4 ms·

Finally cancelled my prime membership after 7 years. I just don't feel like Amazon is delivering the same level of service quality they used to

dawnerd 10y ago
I've been on th fence on cancelling too. Only thing keeping me subscribed is prime now. I've found it immensely helpful and the restaurant delivery far better than the other delivery companies.
31reasons 10y ago
So which better alternative did you move to?
- gshakir 10y ago
  I recently bought Olive oil and a Nintendo wii game via Target with prices cheaper than Amazon. The web experience with Target has vastly improved. I am not sure what's Walmart experience is like.
  - hga 10y ago
    WalMart.com is very good. Same prices as in stores and for what I buy from it, staples so far, those have been quite a bit cheaper than Amazon/Amazon Pantry, reasonably quick free shipping for orders > $50 (several days but less than a week as I recall), double layer corrugated boxes (!), adequate packing in the two shipments I've received so far (albeit don't buy dry laundry detergent since they won't bag it and some will get on the surfaces of everything, although that's just annoying), and 3% off if you use one of their cards. You'll pay local sales tax since they have stores everywhere. Wish I'd started using them when I recently bought a case of Sapporo Ichiban Miso Ramen, Amazon, which I think had a slightly lower price, was out, so I went with a 3rd party which a high rating, which had the brilliant idea of unpacking the case and stuffing it into a Medium size Priority Mail box, which can comfortably only hold half as many. As long as none of the soup base packets were punctured by this stunt I'll come out OK, but....
    - jamiesonbecker 10y ago
      Wal-mart pickup for groceries is amazing, too. You don't even have to get out of the car, and everything is cold and fresh (they have separate fridges/freezers for pickup orders). ... of course, you still have to carry the stuff in and find space in the fridge yourself ...
      - hga 10y ago
        Oh, wow, I didn't realize that about that service. Recent Real Life developments have resulted in logistics limiting me to cold stuff I can put in an insulated backpack with a ice pack, but, yeah, I could use this to get cold and frozen stuff without much hassle. Thanks!
    - vonmoltke 10y ago
      In my one (and only) experience with Amazon Pantry I ordered several boxes of Near East couscous and several boxes of Bounce dryer sheets (amongst other things). They packed them in the same giant box. I had to throw out all the couscous because it tasted like dryer sheets.
      - hga 10y ago
        Yeah, well, perfume is utterly evil, says this life long sufferer of allergies. So that powdered detergent, it was in theory perfume free. But not entirely, Procter & Gamble i.e. Tide and it now seems Sun Products Corporation i.e. All don't bother to clean their machinery between running off lots of normal and "free" of evil stuff, one reason I gave up Tide and switched to All, but fortunately the All is not too bad, at least as of yet. Also had to give up on Vanicream soap when I assume the company they contract with to make their stuff massively dosed two quite separated in time batches with perfume. Which also taught me to try 1 of every new batch of stuff I buy (I tend to buy stuff like that in April and October when the weather is mild, and increase my inventory to ~12 months so I have plenty of time to find a new brand or solution if the old one goes bad or is discontinued). Hay, save the nose of the allergy sufferers in your life, get the perfume free stuff by default! At least if it doesn't cost any more to speak of.... And, yeah, I gather the whole shtick of Amazon Pantry is that you buy enough stuff to fill up one big box, no doubt by weight as well as size, which I assume they've worked out deals to ship cheaply. Haven't tried it yet since I've found WalMart.com to be so much cheaper, while there's some Pantry exclusive items, or, say, they're available in quantity 1 that way, I just haven't been able to come close to filling up a box. WalMart doesn't care, except in giving you a strong incentive to buy at least $50.01 of stuff at a time, which isn't hard.
- hackcasual 10y ago
  Trying not to buy as much. Shopping around before ordering. Waiting until I've got enough in my cart for free shipping. I still use Amazon, I just don't pay them $99 a year for the privilege or treat them as the first store I go to
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    I've been doing this too, though if I'm going to buy a new video game, I sub Prime's monthly option for the month, because they give you $12 off the game, and the Prime is $11 for the month. Note of warning: You'll discover a lot of random items are now "Prime exclusive" for no reason other than spite. No special discount, they just will refuse to sell you odd and end items unless you buy Prime.
    - danudey 10y ago
      I wonder how many of those are such low-margin items that they effectively don't make a profit off them unless they restrict sales to people with prime (who are paying for the privilege)?
      - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
        It's so random it's hard to tell. Like random Blu-ray discs, regular household staples like diapers or shaver blade replacements, etc. And they'll come and go from the exclusive list every couple or weeks or so, it seems. There's a huge long-running thread on Amazon's forum about it. What amazes me, is given Jeff Bezos' general attitude towards providing excellent customer service, is that Amazon has said nothing about this practice, and it's decidedly anti-consumer. If it was just a Prime discount or something, it wouldn't bother people nearly as much, but Amazon will outright refuse to sell without Prime for a lot of these items, unless it's also being sold by a third party seller you can buy from instead.
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  Why do you think they did? Maybe they just do without. That's a perfectly valid option. If you don't think you're getting value for your money at Amazon, don't spend it there. This is no way implies there's something better. It's just smart money handling.
- UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
  Target.com has been pretty solid for me (Red Card required).
  - gshakir 10y ago
    Totally agree on Red card which gives you 5% discount and donates to your kid's school.
- sean_patel 10y ago
  > Trying not to buy as much. This. Amazon makes it very easy with it's "frictionless" 1-click buying functionality to buy loads of crap that you don't really need. I make it very hard on myself, and put barriers to buying. Sometimes I will add something to the cart (since they force you to do it to show price for some items) and then let it sit there for days. Many times, I've come back and wondered why I even added something to the cart in the 1st place.
  - hackcasual 10y ago
    Yeah. Without a doubt I've saved money on shipping with prime, but I've also bought so much shit I don't need.

dawnerd 10y ago

I've been on th fence on cancelling too. Only thing keeping me subscribed is prime now. I've found it immensely helpful and the restaurant delivery far better than the other delivery companies.

