Amazons new minimum spend has put me off

tosh · **on:** July 09, 2015, 01:30:22 PM

Since amazon upped the minimum spend for free delivery to £20 I've hardly bought a thing. Prior to which there wasn't a week that went by when either me, my partner of my son didn't order something.
I've just found a couple of items, the total £18+ to qualify for free delivery I've got to add another. £2 worth of goods, but I don't want to buy anything else at the minute, so that's yet another sale that amazon has now missed out on.

Anybody else finding they don't seen to use them much these days.

It's nothing to do with being tight, rather I think it's amazon being greedy.

SAK Guy · **Reply #1 on:** July 09, 2015, 03:35:35 PM

Prime members get free 2 day shipping and with your former level of buying, you'd probably recoup the membership fee rather quickly.

SAK Guy · **Reply #2 on:** July 09, 2015, 03:37:07 PM

OMG I need more coffee dbl post!

hiraethus · **Reply #3 on:** July 09, 2015, 07:58:29 PM

Prime is one day delivery here in the UK and only costs £59. Seems like it might be cost effective for you, Tosh.

ToolJoe · **Reply #4 on:** July 09, 2015, 08:34:48 PM

I just try to look for stuff that has free shipping if possible.

derekmac · **Reply #5 on:** July 09, 2015, 08:43:15 PM

The min here has been $25 CAD for as long as I can remember. No min with Prime.

styx · **Reply #6 on:** July 09, 2015, 09:29:59 PM

Hey be happy Amazon still delivers to you. I couldn't get p-38 can openers, a book and some usb cables because it was potentially dangerous stuff

tosh · **Reply #7 on:** July 10, 2015, 02:11:26 AM

It's more a principle thing with me than the money.

Amazon has become my first port of call over the last few years when buying stuff. The ability to browse their site, select, click then pay and forget until the postie delivered it (usually a week later) has been fantastic.

But as we all know amazon are now ramming "Prime" down everyone's throat. I've absolutely no intention of using any of their "Streaming" services, nor do I really need everything the very next day and I certainly don't need an annual subscription of almost £80 to help me spend my own money.

I can browse eBay (their main competitor I like to think) for all manor of things, for example I could buy a cheap adapter for my DSLR for nothing more than a few pounds and it would be sent free from China - quite ridiculous I agree!! Yet Amazon expects that I will agree to a yearly annual subscription fee for the privilege of spending my own hard earnt money with them!!

Last Christmas my partner decided she'd like a longer charging lead for her iPad so she could surf whilst sat watching TV. Amazon were offering a free prime trial - I decided to try it. This was the saturday before christmas day. I got an instant reply that my new 5m iPad charging lead would be delivered the very next day..Sunday!! It wasn't that important, but sure enough the next night......at 8pm!! there was a knock at the door. The poor guy was standing there with my new iPad lead looking rather glum. I felt awful!!! To make it worse I then got a message from amazon within the hour asking if I liked my new charging lead and please rate the delivery time!!

Now to me that's bang out of order.
They obviously rule their staff with a rod of iron - I've read countless horror stories online and I simply will not allow them dictate to me where I should spend my money. There are other sellers out there who would appreciate my custom as much if not more.
I've had no issues with Amazon over the past few years, but I strongly object to this - they obviously know or assume that once you've signed up you will of course want your moneys worth so will naturally stay with them - so in effect your basically buying your own loyalty card!!

Erm, no thanks!

AimlessWanderer · **Reply #8 on:** July 10, 2015, 09:56:31 AM

Yup! A matter of principle for me too.

As far as I'm concerned, online retailers are judged on each individual purchase, and Amazon aren't always the best deal. For those who don't know, there's a company in the UK called Go Outdoors, who offer a discount card for the year for £10. If on any one individual purchase the discount is more than the cost of the card, AND the total value is less than I can get it for elsewhere, I'll place the order. Go Outdoors have lost a lot of business from me over the years by the cost of the card ruining the deal. I'm not going to buy into a scheme purely so I'm tied to one supplier to get my money back.

Amazon, same deal!

They want my loyalty, but they want to charge me for it

I don't think so! If they don't offer the best value on any individual order, without me having to buy into the Prime scam, then they lose the order and my money goes elsewhere. Simple!

tosh · **Reply #9 on:** July 10, 2015, 10:30:20 AM

Exactly so Al

Do you think it's a Yorkshire thing

Half the time I can find it elsewhere at the same price or cheaper. As paypal becomes far more widespread there really is no need to stay with any one online seller.

Value for money outstrips loyalty as far as I'm concerned.

AimlessWanderer · **Reply #10 on:** July 10, 2015, 11:30:23 AM

do you mean us Yorkshire folk are too tight, or just too sceptical?

I don't like feeling tied in either. If you subscribe to something like that, they've got you by the curlies, and you have to go back time and time again to get value for money you've already paid out.

I get why it could be appealing to some. Some big spenders and frequent users will get benefit. Some will get benefit from the add-on services alone. Some (and Amazon know this very well) will get sub-conscious benefit from feeling they are part of "a club" that gives them extra benefits, whether in fact they actually do or not. I'm not prepared to pledge loyalty to a "shop" at my expense, couldn't care less about streaming media, and certainly couldn't give a flying smurf for the "I'm a member" crap.

One deal, one price, one set of rules, no commitments and obligations, or I'm not interested

Whoey · **Reply #11 on:** July 10, 2015, 11:48:44 AM

Until about two years ago amazon.co.uk used to offer free shipping to Spain for orders over 25gbp. I had no problem with that, the wife and I would collect stuff on our wishlists and then order once we exceeded the minimum order. Now there is no minimum, it's always pay, unless you are prime as mentioned by others.

They then launched amazon.es - imagine Amazon.co.uk with about 1/100th of the items, and charging for shipping regardless of the price total. Oddly at first the prices were higher on .es vs .co.uk for the same items, to the point that some of them are still cheaper paying shipping from .co.uk vs the .es price without shipping.

Our shopping there has been somewhat curtailed since. Unless there is no other option and we really want the item in question.

A lot of our online shopping needs are now (and even back then) fulfilled by http://www.bookdepository.com or http://www.rakuten.co.uk/ (formerly play.com) which usually have better prices on most items and free EU shipping.

Even though we do a lot of ordering online, we still shop around and check prices on multiple sites, sometimes it's a huge difference!

dks · **Reply #12 on:** July 10, 2015, 01:13:16 PM

You people in the UK and the US have been spoiled by amazon

I always pay shipping, though lately, because of the strength of the pound compared to the euro I have moved my buying from amazon uk to amazon de... Even a pencil from the UK amazon will cost about 15 pounds to ship here (or 15 euros from de...)

But, the Chinese sites are getting really good, utilising European shipping/warehouses etc and offering free shipping..

I usually go Chinese online shop- eBay -amazon de - amazon uk -Rakuten in my buying research...

AlephZero · **Reply #13 on:** July 11, 2015, 03:13:41 PM

Quote from: dks on July 10, 2015, 01:13:16 PM

You people in the UK and the US have been spoiled by amazon

I always pay shipping, though lately, because of the strength of the pound compared to the euro I have moved my buying from amazon uk to amazon de... Even a pencil from the UK amazon will cost about 15 pounds to ship here (or 15 euros from de...)

But, the Chinese sites are getting really good, utilising European shipping/warehouses etc and offering free shipping..

I usually go Chinese online shop- eBay -amazon de - amazon uk -Rakuten in my buying research...

+1 this

I would never think of not ordering from some seller if they do not provide free shipping, shipping is not free for them, why should it be free for me?