with slower shipping to get the credit.

The real problem here is that unlike all the other digital items, Amazon has been forced by fear of those lawsuits to not "sell" any books by any of the big 5 publishers or their subsidiaries. When the movie and TV industry is more open with their terms, you know something is wrong with the publishing industry.

When Amazon started applying the credit to apps, you were forced to use the credits for apps instead of coins. You were asked if you wanted to pay with coins or money. Hubby chose coins, had to verify using coins, and it used my credits.

I had to insist that my credits be restored. CS kept telling me that credits cannot be restored. I told them the screen said coins and that's how I wanted to pay. I finally got the credits back and the email said it was a one-time only thing. So I have to pay for their software bug?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

Except that the credit also applies to all Android apps, all music, all movies & TV shows, so all the limitation does is either drive users to buy something other than eBooks, or convince them to not even bother with slower shipping to get the credit.

The real problem here is that unlike all the other digital items, Amazon has been forced by fear of those lawsuits to not "sell" any books by any of the big 5 publishers or their subsidiaries. When the movie and TV industry is more open with their terms, you know something is wrong with the publishing industry.

I'm sure that the fact that Amazon wants to steer customers to the products that Amazon has a higher profit margin has absolutely nothing to do with it. No siree Bob, it's those evil publishers at it again!

[Purple Lady]

I had to spend some Amazon coins, so I bought an app and specified coins as the payment type. I had one cent in digital credits and that one cent was used. The order details shows the digital credit as coins. I guess their devs don't know the difference between coins and digital credits? Why even bother to ask how I want to pay for something if you're not going to use it. And you can't know how much you paid for something until you have already paid? That should be illegal.

Amazon employment ad for developers:

Have you been fired from every developer position you have ever had? Did your last employer make you pay them a bonus because your performance level was so bad that it actually helped the competition? Did your coworkers celebrate your last birthday by burning you in effigy? Does your boss make you use an Etch-A-Sketch rather than a laptop because she knows you won't get any work done even with expensive equipment? Did you have to ask your office mates how to reboot your Etch-A-Sketch? When your company handed out cheap t-shirts last Christmas with their latest catchy corporate phrase, was yours unique and only had a large bullseye and the words "Shoot Me Here" written on it? Did your state's Employment Commission put you on their Do Not Hire list? Then come to Amazon! We have a management position waiting for you in our development department.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Amazon employment ad for developers:

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I'm sure that the fact that Amazon wants to steer customers to the products that Amazon has a higher profit margin has absolutely nothing to do with it.

eBooks are far more profitable for Amazon than movies or music, even if Amazon gets a smaller percentage on eBooks.

This is because a typical eBook from a major publisher sells for $5-10, a movie sells for $5-20, and an MP3 sells for less than $2. But, the eBook costs far less to transfer to the user (less than 5MB for almost all books). A 3-minute 320Kbps MP3 is 55MB, while a movie is 1-4GB. In addition, the movie is likely to be transferred more than once. App prices vary widely, but I'd guess they don't average as high as eBooks, and are also generally much larger, and get downloaded a lot more times, because you get free updates, and can use the app on every device you own.

Since the data transfer is the only variable cost in the different transactions, the only other variable is the percentage, and I don't think Amazon gets 1/10 the percentage on eBooks as on other digital sales. They may get as little as 1/2 as much, but even that won't make up for the difference in size.

Again, I repeat...if your licensing terms are more draconian than movie companies, you deserve every epithet that people throw at you.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

<snip>
Again, I repeat...if your licensing terms are more draconian than movie companies, you deserve every epithet that people throw at you.

What makes Amazon licensing terms "more draconian" than movie companies?

Shari

[stumped]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I had to spend some Amazon coins, so I bought an app and specified coins as the payment type. I had one cent in digital credits and that one cent was used. The order details shows the digital credit as coins. I guess their devs don't know the difference between coins and digital credits? Why even bother to ask how I want to pay for something if you're not going to use it. And you can't know how much you paid for something until you have already paid? That should be illegal.

Attachment 153664

There are programmed rules. Digital credits like no rush credits are used first, before any payment methods ,always.
Which is good, as they often have short hidden expiry dates. And as most digital stuff is on 1 click, you can trust the system to use your credits before taking your coins or your real money.
Coins are a failed experiment, no longer promoted, no giveaways. Can't buy books with them.
there was a time when i got several hundred coins from giveaways. I spent all but 25 left over ones. As I had no need to buy other apps, I used some like karma, I.e which developer shall i support kind of thing. I had 2 amazon accounts with spare coins so I bought CC twice

[stumped]

Ps. Another rule is you cannot part pay in coins. So my 25 are useless unless I can find an app that sells for that or less
multiply that by a few million customers and that's a serious float.
It's a variation on the gift card scam, retailers know that many will get lost, time out, also the customer loses all if retailer goes bust. We had some high profile cases of that in UK.