31reasons 10y ago

So which better alternative did you move to?

gshakir 10y ago
I recently bought Olive oil and a Nintendo wii game via Target with prices cheaper than Amazon. The web experience with Target has vastly improved. I am not sure what's Walmart experience is like.
- hga 10y ago
  WalMart.com is very good. Same prices as in stores and for what I buy from it, staples so far, those have been quite a bit cheaper than Amazon/Amazon Pantry, reasonably quick free shipping for orders > $50 (several days but less than a week as I recall), double layer corrugated boxes (!), adequate packing in the two shipments I've received so far (albeit don't buy dry laundry detergent since they won't bag it and some will get on the surfaces of everything, although that's just annoying), and 3% off if you use one of their cards. You'll pay local sales tax since they have stores everywhere. Wish I'd started using them when I recently bought a case of Sapporo Ichiban Miso Ramen, Amazon, which I think had a slightly lower price, was out, so I went with a 3rd party which a high rating, which had the brilliant idea of unpacking the case and stuffing it into a Medium size Priority Mail box, which can comfortably only hold half as many. As long as none of the soup base packets were punctured by this stunt I'll come out OK, but....
  - jamiesonbecker 10y ago
    Wal-mart pickup for groceries is amazing, too. You don't even have to get out of the car, and everything is cold and fresh (they have separate fridges/freezers for pickup orders). ... of course, you still have to carry the stuff in and find space in the fridge yourself ...
    - hga 10y ago
      Oh, wow, I didn't realize that about that service. Recent Real Life developments have resulted in logistics limiting me to cold stuff I can put in an insulated backpack with a ice pack, but, yeah, I could use this to get cold and frozen stuff without much hassle. Thanks!
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    In my one (and only) experience with Amazon Pantry I ordered several boxes of Near East couscous and several boxes of Bounce dryer sheets (amongst other things). They packed them in the same giant box. I had to throw out all the couscous because it tasted like dryer sheets.
    - hga 10y ago
      Yeah, well, perfume is utterly evil, says this life long sufferer of allergies. So that powdered detergent, it was in theory perfume free. But not entirely, Procter & Gamble i.e. Tide and it now seems Sun Products Corporation i.e. All don't bother to clean their machinery between running off lots of normal and "free" of evil stuff, one reason I gave up Tide and switched to All, but fortunately the All is not too bad, at least as of yet. Also had to give up on Vanicream soap when I assume the company they contract with to make their stuff massively dosed two quite separated in time batches with perfume. Which also taught me to try 1 of every new batch of stuff I buy (I tend to buy stuff like that in April and October when the weather is mild, and increase my inventory to ~12 months so I have plenty of time to find a new brand or solution if the old one goes bad or is discontinued). Hay, save the nose of the allergy sufferers in your life, get the perfume free stuff by default! At least if it doesn't cost any more to speak of.... And, yeah, I gather the whole shtick of Amazon Pantry is that you buy enough stuff to fill up one big box, no doubt by weight as well as size, which I assume they've worked out deals to ship cheaply. Haven't tried it yet since I've found WalMart.com to be so much cheaper, while there's some Pantry exclusive items, or, say, they're available in quantity 1 that way, I just haven't been able to come close to filling up a box. WalMart doesn't care, except in giving you a strong incentive to buy at least $50.01 of stuff at a time, which isn't hard.
hackcasual 10y ago
Trying not to buy as much. Shopping around before ordering. Waiting until I've got enough in my cart for free shipping. I still use Amazon, I just don't pay them $99 a year for the privilege or treat them as the first store I go to
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  I've been doing this too, though if I'm going to buy a new video game, I sub Prime's monthly option for the month, because they give you $12 off the game, and the Prime is $11 for the month. Note of warning: You'll discover a lot of random items are now "Prime exclusive" for no reason other than spite. No special discount, they just will refuse to sell you odd and end items unless you buy Prime.
  - danudey 10y ago
    I wonder how many of those are such low-margin items that they effectively don't make a profit off them unless they restrict sales to people with prime (who are paying for the privilege)?
    - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
      It's so random it's hard to tell. Like random Blu-ray discs, regular household staples like diapers or shaver blade replacements, etc. And they'll come and go from the exclusive list every couple or weeks or so, it seems. There's a huge long-running thread on Amazon's forum about it. What amazes me, is given Jeff Bezos' general attitude towards providing excellent customer service, is that Amazon has said nothing about this practice, and it's decidedly anti-consumer. If it was just a Prime discount or something, it wouldn't bother people nearly as much, but Amazon will outright refuse to sell without Prime for a lot of these items, unless it's also being sold by a third party seller you can buy from instead.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Why do you think they did? Maybe they just do without. That's a perfectly valid option. If you don't think you're getting value for your money at Amazon, don't spend it there. This is no way implies there's something better. It's just smart money handling.
UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
Target.com has been pretty solid for me (Red Card required).
- gshakir 10y ago
  Totally agree on Red card which gives you 5% discount and donates to your kid's school.
sean_patel 10y ago
> Trying not to buy as much. This. Amazon makes it very easy with it's "frictionless" 1-click buying functionality to buy loads of crap that you don't really need. I make it very hard on myself, and put barriers to buying. Sometimes I will add something to the cart (since they force you to do it to show price for some items) and then let it sit there for days. Many times, I've come back and wondered why I even added something to the cart in the 1st place.
- hackcasual 10y ago
  Yeah. Without a doubt I've saved money on shipping with prime, but I've also bought so much shit I don't need.