Amazon Prime/Amazon Fresh

[Apache]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

I'm with you on this. I worked in a grocery store when I was in high school and early college, bag boy, produce department, general stock boy. I'm very picky about those items as well. Plus my household is just my wife and I, so when I shop, I'm checking dates on things like break, milk, eggs, etc as I want to get dates that I know will last the time it takes us to use them. I don't want somebody grabbing items for me that are set to expire tomorrow. I'd be real leery particularly with Walmart delivery. I shop there for basic items and I've noticed the bin at checkout will have items in it that are refrigerated that aren't being put back right in stock right away. The items will sit there for hours. I bought salmon once from them, that was rancid. No thanks, I'll pick my own items.

Plus since the start of working at home, which is permanent for me now, I like another reason to just get out of the house! I can get about 4000 steps walking though a Walmart superstore, then another 1-2000 through the grocery store for about 5-6k total for the trip.

Wal Mart is only good for pantry items. I do not buy fresh meat, vegetables or bakery from them. I once talked to a sales rep for a national company that provided vegetables to grocery stores. He told me that most grocery stores buy grade 2 while Wall World bought grade 6. Their meat is case ready not processed on site. Case ready meat can have oxygen, carbon dioxide and/or carbon monoxide in the packages. This keeps the meat red even if it is spoiled. No thank you. I prefer to buy from a store that uses an onsite butcher. I even prefer to grind my own hamburger so I can pick the cuts I want to use. Americas Test Kitchen bought ground beef from different stores and sent it to a lab for testing. DNA testing found that a package of ground beef can have beef from as many as 400 different steers.
Apache

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I use Prime mainly for two things: Prime Visa and Prime Video. The other perks are incidental. The free no minimum shipping is nice, but not a necessity.

Prime Visa is what keeps me in Prime. I get at least 5% back on Amazon purchases and that pays for the yearly membership fee. If Amazon raises the membership fee and/or cuts that 5% to a point where the savings no longer pay for the membership, I'd seriously consider dropping Prime altogether.

Time will tell. As is, Amazon is getting worse, not better.

Amazon Prime Visa is 2 percent above the regular Amazon Visa. You'd have to spend $7,000/yr to realize enough savings to make up for the membership fee (not counting the occasional higher cash-back offers). I for one don't spend anywhere near that at Amazon.

With a Walmart-branded credit card, I get 5 percent off Walmart purchases without paying any membership fee.

I canceled Prime today; after my membership ends in two weeks, I'll see what I miss and what I can happily do without. Amazon does have an option to pause Prime membership, apparently for an unlimited time, but I'm not sure what the point of that is, as you lose the perks while you're on pause.

I wish there was a "why are you canceling" option, as I would have liked to tell Amazon my reasons!

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I replied with a similar joke earlier. But really, it's once Jeff left that all these changes hit. The visionary is gone. Now Amazon has to run like a 'real' business.

I do wonder how many of these small changes can pile up before people will really start to dislike Amazon or move away from it?

Between Amazon and WalMart, local brick and mortar retail has been utterly destroyed. I went to a local store to buy something, and the owner advised me to buy it from Amazon, because the lowest price she could sell it at, was roughly double the usual price on Amazon.

I don't like Amazon because I'm more likely to roll a 7 or 11 playing craps, than getting the product I ordered from Amazon.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

Between Amazon and WalMart, local brick and mortar retail has been utterly destroyed. I went to a local store to buy something, and the owner advised me to buy it from Amazon, because the lowest price she could sell it at, was roughly double the usual price on Amazon.

I don't disagree.

I don't like Amazon because I'm more likely to roll a 7 or 11 playing craps, than getting the product I ordered from Amazon.

That's too bad. But none of the above has anything to do with Amazon cutting Smile, Fresh or the various changes being made to Music or DRM or any of the many other changes that seem to sudden;y be taking place.

[Catlady]

Wow. I just took a look at Amazon Fresh to see what the delivery charge is now for non-Prime members--and discovered that non-Prime members are NOT ALLOWED to order! This makes me really angry--first, because they're being such jerks, and second, because (per their e-mail announcing changes to Fresh) Amazon never indicated that Fresh would no longer be available once I canceled Prime. Being cut off completely from their grocery delivery service would certainly have been a factor in my decision.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by Apache

I just don't trust other people with picking my fresh produce, meat, seafood and bread. When I was young, I worked in a grocery store, and I can be extremely picky about those items. I saw an ad for Instacart (I think) that seemed to show they deliver food like uber delivers people. The ad made it sound like these people would be as finicky as I am about shopping for my groceries. Somehow, I do not believe this ad is the way it works in real life.
Apache

I didn't work in a grocery store, but I did work in a restaurant when I was a teenager. Your line about "these people would be as finicky as I am about shopping for my groceries" got me laughing about an experience I had.

One day in the restaurant our lettuce shipment did not come in. And that's a disaster at a restaurant known for it's giant salad bar. So I got sent over to the grocery store a block away to get some lettuce. There was this lady there carefully picking through the lettuce trying to find the perfect specimen. And I roll up with my shopping cart and proceed to grab every head of lettuce in sight and toss it into my cart (I did leave her two or three to continue picking through). So off I went to the checkout with my 50+ heads of lettuce. The lady followed me. I got checked out, and headed down the busy street sidewalk with my cart making for the restaurant down the way. I glanced back and there she was outside the store still looking at me. She was probably wondering what the heck she had just witnessed. Some kind of weirdo with a lettuce fetish stealing a shopping cart (I did bring it back later).

I still laugh about this 50 years later!

[Apache]

Originally Posted by haertig

I didn't work in a grocery store, but I did work in a restaurant when I was a teenager. Your line about "these people would be as finicky as I am about shopping for my groceries" got me laughing about an experience I had.

One day in the restaurant our lettuce shipment did not come in. And that's a disaster at a restaurant known for it's giant salad bar. So I got sent over to the grocery store a block away to get some lettuce. There was this lady there carefully picking through the lettuce trying to find the perfect specimen. And I roll up with my shopping cart and proceed to grab every head of lettuce in sight and toss it into my cart (I did leave her two or three to continue picking through). So off I went to the checkout with my 50+ heads of lettuce. The lady followed me. I got checked out, and headed down the busy street sidewalk with my cart making for the restaurant down the way. I glanced back and there she was outside the store still looking at me. She was probably wondering what the heck she had just witnessed. Some kind of weirdo with a lettuce fetish stealing a shopping cart (I did bring it back later).

I still laugh about this 50 years later!

I am not that finicky. When I worked in produce at a grocery store, I saw too many employees that did not pull fruits and vegetables that were going bad.
Apache