Is Amazon Prime worth it if I don't buy a lot from Amazon?

[Nebor]

That's really odd, because I prefer Prime for this exact reason. My brother's b-day is on the 21st, so I usually have a big order mid to late Dec for everything. Always shows up fast. In a past year I even forgot something and ordered on the 20th and still got it before Xmas which I felt was damn impressive.

Plus during the holidays your prime order gets packed and shipped before peon orders.

 

[Turin39789]

Get it free for having a kid and shopping in the baby store and love it. If I were more organized I'd track the cost of common grocery items and start ordering them through prime.

 

[pontifex]

It would still be worth it to pay full price for me, but since I split it, it is definitely worth it. Although I am not the person who actually pays Amazon for Prime so I don't get the free streaming or a free ebook each month.

I don't really mind because I watch streaming elsehwere and probably has a better selection. I read a lot but I already have like 40 free ebooks on my kindle right now that I need to read.

 

[notposting]

True story. You don't buy much from Amazon NOW, but that changes when you get Prime. When you buy every single gift for Christmas on Amazon with free 2 day shipping, you laugh at the fools in the stores.

And when you do it on the 21st and get everything in time you cackle even more :awe::sneaky:

Videos are good, you buy more when you realize how awesome it is, etc etc. Do it do it do it...

 

[lozina]

Amazon Prime is frickin awesome

That plus my Amazon Visa card plus Amazon Subscribe & Save has really made my day the past few years! This past xmas I did ALL my xmas shopping using only my reward pts I accumulated over the year. That was like $750 of points.

I buy alot of people food and pet food from amazon using subscribe & save. Whatever I can find that I usually buy in the store if its on amazon subscribe & save then I am there. The UPS guy is at my house so damn often its funny.

Its just too bad they took off the Prime shipping perk from subscribe & save, I am pretty sure I used to get everything 2nd day but now they changed it

 

[lokiju]

You can (at least used to be able to) get Prime if you were a student for half price of $39.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info

http://lifehacker.com/5820400/amazon-prime-for-students-now-50-off-at-39

They also had something like 3 free months for parents if I'm not mistaken.

My 3rd year subscription renewal is April 1st and we will not doubt renew again. We use it constantly. It's so much nicer to just order so many things you'd otherwise go to a store to buy. Plus so many things are a little to way cheaper than in stores and arrive at my door 2 days later. Did nearly all Christmas shopping through Amazon, it's just a standard now for pretty much anything. Even when I'm at a store, if I see something of interest I always look it up on Amazon and if it's cheaper I order it on the spot. If I'm dying to have something ASAP I pay the $4 more for next day delivery and it's waiting for me when I get home the next day.

Really it cannot be beat for both money savings and convenience.

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

Depends on how much you're going to use it.

I wasn't paying attention when it auto-renewed last year, after I trialed it. $80 something? Ugghh...
The few things I ordered from there over the past year would have been maybe half that, if not, less. Then several other items didn't qualify fro Prime shipping so that really played no effect on savings.
Maybe if I ordered significantly more, like 3x or so, it would have been beneficial. Otherwise, it was a waste.

I had a friend that would endlessly rave about how much he saved on canned goods with Amazon Prime, over buying it in the store.

 

[Maximus96]

PM me if you're interested in splitting a prime membership, have a couple of slots available, $16 a year until april 2013

 

[Homerboy]

Note to OP: Even with prime you are limited to ONE E-Book per MONTH. I was unaware of that limitation when I got my Kindle (already had Prime). But one a month is hardly enough.

 

[otifrank]

One other note to OP: With respects to the E-Books, you must have a Kindle device. The software app for the IPhone will not work with it. Although not a huge thing, I learned this the hard way.

All of that said though, I find that Prime is a good value for those like me who just don't have the patience to wait for the normal delivery timeframe. My own fault, I admit. Additionally, as I am fairly busy with work and other facets of life, taking the time out to head out to a store each time I need to obtain these types of goods is not, for me, efficient.

YMMV

Good luck.

 

[TheNinja]

Are you guys serious about the e-books for Kindle? I don't have a Kindle. I have the free Kindle Reader on my PC. So I wouldn't be able to get the free books for that thing? And only 1 a month? That's kind of a ripoff if I was going to spend $80 for it. I was thinking for $80 I'd get a bunch of free ebooks for Kindle reader for PC.

Thanks everyone for the input so far!

 

[Wyndru]

What is your normal ground shipping time from amazon? I have shoprunner (mainly for newegg) and they ship ground anyhow, so while it saves me money on shipping, it's not really a time saving benefit for me since I'm so close to the distribution warehouse. It arrives overnight either way.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I'm of the opinion that Prime is always worth it. It's a good thing that Amazon has pretty much everything, because after getting prime I hate having to shop somewhere else. After getting prime I buy stuff like aspirin and toilet paper from Amazon. No way I would have considered that before.

 

[Pardus]

my prime membership just expired, a few co-workers joined together last near to bring down the price of the membership, this year, they arent doing it as they all say, amazon deals are getting worse and worse.

 

[ponyo]

my prime membership just expired, a few co-workers joined together last near to bring down the price of the membership, this year, they arent doing it as they all say, amazon deals are getting worse and worse.

I noticed that about Amazon prices last year or two. Prices are definitely higher and they play more games with pricing. Amazon had excellent prices on dry and canned grocery when they first introduced it. Now, local supermarkets are usually cheaper. It's pretty much the same across the board. Prices are not bad and is competitive but I'm not so loyal to Amazon even with Prime that I will just order from them. And that's pretty bad considering Amazon has 10% built-in price advantage (7% sales tax + 3% Amazon Visa rebate) over the local B&M stores.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I'm of the opinion that Prime is always worth it. It's a good thing that Amazon has pretty much everything, because after getting prime I hate having to shop somewhere else. After getting prime I buy stuff like aspirin and toilet paper from Amazon. No way I would have considered that before.

Those kinds of everyday items are more expensive on Amazon than elsewhere in my experience.

Think about how many Amazon orders you place in a year. Then take 80 and divide it by that number to get the shipping cost per order.

During the time I had a free student Prime membership, I placed 13 orders. Had I paid for Prime, it would have been $6.15 shipping per order. And some of those orders were over $25 so they would have qualified for free super saver shipping anyway.

Don't think of Amazon Prime as "free" 2-day shipping. Think of it as pre-paying your shipping costs for a year. The problem is it forces you to buy stuff from Amazon even if it's not as good a deal because you don't want your membership to go to waste. It's nice to have but not worth it unless you are placing 50+ orders a year or are running a business where you regularly need stuff delivered quickly.

 

[kranky]

Don't think of Amazon Prime as "free" 2-day shipping. Think of it as pre-paying your shipping costs for a year. The problem is it forces you to buy stuff from Amazon even if it's not as good a deal because you don't want your membership to go to waste.

On a side note, I think this is exactly why Groupon is considering a paid version that lets you get in on deals early and get in on "closed" deals. They know once people pay a monthly fee they will buy more Groupons so they don't feel like they are wasting the membership cost. Kind of ingenious when you think about it.